“Coincidence is often not a good enough answer.”
Denman turns to him, giving a little nod.
“And always worth delving deeper.”
They stop at a nearby fence. Several horses graze in the distance. Denman relaxes against the barrier, eyes out toward the majestic animals. He watches them, noting how they interact.
“You’ve been spending a great deal of time with Miss Stendahl.” Denman cuts his eyes to Duilio for a brief moment. “I imagine coincidence would not require such an investment.”
“Always worth delving deeper,” Duilio reminds.
Denman exhales a short-lived grin through his nose. He then resumes the languid stroll. Duilio wonders if the man implies that he is interested in Therese sexually. That would work in his favor, but he also doubts Denman would give too much time to something so banal. They work their way back to the barn. The horse has been stabled, the attendant gone. A chirping noise rises, four longer sounds followed by a series of rapid tweets. Denman has led them to a small workroom in the barn, and inside is a caged bird.
“A sparrow,” he mentions.
Duilio stares, coldly.
The bird’s feathers show tawny variations, cream at the breast going to richer browns of near red in brushstrokes along its flank and back. Its head is in near constant motion, focusing for several seconds on the two men before darting about.
Denman continues to give that direct gaze and lightly curled grin of self-satisfaction. He goes to the cage, opening the small door and reaching inside. The bird hops away, staying on the perch and does not try to fly until it is clearly too late. Denman brings the animal forth, holding it tightly in his right hand. It chirrups in an agitated fashion, head moving quicker now.
He moves to a nearby table, opening a drawer and retrieving a knife. With no ceremony, he quickly beheads the small bird on the wooden surface, giving a squeeze to encourage the already profluent escape of blood. He then releases it, letting the body twitch and flutter, the eyes blinking impotently as the loss of life eventually catches up with the animal.
“I have seen this before,” Duilio remarks. “What are you trying to prove with this childish display?”
“How easy it is to do,” Denman answers, more stoic than threatening.
The two meet eyes, neither giving a millimeter. Duilio’s defiance bores into Denman’s patronizing confidence.
“Are you thinking of killing me?” Denman asks.
Duilio blinks. Denman’s smile grows by scant degrees.
“You don’t have to pretend with me. I’m sure you have thought of it. Come.”
Duilio follows as Denman heads back out to view the horses. They have wandered somewhat closer toward the fence. Duilio finds himself concerned for any lifeform under the “care” of this man.
“Are you a rider, Signor?”
“No.”
“You’ve never ridden a horse?” Denman presses, looking at him.
“I have, but it was when I was much younger.”
“Ah, then you’ve never been on a wild horse. Never broken one.”
“I have not.”
“There is something singularly exciting about riding a wild horse and that moment when you break it. Breaking is a rebirth, but it leads to something being lost. Look how late in your life you were reborn when we revealed the truth to you and put-”
“Stop right there,” Duilio interrupts, and Denman does, though his gaze and condescending smile do not falter. “Part of this … whole thing,” he continues, waving his hands about, the right moving more rapidly, rising, “is your doing – the Malkuths. You enjoy this power. You manipulate lives supposedly for some lofty goal, but you have also broken yourselves. You do this for its own sake. What would you be without the Infernal?”
Denman speaks through his sly grin: “You are correct. We have lost something. One thing we have not lost is caution, even paranoia. Thank you for your report, Signor Duilio. You will continue monitoring Miss Stendahl, however you see fit. We’ll be in touch.”
*****
The buzzing has been left behind as has the deep, gurgling sound of the languid water, yet the unease lingers like wispy tendrils of an unwelcome curtain. Lilja considered herself a friend of nature, but the scents entering her nostrils prove strange. She moves slightly ahead of the team, even outpacing their “guide”, and though the landscape is alien, she can tell the trees will stop soon.
Zoe continues her role of staying along their flank yet still ahead, using her highly attuned senses to spy for anything untoward. She spares occasional glances to Lilja, her attention unfaltering even as voices rise.
“Have you considered it is best the Book remain unfound and unread?”
“I have,” Skothiam accedes.
“Yet you seek it.”
“I do. Even if for no other reason than to lock it away from others.”
“There is knowledge in the Book, and it may be terrible. Perhaps its own safety is written in its words.”
Skot spares the proprietor a glance, though he mainly watches the placement of his footfalls. He also peers ahead to find Lilja. He lacks no faith in her ability, but his concern is ever-present.
“’Perhaps’ is the key word. If we could be sure, then I would leave it alone.”
“Would you?”
A brief smile takes Skot’s lips.
“You suggest this is obsession. It is not. It is duty. For all our diligence, we Felcrafts are also pragmatic. The safety of humanity is our concern. If that means the Book not being in our possession, then so be it.”
“Well spoke.”
“And you don’t seem like someone working against us,” he admits. “You almost seem worried for us.”
“Why would I not be? I am not a monster, regardless of what you may think.”
“I have seen many monsters in my days, and I’ve seen those enslaved to work for them.”
“You think me a slave, then?”
“You are driven by fear. That much is evident.”
“Are you not also?”
“To some degree. Were it not for the predation of our adversaries, there’d be much less work to do.”
“Again, well spoke.”
“You are familiar with our adversaries,” Skot concludes as they continue on their journey.
“I … everyone has adversaries, do they not?”
The whispering hint of a smirk touches Skot’s face. The clumsiness of the man’s diversion is overshadowed by one that proves much more effective. They have come upon a structure, a manufactured change in the landscape, and they gather closer.
Stone blocks create a floor, some of it overgrown, but these rise to other levels, creating a series of steps that ascend some meters before ending with a wide platform. All of the place shows an age easily seen as they make way to the top. The statues begin before they get there.
They are humanoid, detailed, yet displaying that same smoothness of surface and fluid discoloration of having been here for some time. They explore this change from natural to unnatural forest. The figures show a variety, some depicted in a calm state as might be expected from contemplative art, others in the throes of pain, anger, fear.
“What is this place?”
It takes a moment of silence before their guide looks over to David, noticing all eyes on him. He glances from one to the other, feeling the expectation. His lips part, though no sound is immediately forthcoming. He swallows. “I don’t know.” Then after more time of the scrutiny: “Why would I know?”
“How long have you managed that store?” Skot asks him, coming closer.
This serves as a sort of cue as the others fan out, exploring the nearby area.
“I …” The man pauses, then takes on an aspect of sincere consideration. “A very long time.”
“Hundreds of years?” Skot presses.
“The measuring of time is strange here.”
“So, you’ve not been here your whole life.”
“O
h, no. I hesitate to think any who dwell here were born here.”
Skot nods, solemnly.
“Even the deepest revelations may become commonplace.”
He looks over, studying their guide.
“Is apathy our enemy, then? Do we merely need to seek change?”
“Shit!”
They all look over at the sudden cry to see David cringing at one of the statues.
“The eyes,” he says. “They moved.”
Once there, the statue appears as does all the others. The eyes of this one are indeed open, giving out the semblance of a calm stare. Zoe and Lilja inspect the stone even as David exchanges a look with his cousin.
“Those eyes were closed,” he presses.
They wait, anxiously. Skot steals a glance to their guide, gauging the man’s reaction. He seems as confused and distraught as all of them.
“Well?” he asks of the two women.
Zoe shakes her head, stepping back. “I can’t see anything out of-”
“Something’s not right,” Lilja speaks, almost a murmur. The curious eyes all now move to her, but she takes no notice, drilling her own perception into the thing before her.
They all start when the eyes of the statue snick to her, carrying a scratching sound of too much weight.
“What the hell?” David speaks.
That noise amplifies as the shoulders struggle to move.
“Do we …?” David tries, “help them?”
“They don’t want help,” Lilja states.
The expression on the stone woman shows hunger, anger, and though each of them would swear it was not that way before, it shows clearly now. The arms come up, the fingers deadly claws.
“Run,” Lilja says, then turns to the others. “Run!”
They move away from it, Skot instinctively grabbing their guide, as the man seems frozen in place. They don’t get far before realizing they have sunk deep into this forest of statues, and now eyes glare needfully at them from each and every one.
“Which way?” Skot demands, giving the guide a shake when the man shows himself locked in fear.
He finally tears his eyes away, trembling. “What?”
“To the Book! Which way?”
The man moves his mouth, licking his suddenly dry lips. He grits his teeth, again looking about. “There,” he finally says, pointing a shaky hand.
“Come on!” Skot commands, and they rush toward hopeful safety.
The moving statues prove slow, and they are able to dodge and weave as the grating things close in. The other Hunters have drawn weapons, and the eerie silence of the place is ruptured by the careening report of David’s revolver. The bullet shatters the head of a statue that had moved in too close. Zoe grunts sharply, swinging her machete to remove the hands and part of a forearm from another. This does not fully take the life from them, the headless one even struggling to regain itself.
They run.
What had once been a disturbingly lifeless place now erupts with motion, the numbers looking even greater now that these things have begun their deranged pursuit. Crooked fingers reach out on crumbling arms, scratching mewls emerging from deep within constricted throats. The eyes leave no doubt. These things have wakened, and they seek to harm those who have disturbed them.
Lilja and Zoe change tactics simultaneously, turning well-honed blades onto the legs of the things as they easily avoid the outstretched grasps and hack at the lower limbs. The statues fall, still driven as they continue to reach and claw. The high-pitched noises become more agitated.
Skothiam and their guide lead the way. David holds his position, changing his careful aim from body shots to trying for the legs. He misses some, giving himself patience to shoot when they are closer. The two women finally catch up, sheathe their blades, readying firearms. They all stop, looking, and they see a small army. Where have they all come from? Even as far back now as the top of the stepped dais, more of them clamber over, and as this new life moves them, they gain speed.
“Watch him.”
The trio look to the guide, not sure to whom Skot has spoken, but they remain as he moves forward. He looks out over the coming throng, takes in a breath, then raises his hands. He begins to speak in that secret language of theirs, the one akin to Latin, the one of whose origins they are still not completely aware. His own fingers begin to curl, not entirely unlike the seeking digits of their pursuers, but where theirs are rigid and angry, his possess a relaxed fluidity until coming to that final poise.
With a sudden press of those hands, palms going forward, Skot unleashes a great force. The power is visible, glaring forth in the deep amber hue that accompanies their magicks. It spreads out as it leaves him, and when it finds the statues, they fall. The ones nearest do not so much explode as tremble and clatter, pieces leaving them until they also become debris. Those further back struggle against the powerful intrusion, slowing then dropping. But it does not take them all, and plenty more screech and lurch, driven to make up the distance.
“We have to go,” Skot says, turning back to them. “We’ve got to lose them.”
Lilja looks at him, knowing that such an expulsion of magick must have taxed him. He does well to hide it, but she sees it. Their guide is also not a trained man, and he will likely weigh them. No choice.
“Come on,” she says, her tone calm, oddly conversational, and she leads the escape.
And yet it all proves unnecessary, for as they have gained distance, they hear the horrible rise from those stoney voices along with the crumbling. They stop and turn to see that the remaining statues have reached a limit, and once they find that invisible barrier, they shatter, tumbling into ruined piles.
They remain hidden, breath loud as they try to catch it, and they watch. Quiet finds this place again, descending like a fog over the blighted landscape.
“What were those things?” Zoe demands of their guide.
He blinks, looking between the accusatory stares like a bird surrounded by predators.
“I - I don’t know.”
“What did that? Were those people?” David adds in his own interrogation.
“I don’t know!”
Lilja and Skot exchange a look, then Skot speaks, “You know which way to go to get to the Book. You’ve lived somewhere in this … dimension for many years. Yet you don’t know what caused that?” He points back toward the concrete platform.
He shakes his head, the fear in him like a tortured scent.
“You know this is bullshit,” David says, going up to Skot and hissing the statement into his ear.
“I know we’re all being used,” is all the reply he gives.
Chapter Twelve
Therese awakes, bed linens tangled within her gangly limbs. She blinks, trying to bring clarity. She glances at the clock. It’s quite early in the morning. She wonders if it might be too early to call, but then she shakes her head - a mix of again trying to gain wakefulness as well as a decision to herself. She won’t call.
Padding into the kitchen, not bothering to dress in more than the tank top and soft pajama pants worn to sleep, she doesn’t try to be quiet but makes little noise as she begins the preparations for boiling a pot of coffee.
“Therese, are you alright?”
She doesn’t even glance over her shoulder, knowing the voice all too well. She also knows she allowed him to sleep here on her couch. He had insisted and insisted, and it seems they’ve both gone so far down the rabbit hole together, they might as well just admit it.
She swallows her initial urge to quip that it is nothing, and instead she turns, facing him. He looks as disheveled and lacking of real rest as does she.
“I had a bad dream,” she says, realizing in the instance of utterance how lame it sounds, as though she were a child.
He blinks into a greater focus, treating the report as seriously as he might any other. “What was it about?”
“My mother. Something terrible had happened to her. She had left me a rambling voice me
ssage, saying it was just her and me now, everyone else is gone … Dad … my father. She meant my father had died.”
“I’m sorry, but it was just a dream, yes?” He moves closer, though still keeping his distance. He has learned how fiercely protective she is of her personal space. He studies her, the sound of the heating water a gurgle in the background of their thoughts. “Do you want to call her?”
He barely finishes the question before she gives a single quick motion of her head in the negative. She presses up from where she had been leaning against the countertop and heads to the fridge.
“He’s dead already,” she reveals. “Bad memories is all.”
“I’m sorry.”
She fixes a look on him, one he has grown to know quite well. “It’s fine,” she says, flatly. She moves back to the pot of coffee, carrying cream. Duilio is tempted to make a quip about how so bitter a person seems to really like sweet coffee, but he thinks better of it.
“What about your mother?”
“What about her?” she asks, not looking over as she pours into one of her many mismatched mugs.
“Is she alright?”
“I assume so.”
“Should you call her?”
“Why?”
“To make sure she’s alright.”
She stops, looking over at him. He sees that iron willed guard there, but it flickers. She still has her eyes on him, but they have softened, relatively. Her lips are parted, her breath held.
“What?” he presses. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking it’s a nice thought. Thanks. But I don’t want to mix her up in this.” She returns to her coffee, finishing it. She moves to sit at the meager table, leaving him to his own preparations. He pours out a cup, black, and sits across from her.
“I was going to say it was just a stupid dream,” she begins after a moment of silence. “Well, I was actually going to say it’s none of your damn business.”
“You are right, Therese. It isn’t.”
“I know, but you’re concerned, not prying.”
“Maybe some of both,” he says, giving one of his short, huffed chuckles.
Soul of the Butterfly Page 18
