Jesus, Gideon. That’s not what I asked. I’m about ready to tell him I expected a better answer when he says, “But from what you’ve told me, this girl has had her share of torment. If I were cast as her judge, I couldn’t condemn her to more.”
“Thank you, Gideon,” I say, and he bites his tongue on the rest. None of us know what’s going to happen tonight. There’s a weird sensation of unreality, laced with denial, like it’s never going to happen, it’s so far away, when the time remaining is measurable in hours. How can it be that in that small space of time, I could see her again? I could touch her. I could pull her out of the dark.
Or send her into the light.
Shut up. Don’t complicate things.
We walk side by side to the kitchen. Carmel has stayed true to her word and has broken at least one dish. I nod at her, and she blushes. She knows it’s petty, and that it doesn’t make an ounce of difference to the Order if she breaks twelve entire place settings. But these people make her feel powerless.
When we eat it’s surprising just how much we manage to put away. Gideon whips up some hollandaise and assembles some wicked eggs Benedict with a heaping side of sausage. Jestine broils six of the biggest, reddest grapefruits I’ve ever seen, with honey and sugar.
“We should keep as many eyes trained on the Order as we can,” says Thomas between bites. “I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them. Carmel and I can keep tabs while we help prepare the ritual.”
“Make sure to put in a call to your grandfather as well,” says Gideon, and Thomas looks up, surprised.
“Do you know my grandfather?”
“Only by reputation,” Gideon replies.
“He already knows,” says Thomas, looking down. “He’ll have the entire voodoo network on standby. They’ll be watching our backs from their side of the world.”
The entire voodoo network. I chew my food quietly. It would have been nice to have Morfran in my corner. It would have been like having a hurricane up my sleeve.
* * *
In observation of Carmel’s rebellion, we left the kitchen a complete disaster. After we got ourselves cleaned up, Gideon took Thomas and Carmel to meet with the Order members. Jestine and I decided to walk the grounds, to nose around and maybe just to kill time.
“They’ll be coming for one or the other of us before long,” I say as we walk the edge of the tree line, listening to the trickling whisper of a stream not far off.
“For what?” Jestine asks.
“Well, to instruct us on the ritual,” I reply, and she shakes her head.
“Don’t expect too much, Cas. You’re just the instrument, remember?” She snags a twig off a low-hanging branch and pokes me in the chest with it.
“So they’re just going to shove us through blind and hope we’re good at winging it?” I shrug. “That’s either stupid, or really flattering.”
Jestine smiles and stops walking. “Are you scared?”
“Of you?” I ask, and she grins. There’s early adrenaline coursing through both of us, springy tension in our muscles, tiny, silver fish darting through my capillaries. When she swings her twig at my head, I see it coming a mile away and trip her up with my toe. Her response is a crisp elbow at my head and a laugh, but her moves are serious. She’s practiced and fluid; well trained. She’s got counters I haven’t seen before, and when she catches me in the gut I wince, even though she’s pulling her punches. But I still knock her backward and block more than she lands. The athame is still in my pocket. This isn’t half of what I can do. Without it, though, we’re almost an even match. When we stop our pulses are up and the adrenaline twitch is gone. Good. It’s annoying when it doesn’t have anywhere to go, like waking up from a nightmare.
“You don’t have much of a problem hitting girls,” she says.
“You don’t have much of a problem hitting boys,” I reply. “But this isn’t real. Tonight will be. If you leave me on the other side, I’m as good as dead.”
She nods. “The Order of the Biodag Dubh was entrusted with a duty. You corrupt it by bringing back a dead murderess.”
“She’s not a murderess anymore. She never really was. It was a curse.” What’s so hard to understand about that? But what did I expect? You can’t rinse the cult off a person in only a couple of days. “What do you know about this anyway? And I mean really know. What have you seen? Anything? Or do you just swallow what you’re told?”
She glares at me resentfully, like I’m being unfair. But she’s probably going to try to kill me, and kill me righteously, so eff you very much.
“I know plenty.” She smiles. “You might take me for a mindless drone, but I learn. I listen. I investigate. Far more than you do. Do you even know how the athame functions?”
“I stab. Things go away.”
She laughs and mutters something under her breath. I think I catch the phrase “blunt instrument.” Emphasis on the “blunt.”
“The athame and the other side are linked,” she says. “It comes from there. That is how it functions.”
“You mean it comes from Hell,” I say. In my pocket, the athame shifts, like its ears were pricked at the subject.
“Hell. Abbadon. Acheron. Hades. The other side. Those are just names that people call the place where dead things go.” Jestine shakes her head. Her shoulders slump with sudden exhaustion. “We don’t have much time,” she says. “And you’re still looking at me like I’m going to steal your lunch money. I don’t want you dead, Cas. I’d never want that. I just don’t understand why you want the things that you do.”
Maybe it’s the minor scuffle we just had, but her fatigue is contagious. I wish she wasn’t mixed up in this. Despite everything, I like her. But you know what they say about wishing in one hand. She moves closer, and her fingers trace the line of my jaw. I take them away, but gently.
“Tell me about her, at least,” she says.
“What do you want to know?” I ask, and look off into the trees.
“Anything,” she shrugs. “What’s made her so special? What made you so special to her, that she’d send herself into oblivion for you?”
“I don’t know,” I say. Why did I say that? I do know. I knew it the moment I heard Anna’s name, and the first time she spoke. I knew when I walked out of her house with my insides still on the inside. It was admiration, and understanding. I’d never known anything like it, and neither had she.
“Well, tell me what she looked like then,” Jestine says. “If we’re going to bleed to death looking for her, I’d like to know who we’re looking for.”
I reach into my pocket for my wallet and fish out the newspaper photo of Anna when she was alive. I hand it to Jestine.
“She’s pretty,” she comments after a few moments. Pretty. That’s what everyone says. My mom said it, and so did Carmel. But when they said it, it sounded like a lament, like it was a shame that such beauty was lost. When Jestine said it, it sounded derisive, like it was the only nice thing she could think of to say. Or maybe I’m just being defensive. Whatever it is, I hold my hand out for the picture and put it back in my wallet.
“It doesn’t do her justice,” I say. “She’s fierce. Stronger than any of us.”
Jestine shrugs, a “whatever” move. My hackles rise another few inches. But it doesn’t matter. In a few hours, she’ll see Anna for herself. She’ll see her dressed in blood, her hair floating like it’s suspended in water, eyes black and shining. And when she does, she won’t be able to catch her breath.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Jestine was wrong. The Order did show up to take one of us. They took her, just before sunset. Two women walked up without a word. They weren’t much older than us, both with stark black hair left loose and hanging. Jestine introduced them as Hardy and Wright. I guess junior members go by their last names. Either that or their parents are jerks.
Gideon came for me not much later. He found me wandering under the lampposts along the paved footpath. Good thing, too. The adrenali
ne had set in again, and I was this close to doing wind sprints. He led me back to the compound and through the buildings to his room, where rows of white candles had burnt down to nubs, and three of the dummy athames rested on red velvet.
“So,” I say as he closes the door. “What can you tell me about this ritual?”
“I can tell you that it begins soon,” he replies. Vague. It’s like I’m talking to Morfran.
“Where are Carmel and Thomas?”
“They’ll be along,” he says. A smile breaks the solemnity of his face. “That girl,” he chuckles. “She’s a firecracker. I’ve never heard such a tongue. Normally I’d say she was insolent, but under the circumstances—it was rather lovely to see Colin’s face turn that shade of red.” He cocks an eyebrow at me. “Why didn’t you pursue her?”
Carmel, antagonizing Burke all day long. I wish I could’ve seen it.
“Thomas beat me to it,” I reply, and grin.
Our smiles fade slowly, and I stare at the shrinking candles. The flames float on the wicks, so small. It’s strange to think that they can reduce the wax pillar to nothing. Gideon goes to his closet and slides the door wide. At first it looks like he’s reaching for a bundle of red curtains, but when he lays them out on the bed, I see that they’re actually ceremonial robes, just like the one he was wearing in Thomas’s stolen photo.
“Ah,” I say. “I was wondering when the robes and censers were going to show up.”
Gideon straightens both robes, pulling at the hoods and sleeves. I’m wearing an army-green t-shirt and jeans. It feels fine to me. The robes look like they weigh twenty pounds separately.
“Is wearing one of those going to help me with the spell?” I ask. “I mean, come on, you know most of the ceremony is just ceremony.”
“The ceremony is just ceremony,” he repeats, sort of like my mom does. “No, it won’t really help you. It’s only tradition.”
“Then forget it,” I say, eyeballing the plain rope that ties around the waist. “Tradition can shove it. And besides, Anna would laugh her ass off.”
His shoulders slump and I brace for impact. He’s going to yell now, about how I never take things seriously, about how I never show respect. When he turns I step back, and he grabs me by the shoulder.
“Theseus, if you walk out that door right now, they’ll let you go.”
I look at him. His eyes are shining, almost shaking behind his wire glasses. They’ll let me go, he said. Maybe they would and maybe they wouldn’t. Burke would probably come after me with a candlestick if I tried, and the whole thing would turn into a life-size game of Clue. I tug free gently.
“Tell Mom,” I say, and then stop. My mind is blank. Her face floats in it for a second, and disappears. “I don’t know. Tell her something good.”
“Knock, knock,” Thomas says, and pokes his head in. When the rest of him follows and Carmel after that, I can’t suppress a smile. They’re both wearing long, red robes, the hoods down in the back and the sleeves hanging over their hands.
“You guys look like Christmas monks,” I say. The toes of Thomas’s Converses poke out at the bottom. “You know you don’t have to wear those.”
“We didn’t want to, but Colin had a bird.” Carmel rolls her eyes. “They’re really heavy. And sort of itchy.”
Behind us, Gideon takes his robe off of the hanger and puts it on. He tightens the waist and straightens the hood on his back. Then he takes one of the dummy knives from the velvet and tucks it into the rope at his hip.
“You’ll each need one,” he says to Thomas and Carmel. “They’ve already been sharpened.”
They exchange a look, but neither one turns green when they go over and take a knife.
“I talked to my grandfather,” says Thomas. “He says we’re idiots.”
“We?”
“Well, mostly you.” We smile. I might be an idiot, but Morfran will be watching. If Thomas needs protection, he can send it from across the ocean.
I clear my throat. “Listen, I—I don’t know what kind of shape we’re going to be in when we get back. If they try to do something to Anna—”
“I’m pretty sure Anna could rend the Order into bits,” Thomas says. “But just in case, I know some tricks to slow them down.”
Carmel smiles. “I should’ve brought my bat.” A strange look comes on to her face.
“Has anyone considered how we’re getting Anna back to Thunder Bay?” she asks. “I mean, I’m pretty sure her passport has expired.”
I laugh, and so do the others, even Gideon.
“You two had better go along,” Gideon says, and motions out the door. “We’ll be right behind.”
They nod and touch my arm as they pass.
“Do I need to ask you to make sure they’re safe, if—?” I ask Gideon after they’re gone.
“No,” he replies. He puts his hand on my shoulder, heavily. “I swear that you don’t.”
* * *
In the space of a day, this place has aged a century. Electricity has been exchanged for candlelight. It flickers along the walls of the halls and bounces across the stone surface of the floor. Business attire is gone too; every person we pass has robed up, and each time we go by they make this gesture of blessing and prayer. Or maybe it’s a hex, depending on the person. I don’t do anything in return. Only one hand gesture springs to mind, and it just isn’t appropriate.
Gideon and I move through the maze of passages and connected rooms until we stand in front of a set of tall oak double doors. Before I can ask where the Order keeps the battering ram, the doors open from the inside to reveal a stone staircase, twisting down into the dark.
“Torch,” Gideon says tersely, and one of the people near the door hands him one. The light reveals finely carved granite steps. I expected them to be dark and wet, primitive.
“Careful,” I say when Gideon starts down.
“I won’t fall,” he replies. “What do you think I grabbed the torch for?”
“It’s not that. I was mostly thinking that you’d trip on the robe and break your neck.”
He grumbles something about being perfectly capable, but he steps carefully. I follow and do the same thing. Torch or no torch, the stairs are dizzying. There’s no handrail and they twist tightly around and around until my sense of direction is shot and I have no idea how far we’ve descended. The air is progressively colder, and damper. It feels like we’re walking down the throat of a whale.
When we reach the bottom, we have to curl around a wall, so the candlelight hits us suddenly as we walk into the large, circular space. Candles line the wall in three rows: one row of white pillars and one row of black. The center row is a pattern of both. They sit on shelves carved into the rock.
The robes are standing in the center in a semicircle that’s waiting to close. Only the senior-most members of the Order are present, and I look at their faces, all old and anonymous, except for Thomas and Carmel. I wish they’d put the hoods down. They look weird with their hair obscured. Burke is of course standing at the center like a keystone. He doesn’t make any show of warmth this time. His features are cut sharp in the candlelight, and that’s just how I’ll remember him. Looking like a jerk.
Thomas and Carmel are on the edge of the semicircle, Thomas trying not to look out of place and Carmel not giving a shit one way or the other. They give me nervous smiles, and I eyeball the Order members. At each one of their belts glitters a sharpened knife; I glance at Gideon. If this goes wrong, he’d better have some kind of trick up his sleeve, or he, Thomas, and Carmel will all be Julius Caesar’ed before he says two words.
Thomas locks eyes with me, and we glance up. The ceiling isn’t visible. It’s too high for the candlelight to reach. I look at Thomas again and his eyes widen. We hate this place. It feels like it’s underneath everything. Underground. Underwater. A bad place to die.
No one has said anything since Gideon and I arrived. I feel their eyes, though, on my face and flickering over the knife handle in my
back pocket. They want me to take it out. They want to see it, to ooh and aah over it one more time. Well, forget it, assholes. I’m going through the gate, finding my girl, and coming back out again. Then we’ll see what you have to say.
My hands have started to shake; I clench them up tight. Behind us, footsteps echo down the stairway. Jestine is being led in by Hardy and Wright, but led is the wrong word. Escorted is better. To the Order, this show is all about her.
They let her go without a red robe too. Or maybe she refused it. When I look at her, there’s still a persistent twinge in my gut saying she’s not my enemy, and it’s hard not to trust it after so long even if it seems crazy. She walks into the circle and her escorts retreat back up the stairs. The robed circle closes up behind her, leaving us alone in the center. She acknowledges the Order and then looks at me, tries to smirk, and falters. She’s wearing a white tank and low-riding black pants. There are no visible talismans, or medallions, or jewelry. But I catch a whiff of rosemary. She’s been anointed for protection. Around her leg is a strap that looks to contain a knife, and there’s a similar one strapped to her other thigh. Somewhere, Lara Croft is wanting her look back.
“Can we really not change your mind?” Burke asks without an ounce of sincerity.
“Just get on with it,” I mutter. He smiles without showing his teeth. Some people can’t make anything but dishonest faces.
“The circle has already been cast,” he says mildly. “The gateway is clear. All that remains is to swing it wide. But first, you must choose your anchor.”
“My anchor?”
“The person who will serve as your link to this plane. Without them, you wouldn’t be able to find your way back. You must each choose.”
My mind flickers to Gideon. Then I look left.
“Thomas,” I say.
His eyes widen. I think he’s trying to look flattered but succeeds in just looking sick to his stomach.
“Colin Burke,” Jestine says beside me. No big surprise there.
Thomas swallows and steps forward. He draws the dummy athame from his belt and wraps his fist around the blade. When he pulls the edge against his palm, he manages to keep from flinching, even as the blood wells and spills out the side of his fist. He wipes the athame on his robe and slides it back into his belt, then dips his thumb into the blood pooling in his palm. It’s warm when he smears a small crescent onto my forehead, just above my brow. I nod at him as he backs up. Beside him, Carmel’s eyes are wide. They both thought I’d choose Gideon. I thought so too until I opened my mouth.