by C. L. Bevill
Arcanorum
A Lake People Novel
By
C.L. Bevill
Arcanorum by C.L. Bevill
Published 2012 by Caren L. Bevill
Copyright 2012 by Caren L. Bevill
Smashwords Edition
Arcanorum: A Lake People Novel is a work of fiction. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission, except for brief quotations to books and critical reviews. Characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Arcanum Arcanorum – noun: the mystery of mysteries; specif: the one ultimate secret supposed to lie behind all astrology, alchemy, and magic.
(Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged,
Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A.: Merriam-Webster Inc., 1993), p. 111.
Prologue
Not So Long Ago…
Death is the revealer of secrets.
– African proverb
The man lifted an antique statue sitting at the side of the front door of the restaurant. Using it as a ram, he broke through the glass and dropped it beside the door again. Immediately, he dived through the broken window, not thinking about the wretchedly sharp fragments.
He bellowed the woman’s name.
Nothing came back to him except words in his head. Dying. Dying. Dying.
They weren’t her words. They came from inside him, but he’d heard her inside of him, speaking back to him telepathically. Their gifts, that which La Famille called veiled eyes, were strongest between family members and those who loved each other. He didn’t know how it could be. It was supposed to happen only between those within the expanded famille. Blood called to blood. Not all of them had the instinctual relationship, but those who were lucky enough to have it, would typically never denigrate it.
The woman wasn’t one of the famille. It was hardly even likely that she was distantly related to them. She’d been Anna’s friend; they’d been raised in an orphanage together. The pair had been children of happenstance. It didn’t matter to the man; he loved her already. She was priceless beyond compare, and somehow she could “hear” him in her head. When the most terror-provoking fears had overcome her, the connection had been there. No, it had been there just before, when they had shared their first kiss.
An impossible situation, but it had happened all the same. He could feel the pain in her abdomen as if it were in his own. He knew there was a portentous swelling there that meant internal bleeding. The other bruises were secondary to the agony the intruder had caused in her belly.
Frantically, the man cast his gaze about. For a moment he could hear nothing but the blood pounding in his head. Then the sound of yelling people came to him. There had been more than enough people on Dumaine Street to see what he had done to the woman’s plate glass window. They didn’t know what was going on, but they knew it was something bad.
“What the hell are you doing?” a man yelled behind him. “I’ve called the police!”
“They’re being robbed!” the man yelled back. A lie came easily to the man; he’d lied about the gift to outsiders before. It was much easier to lie than try to explain how he knew what he knew. “She was on the phone with me, and the worthless bibitte was beating her! Where would they be?”
The other man gasped, “My God! Check the back where her office is. I’ll call for an ambulance!”
The place was dark and darker in the hallway just before the kitchen. The man came around the corner and saw the little office with its open door. He also saw the motionless legs propping it open. They weren’t women’s legs.
There was a little noise to one side and the man spun. Some horrendous event had spilled spoons and knives everywhere. A whirlwind of terrifying activity had upended dozens of utensils. He inched behind the counter, dread pouring over his soul like some great black liquid.
The actuality of the scene before him made his breath catch in his chest; a tremendous stone suspended in his lungs.
He said the woman’s name, and one of her exceptional blue eyes fluttered open. The other one was swollen shut. She simply looked at him, trapped under the weight of the man who’d attacked her.
The man precipitously yanked the intruder off her body and threw him to the side, not caring if he hurt the thief. Dimly he registered the intruder had a chef’s knife implanted into his chest. He was dead.
“All the blood,” the man muttered as he knelt next to the woman. She was awash with it.
“His blood,” she muttered back, “but how did you…?”
“You know,” he gritted. “Not the time now.” He lifted his head and heard the other man step into the kitchen. There was a loud gasp as he saw the woman’s dire condition. “Did you call the ambulance?”
The other man, one of the woman’s neighbors, stepped closer as he frowned with barely contained horror. “I called,” he said.
“Check the man in the office,” the man said hoarsely.
The neighbor complied, and a few moments later he said, “He’s dead. I’ll get a blanket for her. It’s coming.”
The man didn’t look around as the neighbor’s footsteps echoed away.
Dying. Dying. Dying.
“Non. Non. Non,” he said urgently.
“Oh,” the woman said in a near whisper. She said his name and then repeated it. “I think I’m very glad I got to kiss you.” She coughed, and a little blood spilled from the side of her mouth.
The man carefully gathered the woman in his arms. She moaned. “There will be other kisses, chère,” he said insistently. To prove it, he pressed his suddenly frigid lips against her forehead, but he found that her flesh was even colder than his.
Other voices began to probe at his mind. Oddly, he could hear his mother and his father adding their strength to his. One of his brothers was roaring in his head.
Non! Non! Don’t die with her!
They called his name tenaciously.
Too far to hear them, he thought. Must be going mad.
Not mad, came his father’s immediate response. It’s your bond with her. She’s special, more special than we thought.
Dying.
A tear dropped out of the man’s eyes and splashed on the woman’s face. Her eye blinked. “I can…hear you,” she whispered, “in my head.”
The man gently touched her cheek. Agitatedly, he smeared the blood there and tried to wipe it away with his fingers.
“I can hear them, too,” she said, so softly he almost couldn’t hear her words.
“Oui, it’s our people’s gift,” he murmured. “You can hear Anna, too, if you want.”
“Oh,” the woman breathed on a gurgle of blood. A weary smile almost made her lips move, but she couldn’t quite manage it. “It’s like being part of a family. It’s nice. All those people so worried for you.”
And you. Yes, you too. One of us now. It was his comforting thoughts that encouraged her, but it was wrapped with the warmth of others repeating the sentiment.
Not for long, the woman thought. Sorry, love. Sorry I was afraid to take the next step.
The other man, possibly one of the woman’s neighbors, came back into the kitchen. “The ambulance is delayed. There’s a problem at Tulane. They had several incidents at the same time.”
“Call them bac
k,” the man gritted harshly. “Tell them she’s dying. She’s dying!” The pain and dreadfulness of the situation threatened to overwhelm the man. He fought against squeezing the woman to his chest. She was so fragile she would break apart if he did. The neighbor vanished again.
The man’s father thought his name very insistently. He repeated it until the man thought wildly, What?!
Do you still have the Noir’s bead?
What? The man was confused. What was his father thinking?
I told you to keep it with you, especially out on the rigs. All the danger involved. I said it might save your life. It might save a life. Her life.
The man took in a ragged breath. He glanced at his wrist. A simple leather cord was wrapped around his wrist, and on it was a single glass bead. It was red and black, shot with streams of gold. It glittered as if he had called its name. Like the saint’s medal hanging at his neck, he wore it because it made his family feel good.
You did a favor for the Noir once, the man thought inanely to his father. She gave you this to call in the favor.
She’s dying. The woman you love is dying. Use the bead.
Other voices joined in. They couldn’t bear his pain. Use it! Use it! Use it!
A lone voice spoke. It was his little sister, Patrice. Oh Dieu, she’ll die if you don’t. We can all feel it. Help her. It doesn’t have to be this way.
The man grappled with the leather cord. He finally took a kitchen knife and sliced under his wrist to get it off. The sharp knife slid over his flesh and opened it, as well. His blood began to trickle down his fingers but he ignored it. Finally, the bead came off the cord, and he held it between his index finger and his thumb.
In the background, he could hear the neighbor telling other people to stay back, that the woman was hurt, and they were waiting for the police and an ambulance. Someone else said something about a riot in the business district. The police were on the site en masse and dozens of people were hurt.
The man dipped the bead into the woman’s blood as she stared at him.
Will it hurt me? she thought.
Non. Non. The Noir has magic. Deep, dark earth magic. It’s the kind of magic that made Goujon, the father of our people. His face twisted into a grimace. He fought to keep doubting thoughts out of his head. If that’s true then why use the nickname the Noir? But he did manage to keep the last hesitant query from the dying woman.
The woman’s face was blanched white. Her stomach was swollen with the blood accumulating there. Only her eye was alive, and she struggled to continue to breathe.
Magic, too? came her wearied astonishment. What other surprises are there?
You’ll have to stick around to see, chère. You have to.
The man crushed the bead between his fingers and said the Noir’s name. Bits of glass and blood trickled down in a stream of multicolored dust.
Red and black lights exploded from his hand. It spiraled about them and put the most elaborate laser show to shame. Bands of crimson and shadows blended and whirled in an electrifying torrent. It died out as the woman closed her eye on a painful sigh.
The man muttered the woman’s name again.
Another voice interfered. It wasn’t a famille voice or anything the man had ever heard before. It was an old voice full of power and the grating menace of one who should not be treated lightly. Bring her to me.
The words resounded in the man’s head like a great hammer was beating on a tremendous anvil.
Bring her to me. Do it now.
The neighbor, oblivious to all, slipped in beside them and passed a blanket to the man. He hadn’t seen the lights, and he helped the man wrap the cloth around the woman’s prone form.
The man didn’t waste any more time. He carefully lifted the woman into his arms and stood. The neighbor, jumping to a conclusion, said, “Yeah, you should drive her to the hospital. It’ll be faster than waiting for them. They said they were all tied up for at least fifteen minutes.”
The man didn’t explain. The neighbor wouldn’t have understood. Instead, he carried the woman to his truck. The people gathered outside the restaurant gasped and called the woman’s name when they saw her. A few prayed. The man arranged her on the bench seat of his truck and got in the other side.
The neighbor said, “What will I tell the police?”
“Tell them I took her to save her life,” the man said and gunned the engine. He turned around in the narrow street and went the wrong way down it, avoiding other cars and pedestrians who narrowly leaped out of his way.
No one seemed to notice that at the first opportunity, the man drove south even while he was on the north side of the Mississippi River.
* * *
The man drove his truck down State Highway 39 barreling past Chalmette and Violet. He frequently glanced at the woman’s still shape. Her head pillowed against his thigh and her arms crossed over her chest, as still as Twilight Lake on a cool, windless morning. She didn’t open her good eye again. She didn’t say anything or move. She hadn’t done anything since the man had smashed the bloodied bead over her body.
He glanced at traffic and at the speedometer. He’d be lucky if a traffic officer didn’t take him down. Saturday nights were always prime opportunity for traffic violations, and some local police relied on the revenue from ticketing. Some towns in Louisiana were known to provide their entire fiduciary budget from moving violations.
The man didn’t care. The truck had a big-block hemi, and the police would have to catch him first. His foot didn’t let up on the pedal. The woman’s name was a desperate whisper that coursed across his cold, dry lips. One hand brushed a lock of blood-soaked hair from her face. She didn’t respond.
Traffic began to die out as he approached the less populated areas. Off to his right the Mississippi began the bottom of its backwards C curve. It would curve back to the south in a mile and straighten out as it made its run to the Gulf of Mexico. The lights of the river traffic revealed its hooked position. To the man’s left was the endless blackness of Terre Beau and Pirogue Bayous, shot with canals made long ago by those making shortcuts to the Gulf. Its wildness was left to the imagination of the night; nothing would pierce the heaviness of its shadows in the heart of midnight.
The man took a heavy breath. The voices of his parents and siblings had faded away, as if the worst of the fear had subsided. But he could feel the tickle of the emotion prodding at his insides, waiting for the right opportunity.
He wanted to hear her thoughts again. Even full of pain and ominous foreboding, hers would be a welcome respite in his brain.
The man glanced down at her lovely face. Even smeared with blood, blanched white underneath the stains, bruised and swollen, he could see the beauty underneath.
What would I do for her?
Before tonight he would have thought just about anything. Now he was aware of the larger picture. If the woman lived, everything had changed. She was his, no matter how it had occurred, no matter that she was an outsider, and just as surely, he was hers.
The signs before him showed an ultimatum. Follow State Highway 39 around the curve of the Mississippi or turn left on State Highway 46 toward the east. Eventually 46 turned south as well, dipping into the marshy bayous along the Gulf, ending up on a sea-swept island.
Where?
Bring her to me, the voice commanded the man again, and the man knew where to go. His truck went down State Highway 46, passing only a few vehicles on their way to homes built on shifting bayou lands that would be eventually claimed by the fickle waves of the Gulf. The businesses out here catered to those who made their livelihoods by the sea; Bayou tours, fishermen, a few refineries, and the odd restaurant. Katrina had swept the area asunder. Her mighty winds had scoured the old growth of the bayous and settled lands, ensuring those who lived here were never complacent again.
The man glanced at the woman again. She was so still, so silent. He put his hand on her chest. He wanted to feel that it was moving, that her heart was still be
ating there.
The cold sweat oozing down his brow was nothing compared to the iciness of her flesh.
Thu-thump.
Thu-thump.
Thu-thump.
The man said a prayer to God, thanking Him for His mercy.
“Hold on, chère,” the man said. “No dancing specter of death for you today. We’ve got lots to live for, you and I, and I don’t intend to let you go.”
The man turned the truck down a narrow, unmarked road. A single lane of asphalt cut away with marshy bayous astride it on each side. The dusky waters stretched away into the bleak darkness of a solitary March night.
Did she move? The man kept his hand on her chest, at just about the curve of her breasts, feeling the faint movement of her beating heart.
It might have been minutes later, but to the man, it felt like hours. Each passing second tore at his soul, stripping it into shreds of doubt and horror. I should have taken her to the hospital. I should have gotten to the restaurant sooner. I should have never left her alone.
His cell phone rang repeatedly. He ignored it. In the distance of the ebony night he saw light. The end of the road was approaching and something awaited them.
A large bonfire roared and rippled in the front of the square of land. It had been built up once upon a time. The edges had been reinforced with levees.
There was a house built on stilts. It wasn’t a large place and it wasn’t fancy. It was meant to outlast the rising waves of a hurricane-forced ocean. It had stood through Katrina and undoubtedly through Opal, Bob, and Camille, as well. Old-growth trees testified to the age of the property. The oaks towered behind the house, blocking out the glittering brilliance of the stars in the skies.
The man slowed his truck.
Men melted in from the shadows, surrounding the truck. Their eyes were blackness personified. They obstructed him from proceeding further.
The man stopped and put the gear into park. He turned the engine off and got out. He ignored the other men as he crossed around to the passenger side. He protectively gathered the woman into his arms and only waited a moment before the silent onlookers gestured in the correct direction.