“No!” Truth shouted. “Don’t! You’ll make it worse! Don’t give it power!”
Truth’s cry was like a dousing of cold water, washing away anger and disbelief, leaving behind only the fear. With clumsy, untutored instinct Winter tried to draw her anger back into herself, to defeat the serpent that way, by making a still center of quietude in which she could shelter.
But all the effort she could muster wasn’t enough. The creature fed on her, was bound to her, but was not of her. She could not control it.
From the storm outside the lightning flashed, giving Winter a snapshot image of Truth crouched upon the floor by the melted puddle of what once had been one of the candles and its silver holder. She heard Truth cry out, a hoarse, furious sound of pain and rejection.
“Truth!” Dr. Palmer’s voice. There was a high mechanical hum; the laboratory lights flashed as the emergency generators came on-line, and Winter heard a firecracker popping as half the bulbs and fuses in the lab’s equipment blew. But raw electricity sizzled into the copper wire, completing the circuit, and the magnetic field surrounding Truth and Winter snapped into place with the violence of a gunshot.
Now! Winter heard Truth’s voice plead silently within her mind. It was nearly too late. With one last effort Winter struggled with the phantasm, dragging it back from its alliance with the Elemental Truth had summoned.
Refusing to hate.
I see you. I know you for what you are, she told it silently. I won’t dance to your piping.
Without her cooperation, it had no power. Without her consent, it could not act.
Tears oozed slowly down Winter’s cheeks as she stood rigid, eyes closed and hands clenched into fists, exerting all her will neither to act, nor to permit action. Behind her closed lids, she could see Truth win free for long enough to sketch a white fire image in the air.
Winter felt the moment when the Elemental chose not to press the battle further. With all its power, Truth had vexed it; it withdrew, and when the glyph Truth had drawn burned to blackness and vanished, its going closed off the vortex of fear, rage, and pain as absolutely as a slamming door.
It was gone. The Elemental was gone. Winter fell to her knees. Above her, she sensed Dr. Palmer cutting power to the cage, and the weird magnetic tickle over the surface of Winter’s skin ceased.
And there was silence.
SLOWLY WINTER OPENED her eyes. The storm had passed, and the laboratory lights were on, albeit dimly. She heard a mechanical whine as the winch raised the Faraday Cage, freeing them … .
She turned toward Truth.
Just as in her nightmarish vision, the candle—wax and metal base both—was a pool of commingled slag, and Truth was huddled in a heap beside it. As Winter stared, Dr. Palmer ran to Truth, clearing the smudged chalk-mark boundary of the circle with a leap, and cradled her in his arms.
“Truth! Are you—?”
“I’m all right,” Truth croaked unconvincingly. She tried to push herself upright against him, and her hands left bloody prints on Dylan Palmer’s shirt. Truth shook her head as if to clear it, and Winter watched in horror as a shower of fine blood drops sprayed from her mouth. “Fine,” she said again, as Dr. Palmer drew her gently to her feet.
“You are not fine!” he scolded fiercely. “For God’s sake—”
“Not that god,” Truth corrected him thickly. “Winter?”
“I’m all right,” Winter said, though she was chilled and drained of all energy. “Better than you are,” she added bluntly. Truth’s face was green-pale; her hands and mouth were as bloody as if she’d crawled across a field of broken glass and then tried to eat some.
Truth shook her head again, coughing. “I don’t—” she began, then, “Dylan, get me—”
“All right,” Dr. Palmer said soothingly. “It’s okay, honey. Everything’s under control.”
He led Truth over to the chair that Winter had sat in only yesterday, and picked up a Thermos from a nearby table. Winter followed him, worried about Truth, and saw Dr. Palmer pour a cup full of a thick dark-purple liquid that smelled honey-sweet even at this distance.
“You should probably have some, too,” Dr. Palmer told Winter, while wrapping Truth’s fingers around the cup. Truth slugged the drink straight back and coughed again, but she had a little more color in her cheeks. She reached for the towel that Dr. Palmer had laid by and wiped her hands and face, leaving bloody smears on the white terry cloth.
“Welcome to the glamour world of statistical parapsychology,” Truth said dryly. Dr. Palmer handed a second cup of the mixture to Winter.
“What is it?” Winter said.
“First aid for psychics: It’s sweet wine mixed half and half with raw honey,” Dr. Palmer said. “The alcohol shuts down the psychic centers and the sugar replaces energy.”
“It’s horrible,” Truth added dolefully, and Winter, dutifully drinking her cupful down, had to agree: The mixture was gaggingly sweet, and the wine probably came out of a screw-top bottle. But she felt better after drinking it and she could see that Truth, drinking a second cup more slowly, did, too. Slowly the jangled, exposed-nerve sensation that seemed to hang in the very air faded.
“Okay,” Truth said a few minutes later. “What happened here tonight. Dylan?” She seemed to have stopped bleeding, and, looking closely, Winter could not see where the blood could have come from, though there were still dried smears of it on Truth’s hands and mouth. Though the sight should have terrified, or at least revolted, her, Winter remained curiously unaffected, as dispassionate as if she were merely a surgeon watching a new procedure being demonstrated.
Was this what she had been once, in her college days? Someone like Truth?
“I lowered the cage and powered it up,” Dr. Palmer said, in answer to Truth’s prompting. “Winter was sitting in the chair, you were walking clockwise around the inside perimeter of your circle.” He stopped, frowning, and thought hard. “You walked around a second time—oh, the usual gestures and so on,” he added, and Truth snorted affectionately, “and then the circuit breakers all blew and you told me to go get the power back up.”
Winter started to protest, but Truth shushed her with a raised hand. “And then?” Truth said.
“I think I was downstairs about five minutes—I flipped the circuit breakers but nothing came back up, and it took me a couple of tries to get the backup generator started. When I got back up here, you were on the floor and Winter was standing; the chair had been knocked over.”
Winter, surprised, looked back toward the circle. The chair was indeed lying on its back, though she didn’t remember it falling over. She shivered; the laboratory suddenly seemed very cold.
“What about the equipment?” Truth asked, wiping her mouth again before taking another drink.
Dylan shrugged and laughed shortly. “Let’s see what we get. The polybarometer didn’t even know there was a storm going on outside, so it’s probably a wash.”
“And you didn’t see anything?” Truth went on. Winter envied the other woman her composure.
“Other than the basement?” Dr. Palmer asked jokingly. “I’m not really sure. Phenomena consistent with a Class Two haunting—the railway-train sound, coldness, vertigo, disorientation. Other than that? I don’t even know what I think I saw.” He shrugged.
“What about you, Winter?” Truth asked.
Winter steeled herself. There was more than one time and place and way to oppose all that the serpent stood for, now that she had seen her enemy clearly at last. “I’m not sure about the right words to use for this sort of thing. I remember Dr. Palmer turning on the cage—I don’t remember hearing you tell him to turn the lights back on, though. You did whatever you did with the four candles and the animals—” Only belatedly did Winter realize that she couldn’t have seen all that she thought she had. The red pillar was directly behind her—and how did she know it was red? The candles in all four of the holders had been white.
“And then?” Truth prompted. “Don’t wo
rry if what you think you saw happen sounds Impossible—”
“It did happen,” Winter said stubbornly. “But it sounds so stupid—I watched you draw pictures in the air and throw them into the pillars—there were pillars—and I—And something—I knew you shouldn’t call it, but it was too late, and everything went out.”
“It sure did,” Dylan said. He walked back to the circle, stooped, and held up a dinner plate–sized splodge of wax and silver. “I think you’re going to have to get these recast, darling.”
“Later, Dylan,” Truth said briefly. “Do you remember anything after that, Winter?”
“You told me not to help it,” Winter said, slowly, “and I realized that part of its power came from me—that you couldn’t keep it out while I was inside the circle.”
“Something I should have thought of myself,” Truth said ruefully. “And after I’d gone and said that you’d be safe, too.”
Winter shook her head; the danger hadn’t been Truth’s fault, but hers—and Truth had paid in full measure for any rash promises she might have made.
“It hated … it was hate.” Unconsciously Winter put her hand over her heart, as if denying expression to something still inside her. “But I don’t think it wanted to kill me.” Not kill, no, but something far worse, for when the mind, the self is gone, what can it matter that the body still lives?
“No,” Truth said. “It wasn’t here to kill. There was something else it wanted from you.” She took a deep breath. “I can’t do what I said I could, Winter; I’m sorry. I could try to call it again—”
“No,” Winter and Dylan said in unison.
“—but I think I’d have even worse luck than I did this time, even ready for it. I was expecting a doppelganger or one of the Lesser Elementals …” Truth’s voice trailed off; she seemed to be looking inward. “What I can’t understand is how; that Circle was broken fifteen years ago—”
“Sweetheart, you aren’t making a lot of sense,” Dylan said.
Truth ran a hand through her short dark hair and winced as if her hands still hurt, unmarked though they were.
“All magical systems have a signature—like an artist’s style: Wiccan, Christian, Rosicrucian, Golden Dawn; each leaves its own distinctive mark on the magic it makes. For someone very familiar with a particular school of magic, even the lodge—or coven—using the system can be told; sort of like telling Picasso’s blue period from his late period, and so on.
“Well, it’s no secret to anyone that I know a good bit about the Blackburn Work, and the damnedest thing …” Truth’s voice trailed off again, and Winter saw her rouse herself, making an effort to say something that would make sense to them.
“What came to me tonight wasn’t a true Elemental at all. It was an artificial Elemental—what some schools call a magickal child—something created out of a magician’s life force, and sent to perform a task somewhere its creator can’t or won’t go. They’re easy enough to create; this one was created by someone trained in the Blackburn Work and sent to Winter, and since she’d worked in a Blackburn Circle I thought she might know who …”
“A magician!” Winter burst out in disbelief. “I don’t know any magicians—and I don’t want to, either!”
“Well a magician knows you,” Truth said shortly, “and if I were you I’d find out who it is, and what he wants.”
“Can’t you just—well—make it go away?” Winter begged, hating herself for asking, when the first attempt to help had nearly killed Truth.
Truth shook her head, and Dylan put a comforting arm around her shoulder. “It’s always going to come back. Throwing up a barrier powerful enough to keep it away from you would probably kill you, and would certainly kill me—Blackburn magic is tied to the living world and needs life to power it. Living energy. Sometimes even blood.”
“Which is why it keeps killing things,” Winter guessed despairingly. And why Truth’s hands and mouth had bled.
“It’s using the power generated by those deaths to stay in the realm of manifestation—the earth-plane—the world,” Truth said. “The fact that it’s taking larger and larger lives at increasingly frequent intervals worries me; it must need the power for something—but what is it doing with it? So far it’s only attacked wild animals, but if it tries for humans, for children—or pets, domestic animals linked to humankind …” Truth was almost mumbling now, keeping her eyes open by an effort of will that Winter could recognize.
“You’ve got to get some rest,” Dr. Palmer urged. “I’ll take both of you back to my place and then come back and clean up here.”
Only now did Winter take a good look around the laboratory. Every flat surface glittered with broken glass from the shattered windows, giving the entire lab a grotesque Christmas-card sparkle. If the chairs she and Truth sat in had been anywhere near a window, they too would have been covered with broken glass.
“Winter, will you stay with her?” Truth made an annoyed sound but Dylan continued. “I’ve got a guest bedroom, and I don’t really want to think of either of you alone tonight.”
DYLAN PALMER OWNED an old white-painted wood frame house on a quiet residential street in Glastonbury. It was a part of town that Winter could tell had been open fields not so many years ago, and the old farmhouse looked faintly out of place among the modern tract housing. Winter had gone along with Dr. Palmer’s insistence that she accompany Truth—more for Truth’s sake than her own—but after Truth was settled and sleeping and he had driven back to the Institute, Winter went out onto the porch and sat on the railing, staring out into the night.
What did it all mean? The unanswerable vagueness of the question made her smile ruefully. Where to begin? Was the beginning the place where her life had stopped with a crash—or after that? When she’d decided to seek out her own truths—or when she realized what they were?
It’s in me. Not the power that had nearly killed both her and Truth tonight—and which would kill her if she could not manage to accept its unbelievable reality—but the other. The force that stopped watches and drained car batteries and knocked pictures off of the mantelpiece. That was part of her—the part that called to the—what was it Truth had called It?—that called to the magickal child.
Winter held her hand out, palm up, and regarded it dubiously. She tried not to care that she might be on her way to becoming a deluded spoon-bending crank—no, that wasn’t right. She wasn’t deluded, and what she had to try not to care about was suddenly being forced to live in a world where this sort of unreasonable fairy tale was real. Where telepathy coexisted with magic, where invisible entities could walk through walls, where the faint electrical pulses of the human nervous system could become lightning powerful enough to …
To blow out a car’s electrical system, at the very least. Poor Nina—that was my fault. I hope I can find some way to make her let me pay for it … .
Thinking this way was stupid, a reptilian inner voice assured her. It was magical thinking—megalomania—disassociative delusional conditions characteristic of the borderline schizophrenic state. Believing in these intangible things was not normal. It was not healthy. It was not sane.
Then I won’t be sane, Winter decided with despairing clarity. I can’t afford to be. The price is too high.
Clinging to the safety of what she had always believed would only free the hatred that lived beneath her skin to do as it pleased. In order to make a conscious choice to stop it, she had to believe in the serpent, and if she believed in it, she had to believe in everything its existence implied: that an unseen world existed side-by-side with their own, where Grey Angels walked the Taconic hills and ghost ships sailed the Hudson. That in that world, things like telepathy and poltergeists were real.
“Choose,” Winter told herself. And don’t snivel about it afterward. And don’t look back.
Believe.
Believe as she had once, when she was a girl on the threshold of life, and anything had seemed possible. Before she had known that all the possib
ilities dangled before her eyes led only to grief and disappointment.
Winter sighed and stretched, rising to her feet. She walked back inside the house and went into the bedroom where Truth lay sleeping in Dylan’s bed, dark smudges of exhaustion like moth-wings under her eyes.
I cannot disbelieve, Winter told herself. If this is madness—delusion—hypocritical self-indulgence—then so be it. I think I’ve come about as far as rationality can take me.
And I think I know where I have to go next.
SATISFIED THAT TRUTH would sleep on uninterrupted, Winter called for a cab to take her back to her car and took the time to scribble a note to Dr. Palmer. She knew he hadn’t wanted her to be alone tonight, but she wondered if he’d really understood what Truth had said: that this magickal child was coming for her.
Why?
That was the question everyone ought to be asking, Winter thought as she waited on the steps for the cab. Assume magic, assume magicians—if that was what they were called—why would a magician be sending monsters after her?
“If he wanted to send a message, why didn’t he just use Western Union?” she asked herself crossly, just as the cab pulled up.
WINTER PAID the cab off in the college parking lot—her new Saturn was in guest parking, and Dr. Palmer would be using the faculty section, so there was little danger of running into him. Winter didn’t know how long it would take him to clean up the lab—considering the mess it had been in, she wondered how he thought he could possibly do it alone—but she was fairly sure that clean-up efforts would keep him busy for a few hours, and she could be home at Greyangels before he knew she was gone. But Winter stood in the empty parking lot after the cab had driven away, making no move to unlock her car and go.
It was close to midnight; the spring night was chilly and she was glad for the warmth of her wool-lined Burberry trench coat. Only the hiss of the wind through the pines and the reproachful wail of a northbound freight train on the other side of the river broke the silence. How long had it been since she had stood anywhere like this, relaxed and open to the world around her? For as long as Winter could remember she’d been running—running to get somewhere, running to stay in the same place. Even her fun had been frenetic—weekend jaunts to London, to L.A., to wherever there had been people and noise and parties that had in themselves been another form of war.
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