Phoenix Falling

by Laura Bickle

  Gabe nodded. “I’ll have one, too.”

  “Coming right up.” Lev drifted away, back behind the bar.

  Gabe wasn’t willing to let the discussion of magic go. He reached across the table for Petra’s hand. “You know that I love you, whether you’re human or not.”

  She yanked her hand back and made a fist. She shook her head, wisps of hair slapping her cheeks. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and it looked like she was trying not to cry. “Can we not talk about this right now?”

  Gabe’s brow furrowed. “No matter what, okay? You loved me when I was ordinary, and when I was magic.”

  She rubbed her brow and steadied her breath. “You would love me for whatever I’ve become. But I’m not sure I can love myself.”

  Gabe didn’t know what to say at that. To him, love and magic were intertwined. He loved her, and he did love magic. There was no conflict in that, was there?

  “Do you love me less now that . . . now that I’m a Hanged Man, again? Did you love me more when I was human?” His brow creased.

  Her fingers pressed to her mouth. “I loved you on both sides of the veil. Truly. But this isn’t about us. It’s about me. I mean, I don’t even know if I’m really me. I think so, but . . . what if I’m just a copy and this”—she ran her fingers down her arms—“isn’t real?”

  “I think you’re real,” Gabe said. She smelled and tasted the same, and the way her eyes changed color in the light was exactly as it was before. But she needed more than that, so he offered: “And reality is, at best, a subjective thing.”

  She gave him a sad smile. It was clear she was done with this discussion. He’d fucked up somewhere, but he wasn’t sure what exactly he’d said.

  She jerked her chin toward the television over the bar. “Look.”

  Gabe glanced up at the television. Images of wildfire raced across the screen. A map showed the area of the Magpie wildfire contained within the park for now, but the projected path was anyone’s guess. Some phone video showed a fire whirl advancing across a field at night. It looked for all the world like a tiny tornado of flame, twisting and churning before the wind sucked it back up into the sky again.

  “At least the tourists are mostly gone,” Petra said. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to try and herd large numbers of people out of the park. Mike’s colleagues did a good job of playing bouncer.”

  “There are always stragglers, though,” Gabe said, thinking of the man and woman rescuing the deer.

  Petra just nodded.

  Lev reappeared with a tray full of plates. He set one before Petra, one before Gabe, and slid a plate piled high with pulled pork underneath the table. Sig made snorkeling noises of delight as he slurped the meat. Lev vanished again, and Petra picked at her sandwich.

  Finally, she gave up the pretense of eating and said, “Tell me about the fire that killed Lascaris.”

  Gabe took a bite of his sandwich and chewed slowly as he dredged his memory. “It was in summer when it happened. August 12, 1862. The Hanged Men had been sent by Lascaris to acquire some . . . tools for his experiments. He’d been working some distillation rituals at the time.”

  “That’s the sixth stage of alchemy?”

  “Yes. Distillation serves to purify, to remove what is no longer needed and leave the essential spirit behind. Lascaris felt that he was close to completing the Great Work, to achieving the Philosopher’s Stone and all the power of immortality that came with such a discovery. He had ordered many exotic things shipped in by train—myrrh, spikenard, cinnamon, peacock feathers. Most of these things wound up ruined in his laboratory workings, but he persisted. He felt that he was close to something, a breakthrough that would lead him to his goal of eternal life.

  “His basement laboratory at that time was full of various cruelties. He had a man stuck in amber. There were jars of ox blood, doves’ hearts, and powdered human livers lining his shelves. Even the salamanders that lived in the athanor fire would not touch the Hand of Glory that he kept on his table.”

  At Petra’s questioning glance, he explained: “A severed hand of a murderer, desiccated and coated with the criminal’s own fat, burned like a candle to paralyze all who witness it.”

  She squinted doubtfully. “Did it work?”

  “I never saw it lit, though I think it was a precursor to the project of the man in amber.” Gabe shrugged. “If it didn’t work, he likely kept it around for psychological effect.”

  Petra stabbed her potato with her fork. “It would certainly shock most people into paralysis, anyway.”

  Gabe didn’t disagree, but he was pretty much inured to the shock factor of Lascaris’s workings. “The night of the fire, Lascaris had sent us out to harvest souls.”

  Petra’s fork stilled. “Is that a particular way of saying that you were sent out to kill his enemies?”

  Gabriel didn’t much like discussing his past misdeeds with Petra. Though he had been under Lascaris’s magical sway, he was not proud of what he’d done. And he was aware that those deeds created space between him and his wife. But so would lies. “Sort of. Lascaris had created a set of mirrors. They looked ordinary, the kind a lady would use to check her reflection. But these held more . . . they held souls.

  “We were sent to slip into the houses of Lascaris’s enemies with these soul mirrors under cover of darkness. We were told never to look into them until we had forced the enemy to gaze into the glass. Then, the devices were safe, the particular cantrip expended. We would creep into the bedchambers of his slumbering adversaries and turn the mirrors to their unaware eyes. The victims would awaken and catch themselves staring back. There was a sound like a sharp inhalation. Sometimes the target would thrash once or twice . . . but then they lay still. The mirror would be put away, and the enemy would move no more. In town, it was thought that a dread disease stalked the upper echelons of society. They called it ‘the sleeping sickness.’ There was a sickness,” he said bitterly. “But its name was Lascaris.

  “We would return the mirrors to him, where they would be labeled and set upon a shelf. It seemed to me that a fine mist roiled within, and that a shadow of a man moved inside each one. Was that the ephemeral soul, separated from the body? I didn’t know for certain. But the cold bodies would be discovered in the morning and buried soon after.

  “The night of the fire, Lascaris had sent us to take the soul of Father Adrian, the then-priest of this church.” Gabe sketched his hand around the room. “We were to take him and two of his deacons who were causing trouble for Lascaris. The Church had heard rumors that Lascaris was dabbling in the dark arts. Though the Church enjoyed his money, they could not let this stand. There were murmurings of driving Lascaris from town and taking over his gold mining operation . . . problem was, no one knew where his mine was. They just knew that the gold kept coming, and had no idea that it had been created by alchemy. Summer heat fed the discontent, and things soon boiled over.

  “The climate had reached a fever pitch only days before, when one of the streams near town had run black with stinking toads and black ichor. The fish had leaped from the inky water and suffocated themselves on the banks, rather than swim through that seething noxiousness. Father Adrian declared it the result of witchcraft, and the church was crowded that Sunday. Even Lascaris attended. Father Adrian very nearly called him out publicly but settled on giving all witches three days to repent, or he would conduct an inquisition.”

  Petra grimaced. “No independent woman would be safe from that.”

  “Exactly. An inquisition would not only target Lascaris and the Hanged Men, but it would also have the convenient effect of clearing out the brothel next door. Several women of means took the next train out of town. The daughter of the innkeeper who suffered what we would now think of as schizophrenia was packed up to live with an aunt out East. The atmosphere was tense, to say the least.

  “Lascaris didn’t need to wait three days. He decided to cut the head off the snake that August night. The Hanged Men split
up before midnight. Some kept watch. Others took soul mirrors to the deacons’ houses. As the leader of the Hanged Men, it was my responsibility to take Father Adrian’s soul.

  “At that time, the priest of the church had no rectory. He had his quarters in the church itself. I let myself in the back door.” Gabe’s eyes trailed to the shadows behind the bar. “I was able to pick the lock without any difficulty. I found him sleeping in his spartan quarters, his hands wrapped around a pillow as if it were a neck he wrung in his sleep.

  “I leaned over him and turned the mirror to his face. His eyes snapped open, and he gasped. He did not go quickly . . . he convulsed, even tried to knock the mirror from my grip. But he, like all the others, succumbed to it. His eyelids flickered shut, and he fell back against his pillow. I arranged his arms in a peaceful, natural way, noting that he did not breathe, and his heart made no movement in his chest any longer.

  “When I left the church, I saw a glow on the horizon, in the direction of Lascaris’s house. I ran, thinking that one of Lascaris’s experiments had failed spectacularly, thinking I needed to help. By the time I got there, however, the grand house was in flames. Only salamanders escaped, slipping out into the grass. Townspeople ringed the house, holding torches, and I knew immediately that the townsfolk had taken it upon themselves to drive the evil out of their midst.

  “I knew, too, that they would likely turn their ire on me. So I retreated to the Rutherford Ranch, intending to lie low until the dust had settled. I thought that perhaps Lascaris might have found a way to escape, and would find us there. We had nowhere else to go, and we would wait for him underground.

  “We learned later that Lascaris had been inside before the house was torched. The arson had been a disaster, and many townspeople who invaded the house were said to have been killed in the fire. Lascaris didn’t emerge during the burning, and Rutherford assumed that the alchemist was dead. The ranch owner quickly moved to take control of Lascaris’s assets, while the townsfolk discovered the dead priest and deacons. They assumed that this was Lascaris’s revenge from beyond the grave, and the town was fearful and subdued as they buried the churchmen. Rutherford took power easily, promising law and order to those who stayed. That would later prove to be difficult, as the alchemist was no longer around to conjure gold. Many men searched the backcountry for his secret mine, but no one ever found it. People left the town in search of greener pastures.

  “After a couple of weeks in hiding, the Hanged Men began to emerge. Rutherford sent us to the graveyard to set stones for the priest and the deacons. Rutherford’s doing so was seen as a magnanimous act to heal the town. The Hanged Men and I had come to the graveyard, but we had brought something else with us—the soul mirrors.

  “I had the intent of discreetly burying the mirrors with the bodies. I didn’t know what lay in the afterlife, but it seemed like the decent thing to do. Rutherford had no idea we had them, and I was fast learning that keeping secrets from whichever Rutherford held the ranch was for the good of the Hanged Men.

  “When we were setting the stones, though, some men from the town arrived. One of them recognized me as a man who had done Lascaris’s dirty work. He took a swing at me over the priest’s tombstone. We fought, and the mirror in my jacket pocket was shattered on the ground. I felt it break against my hip, felt a shocking coldness, like ice water, when it happened.

  “The fight broke off when there was a sound from the ground moments later. It was thumping . . . screaming . . . coming from Father Adrian’s grave. My attacker moved away to stare at the ground and before I knew what was happening, he was on his knees, praying.

  “I noticed then that the Hanged Men were discreetly breaking their mirrors behind the townsmen’s backs. The terrible grave-sound was echoed by the deacons’ graves—howling, scratching.

  “The townsfolk grabbed shovels. We feigned shock and helped them dig up the coffins. I glanced at the stones and figured that the men had been three weeks in the ground in hot summer. I did not relish what we would find.

  “They opened the coffin of Father Adrian. Inside was the corpse, bloated and red and putrid. The nails on its blackened hands were gone, and teeth rattled from its gaping mouth. The body had begun to liquefy, staining the clerical collar.

  “Yet the thing that had been Father Adrian moved. It howled. I realized that the breaking of the mirror had caused the reinstallation of his soul in his body. I knew that it could not survive long in this state, but for this moment, it was self-aware . . . and in agony.

  “Horrified, the townspeople cut off its head. They did the same to the deacons. The men of Temperance decided that Lascaris had not been the root of the evil in the town, after all. They decided that it had to be Father Adrian and his deacons. There was no other rational explanation for living corpses. The graves were heavily salted, and a new priest was brought in to reconsecrate the ground.

  “After that, there was nothing new coming up from underground. Nothing that the town knew about, anyway.” Gabe took a shuddering breath, the story taking more out of him than he anticipated. He swigged the last of his beer.

  Petra peered into her bottle, as if it might provide some answer to the horrors that haunted Temperance. “I am sorry you had to go through that.”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “Probably not long enough, though.”

  He had no response for that.

  “No one ever saw Lascaris again?”

  “No. Not that I know for certain.” He wondered about Muirenn, though. Months ago, one of Lascaris’s creations, the Mermaid, had resurfaced with the pocket watch Gabe now had in his hand. She was dead now, and there was no way to question her.

  Petra shook her head and pushed her plate away. “I’ll be back.” She stood and headed to the ladies’ room.

  Gabe disentangled his feet from a snoring coyote and carried his beer bottle up to the bar. He pulled out his wallet to settle the bill.

  Lev appeared, wiping his hands on a dish towel. “It’s thirty, even.”

  Gabe put two twenties on the glossy surface of the bar. Lev scooped them up.

  “Lev?”

  “Yeah?” Lev turned away from the register.

  “About Petra.” Gabe didn’t shy away from the facts. He’d seen too many horrors in his hundred and fifty years on earth, and scraping up against them had made him a man of unvarnished truth. “Is she still human? Or is she something else now?”

  Lev paused. He shook his head. “I never made a homunculus before. Only saw it done just the once. Those people who made one long ago . . . understand that I didn’t follow them afterward.”

  “You don’t know.”

  The bartender gave an enigmatic shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Chapter 3

  The Dream Beyond the Body

  The Eye of the World saw everything.

  Nine knelt beside the water, the pool that the people of the reservation called the Eye of the World. She tied her silver hair back so that she could peer into the water without distraction. The sun had set a little while ago, leaving behind a streak of red on the horizon. Wind pushed through the grasses of the surrounding field studded with white yarrow blossoms and red fireweed. The movement inspired continuing ripples on the surface of the water. A black toad hopped out of the pool, further disrupting the surface, and scuttled away under a rock. As the water settled, the Eye reflected the violet sky, a spangled handful of stars shivering on the surface. Even the brightest stars burned more dimly than they should.

  Nine reached into the warm water with a cupped hand. She brought the water to her lips and drank. It tasted sweet and heavy. Her fingers lingered on her lips as the liquid slid down her throat.

  This was a ritual she undertook almost every night. She’d slip from her bed back at Maria’s house, cross the field behind it. The mountains were silent and lightless in the distance, the sky stretching out infinitely above her. She’d drink from the pool and hope that the sweet water of this
spring, the Eye of the World, would take her back to her family.

  “Take me to the pack,” she breathed.

  Her eyes slipped shut, and she had the sensation of falling, falling into a reality that smelled like pine needles and ash. When she opened them again, she was still wrapped in darkness, but a different darkness. No stars glittered overhead, and brittle pine needles crunched under her feet. She was in a wooded thicket, surrounded by sentinels of lodgepole pine. Red glowed on the horizon, gleaming through the branches.

  Nine threw back her head and howled. She howled not with the voice of a woman, but with the voice of a wolf. Her human body had sloughed away in the reflection of the Eye, stripping her back to her very essence. Her paws paced in the pine needles and her nose twitched. She couldn’t smell the rest of the pack, all she could smell was the acrid stink of sap burning.

  An answering howl emerged from her left. She lowered her head and ran toward it, slipping around the pines like a phantom. Nine truly missed this, this freedom of running, unencumbered. She was faster as a wolf than anything she encountered, not slow and vulnerable as she was as a woman on two feet.

  Not diminished.

  The pack was just ahead; she could hear their yips and barks. Nine plunged into a thicket, and was immediately surrounded by wet noses and wagging tails. The wolves tumbled over her, whining and nipping. Nine had always been the omega of the pack, but they still held affection for her on her nighttime sojourns that brought her back into their fold.

  For all their joy, there was also a high hum, a panic about them, their yips and nips. They had descended into lower lands after prey, and the fire had pushed them far from their home range. They knew the fire was growing close, and they were being forced to flee their hard-won territory. They were trapped between the push of the flames and the pull of longing for the lost territory.

  Ghost, the leader, barked shortly. The wolves followed him at a brisk trot, sliding through the darkness. Nine heaved a sigh of relief as the wolves moved away from the glow on the horizon.