by S E Holmes
“Are you kidding?” Who knew where that mouth had been?
“You made it clear touching was out of the question. The Trinity is no place for the squeamish.”
“What about the hygienic?” I took the proffered cup with its spit-laced contents.
The ultraviolet perfection of Seth’s teeth reassured that microbes were unlikely to survive the glare. Swirling the water, it was all I could do not to pinch my nose, as I threw it back and swallowed.
A disorienting jolt shook my body, and then a vision of Raphaela in a pre-dawn deserted bus depot popped to awareness. Dressed simply yet elegantly, she wore her hair up in a smooth roll. Large sunglasses obscured the upper half of her face. Still, she was a very beautiful woman who stood out and would have found it hard to keep a low profile, were it not for the fact she was normally a virtual shut-in. She peered around nervously.
The coach idled by the gutter, chugging diesel fumes into the air, its driver packing assorted luggage within. A slender dark-skinned girl aged about twelve with cornrow braids and a pretty face stood nearby, waiting to board. She beamed at Raphaela and spread her arms wide for a hug.
“I owe you everything. I can never thank you enough, Raphi.”
“You don’t understand what you mean to me, Maya. If you did, you’d realise gratitude is unnecessary.” Raphaela embraced her tightly, stroking the girl’s hair. She let go after many minutes. “I will miss you.”
They stepped apart. The girl pulled Raphaela’s wrists towards her slight body to inspect her inner arms. “The darkness grows stronger and the shadows wrap you. I will never see you again because of these.” She tapped the area within one triangle, her eyes wise beyond her years. “It is not so wrong to want something better, Raphi.” She searched Raphaela’s stunned face. “I will be ready to fight with those who come when you are gone. Your work will not be wasted.”
Maya stretched up on the tips of her toes to kiss Raphaela on the cheek. Raphaela was too shocked to move, her hand suspended in a wave as the doors of the bus hissed shut. It lumbered out into the street-lit night, transporting Maya away to her future. Raphaela’s last glimpse of Maya was of her face pressed against the tinted window mouthing, “I love you. Always.”
“Raphaela could not continue, once Maya had left.” Seth’s words brought me back to myself. “The loneliness ate at her. It is why she sought me out, to have a child of her own. But dreams and fantasy rarely meet in reality.”
Try as I might, I could not scrounge much sympathy for Raphaela’s plight. My guardians battled grimly for survival and we teetered on the brink of losing the Stone.
“How does any of this help me?”
“Raphi deeply regretted her betrayal and was determined to make amends for her selfishness. She worked tirelessly to go beyond the Keeper’s known ways and reunite the lost articles, to regain the knowledge contained in the first diary incinerated in a fire. She laboured to arm you better than any preceding Keeper. To give you the optimal weapons with which to stand and fight–”
“If you’re expecting a thank you,” I interrupted. “Forget it.”
Seth stared hard at me. “Youth is a harsh judge. You dismiss Raphaela so easily, because you understand nothing.”
“You’re right, I understand nothing.” With our feet planted, knees almost touching, we glared at each other from centimetres apart. His nostrils flared when he was angry and I was close enough to notice the twitch of one eyelid. His eyelashes were obscenely long and completely wasted on a boy. I should have been scared witless, but all I could think about was the impossible disaster my predecessor had left for me to clean up. “My opportunity to live and learn was stolen from me.”
He broke the standoff, pulling away to slouch back onto his divan. “Dwelling on all you have lost is self-indulgent, Keeper.”
I wondered who that message really targeted. Unburdened by prohibition, he poured himself a generous goblet of cinnaber liqueur from a decanter on the side table.
“And numbing yourself with booze isn’t?” I snapped. “So, the Doorway becomes visible to those worthy of trust?”
He nodded, the sun highlighting the copper in his silky hair, which served to make me angrier because I shouldn’t notice. The possibility of others in this mess was startling and horrifying: more victims swinging from the Crone’s gibbet. Even if I didn’t find the idea of making martyrs of our friends repulsive, a shortened lifespan and entanglement with a fiend whose recreation was history-triggered Armageddon, weren’t the greatest incentives for enlistment. If I failed to claim the Stone, more would die due to their association with the Trinity.
“But how will I know who sees them or not? And how can I encourage them to sign up for this nightmare?”
“The alternative is infinitely worse. An individual who sees your Deltas will let you know, one way or another. As for your second question, I cannot say. You are ingenious and opinionated, I am sure these qualities equip you well for the task of persuasion.”
It wasn’t such a vote of confidence. “I expect I deserved that.”
I rose to go. The scene flooded red once more and the floor tilted. I faltered, grabbing for the back of my vacated chair. Seth was on his feet, reaching to assist but I shielded myself with an outthrust arm.
“Something terrible is happening.” In the thrall of angst, I failed to notice Seth’s wide eyes and rapt gaze. Warmth trickled beneath my nose, and when I swiped there, my fingertips came back bloodied.
“Raphi told me her Deltas pointed the way to her Keeper’s heart. It was our joke,” he murmured. “For I could not see them myself.”
I took no heed of what he said, rushing inside for the door on unsteady legs. Seth trailed me across the living room to the curtain, his voice getting louder.
“But your triangles are oriented so the tips trace a direct line to your palms. You have but to lift your arms and they are arrows to pierce those who would harm you and yours.”
“What did you say?” I asked at the door, eager to flee Seth’s asylum and his ramblings.
Pain lanced my head, my aspect spinning in a nauseating circle. Lucky my stomach was empty. It was all I could do to remain upright and not spew bile all over his pretty parquetry.
“They have become clear to me.” If I tumbled upon leaving this place, I’d never get up on my own. “Your Keeper’s marks. And now I have your name.” His words finally gained traction. Grabbing the doorframe, I turned and frowned at him, praying I’d heard wrong.
“Winsome!” Seth’s look of triumph pierced me through, his gloat the last thing I saw before I blacked out on a tide of red.
Eight
Benji clamped his hands over his ears and squeezed. “Arghh!”
He heard a strangled moan, before realising the gurgle was his own. His nose started to bleed. The drips splattered the desktop to spray his shirt front. He could have blamed his physical state on the suffocating fumes, which smelled the same as burning sulphur in chemistry, making his eyes water. But there was also the loathsome scratching filling his skull like a horde of screech beetles. Even more alarming, the guttural whispering of many in his mind.
“Aceldama, Aceldama, Aceldama.”
A lyrical speaker wove a poem to the rising and falling rhythm. Benji gradually gained the entire verse. He could not defy its merciless drag. It would eat his soul if he did not move!
“This world resembles a cadaver,
And you around it bark;
And who eats from it is the loser;
Who abstains takes the better part.
And certain is the dawn disaster
to those unwaylaid in the dark.”
The woman trilled laughter, which echoed until it became as shrill as metal on glass. Was he hallucinating? It had to be an hallucination. He staggered to his feet, swatting blood across his cheek. What Benji needed was to run, to burst out into the starlit night and pelt home as fast as his custard legs would carry him without turning back. But he was hooked now, his personal desires no
longer relevant. Why hadn’t he accepted that dull waiting job at the café surrounded by the living?
Trancelike, he picked up his torch, increasingly concerned by the warm redness splashing his gym boots in an ever-widening pool. He felt light-headed. What was the medical term for bleeding out? Exsanguination. That was it. Was it possible to exsanguinate by nosebleed? He should never have been so callous about that poor Deputy mottled by livor mortis down the corridor. If he got out of this he swore never to disrespect the dead, no matter the financial benefit.
He dragged himself from the meagre refuge of the janitor’s nook, fighting the dizziness by leaning on walls, smearing white tiles with a bloody trail. It was the siren’s call! Some devilish spell that cursed him to stay beyond safety or sanity. The lights buzzed and flickered, adding to Benji’s vertigo. A noxious cloud pricked his skin with a thousand stinging needles. He fell on all fours and violently heaved. Benji noted the office coffee tasted not much different coming up as going down.
Waiting for the spasms to pass, he laboured vertical once more, finally reaching the stainless steel door to watch a disembodied hand that might have been his own slowly extend towards the metal’s vibrating surface.
Don’t do it! Don’t do it! His voice screamed in his head.
But it was the command of an unseen power. He had absolutely no control. The moment his skin made contact, Benji was flung across the hallway, slamming the cold wall. Shattered tile hailed down in pellets that nicked his exposed skin. He slid to the ground and slumped over, the air whistling from his lungs. Overwrought muscles gave a final twitch, and then, Benji’s body went as still and white as those draped in sheets within.
Nine
“Benji,” I moaned, rousing to a series of grinding cracking sounds and a hail of debris scattering the floor.
Squinting through a billowing haze, I took a moment to recall what had happened before witnessing Benji’s hardship. Seth carried me in his arms, spreading his feet for balance in his prison’s collapsing doorway. His expression was fierce, and I wriggled to break free. Beyond, broken stucco littered the warehouse alley, more chunks cascading from the edifice to shatter in puffs of grit upon hitting the ground. Shreds of curtain whirlpooled on ebbing gusts.
The dust settled gradually to reveal Aunt Bea and her cats halfway along, behind her Mrs Paget and Smithy, unified in hostility. Bea’s down-thrust arms formed a barrier keeping Cherish and Vovo, who paced and snarled, in check. The Keeper’s diary rested at her feet.
Seth dared several cautious steps into the hallway so far as a clear area, before gently placing me down. He stepped back with his hands raised, a fact lost on the cats, who surged forwards on the attack, spitting and hissing with their fangs bared and talons unsheathed.
“Ne’re tigers. Superb!” Seth mumbled.
What? Smithy outran the cats, reaching me before they unleashed a razored barrage. Coughing and retching, I struggled to coordinate my tongue. He dropped to his knees, gathering me to his chest and lightly pinching the bridge of my nose. Smith was well familiar with first aid for head punches.
“Did he hit you? I’ll kill him!”
“Stop,” I wheezed, reluctant to glance over my shoulder where claws tearing flesh and the ripping of fabric were met by grunts of pain. “Stop.”
In the sudden quiet, broken only by Cherish’s low growl, I observed in freeze-frame dismay as Smithy lifted his head to evaluate Seth coldly. This was not happening. Too late, I fixed my hand over my boyfriend’s eyes, swivelling to glare at Seth whose thighs and torso were marred by gaping wounds, his pants a torn a wreck.
“Don’t!” I yelled at him.
The moulding to his home was completely demolished, a hint of black marble beneath before the warehouse returned to full clarity. The cats coiled in readiness either side, their lips pulled taut to best display sharp incisors as long as my forefinger. His retreat blocked by a wall of cardboard, Seth gazed openly at Smithy for an infinitesimal moment. This was all it took. I did not want my precious boy entranced forever by Seth, his will captive.
“Vegas?” Seth knitted his brow in concentration. “No, that is not right.” He shook his head. “Smith? Wrong again. Yes, now I have it! Vee,” he said.
Smith burst to his feet, wrenching me with him. My hand jerked from its hold and I swayed on wobbly ankles.
“Only my friends call me that!”
Seth could not hide his astonishment. “Brother,” he whispered, his eyes wide with wonder.
“O-kay,” Smith said lamely, anger deflating.
“Seth … Daniel, no.”
“What did you call me?”
“I know you. I know who you are and what the Crone did to you. To your family.”
Aunt Bea’s sharp voice preceded her down the aisle, then the rapid clip of her heels. “What is the meaning of this?”
Smith grappled me erect before I could fall and I was grateful for his strength. “Our enemy is almost free. Bea, give Seth … no, Daniel, the diary.” Her expression said I might be mad. “Please!”
Daniel remained in the wreckage of his cell, his mouth working soundlessly. Even in my mind, I could no longer address him as ‘Seth’ – the witch’s name for her pet. His family torn from him, that bereft man was who I saw. He’d become human to me, not just our vile enemy’s tortured enforcer.
Bea approached him. “Hold out your hand,” she commanded.
He did so and she rested the journal across his palms. We all waited with breaths held as he reverentially accepted the Keeper’s diary.
“Raphaela told me much of the Keeper’s Ledger, but I have never set eyes upon it. Should an enemy handle it, their skin blisters.” He gazed at me in awe. “What miracle is this?”
Smithy groaned and rolled his eyes over my shoulder. “He couldn’t look like Moe the bartender, could he?”
“Welcome to the Sacred Trinity.” A better initiation awaited the Crone’s leisure. Blood dried in my nose, its coppery taint a reminder of Benji. “We must go to Louisiana, now. Raphaela had a ward. If Anathema are there already, she’s at risk.”
“And a risk to us,” Smithy said.
“There’s another in the line of fire. We need to try and save Benji, wherever he is.”
“Forget him. He’s already dead.” Daniel spoke softly, turning the diary over and over and flipping through the pages.
I shrugged from Smithy’s embrace. “I don’t care how you’ve done things in the past. We don’t leave anyone exposed. We don’t leave anyone at the witch’s mercy. No one.”
I looked to my Aunt for support. Several steps to my right, Bea cleared her throat and smoothed her dress, glancing at Mrs Paget whose face was uncharacteristically stern. Both of them seemed poised to disagree.
“We need to return to the warehouse and review our circumstances. I’m sure Daniel …” she nodded and offered a thin smile, “could do with a change of clothes.”
“Please,” he whispered. His cheeks flushed with shame. “Don’t call me that. Seth is the name I’ve earned.”
“Winsome feels otherwise,” Aunt Bea said. “And I expect the rest of the Trinity to do so, too. Now, time runs short. Let us not dally.”
“You three go on ahead. Smithy and I have to take a quick trip.”
“Are you pursuing a career as a comedian?” Bea asked, her face incredulous.
“Laughter wouldn’t go astray right now,” Smithy muttered, provoking a scowl from my aunt and a muffled giggle from Mrs Paget.
“Smithy’s friends can see my Deltas because …” How could I utter the truth without sounding overly dramatic? “Well, because they’re worthy. The Trinity is recruiting. We need help. You must trust what I say, and we’re running out of time.”
“What? We can’t hijack anyone else into this carnival of the damned.”
“I don’t like it either, Smithy. But I don’t think we have a choice.” My urgency swelled with the knowledge that the boundaries of the Crone’s prison stretched thin. Soon, sh
e’d slither out into the daylight and I must be ready. I gripped his hand and began to drag him from the alley, heading for the Mini. “Come on. We’ll argue in the car.”
“Winsome?” Daniel called out.
My shoulders slumped. What now? I spun back to the little group, who loitered awkwardly at the dead end, Bea’s cats eyeing him like they would a cornered mouse. If he set a foot wrong there was no doubt of the consequences. Daniel’s gaze was unyielding as he spoke.
“Anathema are here, in Sydney. Their foulness stains the air and I am never wrong about such things.”
“They’d better bring their A game,” Smithy snarled.
“They never play otherwise. I should know. I trained them.”
“Great. Simply outstanding.” Smith jerked me along, his grip crushing.
“I do know how to walk!” I yanked my arm from the vice – another throbbing limb to add to the rest – stomping after him.
“Sorry,” he grumbled.
If the guys in my life tried to ‘protect’ me much more, I’d be too bruised to move. My stomach growled discontent at missing breakfast, but who had a moment spare for a normal activity like eating? Just as we reached the caged Mini, an alarm rang out.
“Now what?” Smith groaned.
We about-faced and moments later stared at the surveillance screens. I turned the alarm off and reset it, awaiting Bea. The monitor revealed Judge Smith pumping the buzzer to her formal offices in the high rise at the end of the lane by which we’d gained entry here. His gazed up into the frame with a determined expression.
“What’s he doing home from the Caribbean?” Smithy did not sound pleased.
“This is an unforseen complication.” My aunt peered over my shoulder at the freeze-frame image. Mrs Paget, Daniel and the cats lingered at her rear, none of them seeming comfortable with each other or the unfolding situation. “An octopus couldn’t plug the leaks we’re sprouting,” Bea grumbled.
“We don’t have to respond,” Smithy said. “We’ve got more urgent things to attend to.”