We Will All Go Down Together

by We Will All Go Down Together (v5. 0) (epub)

  :Great woman of renown, martial papesse,: the Watcher angel named her, mockingly. :Crusader, amongst crusaders.:

  Those titles, which she’d always craved, like garbage in that moon-pure mouth. Like ashes in hers.

  :Only a monster can hunt monsters—you know that, now. As Maccabee Roke always did.:

  “Wasn’t for things like you, there wouldn’t be any monsters,” Blandina told it, throat raw, leaning on her weapon. Trying not to look down, for fear of seeing the last few traces of Ronni’s sweet face crumble away.

  :Yet God made us, too—a conundrum. Or a mistake, perhaps?:

  “God makes no mistakes.”

  :Well, then.:

  A massive perfumed sigh enveloped Blandina, forcing her eyes closed; some great pinion gliding by, barely brushing her cheek. She would find a caress turned cut there, when she finally thought to look—infection-bright, already keloiding. And then Penemue was gone, leaving only that scar behind.

  At her feet, Mother Eulalia turned on her side, vomiting feebly. Behind them both, Cecilia was weeping openly, pitched forwards on hands and knees, too laid low to even attempt to rise.

  “That should’ve been me,” she said, over and over. “That should’ve been me.”

  “Don’t blaspheme,” Blandina told her. “If it should’ve, it would’ve.”

  God makes no mistakes.

  I have to think that.

  Her own tears scalded, unshed.

  “The Ordo is yours,” Mother Eulalia told her, through the wall. “As we both knew it would be, one day.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Blandina said.

  A hollow sketch of the older woman’s laugh reached her, pithed by Penemue’s kiss. “I know I can trust you to do your duty, Mother Blandina,” she corrected her, gently. “Diligent as you’ve been, especially in war.”

  Blandina swallowed, mouth dry. “Not always so obedient, though,” she said.

  “Not always, no. But more often than I expected.”

  Blandina spread the concrete and slid the last brick in herself. It was the least she could do, considering; they had two anchoresses now, and that was her fault, if anyone’s.

  Cecilia was in her cell, praying—ostensibly preparing for her final vows, but Blandina wasn’t convinced. A wound to the faith could fester faster than almost any other sort of injury, especially if left untreated.

  “I’m going out,” she told the front desk’s minder. “You have my number. Anything comes up, just ring through.”

  “Yes, Mother. May I say where you’ve gone?”

  Blandina paused a moment, wondering if she should prevaricate, then decided there wasn’t much point. “Curia,” she replied, shortly. “To see Mac Roke.”

  “Oh,” the sister said, taken aback. “Is that . . . wise?”

  Probably not, Blandina thought.

  “Is anything?” she replied.

  The trip seemed longer than usual. When Roke saw her face, however, he bit down hard on whatever quip he might’ve had brewing, a show of restraint Blandina was annoyed to find herself appreciating, if only for the second and a half it took him to glance down at her hand and see the ring. His shoulders tightened, visibly, as the realization hit.

  You loved her too, once, Blandina was mildly surprised to recall. Of course you did.

  “Mother. . . .” he greeted her, voice carefully schooled.

  “Roke.”

  “That’s me,” he agreed. Then added, stepping aside to let her in: “Glad to see some things don’t change.”

  He didn’t mention her cast, for which she was also grateful. The verdict had been predictable; it would pain her, likely for the rest of her life, off and on. But one day, she would wield both swords again, sooner than some might like to think.

  The usual tangle of cursed and blasphemous objects crowded his countertop, next to an open log-book; she must’ve interrupted him taking inventory, though he didn’t seem to have gotten very far.

  “I could make coffee, if you want some,” he offered, but she shook her head.

  “What I need is a favour,” she said, instead. ”To make someone forget.”

  “Everything?”

  “Something specific. Fairly recent.”

  “Hmmm. Well, that’d be glamer, Si—Mother. Classic Fae magic, kind they teach in the Druir brugh’s grammarye and not to fostered-out quarterlings like myself. Sure I’m up to it?”

  “There isn’t much you’re not capable of, that I’ve observed.”

  “Flatterer.” He tapped his lips, thinking. “Actually, though . . . if I’m honest, the sort of subtle work you’re talking about is a bit beyond my ken. Sorry.”

  “That thing you had visiting last time could do it, I’d bet.”

  “Saracen? Well, yeah, obviously. But you really don’t want to owe him anything, B.”

  Blandina gave him a grim smile. “You let me worry about that.”

  More questions hung between them, unasked, mainly on account of blatancy: Is this about what happened to Mother Eulalia? Was it a Grigori? Should I be . . . worried?

  Always, she thought back, unsure if he could hear. Live in worry, like I do. The way our bad blood doomed us to, since before either of us was born . . . cousin.

  She could demand the same treatment for herself, it only now occurred to her, if she wanted to; though the burn she’d given him was probably long-healed at this point, she had no doubt that Saracen Druir would love to rummage around inside her head, if she let him. Remove the pain of Mother Eulalia’s sacrifice on her behalf, then sally back out into the world with her trust in God intact, ready for whatever horror it threw her way. . . .

  But no. Too easy. Someone had to bear the weight of her mistakes, if only in order to make them count.

  Cecilia deserves a clean slate, Blandina told herself, hoping it wasn’t mere sophistry, blatant self-justification. The same way the Ordo needs a lieutenant, someone to fill my old slot. I have to be practical. To do not just what’s right, but what’s best, for everyone.

  (:Oh, yes—do tell yourself that, not-daughter, if you must,: Penemue Grigorim’s voice replied, approvingly, from the dark behind her eyes. :Act according to the Ordo’s interests, especially where they intersect with your own, then confess and be absolved, as is your . . . human . . . right.:)

  A monster, fighting monsters. Roke had been the same, once—but then, Roke had never loved God the way Blandina tried to, not even with a collar ’round his neck.

  “You know my name?” she asked him, suddenly, and watched him shrug, uncomfortable.

  “Your name’s Blandina,” he said.

  “The other one, idiot.”

  “. . . yeah, I do.” A pause. “Did you know, though, about me—us? Back before?”

  She nodded, admission getting easier each time she made it. “Felt something, from the minute we met. Didn’t know what ’til I read your file.”

  “So we’ll never know if it’d’ve made a difference.”

  “It would’ve always made a difference.”

  Roke rolled those poison-blue eyes. “Hard fucking world you live in, B. ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’—how ’bout that one?”

  “If I don’t ask it, I don’t have to give it.”

  “Right. Because nobody could ever do this job as good as you, Nephilim genes or not.”

  For a second, Blandina heard Cecilia chime in, noting: Not like he was hiding it. His name’s Roke. And caught herself thinking in response: So? I never asked any slack, or cut any, even though my name’s Rusk. Does that make it better or worse?

  “That’s what Eulalia claimed,” was all she said, to which Roke simply sighed, replying:

  “I only wish you believed her.”

  Well, I don’t, Blandina thought. But I still love her enough to pretend otherwise, most days.

  “Tell your cousin
what I need,” she told him, feeling her way towards the door. “Tell him . . . tell him I’ll meet his price, within reason.”

  “Saracen’s not always reasonable.”

  “Neither am I.”

  Roke’s mouth quirked. “Nope,” he said. “I think he knows it, too.”

  Once outside, Blandina stopped to let her eyes clear, sniffing sharply. She considered her name.

  According to Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, the summer of 177 was marked by an increasing hostility to Christians. First, they were prohibited from entering public places, then hounded and attacked by mobs, assaulted, beaten, stoned. Finally, they were dragged into the forum, accused, and—after admitting their beliefs—flung in prison. Through a willful misunderstanding of Scripture and ritual, the pagan people of Lyons had become convinced all Christians were cannibals, perverts, incestuous rapists. Every day, new victims were arrested, awaiting mass execution on August the first, a holiday set aside to celebrate the greatness of Rome.

  Such occasions usually required the governor to display his patriotism by sponsoring lavish public entertainment, but the year before, the Senate had passed a new law to offset the cost of gladiatorial shows. Now, the governor could legally offer the torture and execution of any condemned criminals who were non-citizens as spectacle, instead of expensive athletic exhibitions.

  Among the condemned was a female slave named Blandina. All of us were in terror, Irenaeus’s account states, yet Blandina was filled with such power that even those who were taking turns to torture her in every way, from dawn to dusk, were weary and exhausted. They admitted that they were beaten, that there was nothing further they could do to her, and they were surprised that she was still breathing, for her entire body was broken and torn.

  In the amphitheatre, Blandina was exposed to wild animals, ran a gauntlet of whips, and was roasted in an iron seat over a raging fire. Surviving all this, she was at last put in a net and tossed by a bull. The audience admitted that no woman had ever suffered so much, in their experience.

  While being tortured, Blandina repeatedly refuted the stories about Christians, saying: I am a Christian, and nothing vile is done amongst us. But when first assigned to translate the story in Latin class as a novice, the former Atia Rusk convinced herself that the phrase she kept having to transcribe was I am a Christian, and nothing vile can be done to us. She remembered meditating for hours on Blandina’s martyrdom, thinking: That’s what I want to be, impenetrable. A witness for the world. A marvel.

  Pride, all of it, then as now. Pride, raw and rank, cardinal as any other sin.

  But I can do my part, even so.

  (Hard fucking world you live in, B.)

  “It has to be,” she replied, out loud. And leaned her forehead against the nearest wall, oblivious to the stares of passersby, so the stone would cool it.

  Throat tight, she began to pray.

  The end, though nothing really ends. I know that, now.

  Barred from Heaven and Hell alike, I drift unseen through this world, rudderless, unmoorable. I watch the people who clog its skin, admiring the way their souls pulse, lighting their very bones. I see my cousins scurrying about, invisible by comparison—creatures like Rose-of-Sharon Hopkinson, Saracen Druir, Maccabee Roke. Blandina too, all things being equal.

  We were made, the same as every other being. Allowed to flourish, not extirpated in our conception. And who could possibly make this decision, in the end, if not God? His silence may not constitute consent, but is it proof of condemnation?

  If God loves us, then all things are possible. We may even create our own Heaven, at last, one day.

  If one is required.

  HELPLESS (2013)

  This one truth, above all others: all things, fast or slow, move toward their end. Of that you can be sure.

  That morning, when Carraclough Devize sat down to breakfast, her mother’s ghost came drifting into the kitchen before she’d even had time to milk her granola—silver cord trailing behind like half-frayed abseil rope, paying out farther and stretching thinner with every “step,” like usual. But then she saw the cord’s end and knew.

  Today’s the day.

  “Gala,” she called to her, quietly. “Gala, hey—hey, Geillis. Geillis Carraclough Devize.” Then, before she could quite remember to stop herself: “Mommy.”

  No reply, one way or the other, not that Carra’d really expected any; Gala’d never much liked being reminded she was old enough to have a child, let alone an adult one. But here they were, nevertheless: Carra forty-plus, and her mother dead for almost half a year, now. And finally—finally—looking as though she might have figured that part out.

  She watched Gala put a hand against the plaster, fingers melting slowly in, first tip, then nail, then knuckle; saw her frown at the sight, grey-shot hair still let down for the bed she’d died in. Carra couldn’t ever remember seeing it cut, aside from the times she’d caught Gala trimming split ends into the sink, working a particularly snarled knot free with embroidery scissors. She supposed the habit’d been catching—her own mop, so pale it might as well already have turned white, was long enough it made her head hurt if she piled it up, which was why she kept it in braids, instead.

  That one summer he’d stayed here, sharing Carra’s bed like the only slightly incestuous brother she’d never had, Jude Hark Chiu-wai liked to say the detritus in their bathroom alone could give every witch in Ontario something to curse them with and still have enough left over to make a nest. That would’ve been over twenty years ago, with their friendship taking up seven, their separation thirteen. And what was he doing, now? Dealing with his own ghosts, no doubt, of which she was sure he had plenty. . . .

  You always were pretty, even at the end, Carra thought, studying her mother’s hand, now sunk to its wrist. Feeling herself tear up for the first time since the funeral, standing with Dr. Guilden Abbott’s hand on her arm, knowing he only meant to comfort her, but really wishing he wouldn’t try. While, at the same time, doing her level best to ignore the way every other ghost within range was making begging eyes at her, a line of bruisy letters snaking out across the back of her hand from under one low-tugged sleeve: SORRY SO SORRY SO SO SORRY FOR YOU BEING ALONE. . . .

  (Except that she was always alone, and never. Never really.)

  “Gala,” Carra heard herself say, one last time, voice barely a whisper. Then watched the woman who’d given her everything, this curse of a gift included, walk straight through the wall without looking back, never to return.

  By 11:00, she and Sylvester Horse-Kicker were having brunch in the Kirlian Grill, the Freihoeven Institute’s unofficial cafeteria. Carra had an appointment with Dr. Abbott later that afternoon, ostensibly to “discuss something,” which didn’t sound all too good, so it’d seemed only practical to combine the two.

  She remembered how careful Sylvester had been when bringing her back to the Clarke after their moment in the storage locker—gentle, less like a keeper than a friend, or even something more. It’d constituted a wake-up call of sorts; for far too long, she’d been drifting, tracing the same elliptical orbit from her nice, safe, little padded cell—practically the same one every time, as though they held it in reserve—to her cramped bedroom at Gala’s and back. Spending those long months after Gala’s final diagnosis administering tests and archiving collected data on the Freihoeven’s dime, scraping by, continuing to take advantage of a debt incurred thirty years ago: accidental injury in the line of “duty,” for which Dr. Abbott had given her a job ever since, if not exactly a home.

  I can be your employer or your—surrogate—father, Carra, he’d told her, when things were at their worst, but not both. So pick one. This when she was barely coherent most days, showing up to work wearing a disintegrating t-shirt for a dress, teetering on the edge of abdication: just let herself fall, wake up back in the no-sharps room while Gala ushered herself through the process of dying alone, fast or slow, depen
ding on how much reserve money they did or didn’t have.

  But even when dealing with a mother who’d fallen down as many times on the job as Gala had, it did seem a wee bit—skimpy.

  So she’d made herself look Abbott in the eye instead, nodding slightly, and replied: Uh huh. Or . . . you could be neither, I guess. Given that’s what you are.

  She’d never seen him flinch before, that she could recall. Poor Dr. Abbott, his former dapperness wearing rapidly threadbare, still hellbent on carrying on the Jay and Jay legacy when every subsequent generation perceived their influence on the field as less relevant, even in a field where past-life regression was taken semi-seriously. Yet if he only stopped to think about it sometime soon, he might still manage to figure out how that urge to canonize his dead mentors had already rendered him almost indistinguishable from any of the séance-goers she’d caught trying to look up her full-body leotard out of the corner of their supposedly shut eyes.

  Besides which, she’d known the Drs. Jay better than he ever had or would. She’d been there when they died, after all.

  She’d felt it.

  Bought at the apex of her “good” years—when Carra’s fame as a child medium paid so much over their bills they were socking it away even after subtracting the percentage that went down Gala’s throat, up her nose, into her boyfriends’ pockets—the house Carra lived in was a bit of a trap these days, but at least she owned it, free and clear: Gala’s name was on the lease, with Carra the co-signatory, not to mention Gala’s only heir. So even if what Abbott had to say meant finally losing her only real source of employment, she’d be okay. They’d had the water, light, and heat turned off on them before, in their time, and survived; she didn’t need things to be comfortable, just stable, especially since she wouldn’t be counting on Ontario’s mental health system for food and shelter anymore, from now on.

  Because: “I’m not coming back,” she’d told Paul the orderly, on her way out, that last time. And: “Gonna hold you to that,” Paul had replied with not one single shred of irony.