Heartland-The Second Book of the Codex of Souls

by Mark Teppo

  There were two more flashes of blue light, and then the circle disintegrated along with the rest of the balcony. The whole side of the building started to come apart.

  The psychic wings of the Chorus unfurled and we caught an updraft of hot air.

  Back in college, I had been an avid outdoorsman. Even worked at REI part-time. I had grown up in the shadow of the Grand Tetons, and getting out into the mountains surrounding Seattle had been a vital part of the weekends. I had started with rock climbing, but had graduated to BASE jumping a year or so before that night in the woods up north, when everything changed.

  One of my fellow jumpers said it best: "Jumping off a rock isn't crazy. It's the most controlled expression of freedom you can achieve. It's just you, your gear, and gravity; and gravity never lets go." We jumped off cliffs, bridges, antenna, and the occasional half-completed building in Bellevue, and every time, we were in complete control of our descent. You never fell, you always managed a controlled descent; we were very particular about the distinction. You climbed to a high spot, found your landing spot on the ground (pre-scouted, of course), gave the wind the middle finger (because the wind, unlike gravity, was a capricious bitch), and jumped. Everything else was just a matter of focus and control.

  Much like magick.

  Jumping from buildings was tougher, only because the winds were more chaotic, and stronger too. In Seattle, some nights they'd howl in off the Sound, like alienated djinn exiled from the desert, and the buildings would creak and groan under their pressure. Only those eager to die talked about jumping from a structure downtown on those nights. The wind was too strong, and it would grab a jumper like a leaf and shake him until he was nothing but pulp and bone caught in the tattered remnants of his 'chute.

  Towing another man was a bit like falling with a torn parachute. Control was sluggish, the drag unnatural, and gravity was an issue. I wasn't so much an owl as a clumsy bat, struggling to stay in the air. The magus and I scraped the side of a building, nearly collided with a black metal railing—invisible in the shadows of the alley into which we were falling—and then bounced off the pavement.

  My cargo—who, the Chorus informed me, was the conspiracy theorist Chieradeen—groaned loudly. I sat up, checking for anything worse than a bruised rib and scraped palms. "Any landing you walk away from is a good one," I told Chieradeen, whose only response was a grunting noise. My center of gravity rolled once as I got to my feet, and the Chorus was heavy in the base of my head. They shifted like a pool of mercury and my balance settled.

  A pair of shadows eclipsed the ambient light pollution trickling down from the roof line. I glanced up as Marielle and Delacroix glided down and landed with much more grace. Delacroix had left the shotgun behind.

  I eased Chieradeen over, and when he opened his eyes and looked at me, I helped him sit up. He was like me, bruised and a little battered but alive, and the realization that he wasn't going to die from falling was starting to sink in. Chorus-sight lit up his skin and revealed the chaotic insanity still in his veins.

  I checked Marielle and Delacroix too. We were all still poisoned to varying degrees. No wonder I had flown like a wounded duck. Half my mind was busy fighting a chemical war in my bloodstream. I had been able to ignore it so far because of the heightened energy state of the Chorus, but I was going to have to do something about it soon.

  Marielle knelt beside Chieradeen, and in a quick motion, stripped off her sweater. Underneath, she was wearing a tight black tank top. Motioning for the Watcher to lie down on his back, she bunched the sweater under his head as a makeshift pillow. "He's going to need a hospital," she said, looking up at Delacroix. "We need a car."

  Delacroix's mouth compressed to a fine line, and he stared at the pair of them for a long moment. The muscles in his jaw worked, chewing on an idea that none of us wanted him to articulate, and then he nodded finally.

  "Keep it simple," Marielle admonished to his back as he strode off toward the street.

  When he was out of earshot, she bent over Chieradeen. "How can it be that you don't know how to fly?" she asked him, her voice gentle. "It's the quickest way to get out of a bad situation. I figured you'd be good at escape routes."

  He tried to smile, and managed a weak grin. "Long story," he croaked. "And stupid too. It's better—" He coughed wetly.

  Marielle pressed a hand against his shoulder as he tried to continue. "It can wait," she said. She bent closer to him. "But you have to live to tell me."

  He nodded, his hand stealing up to hold on to hers.

  "Your fight is not with us," she said. "We can't stay together. You must find your own path."

  He looked at me, and the fervor in his gaze made the Chorus churn in my gut. "Is he—" he started.

  Marielle shook her head. "Do not allow yourself to be distracted, Traveler. Not with the poison that is eating your heart." She caught his chin and pulled his attention back to her face. "Vide te animum, frater."

  Watch your spirit, brother.

  "Ye-yes," he said, and the spinning confusion of his soul lost some of its chaotic motion. "Yes, I can do that." He let go of Marielle's hand.

  I helped her up, and we faded into the shadows of the alley, heading for the other end. I glanced back once, when we reached the street, and Chieradeen was just a misshapen heap on the ground, a huddled shape like a solitary rock on a wet beach. One man, trying to hold his own against chaos—within and without.

  "We're going to need a hospital too," I pointed out.

  "I know," she said. Shivering slightly in the night air, she pointed toward the nearest intersection. A pair of cabs were parked next to an open brasserie. We went to the closer of the two, and she bent over next to the driver's window, making sure the guy inside the warm car got a nice view of her breasts.

  The cab window scrolled down a few inches. Sweet-smelling smoke and French hip-hop rolled out of the car. "Pitié-Salpêtrière," she said. "Please."

  The cab driver, a huge, bearded man who barely seemed to fit behind the wheel, stared for a second, and then nodded. The back doors unlocked and we got in. Inside, the music and cigarette smoke were even stronger. We were barely seated when the driver put the car into gear and mashed the accelerator. Marielle fell against me, her arm and shoulder across my body. Her skin was hot.

  I was feverish too, and the secondhand smoke wasn't helping. Whatever the guy was smoking, it was strong and exotic, and he was using it to hide the smell of a recently smoked joint. The combination made me dizzy, and the stop-start motion of the cab wasn't helping either.

  Marielle repositioned herself a little less awkwardly, though she didn't move that far away from me. She rubbed her upper arms, mainly—I thought—as an excuse to do something with her hands. "Moreau," she Whispered instead of trying to make herself heard over the banging hip-hop. "What did he tell you?"

  "He didn't know who called Tevvys," I sent back.

  She glanced at me sharply. "He was lying to us."

  "I know." The cab dashed through a changing light, bouncing hard on the street, and I waited for my stomach to stop complaining before continuing. "But not about that."

  She glanced at the driver, who was oblivious to our magi-speak conversation. "What about, then?"

  I shrugged. I looked out the window instead of looking at her. Her neck was exposed, as were her shoulders, clavicle, and a bit more. I didn't fault the driver for staring when he had the chance. "He didn't say."

  "I told you to find out what he knew."

  The Chorus bristled at her tone, but I kept them in check. "And I did."

  She didn't say anything, and implicit in that silence was the accusation that I had disobeyed her, that I had failed to follow through with her intent.

  But it was her intent. Not mine. I had no reason to kill him, nor any desire to do so. The sight of the Chorus had been enough to reduce Moreau to tears. He had told me everything he thought he knew, and the Chorus had easily read his earnest desire to be believed.

&nbs
p; "I am not your instrument." I told Marielle as gently as I could, but I couldn't keep the echo of my voice, the buzzing noise of the Chorus, snarling through a ripple of memory. We had been here before, and the sentiment had been the same then. I am not your angel of vengeance.

  "We don't know anything," she said, vibrating with a quiet fury. She couldn't know what the Chorus was reacting to, but she could read the underlying bite in my words. "We lost more men and learned nothing. What was the point of all that, Michael?"

  I shook my head. "What would killing Moreau have gained us? The satisfaction of Old Testament-style retribution? Is that what this has come to already? Besides, killing Moreau would have been a waste of a useful tool. I shouldn't have to tell you that, Marielle. Alive, Moreau can still be twisted to our design. He can still perform a useful service."

  "What service is that?"

  "We have Tevvys' phone," I Whispered. "I told Moreau that the only way he could redeem himself was make contact with whoever was coordinating the attack and have them call us."

  "I don't—" She stopped and shook her head. After taking a few deep breaths, she changed direction. "He'll turn on us the moment he has a chance. Provided he actually lives long enough."

  "I guess he has some incentive then."

  "Michael—" She sighed, and a bitter laugh got caught in her throat. "You are such a fo—"

  "I'm not." I spoke out loud, biting the words off more firmly than I intended, the Chorus sparking behind my anger. "I used him, Marielle, instead of throwing him away."

  "What if he doesn't survive? How is that useful to us?"

  "It tells us they don't care who they hurt." I reached out for her leg, and she moved away from me. I dropped my hand to the seat. "If they did bring the building down, it'll take them too long to dig out anything useful. They don't have that kind of time. They need to either find us or make a deal. As long as we can stay a few steps ahead of them, they'll have to keep flailing away at us. Wasting resources and energy trying to find us."

  I glanced out the window again. Through a break in the buildings, I could see the black shape of the trees along the Seine. Beyond their silhouettes, I could see the lit buttresses of Notre-Dame. My vision swam suddenly, a disorienting pressure inside my brain. The lights around Notre-Dame changed, lengthening into tall shapes. The crown of the church looked like it was swarming with phantom gargoyles, all struggling to take flight. "Meanwhile," I offered. "We've got a head start."

  "Yes, but a head start to where?"

  "One thing at a time," I said. "Let's take care of this poison first."

  This time, the laugh didn't get caught in her throat. I tried not to react, but it was like getting hit in the face again. She knew I had no idea.

  The Chorus read a haze of magick coming off Marielle as she stood next to the car and leaned over to talk to the driver again. The driver smiled, welcoming her suggestion and letting it smooth his memory. His window scrolled shut and the vehicle slid away slowly from the curb. Marielle didn't look at me until she had walked a few paces and realized I wasn't following her. The wind pulled at her hair, winding it about her face and neck.

  I pointed across the street at the massive shape of the one-time gunpowder factory, now a celebrity hospital. "Uh, the hospital is over there." I could have said it a hundred different ways, but my tone was nothing but petulant attitude.

  "Too many eyes." Marielle said it like she was talking to a child.

  "We don't have much choice," I pointed out. "I don't know how you're doing, but this thing is eating me." I tried to be a little more conciliatory, assuming that part of our crankiness toward each other was due to the twisting spikes in our guts and not the petty argument we had had in the cab. "I'm not going to be able to hold it off for much longer."

  "Then you have some incentive to follow me, don't you?" She didn't wait for me to answer.

  I sighed. Obviously the disagreement about Moreau was going to hang on a bit longer. Ride it out. Within an arc of steady light floating in my head, the spirit of Detective Nicols exuded a calming influence. Hold on to what matters; let the rest go. And, a second later, when I hadn't moved: Follow her. My legs started kicking on their own accord, and I stumbled into a steady trot, jogging to catch up with her.

  We didn't go far, just a block or two further along the road, and when she turned toward the river, I saw our destination. I would have had to be blind to miss it. It was anchored at a quay on the river, and lit up with a thousand strands of red lights.

  "Batofar," she said.

  We could hear the music from here, and at quayside, there was a line waiting to get in. Batofar was an old lighthouse boat, Marielle explained as we walked over. Moored on the Left Bank since the turn of the century, it was a progressive nightclub catering to the electronic and industrial crowd. Small and intimate, it had several bars onboard as well as a dance floor below deck.

  "And why would we want to go inside?" I asked. "There's not a lot of advantages in a cramped space with no escape route."

  "It's not on land," she said. "And they have absinthe."

  I swallowed a scathing comeback. Ride it out. But she read the annoyance and disbelief in my face. Somewhat surprisingly, she didn't bite back.

  "I can mix a drink with absinthe that'll take care of the poison," she explained. "And it'll be harder for the geomancers to read us if we're not in direct contact with the leys."

  Now those were two reasons I could get behind.

  Dockside, there was a narrow gate with a temporary shelter that looked like a good breeze would tear it off the quay. Three blocky men in dark trench coats were slowly processing people through a security checkpoint. Everyone going through the gate was decked out in their best gothic and industrial gear: helmets and headpieces studded with rivets and chains; piercings through every visible (and invisible, I'm sure) body part; gas masks and insectoid goggles; black jackboots and long trench coats with sinister authoritarian logos; vampire teeth peeking out from black-stained mouths; Victorian-era clothing, decked out with steampunk accessories.

  I hesitated as we approached the dock. Marielle could get away with the minimalist goth look in her black top and pants, but I was looking like a country hick in town for a weekend while my uncle took the pigs to market. Even with the cool pockets on my jacket.

  "We're not going to be conspicuous in this crowd?" I asked.

  "Eccentric," Marielle corrected. "There's always a couple."

  "Couldn't we find someplace where we could be invisible instead?"

  "We will be." She softened, shedding more of the black mood that we had brought from the cab. "Trust me."

  I did, and when my hand started to reach for her, she met me halfway, wrapping her fingers around mine. Turning my hand up, she pressed her lips against my palm. I cupped her face in my hand, and didn't want to let go.

  She lowered my hand, gave me a sad little smile, and led me toward the boat. Nothing more was said. Nothing more needed to be said.

  The security detail took one look at me, and tripled the cover charge. Because I looked like that sort of sucker. They would have considered rolling me for my wallet and dumping my body in the river, if it hadn't been for the unconscious glitter of the Chorus under my skin which gave them pause.

  On board, the red lights strung along every surface made everything appear as if covered in blood. Through Chorus-sight, I could see sigils woven everywhere: across the bulkheads, around the metal pipes, crawling across the hinges and locks of sealed doors. The lighthouse stack was a confusion of arcane script that seemed to tell some sort of story about ascending angels and Enochian watchtowers. The bar in the front prow of the boat was lit by black light, and most of the drinks were glowing green and yellow. As were the fangs of more than one patron milling around in their best gothic finery.

  The entire structure shook with the music. Most of the upper register was a mess of echoes, too many metal surfaces that broke everything above subsonic into shards of noise. The low
er registers, though, reverberated through the frame of the boat; the rhythm pushed at me from every direction, like being caught in the crush of a midnight rave. The beat echoed in my lower back and groin, a steady thrum that was creating a bit of stir.

  Piotr had once told me that the engines on old boats—like the rusty freighters on which he had shipped around the world during his time in the Merchant Marines—would sometimes vibrate at a frequency that drove the sailors nuts. You stay at sea too long, he had said, and it doesn't take much to get you off. The ship takes care of her own.

  "What?" Marielle asked, noticing my expression.

  "Nothing," I said. "Something a friend once told me about boats."

  Her naked arm brushed against my hand. Instinctively, I stroked her skin, a motion of old familiarity. A shiver ran through her frame, and she turned slightly, moving closer to me. She put her mouth next to my ear, and my hand grabbed her waist. Comfortably, as if we did this every day. She exhaled for a minute, sorting through some response in her head, before she settled on a string of words. "The poison," she said. "We need to deal with it. First."

  When she turned away, most of her body slid across mine. Hip, breast, shoulder. It was the sort of broad stroke a painter used to cover as much of the canvas as possible. It was the sort of motion that made it clear what was on her mind.

  The poison. The Chorus wound into an ever-tightening knot in my groin. Focus.

  She led me toward the door that would take us down to the lower bar and the dance floor. Inscribed on the door in ink that glowed white in Chorus-sight was a magick circle, calling for protection against spirits and possession. It didn't flair as we passed.

  One of the pentacles of Saturn. Constitue super eum peccatorem, et diabolus stet a dextris ejus. Protecting the innocent from possession and the influence of foul spirits.

  Not much help for those already lost.