"Drop and roll!" Selene raced toward the reeling figure. "Drop and roll!" She stooped by the fallen coat rack, seized the tasseled fringe of an Oriental rug and yanked it with all her strength, toppling the antique hall table over onto its side. Holding the stiff rug in front of her like a shield, she threw herself at the burning man, knocking him over easily, falling on top of him, wrapping him in the rug, then dragging him back from the inferno.
Now someone was beside her—the girl. Together they hauled the heavy carpet down the hall and over the doorsill, stopping only once to stomp out the fringe of the rug as the tassels began to singe and spark.
Then they were down the four tiled steps and out into the cool air; they laid the smoldering carpet down on the sidewalk and Selene began beating at it with her bare hands, vaguely aware of sirens in the distance, the buzz and murmur as people streamed out of the neighboring row houses in nightclothes.
Only after the last tendrils of smoke from the rug had dissipated did Selene notice that the girl was gone. She raised her head to look around, and saw Jamey lying on the sidewalk, his head cradled in his father's lap. She was about to call to him when she heard Aldo's voice in her head.
It had to have been in her head—hard to tell for sure in all the confusion, but when she began to unwrap the carpet from around him—the plastic frame of the dark glasses had melted to his face, saving her the sight of those ruined eyes—she saw that what was left of his mouth could not have formed the words she had heard so clearly: Maria, Momma. Momma, Maria, Not without lips.
When she finished unwinding the carpet she saw the charred fingers clutching the kit bag. The moaning began again. She had to look away as the jaw began to open and close, but there was no turning away from the voice in her head—Maria, Momma. Momma, Maria—as the burned thing struggled feebly to pry open the satchel with fingers like blackened sticks.
The leather was warm to the touch when Selene reached down to help him; bits of his burned flesh tore away like shreds of steak clinging to a grill as she spread the handles. Nothing inside but a Sony Discman and a thermos.
Maria, Momma. Momma, Maria.
All at once she understood; carefully she lifted the portable CD player out of the kit bag. She hesitated for a moment with the earphones in her hand, then decided that nothing she could do at this point was likely to worsen his pain, and forced herself to slip the earphones over what was left of the ears.
* * *
"Numi! Venite a me, inferni Dei!"
Gods! Come to me, infernal Gods! It was a miracle of sorts—La Divina's voice cutting through the fiercest agony like a soft golden light shining through crimson flames. Best of all, he saw her face again. It was all he'd wanted at the end. He thought she had been stolen from him, but now he had her back. "Va multumesc," whispered Aldo to his unseen benefactor.
* * *
Selene could hear a tiny voice squeaking out from under the little plastic earphones. That Sony makes a hell of a product, she thought numbly. Then the jaw opened and closed again; again Selene heard the voice in her head: Va multumesc.
The phrase was familiar: it took her a moment to remember the little man on the steps earlier that evening. Multumesc. Means thanks. Thanks you very much.
"You're welcome." Then strong gloved hands were tugging her away from the body. She found herself in the arms of a fireman in a black rubber coat, turned back to see another fireman kneeling by the body, feeling at the throat for a pulse.
Don't bother, she started to say; she could tell by the silence in her head that he was gone. To hell, she hoped—and yet she was not at all sorry to have helped him at the end.
EPILOGUE
« ^
Mill Valley, California
December 21, 1993
Midway through the backward Lord's Prayer, Selene knew it would be all right—she could get through it this one last time. She looked around her at each of the naked witches in turn as she recited—Ariadne, the Barbaras, old Faye, and so on around the circle until she reached plump, rosy Catherine on her left—trying to fix each of their images in her memory. The coven numbered only twelve for this Yule Sabbat—Martha was off in Tuscany with her mother.
"… Neveh nitra chiw, rethaf rau." She waited until the others had opened their eyes, then crossed her hands over her breast and began the charge: "Now listen to the words of the Great Mother…"
The rest of the general Sabbat forms, the charges, invocations, balancing of the elements, setting of the watchtowers, took longer than usual to complete. Selene would not hurry through them, not this night. The forms specific to the Yule Sabbat, the ritual birth of the sun/son, seemed to take forever as well, but finally they reached the last So mote it be, and Selene took Ariadne's and Catherine's hands to begin the Yule Spiral, a clockwise circle around a giant wreath of smooth stones and dark green juniper branches known as the Yuletide Ring.
A stately turning at first—step, pause, step, pause, joined hands held high—then faster and faster, lengthening their steps until they were running in a tight circle holding each other's hands, stumbling, laughing, fleshy parts bouncing and slapping until, inevitably, one of them lost her footing and went down, dragging the others along with her like a fall of dominoes until the entire coven lay giggling and panting on the thick white wall-to-wall carpet.
When she had her breath back, Selene took her place inside the Yuletide Ring, sitting with her legs crossed in front of her tailor-fashion and her hands at her sides, palms up; before her lay her opened Book of Shadows, a lighted black candle in a tall silver candlestick, and a small silver bell. Slowly the others joined her inside the giant wreath, some sweating, chests still heaving, all with their color raised and their eyes bright; they settled themselves in a tight circle, sides of their knees touching lightly, their hands joined.
"Before we call for our cakes and wine," Selene began, "there's a bit of coven business to be gotten through. As you know, it has always been the tradition of this coven that the high priestess, the first among equals, cannot be a wedded woman. I would seek your permission to change this tradition."
The words were scarcely out of her mouth when the coven—everyone except Catherine—burst into excited chatter: "At last." "Of course." "Congratulations." "Absolutely." "So happy for you." "A Wiccan wedding!" "Who's the lucky… ?" "When's the happy… ?"
Selene ignored the outburst. "I take it there are no objections? So mote it be!" She closed the book, blew out the black candle, rang the silver bell sharply. The witches kissed each other, then broke the circle and retrieved their forest green robes from the dining room before inviting their guests to join them for cakes and wine. Orgy to follow.
* * *
Selene watched from the couch as Sherman Bailey, his graying walrus mustache flecked with crumbs from the traditional Yuletide crescent cakes, lapped ruby drops of a cheeky but immodestly priced Napa Zinfandel from his wife's freckled bosom. She couldn't help comparing the rather circumspect scene unfolding at her feet with other orgies she'd attended over the past thirty years: sweet Sapphic saturnalias under the Gypsy fortune-teller's tent in the back room of the Covenstead Bookshop; Morgana's elaborately choreographed debauches in the Circle Room; cluster fucks and daisy chains under a painted frieze of satyrs and nymphs in the orgy pit at Whistler Manor.
And now? Mine anomie grows older, as Nick used to say. Poor Nick, how he'd loved the coven orgies. No better time to seduce a hetero than when he's surrounded by naked women, he would crow, climbing into bed with Jamey and Selene for a postorgy spoon and dish as dawn approached. She remembered the first time she'd seen him, at a black-tie Halloween at Whistler's place in Noe Valley. A shy dip of his gorgeous head as Leon introduced them. Jesus, but he was a handsome man.
A hand caressed Selene's bare ankle; a voice interrupted her reverie. "Hey Sel, want to join us?" Catherine, lying on her back spread-eagled in the star position, was smiling up at her.
Selene smiled back through her tears. "Thanks all the sam
e, dearie. I think I'll just watch tonight." Then she looked up and saw Jamey Whistler standing in the archway, a suitcase in one hand, the white hard-shell bio-pack ice chest with the red cross on top in the other. "Or not, as the case may be."
* * *
"I didn't think you were going to make it." Selene pulled the hood of her robe up over her head. It was a clear cold night out on the Baileys' patio, one of those rare California nights that almost makes you believe there's going to be a real winter.
Jamey turned up the collar of his new camel-colored cashmere topcoat. "You said you'd give me your answer at the Yule Sabbat. Where else would I be?"
"How's your father doing?"
"Moved him into a rest home for the fearfully rich near Tun-bridge Wells. I visited him a few nights ago—they're keeping him heavily sedated."
"Any chance of his getting out?"
"Not so long as he keeps insisting he's a vampire, and demanding blood to drink. He's already been declared non compos. I'm having myself appointed his guardian, with complete power of attorney over his portion of the trust."
"So you did double your livestock after all."
Jamey was confused for a second, then the reference registered. "I suppose I did. Not much of a sense of closure, though. Like I told you, I don't think I'll ever get over the shock of seeing him like that, that night. It was like going forward in time and meeting some nightmare version of myself. Christ in a basket, Selene, I don't want to end up like him."
He reached out to cup her face in his hand. She pulled her chin back and turned away, leaning against the railing. "I don't blame you, Jamey. But like I told you, that's your problem. I don't see what it has to do with me."
"It has everything to do with you. How did it go, that little ditty? Something about finding your path by the Fair Lady's light? You said it yourself, Selene, I'm your path. And you're mine. Together we can—"
"No, Jamey." She cut him off without raising her voice. "Saving you wasn't my path, it was my task. And in performing it, I've seen my path, and it does not include matrimony—to you or anyone else. Remember the rest of that little ditty? 'The deeper the dark, the truer the sight.' Jamey, my path was right there in front of me all the time. I was already on it; I couldn't have been anywhere but on it."
This time he interrupted her. "Are you about to click your heels three times and tell me there's no place like home?"
She almost smiled. He seemed to be taking it pretty well—perhaps there was still a chance to salvage the rest of her plans for the evening. "You want to hear or not?"
"Of course I do."
She turned away from the railing, looked up into his bloodshot gray eyes. "I'm going to be a crone."
The wide-set eyes narrowed in amusement. "Let me just see if I've got all this straight. You had me fly in from London in order to turn down my proposal of marriage because you want to become a crone?"
"More or less."
"And what precisely does this entail, this… encronement?"
"I'm not sure. There aren't exactly any manuals on the subject. But the first thing I'm going to do is resign as high priestess and appoint Catherine as my successor—"
"But she's married."
"Already taken care of. Then after that I'm flying down to Santa Luz for a combination postgrad course in Caribbean ethnobotany and vacation. Next: the Big Apple. I can't start studying orgomancy with Benny and Moll until after I've missed three periods in a row, but there are plenty of other things to study in the meantime. And who knows, maybe I'll even do a spread for Foxy Forties while I still qualify; might be kind of fun."
"I'll look forward to the issue." Again the flash of contained amusement. "But couldn't you have told me all this over the phone, saved me a six-thousand-mile journey?"
"Nope." She slipped her arms around him, snuggled her cheek against the impossibly soft cashmere of his topcoat.
"Why not?" he asked her; she felt his chest rumbling against her ear.
"Because you do mean so much to me. Because our lives are so tangled up together."
He stiffened—and not in a good way. "Don't you dare give me that old 'Can't we still be friends?' kiss-off. Don't you dare reduce all that we've been through, all that we've meant to each other, down to that."
Selene sighed—but it was a sigh of relief. "That's it, Jamey. I knew you'd get it."
"Get what?"
"Why I wanted to say good-bye to you here, tonight. I don't want to cut off the part of my life that you represent—that we represent—and just leave it dangling like it didn't mean anything."
"Then what do you want to do?" But the gentle way he said it, the knowing way of his hands in her hair, led her to suspect that he already knew.
"I want to end it the way we began it. I want to bring it around in a circle. I want to tie it up in a beautiful ribbon."
"In other words… ?"
"In other words, I want to take you inside, and lay you down on that couch in there, and screw your brains out in front of all the most noble ladies at the Witch's Sabbat."
For a minute there she thought she'd miscalculated: he let her go. "And it would be the last time?"
"Witch's Word," she replied, surprising herself.
"In that case…" He looked away sheepishly. "I don't suppose you have Moll's number in Tuscany? I've often thought about getting back in touch with her."
She felt a quick flush of outrage, then caught the amused glint in his eyes. A little payback chain-yanking.
"Just kidding," he said.
"No you're not," she replied. "But I think Moll's pretty much spoken for." The bent nose gesture. "You might be able to get her to introduce you to the other Selene, though."
"There's another Selene?"
"Sure is. One of her most popular models."
"I'll keep it in mind," said Jamey. He offered her his arm. "Shall we go inside?"
She took it; he turned to her as they started across the patio. "A word of caution," he said. "That bit about screwing my brains out? It's been tried."
She patted his arm. "I'll take my chances."
A NOTE ON THE TYPE
The typeface used in this book is a version of Bembo, issued by Monotype in 1929 and based on the first "old style" roman typeface, which was designed for publication, by the great Venetian printer Aldus Manutius (1450-1515), of Pietro Bembo's De AEtna (1495). Among the first to use octavo format, making his books cheaper and more portable, Aldus might have grown rich printing as he did a thousand volumes per month—an extraordinary number for the time—had his books not been mercilessly pirated. The counterfeits did, however, spread the new typefaces throughout Europe, and they were widely imitated. The so-called Aldine romans were actually designed by the man who cut the type for Aldus, Francesco Griffo (d. 1519). Griffo fought with Manutius over credit for the designs and was later hanged after killing his brother-in-law with an iron bar.
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