by Horn, J. D.
“You mean Ryder was an example of evolution done right?” I asked.
Joe began laughing as if I’d just told the funniest joke ever. Emily held up a hand, signaling him to calm himself. “Josef’s relationship with Ryder and his woman proved a convenient arrangement. Josef is one of us, darling, can’t you sense that?” She squinted her eyes and gave her head a small shake to show how my ignorance shocked her.
“Why did you sacrifice Ryder?”
“What, did you think him an innocent?” Joe asked. “He sacrificed his wife and unborn child and killed a score or more of humans and at least two witches. He was a collector; he gathered his power, his magic, from his victims’ quantum energy—the sum of everything that would have occurred in their lives. He so hungered for power that he quite willingly sacrificed his own flesh and blood to summon Barron and take the demon into himself.”
“It was the demon we wanted,” Emily said. “Ryder was only a useful tool—a container, if you will. The power he had taken into himself through killing humans had grown great, but once he’d augmented it with the demon’s energy, he was ripe for sacrifice. There was enough magic in him to allow me to attempt the Babel spell.”
I turned to Emily. “You are the one who gave him the mark and turned him into a collector.”
“You say that as if you are accusing me.” She took a few steps toward me. “Ryder was a battery, and his death freed his energy so that I could use it toward my own ends. If your fellow anchors hadn’t dampened your magic, I wouldn’t have needed him. But because you willingly let them limit your power, I needed an extra boost of energy. Furthermore, if you hadn’t interfered with Ryder’s attempt to collect your golem’s magic, it might not have been necessary to summon the demon, so I think it’s fair to say that the lives he claimed lie at your feet as well.”
Joe faded into the shadows and returned with a plastic grocery bag filled with something about the size of a melon. He handed it to Emily, who opened it up and smiled, folding the plastic back to reveal Ryder’s face. “Josef,” she said, “let’s display our latest trophy.”
No sooner had she given the command than an enormous chandelier descended before us. The blue light suffusing the room grew more intense but narrower, revealing that this chandelier was the room’s sole source of light. In spite of all the horrors I had witnessed, the sight of the chandelier made my blood run cold. My rational mind fought against a correct interpretation of the image. At first, I merely took in its geometric features. The chandelier was shaped like a cone, its circular base, which must have been at least thirty feet in diameter, at the top, its point facing down.
And that’s where my intellect checked out, for the chandelier did not consist of electric lights, gas jets, or even candles. It was made entirely of severed heads, the eyes of each opening and closing independently of the others. All hair had been removed, leaving their pates perfectly smooth. They were pale, bloodless, and each was carved with the symbol I’d seen on Ryder’s forehead. Some mouths were opened in soundless screams, others in mad laughs. Some remained closed, dispassionate, stoic. The unwholesome blue light that illuminated the world around us was emanating from the heads’ open eyes. The realization that the light falling on my skin was being shed by this nightmare made me want to scream. Would I ever feel clean again? Feeling Joe’s gaze on me, I looked over at him. His own eyes glowed, not with the sickly blue light, but with the joy of witnessing my revulsion.
“Feel no sympathy for them,” Emily commanded. “They are all murderers, many times over, and they had no empathy for those they killed.” She stood and crossed over to the chandelier, where she removed one of the heads. She placed Ryder’s head on the newly vacated bobeche. His face shocked to life, the light building up in his eyes before shooting out his irises. His regard fell on Joe, and he silently mouthed the man’s name.
“They are aware?” I asked, regardless of their deeds during life, it was a gruesome punishment.
“Of course they are,” Emily said and laughed, seemingly amazed that I’d ask such a silly question.
“They were all collectors?”
“Yes. Well, all but this one,” she said, lifting the head in her hand so I could see it better. “This one here is Alan. He never actually killed anyone. He would have liked to, but he didn’t have the balls for it. Alan,” she said, turning the head around so that it would have to look her in the eyes, “was a petty little despot who worked at an airline ticket counter. To make a long story short, he really, really irritated me.” She tossed the head into the shadows, and I heard a crunch as it struck against the stone floor. The sound of scurrying and the excited screeches of vermin filled the room as creatures like my guide descended on their prize.
I shook off my urge to vomit. “If you empowered these people to be collectors, you are responsible for the murders they committed.”
“They would have killed anyway. I merely took advantage of their natural inclinations.” Emily stood back and admired the new addition before waving her hand, signaling that the chandelier should rise. “And now I can turn their evil to a good purpose.”
“What good purpose could you possibly serve?”
An intricately carved mahogany Gothic throne materialized at her side. It was hideous, but in line with its surroundings. She sat and tapped the perfectly manicured nails of her right hand on the top of the lion’s head handrest. Joe came and sat at the throne’s clawed feet. He looked up at Emily, his face glowing with awe, and what else? Was it passion? The way he tilted his face up toward her was like a sunflower following the sun. She reached out and lovingly ran her fingers through his hair. “I told you before about how our teachers and guides have been deposed from their rightful place of honor and banished from this world,” she said. “I serve them in their desire to eradicate the evil that is the line.”
Filled with revulsion for Emily’s world, choking on my disappointment, and yes, hate, I lost patience. “I don’t believe the line is evil. I believe you are,” I said.
The hard look on her face softened, her eyes closed a little and lost focus, as if she were looking into her own soul. After a moment, she pursed her lips and looked up at me. “Evil? Maybe I am. But this is war. Yes, a war. Mercy, I know I’ve gone about this all wrong. I hadn’t intended to make an enemy out of you.”
“Then you shouldn’t have tried to collapse the world in on Jilo and me.”
Her eyebrows arched up. “I assume you don’t mean that poetically, but all the same I have no idea what you are talking about.”
I ignored her lie. “And you really shouldn’t have tried to kill my fiancé.”
“There are mother-in-laws who have done worse,” she said and smiled as if I would find any levity in her actions. “I was angry. I wasn’t thinking,” she continued. “His fairy blood ruined everything,” she said, more to herself than to me, then added, “We were so close when he came and interrupted us.”
“So close to what exactly?”
“To returning this world to its rightful owners, and to returning Maisie to us. The anchors and the witches who support the line will never allow her to return. You have to get that through your head. You want to talk about evil? The line has erased your sister from our very reality. Isn’t that evil enough for you? If not, think about the creature I sent to fetch you. I wanted you to see one of them up close. His kind are not of my making. No, they are a product of the witches who maintain the line. They developed the foul little beings to serve as spies among the humans, to keep tabs on them lest they seek to overthrow their masters as the witches did theirs. That little bit of history is one that’s never taught to the young witches. And so much of what is taught is a confection of half-truths and lies.”
“But bringing down the line will return us to the control of the demons.”
“Stop calling them demons. They are not demons. They are our creators. Our parents. Everything
we have and everything we are, we got from them.”
“You are out of your mind.”
Emily’s head tilted to the side and her lips pulled back, revealing gritted teeth. She leaned violently forward, her hands white-knuckled and digging into the arms of her chair. My own muscles pulled taut, preparing themselves if she were to pounce. It may only have been Joe’s position at her feet that kept her from doing just that, but he proved barrier enough to slow Emily’s building rage. She sensed my body preparing to respond in kind to any violence, and she forced herself back against the chair, loosening her grip on its arms. “I am the sanest witch you have ever met. It is only your willfulness, your ignorance that makes you doubt me.” She regained control of herself, righting her head and relaxing her shoulders. “I brought you here to attempt to correct that ignorance.”
“All right,” I said, holding my hands out before me, palms down. “I’m sorry. I’m listening.”
“Thank you for the apology. I accept it,” she said, the final traces of tension disappearing from her face. She folded her hands and assumed a thoughtful pose. As she collected her thoughts, I stood in silence, calculating my odds of making it to Adam and sliding us out of here. “The old ones,” she said, interrupting my train of thought. “When they found our planet, no humans existed, leave alone witches. The small mammals from which we’ve descended were millions of years away from even developing prehensile thumbs on their own. We were tree-dwelling mice, doing our best to hide from the masters of this world, but our visitors saw potential in us, and they decided to make a long-term investment in our future. They claimed our world for us. They cleared the land for us.”
“You are saying they wiped out the dinosaurs?”
“Yes, they erased the dinosaurs, and everything that took their place until we were ready to rise to supremacy. They were always here to help us. Teach us. Protect us. Change us. Perfect us.”
“Enslave us. Even if what you say is true, even if they did play a nurturing role in our early development, they didn’t help us out of the kindness of their hearts. They engineered us to be their servants. Food, even. The witches rebelled to give us free will.”
“Free will to what? Kill each other in wars? Poison the planet with toxins? Gorge ourselves on chemical foods while millions starve? These are the products of your treasured free will. The old ones, our guides, would never have allowed such madness. There are six and a half billion humans on this planet, and that number is burgeoning by the minute. That’s six billion too many for the world to support. Humans are out of balance with nature. They are a virus, spreading, destroying. The human race is the ultimate ecological nightmare.”
“So you bring down the line. You let your old ones back in. Who decides who gets to live and which six billion people have to die?”
“You could. If you help them, I am sure they will let you determine who are the most worthy of life.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I am not qualified to make that decision.”
“No? A nurse who dedicates her life to healing or a drug dealer who murdered his grandmother? Pick one.”
She stood, and pushing past Joe, she began to circle me, forcing me to turn. The movement combined with the blinking of the skull lights disoriented me. “That’s an extreme example. Life isn’t so simple,” I said. “It isn’t so black and white.”
“Oh, my dear girl, it will amaze you how quickly clarity comes to you. How soon you will realize that those shades of gray you worry about are such unnecessary complications.” She stopped and stood before me, the bruised light casting nightmarish shadows on her face.
“Those beings you want to help,” I said, “they want to enslave the human race.”
“Humans need to be subjugated for their own good and for the good of the planet.”
“My son will not live as a slave.”
“Of course not,” she said as she tilted her head toward me, a wrinkle forming between her eyes. “Your son will reign as a king. He will be truly free, not a slave of the line. My darling, you defend the line, but you know nothing of what it is or the blood that the witches spilled in its creation. Tell me, dear, what do you know about it?”
The dream I’d had a few days ago came to mind, and I found myself remembering it in vivid detail. I watched again as a faceless man slithered like a serpent away from a pyramid. Nearby obelisks lit up as lightning struck them. A whirring moan echoed from stone circles. I shook it off. “Pretty close to nothing, but what I do know is that you used me.” I paused and an odd thought hit me. “I have a special connection to the line, one that none of the anchors has,” I said, realizing the truth of the words as I said them. “What is it? Why me?” I asked.
“You are the witch of the prophecy. You are the one who was born to end the line and deliver us all from its tyranny. Why else do you think Ginny separated you from your magic? Why else do you think the united families have continued to estrange you from the power that is rightfully yours?”
She had sidestepped my question. I knew I’d never get any truth out of her, and the longer I allowed her to keep us here, the more likely it seemed that things would not end well. “No, you are wrong. You’ll have to find another messiah. Now let Adam and me go.”
“You are both free to leave whenever you would like, but remember this: They will never bring you into their fold. The anchors are terrified of you, since they know you will be the one to hold them accountable for their sins. Let me help you. Let me teach you what the line really is. How it imprisons you and how it will imprison your son . . . that is, if the other anchors even allow him to be born.” She paused and watched my face, making sure that her words had made the impact she’d hoped they would. “Half witch, half fairy? Certainly a challenge to the status quo. A wild card. The anchors, they don’t like challenges, especially ones they fear might be out of their control. If they learned the truth about my dear grandson . . .”
“Are you threatening me?” My hands curled into claws, ready to strike.
“No, my dear. Just the opposite. I am warning you. I am explaining to you how best to protect yourself and your child. I would never, ever betray your secret to the others, but you are already enough of an outlier in your own right, and I can guarantee that the anchors will also keep an eye on your little one, waiting to remove him from the equation should they ever feel the need. You’ll have to find a way to hide his true nature, or they will kill him just as they killed Paul. Just as they would have killed you and Maisie if they’d known Erik was your father.” Joe came and took her arm. “And just as they would try to murder Josef if they found out Erik was his father.”
I stood there dumbstruck as I looked at Joe with new eyes. The hair, the cleft chin, the high forehead. He did bear a strong resemblance to Erik. Leaning in, he placed a passionate kiss on Emily’s lips. I watched as animal electricity surged between them. Emily pushed him away and laughed. “Relax. He’s only your half brother.” He took her in his arms and pulled her near, so that her back was leaning against his chest. He caressed her, his fingers lingering near her hardening nipples, and nuzzled his face in her hair.
I couldn’t bear another moment of it. “Adam and I are leaving now,” I said. I tried to project confidence and authority, but she knew she’d shaken me.
“Of course,” Emily said. “I can see you need more proof than the word of the woman who gave birth to you. I’ll see that you get it. Please remember I tried to convince you the easy way first, but you left me with no choice. Now I’ll have to force the anchors to show you their true colors.”
I pushed past Joe and knelt beside Adam. When I placed my hand on his shoulder, he flinched. “It’s okay, Adam. I’m going to get you away from here.” He tilted his head up toward me. The look on his bruised face did not reflect gratitude. His swollen eyes narrowed even more, and he pulled back, as repulsed by my presence as I had been by the rodent with the hum
an face. I offered my hand to help him stand, but he pushed it away and forced himself to his feet without my help.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Joe released Emily and raised his hands toward us, but before I could even react, the foul blue light he was generating condensed into a single point, and the stone walls disappeared from around us. We stood on a beach, the moon shining brightly from the western sky, the east beginning to show the first blush of purple. Adam collapsed to his knees, and I reached out for him.
“Do not touch me,” he warned. He bent over, his face almost touching the sand, and a wail reached out from the innermost part of his heart, disturbing the quiet of the coming dawn.
“Adam, it’s me. Mercy,” I said. I knelt down next to him and tried to comfort him.
“I know who the hell you are, and I know what the hell you are. Now get away from me.” Even though he hadn’t made his way up off his knees, his hands balled into tight fists, his right one higher and ready to strike out, his left one lower, ready to defend. He was prepared to beat his way past me if I didn’t do as he said. I stood and backed away. When Adam rose to his feet, his movements were jerky.
“Where the hell are we?” he said as he spun around, trying to find his bearings. He spotted the darkened, defunct lighthouse that loomed nearby. “That isn’t Savannah. It isn’t Tybee.”
“No,” I said. It wasn’t Tybee, with its motels and souvenir stores. The unspoiled Hunting Island Beach stretched out before us. Even though we had to travel a good hour away from Savannah, Iris had often brought Maisie and me here when we were children. I wasn’t sure if we’d landed here by hazard or design. “We’re in South Carolina. I can get you home.” At least I hoped I could. I’d never tried to slide this far before, and it would only be my second attempt at carrying a passenger. “But I will need to touch you.”
“No,” Adam said, leaning away from me. His face had contorted itself into a mask of pain. His right eye had now completely swollen shut. “No. I want no more of you people,” he said. “Your mother put a noose around my neck,” he said, pulling his still clenched fists up before his face. He drew them down and glared at me through his still functioning eye. “I am a black man, Mercy. You can’t begin to understand . . .”