by S E Holmes
His genuine sorrow suggested he may have known Finesse as she was in the beginning. Had this portrait of a long-gone, tortured girl confused his loyalties? His was a story I had to know. But there was a far more pressing need.
“Her idea of love is a king-cobra bite.”
I unravelled my hands from the folds of the scarf and held them up for his inspection. The skin of my palms was black and festering, poisonous lines spreading from the middle. Finesse had contaminated me and if I focused too much on what squirmed in my flesh, it would drive me to distraction. I told myself her trickery was the same as Daniel’s, aimed at inspiring fear. When my mental resources were restored I would apply reason in counterattack. If all else failed, Enoch could intervene with his healing powers. In my darkest, most secret spaces these easy solutions remained unconvincing. Enoch gazed at the marks, yielding no emotion. He was a difficult man to like.
“You are right, of course. I must see her as she is, not as she was. Your skills are advancing rapidly.”
Skills? This was the second instance he’d referred to my Keeper’s skills. I stifled an appropriately cynical retort.
“Can you take me to Vegas?”
It was Enoch who’d whisked me and my hawk from Halcyon. I’d had nothing to do with it, exercising only my aptitude for failure. The white light gave him away. Yet I still didn’t think he deserved a ‘please’. He’d abandoned Daniel in the clutches of our enemy.
Relieving me of the articles, Enoch made them vanish. Acts that should have been astonishing had become mundane in this awful new existence of immortal witch-demons and psychic transcontinental jumps. It had started to drizzle, the thought of shelter from the icy elements appealing. Food, a long hot bath, and a quiet chance to contemplate all that had happened wouldn’t go astray either.
But all of this was secondary to my apprehension over Vegas. We rose from the bench as one, Poe alighting from his tree and gliding to my shoulder. Enoch led us through an arched sandstone passage, inset between the wings of the church that formed our courtyard, the odour of mildew pervasive. After a ten-metre trek in damp, shadowed gloom we reached the end, which was blocked by a heavy metal portcullis festooned in cobwebs, stiffened by flaking rust.
“Good,” he murmured, waving both hands upwards.
In response, the grate ascended with a tired groan and the clatter of spooling chain. Enoch performed a gentlemanly bow to usher me ahead. I stepped cautiously outside the tunnel into another place altogether. Here, the air was crisp and cleaner than any I’d ever inhaled. Sparse countryside of rolling hills stretched away in every direction as far as the eye could see, bathed in bright azure light emanating from a moon so huge and low on the horizon in front, it hardly seemed real. A well-worn dirt path, wide enough to accommodate four broad men, travelled from my location at the rise of a gentle knoll down to the only visible structure sitting on a flat plain.
Its circular base of pure white stone reflected the lunar shine so that it glowed like a lighthouse beam on a wild night. Topped by a dome of verdigris hue, a parade of arches formed a cylindrical ambulatory around the bottom, the roof of which provided an upper tier for a terrace abutting the cupola. The building was simple and unadorned by decoration or religious symbol, even though I could not shake the certainty it was sacred.
“You are safe here for the moment.”
“What … where is this?”
“We are on the site of St Bride’s, a central London church dating back to the ancient Roman era. Archaeological records show the church has been rebuilt on at least seven occasions. But this construction predates any modern account by many centuries. Welcome to my past, Winsome.”
Enoch swept out along the path and I trotted in his wake, not bothering with any of the infinite questions crowding my brain. Vegas was inside, the urgency to see him so intense I didn’t at first notice the lack of throbbing in my hands or a lessening of myriad discomforts. Although my breath misted the evening air, I was oblivious to the cold. And despite bone-weariness I kept pace with Enoch as he strode forth, making no allowances for my sorry condition.
The instant we’d crossed the threshold into Enoch’s realm, Poe had taken flight on the hunt for dinner, now a distant speck spiralling the updraft. He’d need luck in this barren landscape of scruffy clumped bushes and not much more. Still, no matter the age, the resilience of vermin was universal.
Enoch’s citadel, as I’d elected to call it, loomed over us as we neared, far larger in proximity than it appeared from our original vantage. Pursuing him through one of the uniformly sized arches, we confronted an unbroken curve of impenetrable white stone.
“Are you ready, Winsome?”
When was I ever? I nodded resolutely. Enoch fluttered his fingers and a door of thick wood reinforced by bands of metal materialised. Without further prompting, it swung wide and we entered. He’d obviously gone to great lengths to make the interior as comfortable and homey as possible. Or maybe, for one like Enoch, who regularly executed islands in basements and pulled people from an exploding club, this was no effort at all.
Possessive of the charm of a cosy ski lodge, a large granite hearth blazed a welcoming fire, overlooking a sunken square of tan leather lounges surrounding an oversize coffee table. The walls and ceiling were of grey wood, a dining setting raised on a platform several stairs off to the right, where a wall of glass revealed a snowy, winter wonderland. I didn’t have the heart to tell Enoch I hated arctic climates. Only a round polished timber staircase heading up to the second level hinted at the citadel’s true dimensions, other rooms leading from this main area.
I didn’t see him at first, not until he moaned and thrashed. Vegas was bundled in an Aztec-print rug on the lounge parallel to the fire. Deep blue circles ringed beneath his tightly shut lids, his eyes scanning furiously. His cheeks were hollowed and his mouth pressed tightly, moist strands clinging to his forehead. I suppressed a gasp, covering my lips with one hand. What had that loathsome woman done to him? Whatever tale Enoch spun about her unfortunate history, I would never forgive this.
I ran to him and pulled up short by his side, uncertain that touching him was wise. Instead, I perched gingerly on the coffee table facing him, leaning in and whispering his name. He didn’t respond. Gently, I pulled the rug back to expose his forearm, relieved to see unblemished skin. The syringe tracks were gone. His torso was bare, stomach muscles bunched in the act of contorting. I lightly stroked his chest, his skin cold yet slicked with sweat. He cried out, unintelligible words throttled by pain.
Glancing up at Enoch where he lingered by the entrance, I fortified myself, unsure if I was equal to the answer. “Will he recover from this?”
“There is no physical reason he should not have recovered already. The Crone needs only the vaguest scrap of personal detail to embellish a victim’s deepest fears. Vegas is immersed in a world of her conjuring, one that he fails to realise is not real or even factual. He is trapped in a nightmare and must break from the dream state himself.”
“And if he doesn’t realise he’s trapped in an hallucination?” Enoch dropped his gaze. “Is there nothing you can do?”
Returning my attention to Smithy, I plucked damp hair from his furrowed brow. He flinched on every touch, tearing a void inside me. Crippling him had crippled me as sure as a blade through the heart, draining my will to resist like blood from a severed artery.
“What problem or revelation was foremost in Vegas’ mind upon landing in Louisiana?”
I snorted, useless tears rolling down my cheeks. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Do you want my help?”
Swiping tears, I tried to think. His friends back home, now stuck fighting alongside us? Those salt-haired twins were formidable and deadly. Had Vegas felt the awful loss of Mrs Paget? I could not dwell on that just yet: the emotional toll would bring me to my knees and I would never get back up. I stood and paced around the table, frustration and despair static in my skull. It was smotheringly hot in he
re and I began to perspire, jerking the scarf from my neck and tossing it onto a chair.
“Winsome.”
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking!”
“Winsome,” Enoch repeated kindly.
I whirled to confront him. “I don’t know! There are so many possibilities …”
“You are exhausted, hungry and grieving. You need to get clean and a chance to reflect. A serene mind grants answers a stormy one cannot. Let the problem go and its solution will come to you.”
He still hadn’t moved from our original position and it struck me that he was not indifferent as I had believed. Evidently, Enoch exerted himself only when necessary.
“That feels like abandonment. Like I’m not doing enough.”
I never felt I was doing enough. I sagged to the table with my head in my hands. Suddenly, he was next to me, a cool hand on my shoulder.
“Be kind to yourself first, and then you have the best to give to others.”
“Wow.” My voice was muffled through my hands. “Do you get those inspirational sayings from a book?”
“When you have been here as long as I, all the stories have been heard and committed to memory.”
“That sounds very boring.” But also nice and peaceful – no surprises, which lately weren’t of the positive variety. I lifted my head to peer at this strange man.
“Oh, some things still amaze me. Human resilience and loyalty, for instance.”
“What are you, Enoch, if not human?”
He offered a small, funny smile. “There will be time for your questions, but other matters take precedence. Your hands need tending, Winsome.”
There was no argument on that topic. I reluctantly permitted him to guide me away from where Vegas writhed beneath his blanket, up the stairs and into well-appointed sleeping quarters with a roomy en suite. Here too, was a floor-to-ceiling vista of snowy slopes and fir trees that I knew did not reflect the geography.
“Help yourself to all you need. I shall be below, preparing supper.”
“You cook?” Enoch banging about the kitchen seemed incompatible with his lofty concerns.
He paused by the door. “Nourishing others is one of existence’s great pleasures.”
Thirty-Five
Several hours later, I sat with Smithy’s head in my lap, mopping his brow with a cloth. This reversal had an unhappy similarity to Smithy nursing me when I first gained my Keeper’s gifts. I almost laughed out loud. Gifts. Iron Man’s suit would have been far more useful. Thor’s hammer. Instead, I got Dorothy’s stupid red spangly shoes. Last I checked she was excluded from the Avengers.
There’d been no change in his state of unconsciousness, but he was at least mercifully still. My hands were bandaged – probably more to help pretend the wounds weren’t there than for any healing effect – and my hunger was sated by Enoch’s delicious lamb and vegetable stew. He made great dumplings. Attired in clean chambray drawstring pants and a white t-shirt, I smelled decent for the first time since leaving Sydney. But thinking about that morning made me wrenchingly homesick. I wished more than anything Bea was here, temporarily safe with us, not vulnerable in the wicked outside. She’d have all the answers.
The fire burned low, blushing embers the only source of light. Smithy’s pallor was rose tinged so he looked almost well, like he was preparing to surface and come back to me. My morose mood wasn’t conducive to solving the riddle of what had triggered Smithy’s descent. If a serene mind was the key to helping him, we were in trouble. Latoya’s final accusation plagued my brain: “You are all that stands between us and the pit?” Failing Smithy was yet another instance of my total inadequacy. My head drooped, and too exhausted to fight anymore, I slumbered fitfully.
I woke to find myself in the threadbare hovel of an overdosing woman. This was not the usual way a girlfriend met her boyfriend’s mother. There was a stink on the air, vinegar laced with sweet alcohol, which I guessed was the smell of her recent heroin cook.
I avoided looking at her, the gurgled gasps of her dying breaths bad enough without a visual. The inhalations came further and further apart and that same helpless despair I’d felt when reading the Trinity journals overwhelmed me. If I returned with the Key could I save her? Could I bless Smith with the precious gift he sought most, a mother who hadn’t abandoned him for a high?
Even in this dismal room, my desperation forcing me here, I knew her restoration would prove a monumental blunder. I could not rewrite history without a profoundly bad outcome. Smithy’s mother may not have earned a chapter in Bea’s biographies, but she was just as much a victim of the Trinity curse as the rest of us. So much loss.
But I was present for a reason. My forays into others’ lives always served a purpose, whether I understood at the time or not. On this instance, though, I knew full well why I was here: to find a way to help Smithy return to the world, free from the nightmare trance Finesse played for him on a loop. It seemed the best lessons were never taught by sunny picnics in the park and rainbows.
To my right on the margin of sight, the articles of her addiction littered the chipped coffee table. The scene reminded me of another meeting on Daniel’s boat, so long ago it seemed a part of someone else’s existence. This woman used a needle to seek oblivion. Daniel had used a knife, and whatever else he could get his hands on. A small plastic envelope emptied of white powder, a bent spoon, a one-ring camp cooker, were these horrid testaments to weakness all she’d leave behind?
What was her name?
Directing my attention to the mantel in front, I inspected the altar beneath that gut-wrenching painting, full of self-loathing. Where her artist’s signature should have been was the word ‘Shame’ in thick black acrylic. She may have been absent from Smithy’s life, but the loss of her son had tortured her. And perhaps, the loss of the judge also?
Roaming about the cramped, rectangular space in search of her purse for an ID, I refused so much as a glance in her direction. I’d experienced a great deal of unpleasantness since becoming the Keeper, yet this horror scene wrought the greatest emotional toll, emptiness spreading from the centre of my being like a yawning black hole. No wonder Smithy had spent his formative years lashing out.
At the end opposite the painting, the settee of death squashed in between, an unmade double mattress sat on the floor. Nowhere amongst heaped bedding could I locate a handbag. The area was neat and relatively clean. A pitiful pile of clothes were stacked on a cracked vinyl chair an awful shade of olive next to the bed, two pairs of sneakers that had seen better days tucked underneath. Everything here had seen better days.
A bathroom the size of a cupboard in aged yellow tile led off the bedroom. Again, there was no clue who she was in the mirror-fronted cabinet over a bare sink, no prescription medications, nothing. Had she been robbed of money and possessions? Yet, a cheap portable DVD player remained on the coffee table, belting out that hideous punk rendition of ‘Joy to the World’. Smithy’s mother sure had a dark sense of humour.
I returned grudgingly to the woman in question and switched the music off. Silence fell, but not the blissful type. Her glazed eyes stared through the ceiling at the heavens, which almost seemed hopeful. I reached to close them, nausea foremost when I pulled the syringe from the crook of her elbow and unstrapped the loosened rubber tourniquet.
As I turned to place the instruments of her destruction on the table, the limestone nautilus necklace at her feet caught my attention. Without thinking, I snatched it up. My fingers touched cool stone and I earned myself another disorientating psychic jerk to a previous period in her life.
“I’ve told you, Greenie, this is a stupid idea. Nash will never give us any money.”
“Shut up, Violet. You owe me a fix!”
The skinny blonde woman, her beauty not yet stolen by drug abuse, raised track-scarred arms as if to fend off a blow. Her hair was up in a messy ponytail, still damp from a recent shower. She was clean, at least, unlike her grubby partner. The duo rounded the path towards
the Smiths’ apartment, this occurrence far enough in the past for a weed-clumped patch of dirt to replace the native garden of the present.
“Alright, Greenie,” she said tiredly. “Calm your farm.”
“Let me do the talking.”
Her companion was further in his downward spiral, hunched, fidgety and lacking several teeth. Perhaps that was how he’d gained his nickname: it didn’t appear his nicotine-stained teeth had seen a toothbrush for a while. They were both attired in worn jeans and ratty tees.
“Yeah,” she snorted. “Like your abundant charms will do the trick.”
“I’m warning you, whore.” He bent close and clasped her arm hard. “Shut it!”
She shrugged from his grasp. As they neared along the path, the judge appeared carting a foam Mal surfboard under one arm, a backpack slung over his shoulders. A mop-haired boy of about six skipped out through the glass foyer doors in pursuit of his father. Both wore rash vests and boardies, and recently applied sunscreen sheened their faces. This gorgeous, happy little boy shocked me, so at odds was he to the anger-fuelled youth I’d grown up with.
The intrusion of unwelcome guests on their weekend fun registered after a couple of steps. The judge’s jaw tightened. He shuffled Smith behind him and planted his feet, propping the board on one end to lean upon it. Smithy peeked out from behind his father’s knees with a curious expression.
Nash had eyes only for Violet. “Unless you’re here to volunteer for rehab, go away, Violet.”
“Man, just give us a little cash and we’ll be out of your hair.” Greenie may as well have not spoken.
“I’m warning you, Violet. Get off my property, now. Or I’ll have you hauled to jail for trespass.”
She lingered, momentarily transfixed by Vegas. “Come on, Greenie. I told you, he’ll give us nothing.” Her smile faltered, replaced by a miserable frown. “Nothing’s what we deserve.”