From her vantage, Maggie couldn’t see much. The veil of smoke from braziers and opium pipes stung her eyes. Tears and shadow-soaked clouds obscured her view. There were people everywhere. Or maybe not people. In the haze it was hard to be sure.
They negotiated a living maze. Charybdis carried her through a sea of tangled flesh broken by occasional vacant eddies. Glimpses and glances hinted at horrors half-drowned in the haze. Screeches and squeals suggested worse. She saw depravity, raw and shameless. She shuddered.
At one turn, a woman was bent over a wooden saw-horse, her wrists and her ankles chained to the base. Red sores and blisters befouled her exposed ass. Two beastly, hunched creatures hovered over her predicament, scandalous delight spread across their faces.
Whips dangled from their hairy fists. They took turns flailing them against her despoiled buttocks. She shrieked with every hard crack of the leather, but Maggie wasn’t at all sure if they were screams of agony, or of pleasure. They might have been one in the same.
Just a few yards away, sheltered behind a ragged curtain, four figures sat around a table clothed with purple velvet. Each one was unique, and none of them paid even the faintest attention to the continuous screams stirred up from the whipping post.
Two had heads that were triangular in shape, with a snout-like mouth and nose. Their torsos were elongated and tubular. Both had drooping arms that seemed to lack joints. Each was hairless. Their skin glistened the color of slate, but one had clearly defined female breasts while the other did not.
Something sat between them with a face that resembled an African ritual mask; wide, long, and flat with tufts of straw-hair jutting up from the crown. Thick, gnarled fur hid its body. Across the table from it was a woman, human in all respects. She was naked and perfectly shaped, but covered in a coat of fine, blond hair.
There was a pint glass in front of her, the mouth covered by a large silver spoon marked with diagonal slits. She placed a series of sugar cubes on the utensil, reciting an adage as she did so.
The slate-skinned one beside her handed up a large black bottle, the glass tarnished, old, and opaque. Only a fragment of a paper label still clung to the face.
She raised and uncorked the bottle, pouring a pale green liquid over the spoon. All four of them breathed in deeply as they watched the sugar cubes dissolve, and the mixture drain through the slits.
Once it was done, the absinthe glowed jade-green. She removed the spoon and set it down. The four joined hands, those with something less than traditional appendages offering what they could to their neighbors. A solemn moment of prayer passed, a phrase repeated by each one in turn.
Then the leader took hold of the glass, sipped it lovingly and passed it to her left. Each one did the same.
“Hmm. That’s something I haven’t seen in ages, I thought no one was doing it anymore. Even for our kind, the wormwood can be deadly,” Charybdis remarked.
Maggie would have said something, but the next group snared her attention instead. Her expression said it all. Her eyes were opened as wide as they could go. Her jaw hung down quite un-self-consciously.
“I realize some of this is shocking to you, but it is all perfectly normal for us,” Charybdis attempted to assure her.
“Normal? That is normal?” she said.
She pointed to the seven or eight naked males stroking each other’s genitals. They were gathered in a wide circle around a bald, blue-skinned woman who moaned deeply as she was penetrated by the organ of a rearing canine.
“Sex with animals is normal?”
“Those animals you see will look like ordinary people in a few days, and some of those ordinary looking people will look like animals.”
“But … still, sex?” she muttered.
“Certainly. Intercourse doesn’t have the same meaning for us as it does for you,” Charybdis said, not at all disturbed by the debauchery. “For our kind it’s merely one more form of gratification. Because of our constant molting, most of us cannot reproduce.”
She hardly seemed convinced.
Underscoring the squeals and the sighs, and the occasional scream, a rhythmic chant kept constant pace throughout the hold. It was incomprehensible, an endless stream of words. Each one blended so seamlessly into the next as to resonate in a ubiquitous hum. It seemed to have no single source. Somehow, it grew stronger when they stopped at the foot of the towering throne dais, like an invisible, euphonious tide.
“What are those sounds?” Maggie questioned.
She was beyond fear now. The pain in her side had made her weak. All she had left was her horror, and her anger.
“They’re called the Odes of Dionysus,” Charybdis answered. “Songs that were ancient when Rome was a village, hypnotic tunes that once heralded festivals in dark, haunted forests. Some say they’re meant to drive the revelers into ecstasy. And to drive outsiders into madness.”
“They’re not in English. What do they mean?”
“I’m afraid I don’t really know,” Charybdis answered.
“Aren’t these your people?” she asked.
“They are, but in all my years I never learned this language. It’s Greek. I know that. A very old form called Koine,” the pale changeling replied.
“Why Greek?”
“Tradition,” a familiar voice interrupted. “So I’m told, anyway. This particular custom predates even me.”
It was Argus, the real Argus. He was chained like a beast, his neck constrained by an iron collar. The links kept him fettered to the floor of a pit at the base of the Keeper’s throne. His limbs were shackled in like fashion.
He smiled, peculiarly, as Charybdis and Maggie were forced to rest upon the damp concrete next to him. The white-robed Maenads clamped manacles on their wrists, locking them all into place in the shadow of the Morrigan’s great seat.
“The Havens, where changelings gather in secret today, are the continuations of ancient pagan temples. It was there that our words and our history were born, in the lost days of Mycenaean Greece. Later, they were written down during the waning years of the Roman Republic. At that time, Koine and Latin were like English and French today,” Argus continued, lecturing like a sage despite his confinement. “We were honored in those times. The pagans saw our molting as a reflection of the endless cycles of nature. Continuous change. Continuous renewal. As the winter becomes the spring, as the seed becomes the flower, and even as the caterpillar becomes the butterfly, so do we change.
“The ancients gave us sanctuary. For many thousands of years they used us in their rituals, and spoke of us in their stories. Now their descendants fear us.”
“Enough of the tales, Argus. For all your distrust of the outsiders, it is by the hand of our own kind that we face death today,” Charybdis gibed.
Argus was about to respond, to admonish his aide, when the Maenads returned. They brought another prisoner. It was Vince. He was shirtless, haggard, and pale. Regardless, he immediately interrupted.
“Maggie? Goddamn Sean! He said he was going to keep you out of this. Son of a bitch!” he exclaimed as he too was forced to his knees and shackled beside the others.
“He tried, I think. No thanks to your friends,” Maggie answered, not nearly as happy to see him as he might have expected.
“My friends? What the hell are you talking about? Jesus Maggie, I don’t know what anybody told you, but I’m not …”
“We were sold out! By your ex-partner,” Maggie said, cutting him off with a sharp tone. “He set us up, told us he was going to help. But he led us right to them.”
Vince shook his head. He banged his hand against the stone blocks.
“Pat Flanagan? No way. Not Paddie. He’s the most honest cop I’ve ever known.”
“Yeah well, all I can tell you is he took us way out of the city, and that’s where they got us. They knew right where to find us, too.”
“We did have advanced knowledge. That is true,” Charybdis spoke up.
“I can’t believe it, not Paddie
,” Vince continued.
A dark and sonorous voice answered him.
“You needn’t, Mr. Sicario. Your friend was quite loyal. To the end, I imagine. Little pity, his death, he was an annoying sort,” the Morrigan said.
No longer a raven, she stepped up to survey them from the edge of her dais. The comment was more of a mention. It carried no hint of emotion.
“Loyal, but not at all tight-lipped. And those around him, those within his precinct, owed their favors to Salvatore Calabrese. They were more than happy to keep me abreast of his comings and goings. Truly invaluable in obtaining all of you,” the Phantom Queen continued, floating away into the teeming masses, leaving only the oversized shadow of her opulent seat, just beyond their sight.
FORTY-TWO
SEAN MOVED WITH EYES SHIFTING IN EVERY DIRECTION, through shadows and varieties of light. He glided anonymously between the grotesque and the beautiful, seeing for the first time in three decades the celebrations of his estranged brethren.
His every step was registered with utmost caution. The Morrigan could be lurking behind any one of the faces that passed by in the revelry. The Keeper, like him, could change shape at will, and could stalk him without his ever realizing it. For that reason, Sean submerged his human form, the face of his never-faded youth. With every dark corner he slipped into, and every cloud of narcotic smoke that wafted over him, he shifted his appearance.
To the three reptilian women wagering sexual favors over hands of five-card draw, he was a hunch-backed giant, clambering by like some Grimm Brothers ogre.
Two squid-headed men, one cooking his heroin on a spoon over a flame, the other tying off his flipper in preparation for the needle, saw him as a lovely young Asian girl, naked and prancing.
But neither was really looking.
In the girl’s form, he skipped his way into a circle of dancers, cavorting and twirling to the throbbing beat of kettledrums. Spun about, his breasts fondled and his ass slapped, he just as quickly slipped away from the coterie.
Then he passed beneath a mesh tarp, slung from the low-hanging ventilation pipes in the rear corner of the warehouse. It was a bit quieter there, sheltered from the debauchery. Several figures were reclined on cushions, one on an antique couch. When he came to the only person sitting upright, a thing with shimmering silver skin and a head with two faces, he had sprouted pointy ears and shifted into an elf-like form.
The twin-countenanced man smiled with both mouths. He offered a pipe, and an empty set of cushions lay upon the floor. Sean nodded, placed his lips on the pipe and sucked in some of the warm opiate smoke. He pretended to inhale, then lazily reclined.
When he did, and he set his feminine head down, he noticed a figure walking by just outside of the tarp’s shadow. There was nothing peculiar about him, plainly humanlike and non-threatening, but it was the way he walked that caught Sean’s eye. He stepped slowly, turning his head in every direction as he did. He seemed to be looking for something, or someone.
Was it the Morrigan? Or merely one of the Maenads, uncloaked for the hunt?
Whoever it was, they were seeking him. Even he would not be able to hide forever.
Scylla, as yet unaware of her lover’s capture, or the presence of Lucifer besides, rested where she had been for the past day. The wounded warrior was tended to in a sheltered chamber near the Keeper’s dais, by some of the least unusual changelings, nearly human looking attendants who betrayed their true race only through slight physical anomalies.
Under their expert care she had recovered some, but was still weak, and required more rest before she would be able to molt again. When the Morrigan stepped into her abode, at the lead of six faceless Maenads, she sensed something was amiss.
The six-armed woman arose at the Keeper’s entry. While the renowned slayer did not look to be entirely herself, limping as she stood and wearing a bandage over the wound in her midsection, she yet made a fearsome stand. She was naked, but for the bandage and a black leather belt around her waist. Twin scabbards hung from each side of her waist. Her skin was golden and gleaming, her eyes fierce and black as night.
“Master?” she said, twitching her fingers to reach for her swords, as yet uncertain if that would prove necessary.
“Scylla, my foolish child,” the Morrigan scolded. “I had hoped you were near to rejoining my side, with the sacrifice of Lycaon.”
As she spoke, the Maenads drew forth their curved scythes. Now there could be no question.
“Sacrifice?” Scylla asked.
Though heedless of the blades suddenly pointed at her, her heart sank at the realization that her plot had somehow been uncovered.
“Yes. My wolf-child is gone. Fallen in the pursuit of Lucifer, but thanks to you and your lover, his sacrifice was not in vain. In fact it was exactly what I had wished for. The prophecy has now come to affect us all, hasn’t it?” her silky, melodious voice said.
“You sent Lycaon after Lucifer, knowing he could never subdue a trickster.”
“Of course, he was loyal to a fault, much as I once thought you to be. His absence will be lamented, but it was necessary. For the sake of our kind, I must endure, above all.
“You see, as bold as your plot against me was, your own actions doomed it to failure. When Lycaon rescued you, he did far more than save you. He captured your friend Arachne as well. She was reluctant to give up any information at first. I allowed her to molt, however, and after I had three or four of her legs removed and barbequed for my hungry servants, she became quite forthcoming.
“Once I knew where Argus was hiding, I let Lycaon rampage. He slaughtered those few who had remained loyal to the old one. He also, quite by accident, discovered that Mr. Vince Sicario rested within the cathedral. With the word from our contacts in the New York City Police Department, I suspected Lucifer had sought to deceive me by taking on his old friend’s form. So I elected to answer deception with deception.”
Scylla snarled. It was the only gesture she could make without risking a blade in the back.
“And now Lucifer himself has been drawn into my realm, soon to join Charybdis as my prisoner. Tonight I have been given a rare opportunity. I will settle these affairs once and for all, and finally, mercifully, prove the Book of Nestor wrong.
“Perhaps you would like to watch?”
Scylla was marched out to the foot of the throne dais. Charybdis saw her and cursed. She echoed her lover’s sentiment, even as the white-robed servants chained her up, shackling all six of her arms. The pit was now crowded full.
“How far we have fallen,” Scylla said, looking up at the platform with the seat of the Morrigan atop it.
“Fitting, though, that we shall meet our end where we had our beginning,” Charybdis replied, making a bitter, somewhat strange introduction between Maggie and Scylla.
“What will happen here?” Maggie asked.
“The Morrigan will solidify her power. She will exact her final judgment on the two of us,” Charybdis said.
“For aiding Sean?”
“No, our transgression dates much further back than this latest travail. Our history with the Morrigan far predates Lucifer’s,” Scylla answered.
She left it at that, perhaps unwilling to tell more, perhaps not. Argus, however, broke the momentary still when it became clear that neither Scylla nor Charybdis intended to continue.
“Why don’t you tell this human your tale? It might help to reconcile you with the end, unburden your soul, one final time,” the ancient one suggested.
Ever the counselor, even while awaiting his own execution.
Charybdis shook her head. She looked over at Scylla, frowning. Each regarded the other for a long while, and finally, both smiled. Then they relented.
“1918 was the year of our disgrace. The last year in which we laid eyes upon one another, until these current days,” Scylla began.
“What happened?”
“Lucifer,” Charybdis replied.
“Sean? So he is responsible?�
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Scylla looked certain, but Charybdis wavered, and it was she who continued.
“He was the impetus, but he is no more responsible for what happened than we were.”
“How, then?”
“He simply appeared,” the pale woman said. “Do you recall what he told you in the tunnels beneath the cathedral? About how he was drawn to St. Petersburg, to the underbelly of that deserted Tsarist palace?”
She nodded.
“Scylla and I were there as well, standing by the side of the Morrigan, as we had for three hundred years. We were once her most trusted aides, you see, her guardians against harm. Deadly to all comers, and loyal to the death.”
“We were feared. Feared perhaps as greatly as the Morrigan herself,” Scylla boasted. “It was our most glorious time.”
“But as with all glory, it was not to last forever,” Argus added.
“True enough. When Lucifer entered the hall, he was unaware of who we were, or of who he was. The only reason he knew as much as he did was his experience on the battlefields of France. It left him, I’m afraid, with a somewhat mistaken impression.”
“One which cost us our place of honor, and nearly our sanity besides,” Scylla added.
“I still don’t understand,” Maggie said.
“After several days spent observing us, silently, it came time for the initiation rite. All the new changelings were urged to come forward to shed their human identity and take on a name from the rolls of Nestor. Many did so, and Lucifer joined them.”
“But he didn’t know our customs, and our prejudices. He expected that we were all like him,” Scylla said.
“It was a moment that I will never forget,” Argus said. “When he stepped up to the foot of the Keeper’s chair, before all of us gathered, he greeted the Morrigan.”
“Greeted her by changing his form to mirror the Keeper,” Charybdis interrupted.
“I don’t think anyone in the hall was spared a startle in that instant, the Morrigan first among us,” Argus said.
“She flew into a rage, accused us of betraying her and immediately struck a blow to slay the youngster,” Charybdis stated.
The Lucifer Messiah Page 25
