Neophyte

by T. D. McMichael

  Their shop was busier than Ballard’s––and that was saying something.

  Tourists were buying amphorae, ancient Roman jars, useful for candle making. But I wished to discuss something a little more pertinent to modern times.

  Sándor and Septimus welcomed me inside. It was nearly closing time, when I arrived, and they had a large order of pessoi they wished to tinker with. I heard the cash register ring up a bunch of items. Finally, I was the last customer in the shop. I wondered if they would kick me out. Sándor cleared his throat. And the Dithering Award goes to...

  I felt like a bad customer.

  “Don’t freak,” I said. “But I have something I need to talk to you guys about.” I had my backpack on, which I put on the counter. Out came Selwyn’s red marker. Beware the Dark Path....

  They read the message, while I conveyed to them how it had come into my possession.

  Sándor made way for Septimus, who shuffled through the stacks.

  “Hammersmith or Aeschylus?” he shouted.

  “Hammersmith!” shouted Sándor.

  Septimus returned, carrying a heavy book. He flipped through it. “There!” he said, turning it, so I could see.

  “But that’s a symbol!” I said.

  And so it was. The Wiccan symbol for protection.

  Septimus flipped the page and showed me the three rings becoming one––just like my House, I thought.

  “This,” he said, “is the symbol for the Dark Path. The so-called Path of Enlightenment. It’s kind’ve difficult to explain. Magic split, remember, Halsey?”

  You to your corner, we to ours, I thought, nodding, while he tugged at his soul patch.

  “But how is that the symbol for the Dark Path?” I said, stunned that it had been engraved on the archway to my House.

  “According to this book, the purpose of the Chosen One is to reunite Magic,” said Septimus. “Three becoming one. Like so:”

  The Protection symbol collapsed upon itself. Three interlocked rings becoming whole again. But if that was engraved upon the doorway to my parents’ house....

  “It’s all there in the symbols––” said Septimus. He flipped through the book to a symbol I had seen before. The Triple Goddess. A moon and two halves, itself like the symbol for protection. “Even in the steps to Becoming––Neophyte, Adept, and Fledged––there are three steps,” he said. “The triskele, or three symbol, is the Dark Path. Unite the magic that split. Turn it into one. That is the secret purpose of the Chosen One and why everyone wishes to find her. Because anyone who controls her would be unstoppable.”

  “So the Triple Goddess is...”

  “The Triple Goddess is the Wiccan super-chick with the power to walk the Dark Path and unite magic,” said Sándor. “It’s a prophecy, you see, of someone like yourself, who will undo what was done.... The Triple Goddess herself!”

  But what was done, I thought, and was that why the Dark Lord was after me? Was I the Triple Goddess? This super-chick? Of all the Initiates, it was me, according to the twins. I was the one who showed the most spirit. Whatever that meant. Now she may walk the Dark Path, and find out the secret the Dark Order has been waiting centuries to possess...?

  I thanked the S’s, but really I had more problems than solutions. I still needed to discover how far Vittoria had progressed in raising the dead?

  When I went upstairs, I dug into the Everything book, and began familiarizing myself with necromancy. The trouble was, it was almost impossible to understand. I had never seen more tricky magic.

  Objects, shapes, runes.... Circles––according to the book––protected that which was within... demons entered physical world.... Payment for summoning flesh... certain objects... specific instructions... time, location... method of gathering items... The widespread belief dogs could see the dead....

  Hold on. It got me to thinking of the grey wolf, and if it was a Lare–– Shoot, I almost had it.

  Wait a minute... Hold on, I thought.

  According to the book, dogs guarded the gates of Hell, right? Cerberus, the three-headed Greek dog....

  I almost had it again.

  What was my subconscious trying to tell me? Dogs accompanied the Goddess––check––who guarded the Gates––check. Dogs were all mixed in with death. Too bad Ballard wasn’t here, I thought.

  But, wait a sec; I had read something somewhere before. What was it?

  I flipped to the benandanti section of the Everything book, Those Who Do Good.

  ACCORDING TO LEGEND, THE BENANDANTI DESCENDED DOWN INTO HELL TO DO BATTLE WITH THE WARLOCKES [SIC], ACCOMPANIED BY THE GODDESS, WHO WOULD HUNT LOST SOULS.

  Hunt lost souls. What did that mean? I flipped shut the book and then opened it again and reread it. It was on the tip of... on the––hold on.

  I slammed shut the book and began pacing––I had a six-pack of Succo del Gatto and would stay the night, if need be.

  By Goddess did whoever wrote the book mean the Triple Goddess? What did hunting lost souls entail? I had heard of the Land of the Dead, or Hades, as it was known, but did it really exist? And then it clicked.

  Where was it? Where was it? I thought. I had read about it before. I dug through months of scattered newspapers on the floor, but it wasn’t there. It wouldn’t be! It couldn’t be! I hadn’t taken out the newspaper subscriptions yet, had I? That article would be in my desk drawer...

  I went over to the desk and fetched it out and lo and behold it was there, the Skarborough article I’d read nearly six months before.

  IMMOLATION RESPONSIBLE FOR GRAVE SCENE INSIDE PÈRE LACHAISE

  PARIS––For generations, Paris youth have partied openly at the gravesites of some of History’s most famous dead people. Lighting candles, drinking beer. An activity which has been called into question, of late, following the discovery, over night, of two bodies authorities say spontaneously combusted. Paraphernalia found near the corpses suggests they were up to no good.

  According to one investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, “as this is still an open case,” he said, “and I don’t want this psychopath doubling back on me,” there was another set of footprints there.

  According to the source, they’re looking for somebody who may be on a lunar schedule. “A lone wolf. A rogue, as they’re referred, with abnormally-shaped feet. He left paw prints behind.”

  This rogue is considered armed and considerably dangerous. “How else did he fry those two individuals?”

  Europol has posted a red notice along with a descriptor index of the subject. Be on the lookout for anyone with signs of hypertrichosis: a hairy disorder which makes you break out in fur, and perhaps, dog feet.

  As is typical with arsonists, they always come back.

  Dog feet, I thought. It was a story about Rayven. The story.

  I paced––thinking.

  Okay. I spiritwalked or whatever. I was out-of-body. It wasn’t the first time. For some reason, I Saw that night. Maybe Rayven wanted me to see him come back. It wouldn’t be the first time he showed me something secret. What do we know about Rayven, Halsey? Think. He’s a Grigori, a Watchtower, a lone wolf. He immolated those two guys in the graveyard.

  I hadn’t thought about the gravediggers in months. But then it occurred to me: Skarborough wasn’t there–– I was....

  I was the only person alive who knew what had happened in the graveyard. I could recall it with perfect clarity. But what did happen? I had never fully analyzed it before.

  “Remembr,” I said.

  I played the event back in my head. It was like it was being shadow-cast across the inside of my skull. There had been two gravediggers. Check. Thierry and André. They had been burying somebody. Rayven. But he had gotten away. He had been raised. They had been sure Rayven was dead. Had he been brought back to life, there and then?

  Wait a sec.

  Rayven was dead––he was dead when they started burying him; but then he had been raised. Someone had raised him. The gravediggers had until first
light to do the Last Rites, the Last Rites. What were those?

  I flipped through the Everything book to Dark Magic, but it didn’t have it. Maybe some forms of magic you had to practice to become adept at. Perhaps they couldn’t be written down, those spells; yet the Voettfangs had assured me, this was the book; if a spell didn’t exist in here, it didn’t exist at all. But necromancy did exist. It was some of the most complex magic imaginable. The covenants.... I thought. Maybe there was one that prevented arcane knowledge from being passed down, forbidden knowledge. 401. Access denied. The Last War had been fought, after all, to destroy Dark Magic.

  Those books Vittoria ordered were on the banned list of books, right? You’re doing it again, Halsey. Making lots of yourself. Find the S Bros. Talk to them.

  After all, if anyone would know about the Last Rites, it would be them.

  Feeling like the Everything book should be retitled the Some Stuff book, I went to seek out the twins. They were downstairs, in their shop. I took the newspaper clipping with me.

  Was Rayven close by? My mark was glowing faintly. He couldn’t get through Coven City, could he? Not without raising the alarm. Still, why was my mark glowing? Perhaps it had something to do with all the supernatural energy currently headquartered in Rome; initiates were coming in. Plus, the inspector was here. What if he finds something? It was his job to dig into my parents’ house, to make sure everything was copacetic. What if it’s not? If his virtue is insight.... What if the inspector finds something compromising?

  S Bros, S Bros,

  Answer the door before my mind explodes.

  They came downstairs, rubbing sleep from their eyes, and let me into their shop; I bounded in. I couldn’t help it; even if I was unwelcome, the gnomes of my invention had come out to play. Sándor was the first to finish the article and say So what? Perhaps if I helped him along, I thought. I’d never done the Remember Spell on another human being before. How tough could it be?

  Their eyes crisscrossed and Rayven rose up in the graveyard; the fire spell erupted, killing the two gravediggers... We were back, once more, on Via dei Condotti, by the time the memory faded. Sándor snapped his fingers, out of breath. “I know that,” he said. Both twins read through the article once more.

  “So you know what it means?” I said.

  Sándor nodded. “Immolate. To mactate someone. Immolation. It’s a ritual sacrifice. You use fire, don’t you see? Stormr hamrinum. It’s the fire spell, right?”

  “So?” I said.

  “So, Rayven’s a demon, Halsey. Paraphernalia––it all makes sense! How else do you bring someone back, in what other form? Unless they’re a zombie, or some other ill-shaped entity. You use objects.”

  “How about a vampire?” said Septimus.

  “Not the same thing,” said Sándor. “Here––look––read the article again. So far as I know, no one has managed to conquer death, to bring someone back. Not in the whole history of magic. At least not permanently. And there have been a lot of necromancers who’ve tried––some of whom were quite skilled. Which is kind of the point. If the Dark Order has somehow managed to raise the dead.... See, the Wiccan Rede is explicit,” said Sándor. “Wrongdoing will be visited upon the wrongdoer elevenfold. Therefore: harm none. Yet, to raise the dead, to bring someone Back, you must first make a flesh offering, to sacrifice by fire; in other words, kill someone. To immolate them. Sacrifice is in the definition of immolation.”

  “So the Rede...” I said.

  “You are going against it,” said Sándor. “You are bringing upon yourself bad, bad karma. What is eleven times worse than murder––? Anyway, the most that someone could raise would be a demon. Actually, it’s more like they’re summoned; the conjurer works his spell, encircled and protected, by magic. If done right the demon cannot get to him. But it can strike others. Its master tells it what to do. That’s what makes it such a formidable being; if summoned properly, the demon, or shade, cannot go against its master’s wish. What does whoever conjured it want, anyway?”

  “Me,” I said. “He wants to kill me.” Lenoir, I thought.

  Rayven had tried to get to me. In Stromovka, when we were alone, Rayven dealt with Ballard, then turned his attention to me. The vargr noctum spell. Kill it. What it?

  It would have enveloped me, had it not gone off course; if not for the benandanti, Rayven would have succeeded in killing me; he was certainly annoyingly persistent. But, did that mean what I thought it did? That I had a––a something inside of me? A limbo-spirit or whatever. Vargr noctum was used to cut out the therian.

  If Rayven was a demon, how did I kill him?

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Sándor. “Something like he is cannot be attacked and killed. Haven’t you heard anything we’ve said?”

  “Can’t he?” I said.

  “For one thing, he’s already dead,” said Sándor. “For another, only the wonderworker who conjured Rayven can send him back to the everlasting, to the spirit world from which he came. He was artificially ripped, remember? The necromancer––”

  “Lenoir. Rayven was raised by Lenoir,” I said.

  “Whoever,” said Sándor. “He has complete control, now, Halsey. Rayven must do what, all right––Lenoir––tells him to do. And if that’s coming after you––”

  “Ideage. Major ideage,” said Septimus, holding up his hand.

  Sándor gave way to the look of epiphany on his brother’s face.

  “Rayven’s after her, right, but is he?” he said. “Stay with me, here; and make a pot of tea. Go back to what the two gravediggers said at the end, because that’s what Rayven has to do. Perhaps if we deconstruct it, we can figure out his master’s intentions.”

  Sándor put on a pot, and I thought back to the dream; the words may as well have been written in stone, graven on the insides of my eyelids.

  “The war is starting. Battle lines will be drawn. She and the vampire are headed towards Prague. Find the other one and kill him. Do not let it survive.” But, so what? I thought.

  But Septimus said, “Don’t you see? The Lare you saw, Halsey, in the Stromovka, the grey wolf, if it was interested in you, why hasn’t it come back yet? Did it lose its way, or is it after someone else?”

  “Hold on... no...” I said.

  “Oh yes,” said Septimus.

  “You think the Lare, that is the grey wolf, is Rayven’s Lare; that somehow it’s trying to reconnect with him?” I said.

  “Rayven is tethered precariously to this existence; the only thing that can knock him out, is his spirit animal,” said Sándor.

  “It would try to protect him,” said Septimus. “It would try also to save his soul. That’s what the gravediggers were doing when they had Rayven and were trying to perform the Last Rites. But he murdered them. We tried to save you, they said. Remember?”

  And when Rayven had cornered me for a second time, I thought, in the Stromovka, and said Mine at last, That’s what he was after––me. But he had been afraid of the Lare; it showed its fangs to him and would have attacked Rayven, if Rayven hadn’t skedaddled. The Grey Wolf was tracking me, because Rayven was tracking me. It all made sense. The Grey Wolf was Rayven’s Lare. Do not let it survive.

  “Which just goes to show,” said Septimus, “how unnatural the raising of the dead truly is. Lenoir would want his servant not to have to worry about the Lare or the Last Rites, to keep him tethered––useable.”

  Lenoir took the mother lode of Rayven’s talents, his abilities. So Laurinaitis said. Did Lenoir want Rayven’s soul now, as well?

  “You’re forgetting the Rede,” said Sándor. “The Wiccan Rede to Do No Harm. Rayven had his chance, Halsey. He made his choices. If he has a soul, perhaps it can be saved, but that isn’t what you should be worried about.”

  “No,” said Septimus.

  “We have to stop him,” said Sándor.

  “What about the Last Rites?” I said.

  “To destroy Rayven, we must first find the grey wolf. Either that, or kil
l Rayven’s master, and I don’t think you want to go up against him just yet.”

  “No.” I shook my head––but that would mean leaving Rome, leaving everything; starting over, in a way. To find the grey wolf, would Rayven have to be near me? I asked.

  Sándor nodded. “And therein lies our great advantage,” he said. “After all, Rayven wants you dead.”

  I felt like I had taken a wrong turning, only to find myself, mysteriously, back at the beginning. Rayven... His Lare... the Last Rites...

  Somehow I needed to find out everything I could about necromancy, even if that meant going against the Rede––

  I could take Rayven’s soul, thus destroying him beyond the reach of his master; only, the Wiccan Rede kept stopping me... There was no way around it. I was going to have to address the Wiccan Rede.

  Rayven’s a demon. So if he was brought Back, I thought... The gravediggers were trying to save Rayven. That’s what they were doing when he murdered them; so, if I murder Rayven...

  Am I helping him? Maybe by reuniting Rayven with his soul, I can kill him. But his soul is in Limbo... or no––that’s his spirit animal...

  How do I murder somebody without dooming myself elevenfold? And what about this flesh offering? I thought. I couldn’t exactly raise the dead without doing some serious Dark Magic. It must take huge amounts of magical energy to raise the dead––energy I don’t have... unless––

  Chapter 17 – Epilogue – The Dark Path

  I flipped through the Everything book, back in my room, thinking about the Dark Path.

  Nota bene: Magic drains––

  YOU, if you let it.

  If I was going to stop the Dark Order from rising, first off, I couldn’t do it today; I wasn’t ready yet; I hadn’t learned enough. If I summoned Rayven now, he’d probably just end up killing me.

  The S Bros told me about the Dark Path, but that didn’t give me any clues how to walk it, or if I should. What I needed was a guide...