Divine 05 - Nevermore

by Melanie Jackson

  “Decapitation,” I said hollowly, glad it was cold and there was little odor. “You just don’t see that every day.” Even in bad marriages where one spouse, perhaps holding a carving knife, might reasonably be expected to have occasional thoughts that their other half would be so much more attractive if they were about a foot shorter and unable to argue back about who should control the damned remote.

  “The wound isn’t clean. This was not done with ax or sword. It was most likely talons. Interesting that the body hasn’t been consumed. The good news about this bad news is that I’m not sure it was actually human.”

  That really made my day.

  “You take me to all the nicest places,” I muttered and got an unexpected grin from the driver. So maybe he wasn’t humor-impaired, just very warped. And at least he wouldn’t bury us in bombast or advice.

  The wind shifted direction then and I put an arm over my nose. The earth might have smelled like this on the day all the dinosaurs keeled over and started turning into fossil fuels.

  “What is that smell?” I gasped.

  “Troll cave,” our driver said, proving he could speak English. “It is empty now. Let us leave.”

  Back in the car, I drifted in and out of some weird sleep that was half-fugue and found myself by the ocean when my eyes opened again. Emerson was looking pinched and I wondered how much effort he was expending to keep me calm. Or maybe it was being in Iceland. He didn’t look happy to be headed for a reunion with ‘friends’.

  As promised, Jón Jónsson was waiting with his boat. I was surprised when our driver joined us on board, but not that Jón had black eyes and an unhealthy pallor. He also seemed to be short on cartilage and his ears and nose drooped weirdly. His shoulders also seemed freakishly large. I sincerely hoped that such ugliness was not waiting in my future.

  “Are there lots of you— us— in Iceland?” I asked Emerson, trying not to squirm because I didn’t care to rock the boat to any degree. I had belatedly recalled Samuel Johnson’s thoughts about boats. He had said that they were a lot like a jail but you had the added hazard of drowning. Mr. J and I were seeing eye-to-eye on this one. The water was cold and unfriendly.

  “Only three,” Emerson said. “Magnus is the eldest. They are…. Clan.”

  Like Raven Clan?

  Emerson nodded once in answer though I hadn’t spoken aloud.

  They might be clan but I doubted they were related by blood and certainly they were not linked by sentimentality. These strange shadow men looked nothing alike except for their eyes and the obvious depreciation of health that came with great age and suffering.

  “Be at ease,” the driver said to me in English. “No one will follow us here. We are the dispossessed. No one cares where we go, especially when it is the back entrance to nowhere.”

  “Oh good.” Except I was betting that wouldn’t be true for long. Saint Germain was very interested in us and I had no doubt he would somehow manage to find us again.

  We cast off.

  Heaving. Green. Seasick. They say you learn something new every day. Apparently today’s lesson was that I didn’t like sea-going boats. In February. In Iceland. The boatman’s pipe was not helping. If we drowned, there would be no black box for Clarice to examine. I would just be gone. Forever.

  “Some women are like those over-priced French wine,” the boatman muttered. “They are weak and do not travel well.” The smoke that blew my way between sentences smelled of manure and added to the fish stink rising up from the floor of the boat. If Hell had a fishing fleet, this would be their flagship. I silently resented his comments on behalf of French vintages everywhere but said nothing for fear it would not be words that came out of my mouth. Breakfast hadn’t been that good going down. I surely didn’t need it coming up.

  But, as promised, no other crazy people were out on this stretch of evil ocean. We had the early, anemic sunset all to ourselves. That was better than what might have happened. I couldn’t quite believe that Saint Germain could raise a leviathan corpse to attack us, but just the thought of it made me cold.

  As desolate as the waters were, the shoreline we headed toward was even more so. Though it might be more attractive in spring, I kind of doubted that it would ever be beautiful. All that would grow here were hardy lichen and the only other living thing was beached sea-wrack. There were no birds that I could see. Life wasn’t ebbing from this place; it was long gone. I welcomed it anyway because it was solid.

  The island where we landed was an ancient place and some kind of power center. I felt it immediately, a kind of tingling of the senses as I stepped ashore. The stone cottage we approached was a near ruin and so was the stony man standing in front of it. His cobweb fine hair hung almost to his hips. The whiskers bulging erratically out his cheeks failed to disguise how gaunt he was. The skin of his neck was not wrinkled, but so sheer as to fail to mask the veins that ran through it. His clothes were in tatters. Obviously he had stopped caring about external things long ago. How old was he? Could this happen to me if I lived long enough? Or did this have something to do with getting lost in the mind of a winged creature and forgetting to eat and dress and live? Was this why Emerson kept so busy with his writing and chose to live among people even if he couldn’t be close to them?

  I could feel that I was being assessed, muscle tone, skeletal structure, probably organ efficiency. It would not have surprised me if he had pried my jaws open and examined my teeth. Thank goodness my coat was sleek and glossy. Maybe I could get a passing score for that.

  The old man said something that sounded vaguely accusing as he stared at me. It was directed at Emerson though so I tried not to take offense. Certain rude phrases popped into my mind but I stopped them before they hopped off my tongue. I couldn’t tell if I was genuinely annoyed or just picking up on Emerson’s thoughts and emotions. Give the old fashioned phrasing, I suspected this anger belonged to Emerson.

  “I want none of the stupidities of the war here. I came to this place for peace,” Emerson translated and then said something back.

  “Which war?” I asked distractedly, not recalling any recent headlines involving Iceland in military skirmishes.

  “Any of them,” Magnus answered in heavily accented English, black eyes doing their best to bore holes in my head. “They are all wasteful and stupid and I’ve had a bellyful of them a century ago.”

  “Okay. I’d agree with that. Mostly.” Of course, I would have agreed that there were purple monkeys dancing on his head if it got us out from under the hostile sky. It was dark and there was no need to dodge the sun on my winter white skin, but I felt exposed and under surveillance by the craggy peaks around us.

  We were silent for a long moment while Magnus pondered whether to offer hospitality. I was getting tired of his standing around making like an immovable object.

  “We will go in and perhaps find wood for a fire. The woman will expect a fire,” he groused, finally turning away.

  Thank God! I thought, not commenting on the cliché assumption. What could I say anyway? I did want a fire, and if that was because I was a woman then so be it. Emerson’s hold on me loosened as he too felt relief.

  A bit of stone fell from the left corner of the building and shattered on the ground. I was the only one who jumped. Apparently collapsing buildings were de riguer.

  I have always sneered at tract housing as being antiseptic and thought up by unimaginative people, but I would have taken the most unimaginative floor plans on the most modern house on the spot if it included plumbing and a furnace. I was old enough and effete enough to expect things like wall-to-wall carpeting or at least wood floors—which the cottage of course would not have. What it had in abundance was hard dirt and moldy air and a hole in the ceiling. Emerson’s control over my emotions slipped completely and I sprung a leak. For a moment and I actually looked at our sanctuary with my own weary eyes and started to cry.

  Emerson was appalled, his face was so horrified that my sobs quickly changed into hyste
rical laughter.

  “Sorry. I’m very tired,” I explained as the fit left me. “I don’t think I am quite used to being this way yet.”

  Magnus asked something in a language I didn’t recognize and Emerson said: “Less than a week.”

  After studying us for a long moment, me probably still sporting a pale green complexion, Magnus lifted his arm and unlatched the hide shutter at the one small window. I saw that he had a tattoo on his arm but couldn’t make it out. It had to be pretty old because the ink had faded and the edges were blurred reminding me of a sidewalk chalk drawing after the start of rain. I did not ask about his epidermal mural and why he had made himself look like a Persian rug. Emerson’s warning about his friends’ misanthropic tendencies was on my mind and I really wanted a place at the fire. Curiosity would have to wait.

  Our host grumbled something about my being young and uncommitted and bent down to the hearth to build a fire. His butt made an interesting target but I resisted. I was pretty sure that it was the circumstances that I was mad at, not him.

  “I am not uncommitted,” I answered back, stung. “Hey—when you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way. I get it.”

  They didn’t get me though, judging by those blank stares.

  “Not big on popular pop culture reference from the last century, huh? How about the mafia? Heard of them?” This got a fascinated nod. “I’m saying that being involved in this situation is like being in the mafia. You don’t get to retire when you get fed up.”

  This time I got stronger nods. They seemed delighted to find that I wasn’t too stupid to grasp the obvious.

  In an effort to redeem myself I reached out to relieve Jón of some of his packages but aborted the helpful maneuver when I caught a whiff of the contents.

  “What is that?”

  “Dinner. Special shark steaks.”

  “Oh God, just kill me now,” I muttered, which cracked up both the boatman and our driver.

  “Really. I’d rather french kiss a pig.” I glared at them and sank down on to the dirt floor—I had been quite right about the lack of carpet. There was a real shortage of furniture too. I turned my gaze back to Magnus. At that level I could see that some of the marks on our host’s body were more than tattoos. Someone had either been burning him with brands or practicing trupunto with a dull quilting needle.

  He looked me full in the eye. “If I had been more polite to the mad monk I might have spared myself some scars.” His hand reached for his throat where a nasty line of proud flesh circled it completely. The other two had them as well and I thought of Ben Franklin’s quip about hanging together because they would surely hang seperately.

  Then I thought about what he had said. The Mad Monk—Rasputin. My curiosity stirred again but I didn’t ask. My mind was at capacity for weirdness and I felt the encroaching power outside the old walls. Anymore pressure and I might start screaming.

  “Well yeah, but then you’d look so ordinary.” Again, my sarcasm caused much hilarity and this time even Magnus joined in the chuckles. Emerson came and sat beside me and I felt both exhaustion and anger ease to a large degree. His influence over me seemed to depend on proximity.

  We had ‘tea’ a while later, but with the added benevolence of some kind of fiery liquor that masked most of the fishy taste of the water. And then I forced myself to eat the offered shark steak— that looked like liver— which they told me was good, and kept on telling me with every choking bite, as if repetition would change my mind about how vile it tasted.

  I did have a moment of insight as I forced down dinner, for which I was both glad and grieved. Sometime in the last twenty-four hours the statute of limitations had run its course on my widowhood. I had finally stopped looking longingly at the imaginary parallel universe where Harrison had lived and we had had a family and published Golden Words until we retired to our rocking chairs and left the magazine to the kids we were supposed to one day have. I wouldn’t ever forget him, but I could finally let the memories settle into their proper place. The patient had thrown away her crutches and started to walk—hallelujah! I was again the master of my fate, the captain of my soul. And all it had taken was the intervention of supernatural agency, air sickness, sea sickness and dying by electrocution.

  “Why did you bring the young one?” Magnus asked Emerson as he set out preparing something in a pot. It wasn’t food. “She is not clan and she is too soft yet. There has been an escalation of violence in recent months and we have been slow to face unpleasant suspicions. Now we must confront the danger without hesitation, argument or division.”

  “Emerson brought the young one because— believe it or not— it was the safest thing to do, given that I have been twice attacked by ghouls and once by a cemetery full of zombies.” Magnus pale brows rose. “And because I am a damned good shot. And, Mister Superiority, I have so flown with the raven. Once.” My voice was tart as I defended Emerson and myself.

  And then I realized something else. Though the problem we faced was not of my making and I would never have voluntarily become involved on my own, I still felt responsible for stopping this monster who was chasing us and inflicting suffering on the third world. I might damn the impulse to high heaven for its stupidity, but it was there waiting to be acted upon. If pressed, I would have explained logically that no man should have this much power. He had not been elected to rule us. He didn’t even know most of the people he threatened with his madness— like my sister and her kids. He hadn’t known me when that snake thing attacked me in Baltimore. That thought I veered away from though because it might lead to another round of self-pity and fear. Instead I concentrated on indignation. What the hell made this monster think he had the right to harm any of us? He was like a supernatural fascist. Worse, a genocidal tyrant who would sacrifice anyone and anything to achieve his ends. And it was the duty of every able-bodied person to resist him.

  It was ironic that after years of doing each day by rote and having no guiding purpose, I finally had a personal reason to survive. And naturally the odds of living to see a future with Emerson had gone way down when I acquired my reason.

  At least I was awake again, my eyes wide open. I would earn any happiness or disappointments that came my way hereafter. And I was willing to fight for our chance at a better future.

  Some of this I said aloud.

  “It is not the right that aids him. It is the power he inherited,” Magnus said. The other two stopped staring at the walls and looked respectful. Emerson was respectful and surprised. Maybe I had been acting a bit of a cry baby for the last day or two and not looking at the bigger picture. I didn’t dwell on this because while self-criticism can be a good thing, self-flagellation was not, and anyway, I doubted we had time for either. It was bootstrap days ahead.

  “So I won’t be staying behind at the cottage while you all go off and do whatever you were thinking of doing without me.” I turned my head and looked at Emerson. There were some rather splendid physical attributes gathered around that stiffening spine, but I did not allow myself to be distracted by any of them. This monster was more important than my growing attraction.

  “Anna—”

  “I mean it.” And I did. I had let him control me until that point because my terror of flying and drowning could have gotten us killed, but if he tried to put me in a coma while he went off to play warrior he was going to have a fight on his hands.

  “Those are not pretty thoughts in your head,” Magnus said to me and then went to an ancient chest and opened the lid. He turned and handed me a rifle and a leather sack that held hand-cast bullets. It was an old bolt-action thing like my grandmother used to use when the shotgun was unavailable. “You may have this for company since you are thirsting for blood.”

  “Thanks,” I said and looked it over, doing my best to appear calm and competent. I had just been honored but knew Magnus didn’t want me to make a big deal about it. What I didn’t do was look at Emerson. Ladies, in his day, did not use firearms, especially on p
eople. He probably didn’t approve.

  The brief daylight had ended while we talked. None of us commented on this or made any move to light lamps or stir up the fire for more light or heat, and as the shadows grew I found myself thinking of the Book of Exodus: Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness will spread over Egypt—darkness that can be felt.”

  “Darkness will cover Egypt,” I said aloud. “Emerson, how long have people like us existed? How old was the Dark Man when he finally died for good?”

  I had everyone’s attention. They waited to see what else I would say, but didn’t choose to answer. Maybe because they didn’t know and maybe because the answer was horrible and they wished to spare me. I took another stab at trying to express the nebulous thought attempting to form in my brain.

  Some people are clever, logical, logisticians who can methodically find their way from point A to point B in any situation. I am not a moron. Thoughts normally come to me all day long, but ever since Baltimore, none had lighted long enough for me to examine them and take notes. They just buzzed around my head like mosquitoes. This was probably Emerson trying to protect me by running interference. But enough was enough. Frustrated at being able to come at the idea head on, I looked for my favorite backdoor, but my intuition was napping or maybe hiding from the power I felt outside. All I could do was shake my head at Emerson’s raised brow, unable to explain why this question felt important.

  “I think we’ve all wondered,” Emerson answered finally. I could sense his discomfort with the topic. “There are stories going back thousands of years about people being resurrected from the dead. But if it was Dippel who was responsible, I don’t know. The earliest confirmed record we have of his work is late sixteenth century.”

  People being resurrected. Like Lazarus. Like Jesus. Jesus a zombie, or at the least a zombie-raiser? My brain refused to go there. I mean… we were talking God. I wasn’t religious but I did believe in a higher power that ran the universe. Not the way Emerson was taught to believe, but still…. I mean, there couldn’t be a God that directed the fall of every sparrow, because that would mean that he had deliberately taken my mother, my father, my husband, years of happiness and then ‘cursed’ me with some kind of life that would keep me from my friends and family forever. So, I couldn’t think of God that way and ever be on speaking terms again.