Spellbinder: A Love Story With Magical Interruptions

by Melanie Rawn

  “ … ALWAYS HATED THE COLD, AND Alaska’s no tropical resort. After the battle at Attu, while one detail was settin’ up wooden platforms for the tents on the beach, Granddad went around to the enemy foxholes. After makin’ sure the dead Japanese really were dead, he took all their big, thick, fur-lined parkas back down to the beach, and that’s how my grandfather ended up with the only fur-lined tent in the United States Navy.” Lachlan paused. “Okay, your turn.”

  “I’m tired of this, and I’m tired of you.” Denise’s earlier hysterics had exhausted her, but he needed to keep her awake and reasonably sharp for when Noel came back. Thus they were telling stories.

  “C’mon, the deal was that I tell one, then you tell one, and so forth. You’re supposed to be a big-time author—you must have a couple more saved up.”

  Her shoulders shifted. “My back hurts, my feet are numb, and I don’t feel like telling any goddamned stories.”

  “Suit yourself.” He subsided into silence.

  About five minutes later Denise suddenly said, “Once upon a time there was a woman who was captured by a lunatic who held this big ritual on Hallowe’en where he killed her and the cop she got captured with. The End. Are you happy now?”

  “No wonder you’re on the best-seller lists.”

  EVERYONE WAS SEATED AROUND THE sisal rug in a loose, informal circle. Elias looked at each of them in turn, summarizing them in his mind. Ian, the Spirit Warrior; Martin, the Physical Warrior. They would, he hoped, take care of an attack. If any came, Simon the Healer and Kate the Apothecary would tend to injuries. So far, the usual in his Circle. But tonight Lydia the Sciomancer was there to warn them of coming evil—if she could. Elias worried about her, as always, about her fragility and the inchoate terrors that could come upon her without warning. He was comforted a bit by the presence of her original protectors, Alec and Nick. But the two men had other duties tonight that might distract them from protecting Lydia. Alec, with his truth sense, was to be Elias’s monitor for what was real and what wasn’t; Nick the Coercer would have to focus his strength on containing Noel as far as possible. As for Holly—he didn’t want her here at all. But short of knocking her out (magically, of course) and stowing her in a closet, he was stuck with her.

  Kate lit incense in a small iron pot and passed it around the room. Each person cupped a hand to waft smoke near, inhaling lightly of herbs and spices.

  When Holly’s turn came, she sneezed. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  Bradshaw cleared his throat. “This is by tradition the night when the partition between the worlds is at its weakest and most vulnerable. Samhain, All Hallows’ Eve, whatever they call it in Mexico—”

  “Los Dias de los Muertos,” Martin supplied. “But it’s the not the dead we’re concerned with here; it’s the living.”

  “I beg to differ,” Alec said mildly. “It’s spirits—ghosts, demons, angels.”

  Holly rubbed at her nose and said, “I only had one look at his bookstore, but the titles in it covered every Tradition I’ve ever heard of and then some. If tonight parts the veil between other worlds and this—”

  “He wants the powers of a god?” Ian stared.

  Lydia corrected him. “Gods of death and destruction. When I saw those sigils, I had an overwhelming impression of that quality of darkness.”

  “Charming,” Elias rasped. “So we have one objective: prevent him from calling up any of these Powers.”

  “And if he does?” Lydia asked.

  “Send them back where they came from.”

  “Uh-huh,” Ian murmured. “One thing, Elias. What if they don’t want to go?”

  LACHLAN HAD NO IDEA WHAT time it was when Noel came back down to the cellar. All he knew was that it was pitch black but for the glowing circle of candlelight, and he was sick of listening to Denise breathe.

  An oil lantern in Noel’s hand cast a spuriously warm golden radiance into the shadows. The long narrow face wore a smile that hinted at a slowly building excitement, a tremulous anticipation that would intensify to a hard throb of exultation. Like he’s about to take Viagra and then pop an ecstasy, Lachlan thought. The guy really looks as if he’s about to have the greatest fuck of his life.

  “The Spellbinder should be here soon,” Noel said. “I remember her now. Not half the beauty you are, Denise,” he added with mocking gallantry, “but I remember thinking at the time that there was something about her—as if she’d been around magic but didn’t Work very often.”

  “She doesn’t,” Denise said bluntly. “She’s dead meat.”

  “Except for her blood,” he mused almost fondly. “Pints and pints of It—”

  Lachlan forced his mouth into working order. “Didn’t know you were a vampire, too.”

  “I’m not. Sordid condition, though I’m told the sex is phenomenal.” He delved into a pocket and produced a thin length of polished wood. “Know what this is? I’ve had it with me since I first encountered Sammael, but I didn’t know until tonight how appropriate it would be. It’s carved from the wood of a holly tree.” He laughed—restless, eager, fingering the wand. “I find the congruence of names both madly appropriate and more than a little funny. As if we truly were made for each other: Holly and Noel.”

  “Hilarious,” Lachlan remarked. “Look, if it’s Denise you want to screw, why don’t you just do it?”

  “And you can vouch for her competence, can’t you? I gave her the original shape-shifting spells. I didn’t know it was you she wanted, though.”

  “Yeah, lucky me. Why don’t you just spread her and get it over with?”

  “Sex is part of it,” he acknowledged. “A really major orgasm gives a glimpse of eternity. Your sense of self fades, and you’re alone within the Abyss. Sex and Death are intimately related.”

  This guy in absolutely bug-fucking nuts. “Alone” is the last thing I feel when I’m with Holly.

  “Of course, most people never learn that orgasm becomes truly sublime when it’s part of a ritual designed to touch the Eternal.”

  “Uh-huh,” Evan said, with a glance at Denise. She looked bored.

  “It’s simple, really,” Noel told him. “Death-in-Life. The ego dies in the oblivion of orgasm, and infinity is revealed—and what is Infinity but God?”

  “The lesson you taught that kid, Scott Fleming,” Lachlan said suddenly.

  “I believe that a ritual’s participants must understand its purposes. But I must say, Marshal, I didn’t expect you to experience the insight in advance of the fact.”

  And just that simply, Lachlan knew that it wasn’t Denise that Noel was planning to kill.

  ELIAS BRADSHAW WAS VERY TEMPTED to feel sorry for himself. It was proving problematical to hold command of his Circle, and impress its members with the gravity of the situation, when one of them kept sneezing.

  “Here,” Kate said at last, tossing Holly a small silk bag of herbs. “Sniff this.”

  Stifling another sneeze, Holly pressed the bag against her nose, Inhaled—and promptly had a coughing fit.

  “As I was saying—”

  Holly whooped in two huge breaths, catching everyone’s attention, and failed to produce the anticipated sneeze. She sniffled, looked apologetic, and pressed the herbs against her nostrils again.

  “Go on, Elias,” Alec said, his face perfectly solemn. “You were about to tell us about—”

  Colossal sneeze.

  “—Sammael.”

  “So,” Martin asked brightly, while Holly wiped her streaming eyes, “who’s this Sammael when he’s at home?”

  Bradshaw resisted the impulse to grit his teeth. “The sigil Lydia drew was the most definite—the others were hesitant, as if they faded in and out before she could properly sketch them. But Sammael’s is strong and firm. Some say his name means ‘blind to God.’ It can also be read—”

  Supplementary sniffling. Nick had pity and ushered Holly out of the room, presumably to have her blow her nose.

  Back in charge of things, Elias continued
, “It can be read as ‘venom of God,’ for he carries out the Almighty’s death sentences by dropping poison into the condemned’s mouth from the point of his sword.”

  “Longfellow,” Ian said suddenly. “‘The Golden Legend.’ When the rabbi asks Judas why the dogs howl at night, the answer is: ‘In the Rabbinical book it sayeth / The dogs howl when, with icy breath, / Great Sammael, the Angel of Death, / Takes through the town his flight.’”

  “So Sammael works for God?” Simon asked.

  Lydia gave a tiny shrug. “Some say he was sent to take Moses to God when the Lawgiver’s days were ended. But in Qabatistic tradition, Sammael is chief of the ten Sephiroth. And they are evil. He was the highest Throne Angel before the Fall, but became a prince of demons.”

  Elias took over. “He can be a handsome man who loves art and helps magicians in their rituals, and he can be a twelve-winged serpent who destroys the solar system. Revelation, Chapter Twelve.”

  “Angel and demon, good and evil,” Kate mused. “He’s the dichotomy of how people feel about death. It can come as a welcome release from suffering, an end to earthly life that brings union with the Eternal. Or it can be the destroyer, carrying the poisoned sword.”

  “Or both,” Simon added. “Friend and enemy, simultaneously anticipated and dreaded. But it seems to me that the question is whether or not this Sammael does or doesn’t work for Jehovah.”

  “Exactly,” said Martin. “If Sammael is the one Noel plans to call on, how do we treat him? Friend, enemy, or neutral?”

  “I don’t plan to let it get that far,” Elias informed him.

  “THAT WHICH IS ETERNAL,” Noel said as he busied himself arranging four big three-legged iron pots, presumably for incense, “is not truly alive as we understand life—because life ends in death. The Eternal exists beyond Time, within Chaos, the Abyss of the Collective Unconscious. It’s where monsters and angels and demons live. Where God lives. Master Chaos, and the primordial energies are yours.”

  “Swell,” Lachlan muttered. The guy talked almost as much as Holly when she was on a tear.

  Denise roused slightly. “Do you know what you’ll be calling down?”

  “Thinking of your Voudon practices?” Noel smiled over his shoulder. “The Summoner possessed by that which has been Summoned?”

  “Sounds like fun,” Lachlan said.

  “I hear scorn in your voice, Marshal. You think power is evil.” He turned from a window. “But it’s why we both want the Spellbinder. Her power.”

  He was careful to keep the muscles of his face still, careful to meet Noel’s gaze calmly. But he was startled to realize that in a way it was true—though the word Lachlan would have used was “strength”. Same thing as “power”?

  “Hers is the rarest and most valuable of all. I wonder, does her blood smell different to the truly perceptive? Am I the only one who can sense it?” He shrugged, not really expecting an answer. “But we were discussing power,” he went on, distributing incense into the burners, and setting each alight without benefit of matches. “In itself, it’s neutral, neither good nor evil. There is no moral nuance. It is simply Power.”

  Lachlan arched a brow. “I’m sure you know the old one about corruption.”

  “Interesting theological point. God has absolute power—is God absolutely corrupted? You’re one of the ignorant masses after all. You fear power. And you really shouldn’t. All the images that come down to us—all the totems, if you will, the wolf, the bear, the buffalo, the lion, and so on—they’re fearsome and fascinating at the same time. We watch them so avidly—when we’re safe from them, when they’re behind bars in zoos. Do you know why they beguile us? Because our ancestors knew that their kind of strength was essential to survival. The more powerful the magical image—the archetype—the more vigorous the magical result.”

  Denise spoke up again, asking acidly, “And you’re going to become—what? Bambi? Thumper? No, wait, I know—Lassie.”

  Noel regarded Lachlan for a long moment. “You actually went to bed with her?”

  Evan gave a shrug. “She didn’t say much. I guess she was too busy keeping her face on.”

  “THANKS, UNCLE NICKY,” HOLLY SAID, swabbing her nose with a dampened paper towel. “I’ll be okay now.”

  He leaned against the kitchen sink, looking pensive. “What set you off?”

  “I only sneeze like this—oh, shit, here comes another one—”

  Nick retrieved and held out the box of tissues swiped from the hall bathroom. “Careful, you’ll rub your nose raw,” he said. “You’ve had fits like this before?”

  “Twice. Denise’s apartment and Noel’s bookstore. It’s the patchouli. Kate was telling me what she used tonight, and it’s supposed to be protective. But try telling that to my sinuses.” After blowing her nose yet again, she wadded tissues and towel to throw in the garbage. “I’m going to the little girls’ room. Go on back—Ellas is probably being eloquent about demons or something.”

  She headed for the bathroom, bringing a candle with her, went inside, and stared at herself in the mirror. Her nose was red, and it did itch. There were dark circles under her eyes, freckles stained her pallor, and in sum she looked like crap.

  After washing her face, she extinguished the candle before opening the door. Halfway down the hall was the coat closet. Holly kept to the plain blue runner extending the length of the hall, boot heels silent on the rug. She had no fear that the closet hinges would squeak; she’d been careful to listen earlier when putting away her purse and coat. Both items were in her hands within moments.

  The kitchen was still dimly lit by a few plump, fragrant candles. She tiptoed, barely breathing, and got as far as the back door before a soft voice said, “You devious little shit.”

  She spun to find Nicky watching her, candleflames striking gold and silver from his dark blond hair. “Yeah? And who’d I learn it from?”

  “Don’t blame us for your stupid impulses.”

  “Gonna rat me out?” she challenged.

  A small enigmatic smile twitched his mouth. “I’ll get my coat.”

  “THE ARCHETYPES WERE SEEN AS evil,” Noel explained, “because those who called on them couldn’t control them. Primeval powers, when let loose, terrify those who don’t understand.” From the rickety table he took a black glass bowl. This he placed carefully on the floor and filled from a plastic bag of—birdseed?

  Lachlan nodded, just exactly as if he wasn’t convinced that Noel was indeed absolutely bug-fucking nuts. “But if you protect yourself, and if you’re careful, the power can be used.”

  He threw Lachlan a great big smile of approval on his way to getting a second black bowl. Enough incense had burned by now to produce a slithering gray cloud that hovered about four feet off the floor; he paused to cup some smoke in his hand and inhale deeply. “Do you know how hard it’s been ridding myself of millions of years of fear generated by the superstitions of lesser minds? Minds that could never understand the power of death, of sex, of anything!”

  “Yeah,” Denise jeered, “the collective unconscious can be a bitch.”

  “You ought to know,” he shot back, moving into the far darkness. There was a spitting sound of water from a long-unused spigot as he went on, “You use it in your book—you prey on your readers! Appealing to the primal terrors of the cataleptic masses—you confirm and justify all their fears. You’re a parasite, Denise.”

  There was more in this line, but Lachlan tuned him out and sought a few minutes of escapist sanity. All the reading he’d done when Holly had first told him she was a Witch rattled in his head like marbles in a jar. Traditions, techniques, meanings, methods—none of it coalesced into a protocol he could deal with. In a way, it was kind of like all the laws he’d had to study: as an officer in the NYPD, he’d had a certain mind-set that changed when he became a United States Marshal. Legal minutiae, procedures, jurisdictions, rules and regulations …

  Didn’t it all boil down to Right and Wrong? And here, in this ce
llar, with his ass plastered to a stone bench, didn’t it all end up as Good and Evil? In spite of what Noel said about interpreting power as evil because it was frightening, wasn’t there wisdom in that fear? After all, look at how power was used: death and destruction and suffering.

  Evan wasn’t fool enough to believe himself infallible on the side of Right in his job. He had done things that, while not exactly Wrong, could most charitably be called unscrupulous. Nor was he about to delude himself that he was Good and Noel was Evil. But the impetus behind his choice of career—that he trusted himself to do the work—held true here as well. He believed in his own knowledge, instincts, ethics, and experience. As he thought this, an image flirted with the edges of his vision: himself, the Knight in Tarnished Armor, striding with a blazing sword and a shield bearing the Lachlan crest through a field of purple hyacinths.

  Uh-oh.

  Though he coughed to clear his lungs, the incense was already in his blood, inside his head.

  “—open a vein and bleed all over your spells for you?” Denise was saying.

  Lachlan was distracted from Noel’s answer by the sudden and vivid mental picture of blood dripping from Holly’s throat. He shook his head violently.

  “—she is the key to achieving my final goal.” Noel’s voice sounded funny, as if gloved fingers were flicking at the strings inside a piano. “It’ll be incredible!”

  Thunk, plink, twang. “‘Final goal?” he asked, his tongue thick in his mouth.

  “Don’t you get it?” Denise’s voice was weird, too—not the sound of it, but the little droplets that drifted out of her mouth, like slow-motion spit. It wasn’t spit. It was poison, and he knew it, and tried to angle away from her. “All this shit about power and death and sex is all because he can’t get it up.”