Apocrypha Sequence: Inferno

by Shane Jiraiya Cummings

Damon's head snapped up. "So close?"

  "It was circling not far from here. We're just outside Northam, ya know? Or what used to be Northam. Your firebird was going around and around this huge crater on the edge of town."

  "Northam." Damon nodded to himself. "Where it all started. The elemental must have returned here when it ran out of things to burn. The phoenix, I've got to ..." Damon stood and gathered his backpack.

  Bill also rose to his feet, leaving his rifle on the ground. As Damon strode past him, headed for the night outside, Bill grabbed him by the arm. "Hang on, mate. Get some rest and we'll catch this thing in the morning."

  "You don't understand. The phoenix has been following the path of the Fire. If it stopped here, I can catch the phoenix now and get my family back."

  "Your family?"

  "Something went wrong with the magic. They were supposed to be protected. Instead, when the Fire struck, their bodies were burnt but their souls lived on in this wasteland. I catch the phoenix and I can restore my family. I'll save them."

  "Magic?" Bill scowled and released his arm. "How are you mixed up in all that?"

  "It's a long story, Bill, and I'll tell you about it in good time, but for now, trust me. Please."

  "Alright. I'll trust you for now. Doesn't look like I have much choice."

  "Thanks—"

  "But. We still need some rest. You might be all gung ho, but my bones aren't as young as yours." Bill sat again and reached into his pouch for more cigarette paper. "After I shot the phoenix, it stopped circling the crater and moved on. Only slowly, mind you, the thing was floating more than flying. I could have plucked it out of the sky if I wanted to, but it'd burn my hand in the bargain."

  "Where'd it go?" Damon said.

  "Toward the hills and Perth. You said it was following the Fire's trail?"

  "Yeah."

  "Don't take this the wrong way, but a couple of survivors on Rottnest saw what happened and told me about it. They were still trying to make sense of it themselves. They said this thing, this living Fire you're talking about, returned to Perth a second time, weeks after it first burned the place to the ground."

  "The Fire started here and worked its way around the country. It's zigzagged all over the place. I guess it had to return at some point." Damon leaned against a dragon's tooth. It towered above him. Its surface was surprisingly smooth, almost polished.

  "Well, if your bird is following the Fire, then you definitely better get some rest. It could be your last for a while," Bill said. A new smoke was rolled in his fingers and ready to light.

  "Why?"

  "The people at Rotto said this thing had nothing left to burn so it threw itself into the ocean trying to get to the island. The steam cloud lasted for the best part of a day."

  Damon swallowed the lump in his throat.

  "I reckon we've got a day or two to catch your phoenix." Bill bowed to light his cigarette. "Before it follows the Fire and extinguishes itself in the sea."

  #

  III - The Fire

  "Careful!" Jen shied away from the pen. "That thing is freezing."

  Damon held his daughter's top bunched beneath her chin as he repositioned the black permanent marker. "It's just the energy you're feeling. It's normal."

  "It's cold, that's what it is. I don't like it."

  Runes covered her legs and about half her torso, up to her bra. When the light caught the runes, they seemed to squirm as if trying to tear free of her skin.

  "I like my tatts, Dad." Toby was still shirtless and flexing his thin arms like a bodybuilder. His skin was a mass of black ink circling in patterns that were too dizzying to watch for long.

  Damon ignored him. "Hold still, Jen."

  She shied away from the pen as he marked more runes along her ribs and down her side. Damon muttered all the while—mostly esoteric words, incantations, but sometimes a grumble accompanied by a glare when Jen pulled away.

  "This is for your own good," he repeated to Jen for the umpteenth time. "Toby, where's your mum?"

  The boy kept posing, admiring his runes. "Mum's in the bathroom, I think."

  "Okay." Damon shifted his attention back to Jen. "Your arm's hanging like a limp banana." He pinched her gently. "How about you take off your top while I move around the back?"

  "Dad!"

  "What?"

  "This is weird. You're acting like a perv."

  He sighed. "Just hold up your top, then."

  With her elbows akimbo like a startled bird, she held her top as instructed. Despite the iciness of the pen, a line of sweat meandered down her side. Damon stopped drawing to allow the sweat to trickle past. With his nose so close, he couldn't help but notice her hormonal teenage smell only barely masked by the faux fruit musk of her perfume. He wiped the sweat away, causing Jen to flinch, and then continued drawing more runes.

  "So, this magic stuff," Jen said as he worked on a spiral in the small of her back, "how does it all work?"

  "Concentration and willpower, mostly. There's rituals and runes and stuff, but they're more to focus the energy."

  "Is it like Wicca? You know, praying to the Goddess and the power of three and all that shit?"

  "Language, missy." He prodded her with the end of his pen. "Sounds like you've been watching Charmed re-runs. No, there are some superficial similarities, but not really. We believe in Mother Earth, Gaia, but that's where the similarity ends."

  "Isn't that just hippy stuff? That's so last century."

  Damon laughed. "Yeah, it does sound hippy, but it's not—" He stopped drawing to curl his fingers into quote marks, "last century. The Order of Gaia goes back to the dawn of time. It's more like so ..." He finger-quoted again and smiled, "last millennium."

  "You're so lame, Dad," she groaned, but without the cutting tone he expected.

  Damon smiled as he continued his work. After half an hour, Jen was covered head to foot in ink, much like Toby, although she hurried to cover the strange patterns with a black long-sleeve top and skirt ensemble.

  Both the kids had a patch of bare skin in the centre of their foreheads, all the more noticeable as they sat together on the lounge. Toby absorbed himself in a hand-held video game, while Jen stared out the window at the bright day beyond, lost to her inner thoughts and the music pumping into her ears from her iPod's headphones. Her sketchbook lay open to an empty page on her lap.

  Damon stood by the door and watched his children caught in their inner worlds, allowing his third ear to hone in on their secret thoughts. The worry and trepidation he expected murmured to him but their electronic distractions muted the worst of it.

  It was his wife's voice, her inner voice, that called to him with clarity. Her doubt was a cold wave passing through him; her internal whisperings were sharp little cuts, like scissors snipping at the fringes of his soul.

  He left the kids to their own devices while he sought out Diana.

  He found in her in the bathroom as Toby suggested, curled into a ball on the tiles and slumped against the bath tub. She cupped her head in her hands.

  "Honey." He crouched next to her and laid a hand on her shoulder. Her skin was as cold as the tiles around her.

  Startled, she looked up into his face and then shrank from his touch. Her eyes were red and puffy, her face uncharacteristically bare of make-up.

  He grabbed hold of the bath tub's rim, close without touching, as close as he thought she'd allow.

  "What's wrong?"

  She scoffed. "What isn't wrong, Damon?"

  He nodded, shifting closer while still crouching.

  "Why wasn't I more prepared?" she said.

  "Well, things like these monsters, they're something no one could have ever predicted. The only thing we—"

  "No! Not that. Us. I should have seen this day coming. If it wasn't monsters, it would have been something."

  "I told you. I can resist the compulsion to take you out there."

  "How can I trust that, Damon? How?" Tears welled and ran down the subtl
e furrows of her face.

  "Something like this was bound to happen." He gripped her shoulder and she pulled away, but this time he held his grip. "But we have a chance. A real chance."

  She buried her face deeper into her hands.

  "Come on. For the kids' sake, we have to be strong. You have to be strong."

  He rubbed her arm as a sob shuddered through her body. "They'll sense something's wrong, especially Jen. She's perceptive. I think she has the family gift."

  "Gift? When she grows up, will she want to kill us, too?"

  "Di." He stood and took a step back, with hands on hips. "Just stop it. I have to face these people tonight, and I need to know you'll keep the kids safe, no matter what."

  She glared up at him and wiped the tears from her eyes. Her sudden intensity caught him off guard, and before he realised it, he'd taken another step backwards.

  "Di?" He softened his tone and crouched to meet her at eye level again.

  "I've been protecting the kids from these people—your kind—since they were born. I don't need a lecture from you on how to be a good mother, thank you very much."

  "I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

  "That's been the story of our life!" Diana smeared another tear across her cheek. "You apologize too much, Damon."

  "What do you want me to—"

  A knock shook the bathroom door. It went on far too long and urgently to be polite, to be anyone other than Toby.

  "Mum? Dad?" The boy's voice seeped through the timber, an echoless mumble.

  "It's alright, Toby," Damon said. "We'll be out in a moment."

  They stared at each other, husband and wife, locked in a silent battle that time prevented from resolving. The stillness in the bathroom was brooding and unpleasant, matched by the silence from beyond the door. Damon, aided by the magic of his third ear, knew Toby still lurked on the other side. His son's worry was almost palpable. It manifested in Damon's mind as a series of whines choked off, as though they were barely held in check. Diana, too, seemed aware of Toby. Her eyes kept drifting back to the door as she reluctantly pulled herself to her feet.

  "Toby." Damon tilted his head and called at the door. "How about you make sure your sister has her bag packed."

  "Okay," Toby said after a pause.

  A moment later, muffled footsteps trailed away toward the lounge room.

  "I need to get going. They'll be starting the ritual soon," Damon said.

  Diana didn't reply. She had turned her back to stare into the mirror and dabbed at her face with a moist hand towel.

  Damon opened his mouth to say something but stopped himself. Instead, he turned and opened the door. "I'll finish with the kids and take care of you shortly."

  He paused in the doorway until she nodded—a brusque movement almost too quick to catch—before closing the door and leaving Diana to her inner demons.

  When he returned to the lounge room, he found Jen still on the couch, caught up in her headphone music and staring at nothing in particular. Toby sat in his mum's armchair across the room and had commandeered Jen's sketchbook on the sly. He was drawing something in short, hard strokes with his pencil. Hunched over his drawing, his mouth was a tight line of concentration, his eyes narrowed to his work.

  "Come here, mate." Damon waved Toby over to the lounge.

  Toby kept drawing, a little faster than before, pretending he hadn't heard. On the verge of Damon saying something more, Toby dropped his pencil and snapped the sketchbook shut before joining his sister on the lounge.

  Jen removed her headphones after Toby plonked himself next to her. Her eyes focused on her surroundings as if for the first time.

  "Off with the fairies, eh?" Damon smiled, trying to inject some humour into his voice.

  "Something like that."

  "Right, then," he sighed. "I want you guys to listen because this is very important." He kneeled to look up into their faces.

  The bare skin of the kids' foreheads looked out of place.

  Jen was still awkward with her runes. She didn't quite meet her father's eye as she absently tugged her sleeves lower.

  "I want you to visualize something," he said.

  "Dad," Toby interrupted.

  "Not now, son."

  "But Dad." Toby held out his arm, palm up. "This one's been moving." He pointed to a serpentine rune encircling his wrist. "I saw it."

  The arrow head of the rune extended lower than the other symbols, snaking over the heel of Toby's palm and along the furrow in his skin known as the life-line in Palmistry.

  "They do that sometimes, mate. It's best to try and put it out of your mind."

  "I don't see you all covered in these things." Jen looked her father up and down, giving her sleeve another tug for good measure.

  Damon's hand unconsciously went to his heart. Aware of what he'd done, he tucked his fingers beneath his arm in an attempt to mask the reaction. "I have them, too."

  "Well, let's see them." Jen reached for his shirt.

  He intercepted her, softening the action by cupping her hand with both of his. Her skin was ice cold. "No, honey. These ones aren't for you to see."

  Her malicious smile was replaced by a look of uncertainty. She soon snatched her hand back.

  "Come on, guys, I need you to focus. This is important."

  Toby nodded. Jen still avoided his eye.

  "For the magic to work, you need to visualize a totem animal."

  "What's that?" Toby asked.

  "You're asking Mother Nature to send a spirit animal to protect you."

  Toby's eyes lit up. He bolted from his seat to scoop up Jen's sketchbook. "Like this?"

  He held the book open, revealing a crudely drawn wolf. A serrated silhouette served as stylised fur, complemented by huge teeth in a mouth opened into a snarl. The image was midnight black, childlike in its simplicity and ferocity. Heavy shading drew the eye into a spiral that was both hypnotic and a little dizzying.

  The sketch left a knot of unease in the pit of Damon's stomach.

  "Hey!" Jen sat forward and glared at her brother. "Who said you could draw in my book?"

  "She's right, Toby. You know what Mum and I have said about that."

  Toby tossed the book two-handed at Jen. It wasn't a vindictive throw, but the book landed in an ugly heap on the couch next to Jen, the drawing of the wolf, still snarling, face out.

  "Brat!" Jen snatched up the sketchbook, glared at Toby's drawing, and then slammed the book shut with a contemptuous huff. She hugged it to her chest with two protective arms.

  Toby's faced darkened, but Damon grabbed him by the arm and hauled him onto the couch. "We don't have time for this!"

  "It's from my soccer team," Toby mumbled.

  "I don't care," Jen said. She didn't look at her brother. Instead, she stared straight ahead in mock-haughtiness.

  "Enough!" Damon struggled to subdue his shout. "Listen."

  His kids quit their posturing and looked Damon in the eye.

  "I need you to picture an animal in your mind. Toby, you can picture your soccer wolf if you want. Jen, you too, if you want. Or something else."

  "I want a crow."

  "A crow, then. Close your eyes and imagine your totem animal."

  Damon retrieved his marker pen from his pocket after the kids had closed their eyes.

  "Keep imagining your animal. The way it moves. The way it hunts. Just keep your eyes closed, picturing your animal, until I say it's okay to open them again. Got that?"

  "Yeah," Jen said, eyes still closed.

  Toby nodded.

  "If you feel something cold, that's just the pen, okay? You have to keep your eyes closed. Just remember your animal. Keep it in your mind while I'm drawing."

  First on Jen, then Toby, Damon drew a series of circles on their foreheads, each circle inside the last. After the circles were completed, he inscribed smaller runes in the centre and at the compass points of the circles. While they looked like random squiggles, Damon knew them to be letters of
power from a language long dead.

  "Open your eyes," he said when finished.

  Jen and Toby opened their eyes simultaneously. Twin blue flashes sparked in their eyes for a moment. They blinked a few times to overcome the brightness.

  "What was that?" Jen asked. Her voice held the slightest of trembles.

  "More magic. Don't worry, the protection has been sealed. The runes won't move as much now."

  "How long do we have to have these things on us?" Jen rubbed her forehead.

  "They'll last for about a day. After that, they'll quickly fade. Neat, huh?"

  "Cool. Can I go and show Drew?" Toby asked.

  "No, mate. Remember what I said. I have to sort some things out tonight and I want you guys to be safe here while I'm gone. No seeing your friends or making any phone calls."

  "What about if—"

  "No, Toby. This is for your own good."

  "And if someone calls here? Or my mobile?" asked Jen, even more sullen than usual.

  "Don't answer it. Jen, all I'm asking for is one night. Tomorrow your life can go back to normal, for a while, anyway."

  "I suppose." She sighed as she rolled her eyes.

  "Come here, guys." Damon moved in and threw his arms around them. "I love you both very much."

  Toby sank into the hug. After a moment's hesitation, Jen did, too.

  Damon winced and loosened the hug after Toby brushed his side.

  "Sorry." Damon kept the pain from his smile. "My magic has a few more consequences than yours."

  Toby looked at his Dad with a puzzled expression and gave him another squeeze, this time around his bicep.

  "Alright, guys, I have to take care of your mum. Just remember your animals if anything happens. You'll know what I mean."

  When he moved to pull away, surprisingly, it was Jen who held on the longest. He smiled as he disentangled himself, tousling her faux-black hair as he stood. He paused to memorize their conflicted faces long enough for the moment to become awkward, before he turned for the bathroom.

  He found Diana more composed than earlier. She searched for something in her reflection with an obsession he'd rarely seen in her before. Damon closed his third ear to her thoughts. The swirl of confusion, concern, and fear that radiated from her mind was too painful to tune into.