Colour of Death, The

by Cordy, Michael

  “Yes,” Deva whispered.

  He turned to Maria, who was lying on her back on the amethyst plinth — where Sorcha had lain a short while ago. This wasn’t what he had planned or wanted but it was his only remaining hope. It would at least give him the chance to continue the Great Work. He took strength from the death echoes in the amethyst floor and comfort from the devotion and pride he saw in Maria’s eyes. Unlike Sorcha, Maria and the Wives appreciated the greatness of his work and wanted to help him achieve success. “Are you ready?” he said.

  Maria nodded, eyes bright. “I’m ready.”

  “Then let us begin.”

  * * *

  When Jordache appeared with the two police officers, all three were panting from the climb. Immediately the detective saw Fox he gripped his friend’s shoulder, relief etched on his face, then patted Sorcha on the arm. “Thank God you’re both OK. Nathan, I’m sorry I didn’t believe you when—”

  Fox smiled. “It’s OK. You’re here now.” He extended his hand. “I need a gun.”

  Jordache nodded to one of the officers, who passed Fox his Glock. “Why? What’s going on?”

  “I’ll explain later. Now stand back.” Fox removed the safety, fired at the lock then rammed his shoulder against the door. It took two more bullets and all their weight to break the door open. Sorcha had witnessed and experienced many bizarre events over the last few days but what she saw when she climbed the last few stairs and entered the top chamber would stay with her forever. Even the macabre death echoes that infested the space seemed to recede into the background, as if yielding to the real-time life-and-death drama unfolding before her.

  Maria lay supine on the amethyst plinth. Beside her, the Seer lay on top of Zara, gripped in the final throes of passion. Sorcha could see his pupils rolling back in their sockets, leaving only the whites of his eyes visible. Deva stood behind him, pulling his head back with one hand and holding a knife to his throat with the other. The blade was already slicing into his flesh.

  Visibly shocked by the tableau before him, Jordache raised his gun. “Drop the knife and step away.” Ignoring him, Deva continued to pull the blade across Delaney’s throat until Jordache fired twice into her chest, throwing her backwards. Her knife, however, had already done its work. Blood jetted from Delaney’s severed artery in an orgasm of death. As he fell off Zara and onto the amethyst floor Sorcha saw his lips from a smile of triumph, the curve of his mouth mirroring the curve of the laceration on his throat.

  “No!” Sorcha shouted. She threw herself at her father. “No!”

  * * *

  Still in the throes of sexual ecstasy, Delaney felt no pain, only a euphoric sense of floating free from his physical self. He imagined himself looking down on the carnage within the chamber and merging with the countless death echoes emanating from the violet lotus symbol on the floor. Soon his old body would die and his astral self would transmigrate to its new physical body — that of his own and Maria’s newborn child. He was entering the final stage of the Great Work. His journey to immortality had begun.

  Suddenly, a searing pain jolted his consciousness and he became acutely aware of his physical self. Was the process meant to be this painful? Perhaps he was experiencing the psychic trauma of the crown chakra of his new body? The pain intensified. Perhaps he had already transferred to the infant in the womb and was now being physically born? Was this why we never remembered the moment of our birth, because it was so traumatic? This agony felt more like dying, though. His eyes flickered open and the first thing he saw was his daughter, Sorcha. Her face was pressed close to his and her lips were moving. “It didn’t work. You failed,” she hissed with the whispered urgency of a lover. “Within seconds you’ll be dead. Forever. The Great Work, the murders and all the sick things you did in your life were for nothing.”

  At first he couldn’t understand what she was saying, then he moved his right hand and felt the amulet. It was still around his neck. Raising it to his face, he stared at his bloodstained fingers clasping the ankh, the symbol of eternal life, and realized he was still trapped in his old body. Panic coursed through him. How could this have happened? How could the Great Work have failed? Deva must have made a mistake. She was supposed to kill him and cut the silver cord while he was still out of his body but she must have mistimed the kill. He looked down and saw he was lying in a pool of blood. His old body was bleeding to death. He was bleeding to death. The Great Work was no more. His life and everything he had believed in was over, finished. There would be no immortality. Only extinction. He tried to scream but his strangled cries only quickened the stream of lifeblood pouring from the severed artery in his throat.

  When Sorcha had leapt on her father, she had feared he would die during his orgasmic trance, allowing Delaney to convince himself he was transferring to a new host and his Great Work had succeeded. To her relief, his pupils had returned to normal, signaling the end of his out-of-body experience, while he was still alive.

  Just.

  Now, as she watched the realization of failure dawn on him, she took some satisfaction from seeing his smile fade and the fear flicker in his eyes. Seeing his violet aura dim and watching him die, she felt nothing.

  Fox checked Delaney’s pulse then Deva’s and shook his head. Both were dead. Jordache and the two policemen pulled Zara away from the bodies while Sorcha hurried to help Maria, who lay on the plinth covered in blood, clutching her belly, screaming: “He’s coming. He’s coming.”

  Zara’s eyes widened with wonder and she strained against the policeman’s grip. “It’s a miracle. Let me go to her.”

  “Keep her back,” Fox said, moving to Maria’s side. “Help me, Sorcha.”

  As the policeman constrained Zara, letting Fox and Sorcha tend to Maria, Jordache stared down at Delaney’s bloody body. “What just happened?” he said. “Why did she kill him?”

  “Deva didn’t kill him,” Zara said.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Jordache pointed at Delaney’s body. “She cut his goddamned throat. He’s dead.”

  “The Seer’s not dead,” Zara said, pointing defiantly at Maria. “He’s being reborn.”

  As Maria pushed her baby out into the world Sorcha couldn’t take her eyes off it. In the midst of all the death that surrounded her there was something mesmerizing about watching a new life begin. When it finally emerged, Fox took the baby in his hands and laid it on a pillow on the plinth. Its’ beauty and innocence made Sorcha smile. Then she looked closer and her smile faded and the room began to spin.

  “You OK, Sorcha?” she heard Fox ask, moments before she blacked out.

  Chapter 69

  As dawn approached, Jordache’s men began processing the carnage in the tower while trying to restore order to the rest of the settlement.

  After Sorcha had regained consciousness and Fox had settled her in the Great Hall to recover, Jordache took him to one side. “It’s chaos out there, Nathan. Everyone’s running around like crazies. The cult’s imploding and many of the Indigo Family are looking to Sorcha for guidance. They claim she’s the new Seer. I know it’s a long shot but once she’s recovered perhaps she could talk to them. Just to calm things down.”

  Fox shook his head. “No way. She owes those bastards nothing. They stood by and let her father get away with murder — literally. Delaney would have killed me and raped her and they wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. Hell, they would have applauded. After all she’s been through she needs to get away from the cult and this toxic settlement as soon as possible.”

  “I thought you’d say that, Nathan,” Jordache said. The detective smiled. “Christ, if this is what you do for an ex-patient then I know where to come when I get a problem. Just fill me in on the weird and wonderful things that happened here, then you can both board one of the choppers and get out of it all.”

  “You want the official version or what actually happened?”

  “What actually happened, of course.”

  “Then we
’ll only speak to you. Once. And you need to keep an open mind.”

  Jordache narrowed his eyes. “It’s that bizarre, huh?”

  Over the next two hours, Jordache debriefed Fox and Sorcha on all they knew about Delaney and his cult. When they had finished, the detective, who had seen most things in his line of work, looked shell-shocked. “I’m trying to be as open-minded as I can, Nathan. I really am. But tell me one thing. Apart from the death echoes, what other weird parts of the Great Work were genuine?”

  Fox shook his head. “None of them. Delaney’s cult and the Great Work were based on one flawed core belief: that his unusual synaesthesia meant he was somehow divine and had supernatural powers. Everything flowed from there. He believed in it totally but it was madness.”

  “What about the murders in Portland?”

  “They weren’t part of the Great Work.. They were an act of rebellion, an expression of Kaidan’s inner conflict between his loyalty to his father — the demon he had to serve — and his love for Sorcha — the angel he wanted to save. Kaidan saw the men he killed as surrogates for his father and their victims as surrogates for Sorcha.”

  Jordache studied his notebook then scratched his head. “You’ve given me a lot to check out. And think about. I’d better get on with it.”

  As Fox watched the detective leave the Great Hall, his thoughts turned to Sorcha. Although her memories were finally returning there was no guarantee she would remember everything from her past, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Few of the memories she had from this place were good.

  “How are you feeling, Sorcha?”

  She walked to the door of the Great Hall and looked out at the settlement. “I don’t know how I feel yet. This place contains all my personal history but there’s nothing here I want.” She opened her locket to reveal the photograph inside. “I came back hoping to rediscover who I was but all I’ve discovered about my past life is that it’s rotten and hollow. I’ve no foundations here I want to build on: no family or friends. Nothing.”

  “Then start again, Sorcha. Let me help you.”

  She turned to him. “You sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. We’re in this together now. Come back to Portland. Forget the past, focus on the present and let the future take care of itself.”

  She smiled and closed the locket. “Thank you.”

  As they walked outside, Fox saw the police carrying Maria to one of the helicopters. She lay on a stretcher holding her wrapped-up newborn. Sorcha stared at her then marched over.

  “What are you doing?” Fox asked Sorcha.

  “I want to check the baby.”

  “Why?” Fox had initially assumed Sorcha had blacked out because of the intense and bloody nature of her father’s death but now he realized she had encountered worse death echoes. Something else had tipped her over the edge. “What’s wrong with the baby?”

  “Nothing. I just want to check its color.”

  “I thought all newborns were indigo.”

  “They are. Unless…”

  Fox remembered what Delaney had said. ‘Unless they’re beyond indigo like you and Kaidan?”

  She glanced at him. “And my father.” Before Maria could protest, Sorcha pulled back the wrap, exposing the baby.

  An involuntary shiver ran down Fox’s spine. “What color is it?”

  “It means nothing,” said Sorcha, studying the baby. “I realize that now.”

  “What color is it?”

  “Violet. The baby’s violet.”

  As a rational man Fox knew the baby’s rare aura was an irrelevant coincidence. It was only a question of time before Delaney sired another violet and there was no way the Seer’s spirit had transferred to the infant staring back at him. As he looked at the baby’s blue eyes, however, and noticed how violet they looked in the fading moonlight, he thought of all the strange experiences he had encountered in the tower and for a moment, just a moment, he wondered.

  Chapter 70

  Five days later

  The movements of the chestnut mare beneath Sorcha felt both natural and familiar as she cantered across the emerald grass. They say you never forget how to ride a bicycle. The same evidently applied to horses. She gave a small tug on the reins and the horse turned obediently in the paddock and headed toward the large clapboard house etched white against the flawless blue sky. Closing her eyes she breathed in the smell of horse, leather and cut grass. It felt a million miles away from her father’s cult. If there was a heaven, it might be like this.

  “You want to go back to the house?” said the young girl on the pony beside her.

  Sorcha turned to her cousin and smiled. “Race you, Angela.”

  The girl squealed with delight, kicked her heels and sped off across the paddock, bouncing in her saddle. Sorcha followed. As they neared the house Sorcha could see Nathan and Samantha talking with her uncle Connor on the veranda. It felt good to know she had other family — good family. When her uncle had showed her around the house she had entered the room in which his father — her grandfather — had died and she had sensed the man’s love for Connor as well as his pain. Connor couldn’t have been more welcoming to her, insisting she regard his stud farm as her home.

  Sorcha’s father had hoarded a considerable fortune and once the legalities were finalized she stood to inherit a significant sum. She intended to return part of it to Connor to reinvest in the stud. She regretted not being able to return the family Bible her father had stolen from him. It had disappeared amid the chaos of the collapsing cult, as panicked members of the Indigo Family had scattered. Zara had also disappeared, slipping away from the police and vanishing into the wilderness. Sorcha suspected that Delaney’s Wife had taken the Bible and would never be found. Zara and other members of the cult had lived so long off the grid that there was no official record of their existence.

  Sorcha, however, was about to enter the grid for the first time.

  Samantha waved from the house and she waved back. Sorcha had been staying with Fox’s aunt since returning to Portland and was glad Samantha had agreed to come with them when Fox arranged today’s visit to Sacramento. Because Samantha and his uncle had saved Fox when he had lost his family, Fox seemed to think her uncle would save her — even though she wasn’t a childlike Fox had been and no longer needed saving. Evidently worried about her, Fox had been careful — almost too careful — to give Sorcha enough space to decide what she wanted to do next.

  Fox didn’t seem to appreciate that she was doing fine because of what he had already done for her and taught her. In the same way he had helped her disengage from her death echoes, she had learned to disengage from her painful past. Someone once claimed that ‘we are our memories’ but Fox had taught her this wasn’t true. Memories may inform who we are but they don’t define us. Our choices do that. If Kaidan, who had done unspeakable things, could break out of the prison of his past — however briefly and belatedly — then anyone could. Her past, like a foreign country she had once visited and didn’t much like, no longer concerned her. Her focus now was on the present and the future.

  Another squeal of delight told her that Angela had beaten her back to the house. The excited girl waved at her, jumped off her pony and ran toward the house to tell her father. As Sorcha dismounted and handed the reins to the waiting groom, Fox came down from the veranda. He held a sheaf of papers in his hand. ‘You ride a lot better than I do,” he said.

  “That’s not difficult.”

  He laughed. “You enjoyed it?”

  “Loved it.” She pointed to the papers. “Is that it?”

  “Your uncle’s signed all the identification forms. You just need to sign the passport application and then soon, for the first time in your life, you’ll exist officially.”

  She took the papers from him and was surprised how reassuring she found it to see her name written on the official document. Then she realized it would literally confirm who she was. “Can I sign it now?”

  He passed her
a pen. “It might be more comfortable inside.”

  “I want to sign it now.” She leaned against a fence post. “What’s my signature?”

  “Whatever you decide.”

  As she signed the form she realized it was the first time she could remember writing her name: Sorcha Delaney. “Not only does my name taste good when I hear it, I like the colors of the letters when I write it.”

  “Good.” Fox showed her four passport-size photographs she had sat for yesterday. “We only need two for the application. What do you want to do with the other two?”

  She took one, folded it to fit and then opened her locket. She began removing the faded picture of her past self. Then she stopped, replaced it and put the passport photograph over it. She studied her new self for a moment, then closed the locket.

  Fox stepped back toward the main house. “What do you think of your uncle’s place? You like it here?”

  “Very much.” She looked at him. “But you must understand something, Nathan. I like Connor and his family and they have a lovely home. And I love the fact that I have family who are so normal but — and it’s a big but — I don’t belong here. I know you’re worried about me, Nathan, but you don’t need to be. Not anymore. I don’t know what my future holds, only that I want it to involve two things. The first is the mothú. My death-echo synaesthesia has become such a key part of me that I want to turn it from a curse into a gift. Instead of being scared of it, I wasn’t to harness it’s power and do something useful with it.”

  “And what’s the second?”

  She sighed. God, for a perceptive man he could be incredibly dense. She walked toward him. “You, Nathan.” She moved closer, until they were a foot apart. She half expected him to back away but he didn’t and she felt bolder. “Don’t you see, Nathan? You’ve saved me.” She moved closer. “When I was lost you found me. When I was broken you made me whole again. When I was in danger you came for me.” She moved still closer, until they were touching, his taut body against hers. She looked up and tried to read his blue eyes. “Now it’s my turn.”