by Mark Teppo
I wrapped my hands in her dark hair as if I was burying them; as if by hiding the evidence, I could make the blood vanish. Our hands, they betray what we have done.
We murder; we create. The dark is but a shadow of the light. A reaction is simply a response to action. Our cycles are but mirrors, degenerate reflections of the primal effort that split the Limitless Universe.
Ex mortis et tenebris. From death and darkness.
"So am I," I replied.
XVI
We heard the lock first, a clangorous beat that rang up and down the length of the container. More discordant percussion followed-metal shifting and clattering against metal. A broad beam of stark light swept into the chamber as the portal opened.
Four men entered, dark silhouettes against the wash of light. The door closed, and three of them stood in a line along the back wall. The other man held two objects: a folding chair and a storm lantern. The thin flame of the lantern made short shadow puppets along the base of the wall and, while its weak light reached the man's face, it left the three guards cloaked in shadow.
The guards were armed, the subtle glint of metal visible in the gloom, and I wasn't inclined to test their eagerness to shoot me. Based on the chair and lantern, the visit seemed casually interrogative and, since I had a few questions for my captors, I thought I'd see where the conversation went.
Kat and I were sitting side by side in the center of the container, about ten feet away from the door. The clacking and clanging had given us sufficient time to make ourselves presentable. We were sitting like eager students when the foursome arrived, little learners ready for the start of the lesson.
"I realize the accommodations are somewhat less than comfortable." The man sat in the chair, crossed his legs, and idly plucked at something on the leg of his trousers. Nice clothes, neat beard, rings on his fingers. A European gentleman, my first guess. German, or Swiss.
"Well, once I got the ball gag out, it did seem a trifle chilly," I said.
"Ah," he said, resting his hand flat on his leg. "A sense of humor. Good. We can talk, then."
"Can I pick the topic or do you have something specific in mind?"
"Something specific, Mr. Markham."
I glanced at Kat, registered the cold fury in her face. Judging by the way the man wasn't looking at her, I had a feeling he knew the cause of her expression. "Who is this clown, anyway?" I asked her, trying to keep him from running the conversation.
"Bernard du Guyon," she spat.
"She's not very happy with you," I offered.
Bernard raised an eyebrow. "Ms. Nouranois' displeasure has made itself evident to me but-" he raised his shoulders "-there is very little I can do about it right now."
Her body tensed, and we all felt the violence of her desire. Bernard tried to appear oblivious, but his shoulders tightened unconsciously. Interesting. Putting Kat in here with me hadn't been his idea.
"We should probably get off that topic of conversation," I said. "I wouldn't want things to get any more awkward."
Bernard was happy to follow that lead. "Do you know why Initiate Rassmussen was making his exodus?"
"Is that what you're calling it? A rather destructive method of initiation, don't you think? All that collateral damage."
"I believe you are somewhat to blame for that, Mr. Markham."
"What? If I hadn't intercepted him in the deer, he would have ridden it all the way to Seattle? Even if I hadn't been there, he would have realized he needed a human host when he reached the ferry terminal. The animal was burning up. It wouldn't have survived." I shook my head. "He was going to end up in a human host. There was no other way for him to cross the water."
Bernard didn't contradict me, nor did he offer any defense of Doug's actions.
"Look, I've seen other techniques like this. Different cultural contexts. You aren't the first to experiment with the separation of soul and body. You needn't act like I've stolen your magic underpants."
"These underpants, if you will, are old, Mr. Markham. Egyptian."
"Hermetic?" I said, a note of surprise actually sneaking into my voice. "I thought the works of Hermes Trismegistus were more philosophical in nature. More talking about souls and matter than actually separating the two."
"You're familiar with his philosophical works? The DivinePymander and the Asclepius?" Bernard leaned forward, betraying his interest in this topic.
"I have a passing familiarity with his work. I was in Cairo for a few months around the hundred-year anniversary of Crowley's reception of The Book of the Law. I had an opportunity to study his efforts while I was there." My visit to Cairo had been more about Trismegistus than being party to Crowley's centennial; but, like all children in possession of illicit secrets, we never tell the whole truth when asked to reveal our sources.
"What is your impression of the ideas of Hermes Trismegistus?"
My awareness of the texts seemed to intrigue him. His voice had become more professorially inquisitive. Was there some test hidden in his questions? Some probe to see if I knew the secret phrases or if I was amenable to a certain line of thought? Unlike Pender, Bernard didn't seem to be looking for a canned response; there appeared to be an honesty of interest in his query.
Which didn't stop me from being coy in my response. I still hadn't made the connection to Doug's ritual of separation. Trismegistus was philosophical. He hadn't left behind any ceremonial works. Though a vague thought nagged at the back of my brain, a fragmented history of Trismegistus' work that wasn't quite coming together for me. "They're vague. They're a school of thought masquerading as a technical journal. Hardly a good guidebook for practical application." I hid behind a first-year's response, further coloring it with a dilettante's dismissal of ceremonial magick. "But, then again, very little of that esoteric stuff is ever really useful."
"You don't think the separation of Douglas' spirit from his body is a practical application?" My answer riled him.
"No, I'm sure it has its uses, but I'm not sure you should be pretending that it originated with the Hellenistic Egyptians. Like I said, I've seen rituals like it in the Caribbean, in Africa, in Tibet. Even in India. Separating the spirit from the flesh is an old pastime, far older than the pyramid builders. It's like any of the primitive magick systems-different words and rituals for the same end result."
"The end result," Bernard said quietly. "You are a practical man, Mr. Markham? Just the ensuing effect is the only thing that interests you? No room for wondering how such speculation came into being?"
"No," I said. "Speculation is my daily discourse. I eat philosophy for breakfast. My interest lies in the interpretation of the Word and the world."
"But both the Word and the world are always subjective, Mr. Markham. The only thing not predicated upon our perception is the Divine Light. Are you so mired in the discussion that you haven't considered the source of All? It shines whether we see it or not. 'Dixitque Deus: "Fiat lux." Et facta est lux.' As if there could be existence prior to light."
And God spoke: "Let there be light." And there was light. All good Sunday School children know this story.
"So Christianity got it all wrong then, did they? Must have been why they burned out the pagans."
"No, 'fiat lux' is the third verse of the Bible. Do you know what comes before?" The question was rhetorical as he answered before I could formulate a reply. " 'Terra autem erat inanis et vacua, et tenebrae super faciem abyssi, et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas.' "
This interrogation had fully strayed into a discussion of philosophy. But for the steel box in which it was conducted, this conversation might be nothing more than discourse between student and teacher. His quotation was specific: a question as to my knowledge of both the Bible and Latin. "The earth was without form and was void," I said, paraphrasing. "Darkness moved upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God wandered across the face of the waters." I spread my hands vertically. Darkness below, the Spirit of God above. "Or something like that."
"Yes.
'Something like that' is exactly the problem. Your memory of the verse is hazy because the Church doesn't want you to remember it. They'd prefer that you ignored Genesis entirely. Stay in the New Testament only. But it is there, in exordium, that the secrets are kept, that the true reality is made clear. Before philosophy, before language."
"My memory is hazy," I said, "because you've drugged me. Not because I don't know my Vulgate."
"Ah, the opiates." He paused, and plucked at his pant leg again. "I am sorry about that. I am told you are. . hmm. . not 'prone' necessarily, but 'ready,' yes, 'ready' is the word I want. You are ready to do violence, Mr. Markham. Prudence suggested that we might be wise to bind you so that you could not engage in any activity that might cause injury. To yourself or others."
"Prudence, huh? Prudence has a different name, doesn't she? Who are your friends? Are you their academic, their librarian?"
"I did that sort of work for associates of yours. In Paris."
"Associates?" I laughed. "Hardly. I'm persona non grata with them."
He nodded. "Yes, I have heard that. It's a good thing they don't know where you are."
My laugh died in the corner of the room. Ah, the crux of the matter. I owed him. I was a pawn to be played at his discretion. "What do you want, Bernard?"
"I want to talk," he replied. "I want to see what sort of man you are. If your material passions masquerade as ideological fervor or if rational thought can sway your course. Are you a man of ideas, or a creature of action?"
Hermes Trismegistus told his sons-in more than one sermon-the most important tool given to mankind by the Divinity was Reason. This ability allowed men to shape their minds, to use their Wills to overcome the passions of the flesh. Reason would guide us toward enlightenment.
I had a feeling Bernard wanted to know if I was keen to this idea. All this dancing around the philosophy of souls had a point. Was I a talker or a doer? Did I know something about the topic on the table? All discourse aside, what was my interpretation of the Word? And, could I be swayed by the application of a good argument?
"The only vice of the soul is ignorance," I said, settling on a truism I remembered from the texts.
He smiled. "Indeed. And pursuits of the soul, do they not guide us toward a reconciliation with that Heaven from which we have been separated?"
"Hermes would like to think so." Now, the discussion. The laying out of the argument. What was he leading toward?
"But you're not so sure."
I glanced around the dim room. "I'm still here. Since the whole topic of transmigration and previous incarnations hasn't come up, I'm hesitant to open that can of worms. Let's just say that I'm still seeking some empirical evidence and leave it at that."
"And Initiate Rassmussen. Was he seeking empirical evidence? Did your interruption deny him a precious opportunity?"
"We never crossed the water before," Kat interjected. "We never forced the others to ride souls. This was never about possession."
Bernard looked at her and shook his head fractionally. "My dear, they all crossed over. You weren't invited to the rejoining because it never took place at the remote site. They always came home to this temple. Every one of them."
"Son of a bitch." She leaned forward, raising her fist, and a clatter of hardware behind Bernard preceded a trio of red dots on her upper chest. Laser sights from the guards' hardware. I put a hand on Kat's arm. She shrugged me off, but made no attempt to get to her feet. The dots remained on her chest.
"Okay, Bernard," I said. "We get it. Julian has something else in mind." I was pretty sure Bernard had more than a small hand in whatever they were doing, but by carelessly suborning him to Julian, I was hoping to push him toward actually talking about it instead of dancing around the edges. Besides, I wanted to see the reaction I got from name-dropping.
Bernard pursed his lips and pressed a finger against his slim mouth. As he considered his response, something microscopic on his pant leg finally caught his attention and he flicked the speck away with a sigh. "Your semantic barbs will not prick me, Mr. Markham. I will not be drawn into a tawdry shouting match."
"No? How about some straight-forward discussion then? You still haven't told me what you want. My blessing?"
He shook his head. "No, we have already been blessed."
I looked at Kat. "The Pope's been out?"
"Protector Briande-"
I flinched involuntarily. Protector? How had Antoine gotten that far? Five ranks in as many years. How could he-and then I realized the way it could be done. Ritus concursus. Antoine was clawing his way to the top, and, apparently, had the skills to pull it off. Losing a hand hadn't apparently done much to slow him down.
Bernard took note of my twitch. "Yes," he laughed. "A real Protector. Here, looking for you. What have you done, Mr. Markham, to anger him so?"
One of the slices of memory in my head rotated into an orientation where it found a natural grouping with a number of disparate elements. This combination of past events triggered a brief flash of illumination. For a second, I could see the Weave surrounding me. I understood the forces pulling the threads.
Antoine was already here. It was Antoine who had been in the back of Pender's car. Pender hadn't left the card mirage in Doug's mirror. That had been Antoine. As was the message on the back of the Polaroid: 61. A cryptic reference to the Abyss. Antoine hadn't told Pender anything about our history; his directive to Pender had simply been to Watch me.
The hotel had been a ruse, a snare meant to direct me along a path of their choosing. Nicols had been right: there had been ulterior motives beneath Pender's seemingly benevolent act. Pender had probably suggested the plan to Antoine-let's get him where we can keep an eye on him. Let's bait this snare with something that we know he wants.
It's a good thing they don't know where you are.
More pieces fell into place. Pender was the Hollow Men contact within the Seattle infrastructure. He had known about Doug before I told him. And, when I ran like a fool with a hard-on toward the hotel, Pender had called his friends. The Hollow Men had snatched me from Antoine's Watch. Because they had some purpose for me.
No. More tracing of the Weave's intricacy. My disappearance would distract Antoine. I was the flashy coin held in one hand, the object meant to snare the audience's attention while the other hand performed the magic trick. My purpose was simply to be out there, somewhere, a nagging itch Antoine couldn't scratch.
Meanwhile, whatever secret plan Bernard and Julian had been concocting with their secret manuscript was coming to fruition. Whatever they were hoping to achieve with their psychoanimist research. Body-jacking. .
"You're going to take control of a Protector," I realized. "You're going to subvert his Watch."
Bernard put a finger to his lips again, but this time he was hiding a smile. "Oh, nothing so mundane as that, I'm afraid. We have a much grander plan in mind."
XVII
More extreme than taking out a Protector? My confusion must have been evident in my inability to articulate a reply. "The Watchers aren't known for their forgiveness," I finally managed.
"Spoken like a man who knows." Bernard chuckled. "We are about to embark upon an ambitious project, Mr. Markham. A project that goes well beyond the discourse of TheCorpus Hermeticum. One that requires industrious men with extraordinary talents. I think you qualify. ." He hesitated on the remainder of the sentence.
"Julian doesn't like me," I finished for him.
He hesitated, considering his answer, and then sighed. "Julian doesn't like a number of things."
"So he is in charge?"
"No," Bernard disagreed.
I glanced at Kat and raised an eyebrow. "That's funny. It doesn't seem that way. I mean, call it what you will but he's not the one who locked himself in a crate with me. With you in here. ." I raised my shoulders as if to say that I didn't really have an opinion on the matter. All the while making it clear that I thought his presence inside was certainly not the action of a man i
n charge.
"You're being childish, Mr. Markham. Provoking me won't achieve anything."
I looked at Bernard again, held his gaze, and slowly raised the Chorus behind my eyes. "Nothing childish about it," I said. "Especially in light of what Julian knows." I let the Chorus pulse around me once, their wave setting alight the inscribed sigil. In the background, the three gunmen raised their pistols in a frantic effort to cover me with their laser sights. But, in the sudden darkness following the ward's illumination, they discovered the lantern had gone out. They couldn't see well enough to find a target for their little red dots.
In the tiny chaos caused by the Chorus' suffocating touch on the lantern's flame, I did exactly what Bernard warned me against. In the dark, I Whispered to him, my voice riding his ear. "Julian let you come in here because you were expendable." Bernard shouted incoherently, and I heard the chair tip over as he leaped to his feet. Boots scuffled as anarchy gathered the four men together, scrambling their efforts.
A flashlight clicked on. It reflected from Bernard's white shirt, momentarily freezing him in a bright spotlight, and then it swept in a flat arc across the floor.
Kat reached out in the darkness and found my hand. When the flashlight discovered us, we hadn't moved from our position. A second flashlight covered us as well, while the third lit up the door panel. The plastic butt of a handgun rang against the metal-three strikes, followed by two more. The heavy lever holding the door was lifted from the outside.
Kat and I raised hands to shield our eyes as the four men retreated through the open door. "An infantile prank, Mr. Markham," Bernard chided me as he left. "It wins you no favors." The portal closed and the bar and lock clanged into place, sealing us inside.
"Well," Kat said after a moment. "He's kind of right."
"Yeah, but it made me feel better," I said.
"Ah," she replied. "I'm glad that's one of those critical personal policies that you're clinging to."
I stood and fumbled across the room to where Bernard had left the storm lantern and sniffed at it carefully. There was still some kerosene in the reservoir. "It also put him off his game," I pointed out. I opened the tiny door of the lantern and snapped my fingers. The Chorus made a spark that leaped onto the oil-soaked wick. I adjusted the flame and lifted the lantern to better expose the container. "You heard him, Kat. They're planning something stupid. I'm the bait to distract Antoine. It wasn't their original plan, but they're certainly taking advantage of the circumstance. And until I know why they opted to make that change in their plan, I'm going to make mischief."