Divine 05 - Nevermore

by Melanie Jackson

  Not long after a storm began creeping up behind us. We were all aware of it and no one was happy so I assumed it wasn’t part of the master plan they’d concocted the night before. I worried at first that it might be a sign that Saint Germain had found us, but then recalled what Emerson had said about why his clan did not gather for long periods or in great numbers. It was time for prayers to the weather gods that we would have no cyclones or blizzards.

  The path, already modest, completely effaced itself after the cliff above the deepest ravine we crossed. I was used to mountains and hiking but not rock-climbing in the dark in sub-zero tempertaures. My body was retraining itself though, letting my brain finally recognize the fact that my muscles were now stronger and faster than they had ever been. Stronger and faster than a human body should be, but that I could rely on them. My life—before the change— now felt alien, something I had dreamed while chloroformed with grief. I couldn’t imagine going back. The future was something I couldn’t guess at, but it it at least had the potential to be happier than the exhausting present or drearie past.

  “Thank you for that, Emerson,” I murmured. He heard me and looked back. I shook my head but smiled. I mouthed the word later.

  There were less pleasant things than memories pressing in on me by the time we scaled the next cliff. I have a pretty good time-piece and map in my head but the near constant darkness, jumped timezones and monotonous terrain confused my internal gps, and it worsened the further inland we traveled.

  However there was no mistaking when the well-known slow pressure beginning to push on my forebrain.

  “Emerson,” I said, stopping on an eyelash wide trail. I didn’t like to sound like Me me me, especially after insisting that I was able to fight, but Emerson needed to know if another vision was coming. So he would catch me before I swandived off the very tall cliff.

  “Is your sight coming?” he asked, an arm wrapping around me, prepared to anchor me if I again collapsed. There are not words enough to explain how comforting that arm was and I allowed myself a small cuddle.

  “Maybe. It isn’t bad yet. It’s just… getting stronger the longer we stay on this trail.”

  “We are nearing the mound now,” Magnus said. “If she is sensitive she will feel it. And this may not be a bad thing either. Hindesight is available aplenty. Foresight is something much more unusual. We should not turn away a gift from the gods.”

  He still preferred to talk about me rather than to me, but I sensed his concern beneath the gruff words so didn’t bother being snotty. And so what if he wanted to use me as an early warning system? We had few enough tools at hand for me to get fussy when I could actually do something to help.

  “Tell me if you get dizzy,” Emerson said, but I could also feel him moving back into my mind. He did not go far, just waited at the edges in case I needed him. That probably meant he had to leave the raven, but the other birds continued to fly lookout so I didn’t worry about surprise attacks.

  “I have not known many of the Pentacost,” Magnus said, exhibiting personal curiosity for the first timer. “How will the signs manifest?”

  I ran this through my translator. Pentacosts were religious visionaries and I decided he was talking about having The Sight.

  “Dizziness, weak knees. And then—well, maybe a siezure, maybe fainting if it’s something really big. But look, I’ve never seen angels or anything like that. It isn’t religious. Mostly I just know when people are lying or cheating on their spouses.” I paused. “Though last time I somehow knew that…” This was still hard to say. “That Saint Germain had raised the dead and was sending them after us. My dog— who is also dead— warned me.”

  “A dog totem.” I waited for some further comment but got only a head nod. Curiosity would progress only so far. Or maybe he expected messages to be delivered by dead animals. At least he didn’t disbelieve me.

  We moved methodically. Hastiness is not progress, Magnus said repeatedly. Björn and Jón seemed to have been struck dumb and I remembered what Emerson said about getting lost for days in the mind of flying creatures and wondered just how close to insane the other two really were and if they would be any help if we ran into trouble of the ghoulish variety.

  As we descended a particularly nasty bit of cliff, which I would never have attempted without strong encouragement from Emerson and a reminder from Magnus that a fall wouldn’t kill me even if it hurt a lot, there was a nearby lightning strike that loosed a car-sized piece of rock and sent it sliding to the ground where it broke in half. I made like a gargoyle and froze on the wall until Emerson assured me that it was natural lightning and not Saint Germain throwing things at us. This time Magnus didn’t try and tell me that having a car-sized rock falling on me wouldn’t be fatal. The drop ended with a flourish of jagged rocks that would spit anyone who fell on them even if they weren’t crushed.

  And then we were there. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that this was the place though it was completly unexpected. Maybe I had been expecting a castle or at least a stone ring with moss and flowers. Instead there was a small mountain of black rock and a weird humming.

  The mound, while not especially tall, was disconcerting. It didn’t have a visible aura but I could feel the difference between that stone and the other cliffs and crags around us. I was pretty sure that if I listened hard enough I might even be able to hear the mound talking. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or frightened that this was the thing pressing on my brain.

  Then every thought derailed when suddenly and silently the stone mound folded back on itself. From inside the revealed passage came the sound of hollow booming, like waves in a sea cave though I doubted that was possible because of being so far inland. After a moment it stopped. The sleet which had been falling on us was pushed back maybe twenty feet, leaving a dry corridor to the waiting mouth.

  We hesitated for a long moment and I wondered if this was what the others had been expecting. The words abandon all hope ye who enter here and come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly crossed my mind. This felt like a breaking bet to place with Fate. Guess wrong and we failed. Maybe even died. For once I hoped for a vision but none came. The feeling of being watched was omnipresent and I tried to look every way at once, which only made my neck hurt. I envied the others their ability to see things from the air, though I suspected that in this case the encounter was less about seeing than seeing.

  Emerson was in the present and focused on the opening. His re-entry phase back into his own mind from the raven’s seemed to go more swiftly and easily than for the others who looked like they were being shaken to wakefulness out of deepest sleep.

  None of the horrid smell of the other troll cave was in the air. In fact, I was smelling something green and vaguely fruity. My muscles began to relax.

  “See! We are expected. All will be well,” Magnus said. He was trying hard to sound certain but failed.

  “Will it hurt your feelings if I don’t entirely believe you?” I asked, but already I was feeling the need to step inside and have a rest in the warm, dry darkness. The urge was very strong.

  “Emerson, I have never made another because I do not want to keep the curse alive. But I understand why you picked this girl,” Magnus said.

  “Was that a compliment?” I demanded and Magnus slapped me on the back. Suddenly I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to feel that friendly toward me, but at least it lessened the compulsion to flee that had been creeping up on me.

  “Anna, do you hear singing?” Emerson asked.

  I did. A soft, almost sing-song sound came out of the mountains mouth. I could identify no definite language but I sensed it asked a question. Who were we? What were we? Did we know the sacred song?

  Feeling a little silly, I muttered an invocation I had read in an old book of magic.

  “O come magic that in the colors of the rainbow lives, for as I pass I worship.”

  Light bloomed inside the mound, as though lit by dozens of torches. Now all the men wer
e looking at me with a combination of worry and awe.

  “What? I read it somewhere. It’s cave magic one-oh-one.” And it didn’t require a blood sacrifice.

  I advanced slowly, stopping at the giant mouth. I wasn’t going in alone and risking being cut off from the others. Peering inside I felt my breath catch. The cave had indeed lit its ancient hearth fires in a wonderful celebration. The grand chamber was filled with orange light, which danced merrily on the ceiling and walls that appeared to be made of some kind of dark glass. It beckoned again in that voice that was not a voice. Now it spoke English to me.

  Child, come.

  I hesitated and Emerson came up beside me. He could hear something but I doubted the voice was as explicit with him.

  “I need to go in there,” I said softly.

  “Yes, and I too. But first… It is possible that we will die here. I find the notion an odd one, for though God forsook me years ago, neither has he molested me particularly since the change. And though Death took all those around me, he has always spared me even in situations where by any standards I should have died. Perhaps he had reaped his fill of my loved ones and hungered no more. But now you are here and I find myself again concerned that Grim Reaper shall come calling.”

  I looked toward him. “Death has been following me for a long time as well. We can’t stop him. And you have done all you can to make me strong— you have stayed with me when I know that part of you didn’t want to. There is nothing more you can do to protect me. We have no choice but to go on.”

  He nodded, but I could see that my words brought no comfort. They didn’t comfort me either.

  “I do not know what I shall do if I am haunted by another ghost,” he confessed and then looked away. “Please remain out here a little longer. I can go on alone to make sure that it is safe.”

  “I can’t wait here. I’m supposed to go inside first. Tell you what,” I said lightly. “We’ll make a pact. You don’t haunt me and I won’t haunt you. If we die there will be no coming back as ghosts.”

  Emerson nodded once, allowing me to lighten the conversation, but it was a lie. No matter what happened, this man would haunt me forever.

  “Then there is only one thing more.” He turned me toward him. A naked aggressor I might have fled, but I was deceived by the civilized cashmere sweater and did not recognize his intent until his lips were on mine.

  The kiss was fiendishly clever, not rough, not at all bossy, and I didn’t feel any mental push so I knew the response that washed through me was all my own. It was one hell of a time for a first kiss, but I didn’t protest. It might olso be our last and only.

  Finally he pulled back and I remembered to breathe, to think, to make my heart keep a steady rhythm. We did not look at the others. I can’t speak for Emerson but my heart prefered to pretend that there was no witness but itself.

  “What are you thinking, Anna? Usually I can tell…”

  “I’m thinking of checking you for the mark of the beast.” At his startled look I added: “You can’t fool me. I know now that you are an incubus.”

  The old Emerson would have been shocked and possibly offended. Now he just grinned at me, accepting the backhanded compliment.

  The cave seemed to sense our mood and it changed accordingly, becoming happier, the colors brighter and more enticing.

  Come, child, you and your love.

  “I can here it talking—the cave. Magnus is right. We are going to be okay,” I said, realizing that I was basing this on intuition and not logic or experience. I added truthfully: “At least for now.”

  “Then lead on. I shall follow.”

  Behind us lightning flashed and the wind began rising. We joined hands and then stepped into the cave. Magnus was behind us but the other two remained outside, standing guard at the door and again lost in the minds of the birds who circled overhead.

  Chapter 13

  “You may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes. It would be unreasonable to so without accident for two hundred years.”

  —Bertrand Russell

  It was winter without but spring within. The cave was warm, delightfully so after the weather we had been hiking through and I was glad to escape the hail of small lofted stone the wind was throwing at us. It was light inside of the reflected fires that glowed on the walls though the flames themselves were invisible or perhaps burning inside the glassy rock. The floor was covered in soft black sand that could have only come from the pulverized glass-rock that made up the cave. I wasn’t sure if I should be pleased with the marks in the black dust, suggesting that something large had recently been dragged through it, especially since I couldn’t tell if it was coming or going.

  “Things are moving in here but I feel no wind,” Emerson said softly and pointed.

  There were dust-motes twirling softly in the shafts of light pouring out of a large tunnel to the left of the cave. Could that have left the marks in the sand? I guessed from the shocked expressions that neither Emerson or Magnus had ever seen dust that glowed the color of stormy sunset. I hadn’t either, but somehow nothing felt shocking to me just then. My poor, unimaginative sister could not have coped with this since her ignorance of all things supernatural was profound and carefully maintained, but I felt oddly accepting and even eager to explore this strange world. Thoughts of trolls, ghouls or decapitated bodies had somehow slipped my mind.

  “Pretty. The light—”

  “Pretty?” Emerson asked. He was listening hard.

  “Yes, it’s—” I began, only to be interrupted by a rumble that sounded like a tiny volcano and then something that I could only describe as a seismic sneeze.

  Drop, child!

  The hair on my neck stood on end and my nerves screamed a follow-up warning. “Get down! Now!”

  Emerson and Magnus didn’t need to be told twice. We dropped to the floor and above us a stream of flames rushed into the room, licking at the domed ceiling. The air smelled strongly of burning tires and the heat was intense, like blast from a coke furnace and I hoped I hadn’t lost my eyebrows. We closed our eyes against it, but the light was so blindingly bright that I could still see even through my lids when a winged creature’s silhouette stretched out over us, blocking out the reflected fires, swallowing them whole as it enveloped us in some sort of psychic net. This being’s mind was unlike anything I had ever felt. Not evil but utterly alien. This was not some giant Icelandic raven. Could this be the cave itself? Or maybe a volcano? That sounded crazy but I was no longer certain that I knew what was possible and what was not.

  Then I remembered the headless body that Emerson said had been killed by talons and reconsidered my giant raven theory. I fought back against the foreign power pressing on my brain. It took an immense effort to fight clear of the cobweb mesh dropped over my mind, and to roll toward the shelter of the boulders near the cavern’s walls. I kept hold of the gun and backpack but had the feeling that neither was useful.

  Emerson followed swiftly, perhaps freed from some on the psychic netting because of being partially in my head. Magnus lay there stunned, being rained on by the goop that now covered the ceiling. Though I said nothing, I had the feeling that it was some kind of mucus.

  “Magnus!” I hissed, but there was no reaction. Emerson had to catch him by a leg and drag him into shelter.

  “Cool it, you snot monster!” I thought I heard a voice say. It echoed from far away though and I thought perhaps I’d imagined it.

  The heat was slowly replaced with a cool, watery blue light and I could hear a small stream bubbling nearby, a sound that hadn’t been there before. As suddenly as it had come, the awful petroleum smell was gone and a new scent filled the chamber. It was a light, succulent green odor, a mix of berries and crushed fern that evoke the clear picture of an ancient woodland, a place filled with the elemental power of nature, a holy place, sanctuary. The snot overhead hardened into something attractively crystalline.

  “Do you smell that?” Emerson as
ked, checking on Magnus who now seemed fine though stunned enough to stay still and blink at the ceiling. Emerson handed him a handkerchief for his hair and face. “It’s like blackberries, fern, and musk. And petroleum,” he added with a glance upward.

  “But there’s something else too,” I said as the last whiffs of burning rubber left the air and left a vaguely animal smell. “Magnus, wipe your face. That stuff can’t be good for you.”

  “But what a strange combination of smells in a cave. It must be a shian—a fairy cave.”

  A fairy cave. Why not? It sounded better than a troll cave any day.

  “Is this normal for around here?” I asked a bit helplessly. “Maybe it was just a gas vent or something.”

  “I don’t know exactly about what is normal for faerie mound. The shians are alive though— that’s what the legends say.” Magnus answered as he lifted his head off the floor and started scrubbing his exposed skin. He looked a bit shaken but sounded reasonably composed.

  We listened hard for a long while but heard nothing except bubbling water. The feeling of peace and reassurance returned. All I needed to do was embrace it and my unwarranted fear would melt away.

  “Well, okay then.” I sat up slowly pulled off my boots which had acquired something other than my feet and socks. I upended them, emptying out a small river of black sand and rocks. My feet felt blistered though I could see no sign of actual damage. I looked longingly at the stream wending across the floor and felt the pangs of thirst. My new strength was amazing but my body was not invincible and it was calling me to account for the day’s abuses.

  “Let me taste it first,” Emerson said, crawling toward it. None of us were anxious to stand up and place ourselves in the blast zone.

  The water bubbled gaily at his approach, bathing him in a gentle blue light and beckoning us closer. Once more I could smell the pleasing scent of berries and fern and animal.