‘Mm.’ The brown block, varnished with gold, glinted in the dim light – a sign that she’d accepted her condition. Anna clasped her hands over the shawl that Lorenzo wrapped around her shoulders, and she was as a nun lying in state.
She’s peaceful. You shouldn’t do this. A cone-shaped aura suggested her soul was ready to shift its energy into the heavens at a moment’s notice. My heart raced. Was it really my place to intervene? I felt the dread and grief rolling from the shadows behind me, urging me on. Lorenzo had brought Anna to the brink of death by giving her his blood, an unintentional act that had been meant in kindness. Was it fair to ask him to live with her premature death? Something like that could send the sanest person over the edge, let alone a troubled young vampire like him. If I refused to heal Anna, I’d be baptising Lorenzo with the unholy water of the varmint myself. If I didn’t help him, what would stop him turning into Malachi?
Here goes. I opened my chakras one by one, starting at the base of my spine, moving past my solar plexus and heart, through my throat, and onto various points on my head. There were thirteen spinning wheels of colour to ignite in total, almost double the number used by sapiens. Using magic required extra energy portals to channel the essence from the Lífkelda, the source of magic, controlled by me, the Gatekeeper. Sapiens downloaded essence like dial-up modems. Pneuma, however, possess a super, fibre-optic connection. And I’m plugged into the heart of Yggdrasil itself.
With all those mad balls of fire swirling and pumping, I felt like a circus act. Concentrate. I gathered the coloured orbs in my hands and compressed them into a giant sphere in my chest, the green hues of my heart chakra nourishing a myriad of beautiful colours, birthed from my imagination. Twilight blue, rose pinks, amber and amethyst, silver, gold, ruby reds, and turquoise. I pulled back and snap, it shot out, a slingshot of healing energy into Anna’s aura.
Triumphant, I waited. My elation faded as the light slid off her, her chakras leaking as if I’d pumped water onto a glob of oil. I tried the experiment three times, with only a slight improvement. She’d be long dead by the time we got anywhere. And time was what none of us had. My father was probably getting dressed by now – if he’d slept at all – waiting to come and visit me at the hospital.
‘Water. Food. Now.’ Speaking threatened my concentration. Thankfully, Lorenzo didn’t argue, and the bedroom door clicked shut behind him as he returned from the kitchen with a pint glass and a pack of biscuits, the best he could do, he claimed.
The sugar rush helped. It helped me not to vomit as I scooped the energy from my body like ice cream from a tub, force-feeding Anna with life force, raking it over the length of her torso. A chilling groan escaped from her throat. Jean-Ashley leapt towards me. ‘He’s hurting her,’ she shrieked, and I was truly sorry for her, for what I was doing. Lorenzo’s ensnaring arms prevented her from launching a full assault.
‘Theo, hurry up.’
‘I’m freakin’ trying!’
I faced Anna again. Only, something else stared back at me with blazing eyes of white fire, hovering over the dying woman like a demonic goddess. Her daemon.
A daemon, an exulted twin that acted as a guardian spirit, hiding behind a sensory curtain, smoothing our passage through life by sleight of hand. Nikolaj claimed that we’re all born with a daemon – the Romans called it a genius, to be celebrated once a year on our birthday. A nice fable, I’d countered, but I never believed in angels – or devils – that rode on shoulders like parasitic bodyguards. Just another creature revived from mythology by Uncle’s overactive imagination.
Round one to Nikolaj.
‘Cease, warlock,’ the thing said, and the command hit me with a gale-force blast. The daemon echoed Anna’s comely figure and dirty-blonde hair, but its blazing eyes shook my own guardian angel from its slumber, even if my Gatekeeper did little ‘guarding’ of late – as far as I was concerned, it was downright responsible for all of the pain I’d suffered.
The daemon reared back, recognising the crackle of electricity sparking over my body, and I could see the reflection of my opal eyes glittering in hers.
‘You’re glowing,’ whispered Lorenzo, the colour draining from his cheeks, looking whiter than ever.
I considered my move, squaring my shoulders to face the daemon, ignoring Lorenzo. ‘No, I won’t stop. I’m going to heal her.’
‘Who are you talking to?’
I waved Lorenzo back. ‘Don’t interrupt.’
‘The cancer is terminal.’ The daemon floated above the headboard, crouching over Anna’s body, barring me from accessing her aura.
‘Not anymore. Don’t you want to live? What about Jean-Ashley, your daughter?’ Right on cue, Lorenzo’s girlfriend started sobbing, and I wondered if on some level she could feel – if not hear – the conversation. Anna was her mother – her blood – after all. Sapiens sometimes sensed the needs of loved ones when separated by continents. Intuition is their gateway to magic.
The daemon seemed to shrink, forlorn. ‘Our time has passed. We are expected.’
‘By whom?’
‘Fate.’
‘I can change it.’
‘Grow up, young warlock. It’s not your place. Saving us will not bring back your mother.’
How does she know? Nikolaj had said daemons are semi-divine, and they remember the soul’s true spiritual heritage and have access to information beyond that of the earthly personality. Her knowledge frightened me. If she could see what and who I was, if she understood my history, then anyone’s daemon, sapien, Pneuma, or varmint, potentially could reveal my identity as a Gatekeeper, if that person could access theirs. If daemons were semi-divine, would they, could they, risk the fate of the world by revealing that information? Did it matter to them? I filed it away to investigate at a later date. After being tortured, I felt pretty motivated to repair any chinks in my armour.
‘But it will save Jean-Ashley’s mother. It will save David’s wife. It will save Lorenzo from the guilt of helping you to die.’
‘Only the living mourn the dead, warlock. Death is the natural order of things, the how and when is immaterial.
‘Tell that to Raphael,’ I said, but it fell on deaf ears. He seems perfectly immune to the laws of nature. But even Anna’s daemon knew nothing of him. She twisted in the air and gazed at the corner of the ceiling, motionless. The bedroom seemed brighter for a moment, as if a broad ray of sunlight had broken through, ready to collect this soul and draw it into its warm embrace.
‘No!’ I shouted, and lunged at the spirit, grabbing it with hands that belonged to me but weren’t made of flesh. The gauzy fingers of my own immortal form held the daemon firm, while with my physical arms, I encircled Anna, so limp, and directed the bubbling colours into her heart, into her skull, sucking out the cancer as if the network of tumours were weeds to be ripped out of soil. I hadn’t anticipated that I would act as a vacuum, drawing the disease into my own brain.
‘Life for a life!’ screamed Anna’s guardian, as it plunged back into the frail flesh it had tried so hard to escape. ‘You will suffer the consequences!’
And boy, did I suffer.
I staggered and fell to my knees, an atomic crack blasting through my head. The agony left me blind and speechless, unable to comprehend neural networks shredding. Gasping, trapped in an endless death, the disease strangled my brain. It made the torture I’d survived something to wish for, like a swim on a hot day. Oh how I longed to have to deal with such trifles. Thoughts scrambled into overcooked egg. The sudden cancer erased all sense of inner unity. I needed to send it into the purifying forces of Jörð to burn it up, but there was nothing left but raw, sensory awareness: I couldn’t do anything.
The earthquake started in my ribs, and the Gatekeeper’s essence ruptured out of its cage of bone, flinging itself into the sky. I heard the roof-tiles catapult upwards, clanging down onto the street outside. A scream as Lorenzo tackled his girlfriend to the floor, shielding her from the debris falling through the roof, a
s if the rocketing magic had left a sparking trail behind it. Several objects struck me on the back as I buried my head on the floor. Above, the sky broke, matching the explosion in my body.
The lamp flickered and died, the rain stabbing at us like countless ice needles. Thunder tore the sky apart, the sounds splintering in my ears as I vomited over the floor. I was that thing wreaking havoc over Hellingstead, and I was Theo, a cancer-riddled husk.
A life for a life.
But the amulet was sitting in Father’s study. The great magical whirlpool had nowhere to go, and it came plummeting down, breaking bones as it crashed back into my body. Being run over by a train would have been preferable.
‘Christ, Theo.’ Lorenzo’s hands pressed into my neck, feeling for a pulse. I didn’t need to be a vampire to know the goo he was smudging from my ears and tear ducts was blood as I had a seizure. I watched it from a disembodied state, my own daemon looking down at the broken wreck on the carpet. It was an absurd sight, about as graceful as a fish flopping about on a deck, gasping for air. Lorenzo was doing his impression of a vampire bat, flapping around, cussing. ‘I can’t fucking heal him! I can’t. It will make it worse.’
The film broke, and I lost them, as darkness consumed me.
32
Rolling In His Grave
‘Why isn’t Mum waking up?’
‘Jean, she’ll be okay. Where’s your mobile?’
Jean-Ashley tucked the quilt back into the sides of the bed. ‘I don’t know. In my room. Lorenzo, what’s going on? What’s wrong with him?’
‘Forget it. There’s no time.’ Theo was breathing, but it was so faint that Lorenzo couldn’t say whether anyone but a vampire could detect it. His strength made throwing Theo over his shoulder a breeze, but the bulk was awkward to carry. ‘Stay with your mum,’ he said, ‘stay by her side, okay?’
His girl nodded, her bum-length ponytail damp from the leaky roof. That was some fucking storm. I’m sorry, Theo. I got you into this mess. He had to get Theo to the people who could save him. Espen, the man who’d held a stake over his back because he’d trespassed, hunting for Raphael. How many Hail, Mary’s would he need to recite to escape being staked this time?
Hoisting Theo higher, Lorenzo rushed to the sash-window, eased open for fresh air. Something caused him to pause, to look at Jean-Ashley as she huddled on the bed with her mother, who still hadn’t regained consciousness. A woman, a rare flower, crumpling. That’s what she was. That’s what he had done to her. A first love that crumbled into dust. His lust had destroyed them. His hunger threatened her. His blood had brought her mother to her end.
The hunter in him was satisfied. Malachi was right; he should kill her or leave her. Like an angry and lonely child, he had felt compelled to stamp out her light, crush her brightness underfoot. I will not be my dad. He took aim at the brick wall running along the back of the house, and jumped. Goodbye, my angel, he whispered, Forget about me. I’m not worthy.
I woke up on hard rock, hot as burning coals. I sat back, instantly struck by the vision of two goddesses weaving in an endless cave. One, bluebells and daisies twined into her golden tresses, roped flowers from a loom into garlands. She had spun her own dress from this material, and an infinite variety of the blossoms decorated the gloomy expanse. The other, skin ebony black with spots of blue, wove a writhing net of souls over her knees with a spider’s grace.
‘Dear Hecate – or is it Hel they call you now? Oh, I get so confused. Don’t you weary of that attire? The threads are always moving. How it must chafe!’
‘When men stop striving and the planets stop spinning, I shall cast Fate aside for a silkier material. We can’t all spend half our lifespan roaming the earth for inspiration.’
‘Oh, but you, dear Dark One, do not have to tolerate the affections of Hades! Such a bore! It’s a wonder my blossoms don’t wilt and die from lack of appreciation.’
The black goddess laughed, and the cave rumbled. I couldn’t help wonder if it had caused an earthquake somewhere. ‘Persephone, the drama Queen of the Underworld!’
Oh fuck. I thought. Oh fucking fuck. Mythological drama-queens are just what I need.
Then, Hey, I’m thinking again!
‘Am I dead?’
Jörð, I could be an idiot sometimes. The goddesses froze and whipped their giant, scary faces at me. Hecate glanced down at her net. ‘Clearly not, Gatekeeper. We would not be weaving if you were!’
‘Quite!’ shrieked Persephone, pouting and frowning in a way that made her so divine, ‘We’d be fighting oblivion!’
I slid back, edging away, to where I had no idea. ‘Halt,’ commanded Hecate – or as Persephone had pointed out, Hel, a familiar goddess of my religion – and I did, through no volition of my own. ‘What a handsome soul. Sit by us, Life’s Fire, warm us.’
‘Thanks, but it’s already very hot in here, don’t you think? I better get going, let you get back to your weaving.’
In a blink, I was sitting by the loom, nudged by statuesque feet that looked as if they’d been carved from mountain rock. Persephone gathered my hair, knotting it into rope. ‘This would make a lovely tassel for my dress. Hades has such brittle hair. He had divine locks once, before it was wilted by this infernal place.’
‘I don’t think that’s real hair… Your Highness,’ I said. ‘If I’m not dead as you claim, then my body remains located on Earth, which means I’m only half-here. My hair is a phantom projection of my mind.’
Persephone seemed disappointed on some profound level beyond my understanding. ‘A pity. It’s fine enough against my skin.’ She pushed me, letting the curls fall away. I did not retaliate. This lady was seriously unstable, her fingers quivering with insanity, intensifying the stuffy heat around us. ‘You may go, I suppose. Once you retrieve what you came for. The Underworld is not simply a limbo between life and death, pretty warlock, it is where a soul can find what it seeks.’
A black lake replaced the ground where I had awoken, the glistening surface a shadow stretching into infinity, hovering in my periphery. Ominous, I thought, and an etheric ripple of energy shuddered through my near-weightless body.
Then I saw Anna. A lantern illuminated her frightened face, bobbing along with the motion of the fisherman’s boat she sat in.
‘Your hair for her soul, Gatekeeper.’
‘What will you do with it?’
‘Spin it! Thread it! Wear it!’ the goddesses chimed together, cackling in harmony. It reminded me of Penny, the way she laughed. ‘It’s no concern of yours! Your hair for her soul!’
Anna reached out, imploring me with a silent scream. What if it’s an apparition? What if it’s a trick? She could be waking up in her bed right now, fully healed.
The goddesses decided to let on that they could read my thoughts perfectly easily, thank you very much. There was little divide between the mind and the outer world of the spirit. How easily I’d forgotten what Father had taught me.
Hecate placed a crystal ball in my hands, the glass cool and cloudy. When I gazed at it, the haze cleared, revealing Jean-Ashley dressed in black, hunched over her mother’s grave, a single rose stem in her hand.
‘The future if you do not intervene, warlock,’ Hecate / Hel said. ‘The glass never lies. Your spell is not yet complete. A bargain must be made to rewrite fate. I possess the power over the Crossroads of Destiny. Give us your hair if you wish me to re-weave hers.’
What’s the worst that could happen? I thought. There were about a billion reasons for me to do some serious back-pedalling but I couldn’t abandon Anna to that boat, that hollow ocean. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘but only three strands, enough to make one plait.’
‘Deal,’ they said in unison. A rumble shook the rock. Faust rolling in his grave no doubt.
Carrying Theo over his shoulder was one thing, transporting him at near super-sonic speed over the rooftops of Hellingstead was another. Lorenzo was testing a theory he had so far kept to himself that unlike Malachi – and as far as he understoo
d, Michele –, he could tolerate the sun’s rays. The ticks of the clock were like biceps curling, flexing its muscles fully by noon. He’d busted Theo and Anna out of the hospital at dawn. He still had time.
Dawn and dusk were bookends on his day, a time he had to himself. The coven often slept in after the night’s rituals and sacrifices, and Malachi at sunrise was about as friendly as a hungover bear. Lorenzo could cope with the incessant itching on exposed skin, and even the sensitive vision. Still, he hadn’t pushed himself this far before.
The sloppy grid of the town moved around him, as if he were the axis on which it spun, his internal compass leading him to the front gate of Hellingstead Hall. He pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose – they had slid during the journey – as he fumbled for the ringer on the side of the gate. The gargoyles loomed in shadow, the core of Lorenzo’s vision too bright, like an overexposed photograph.
As he waited for an answer, he got the worst suntan of his life. Come on, come on. ‘I can’t believe I’m so impatient to meet my end,’ he muttered, dreading Espen’s inevitable rage and the threat literally plastered next to the gate. He was surprised when he heard a different voice over the intercom, accompanied by the strange accent he couldn’t place. It must be Theo’s uncle.
‘Yes? State your name and your business.’
‘It’s a long fucking story, okay? I have Theo, he’s comatose. I swear I didn’t do anything.’
Nikolaj appeared instantaneously on the other side of the iron gate, clocking Theo. The bars parted before the Elf as if he were Moses dividing the Red Sea.
‘Tell me exactly what happened.’
33
The Satyr’s Portal
The Descendants of Thor Trilogy Boxset: Forged in Blood and Lightning; Norns of Fate; Wrath of Aten Page 24