Immortal Make

by Sean Cunningham

  “Are you going to explain what just happened?” she asked.

  “Say the word ‘light’ in English, or any day-to-day language, and the subjective concept of light appears in your mind.” Julian tapped his temple. “Say the word light in the language of magic and you also push on the part of you that can change reality to match what’s in your mind. Perception is reality. Perception is subjective. With magic, reality becomes subjective. Magic is the application of your subjective experience onto the reality around you.”

  Her mind spun with the implications. She realised she still held the notepad in her left hand and offered it back to him.

  He raised a hand. “No, that’s for you. I described a few different dreamscapes for you to manifest in there. I’m sure you’ll find a use for at least some of them.”

  She rested the sketch pad in her lap. “Focus on the words. That was the first piece of advice you gave me. Just focus on the words.”

  “And now you see why. I note you were already doing it to manifest dream objects inside a dream. Quite well too, as though you’ve been trained for it.” He took the notepad from her hand, flipped through it and handed it back. “I saw you concentrating when you first manifested the apple. This one will help with that.”

  Fiona took the pad back. The pattern drawn on the page was simpler than the others. It drew her gaze to the centre each time she tried to study it.

  “You know the rings witches and warlocks wear to focus their magic?” he asked. “Same principle. Eventually it will become a crutch we’ll need to discard, but for now it will help.”

  When Julian rose to his feet, she hurried to stand and block his way out. “Now hang on. We’ve only just started. I have about a dozen questions for you.”

  He put a hand on her shoulder. “When you have about a thousand, let me know and we’ll talk again.”

  His smile was still there, even warmer now. She hadn’t seen him smile like that before. He loves magic, she realised. And he drew pleasure in sharing it with her. That, somehow, sated her impatience.

  “In a little while,” he said, “the surprise will wear off. Then you’re going to blow your own mind as you start realising the possibilities. That moment should be yours. I’d hate to take it from you.”

  “Well, thank you I guess,” she said. “Though did you have to be such a jerk about it?”

  “You had yourself convinced you couldn’t do magic. I had to push you past that.”

  “Strikes me as a pretty weird way to do magic though,” Fiona said. “I’ve never read about or heard anyone talk about doing it this way.”

  “No. Your gift is wrapped around you in a strange way. It took me a while to figure out how to come at it.” He shrugged. “But now you’re moving. Now you believe you can do it. I’ll be happy to help you where I can.”

  She showed him to the door. A glow of excitement had lit in the back of her mind, like the first part of a sunrise. “I didn’t think you were going to help me at all, you know.”

  “I didn’t think I would either,” he said. He shivered as he stepped outside. “I was raised to keep secrets. For good reasons, but it’s become a habit.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “Do you remember why Rob thought I should teach you magic?” She shook her head. “He said because you’re our friend. I don’t always make the right decisions or go about things the right way. But when that happens, Rob sets me right.”

  “Good thing,” she said.

  “It has been. I’ll talk to you next week.” He smiled in a way she hadn’t seen him smile before. “Enjoy your weekend.”

  He hopped over the low brick wall that divided their front yards. Fiona closed the front door of Flat 2. She lifted the notepad, which was still turned to the page with the focusing mandala.

  “Right,” she said. “Right.”

  Hard-packed snow still covered the ground around the towering Crystal Palace. Fiona kept her boots firmly planted on the icy path.

  Lawrence Moth sniffed her out in short order.

  He came skipping towards her in long bounds, like a nearly weightless child. The striated colours of his coat shifted and fluttered around him. The ground writhed in his wake.

  “Lawrence,” Fiona said with a sardonic nod.

  He turned his empty face towards her. “This time,” he said with his distorted voice, “stay still.”

  “Oh Lawrence,” she replied. The focus mandala from her notepad was a band around the middle finger of her right hand. Just like the rings witches wore. She lifted her head and spoke to the sky. “Snow.”

  The scattered clouds in the night sky condensed into a heavy blanket. A thick snowfall spilled from them. The Moth shrank away as the air filled with wet, fluffy flakes, as though expecting them to burn.

  “Chase me if you can, Lawrence,” Fiona said.

  She pushed down with her hands and her feet left the ground. She flew backwards so she could keep Lawrence in view. The leafless trees zipped by her on either side.

  Lawrence spat a word. She guessed he was swearing, though not in any language she knew. He bounded after her. On his third bound he landed on all fours and propelled himself forward even faster.

  Fiona reached a bronze statue of a man on a horse pawing the air. The Physical Energy statue had not existed in the park at the same time as the Crystal Palace, but it was there now because she wanted it to be. “Hey you,” she said, “Sir Cecil Rhodes. Wake up.”

  The black pattern on her finger shifted, like the branches of a tree moving in the wind.

  The statue came to life. The horse reared as its rider called out, “Ho!” The bronze Sir Cecil looked down at her. “Have you called me, madam?”

  She pointed down the path to the approaching monster. “He’s after me. Get him.”

  Sir Cecil swept a sword from the scabbard at his side. “Ha!” he cried, kicking his horse’s flanks. The bronze animal sprang from its plinth and charged the Moth.

  Lawrence screeched. A halo of black arms snapped out of his back, as though a hundred spiders had woken up and unfolded themselves at the same time. Sir Cecil never hesitated. He smashed into the grasping limbs, hacked at them with his bronze sword. Lawrence staggered and spun. Sir Cecil rode past him, whooping.

  Fiona cupped her hands. “Lawrence! Forgetting someone?”

  He screeched again. Eight of his long, black limbs struck the ground and he charged after her again with the ticking gait of a spider.

  Fiona flew again, following the same path along which she and Charo had fled. Lawrence took the corner fast, slipping and skidding, but didn’t lose ground.

  Good, she thought.

  She turned with the path again, flying parallel to the Long Water. On a circle of flagstones, surrounded by winter trees, she found what she sought: the statue of Peter Pan.

  “Peter,” she said, gliding to a halt in the air in front of him. “Wake up, Peter. There’s an adventure to be had.”

  The bronze statue of the boy who wouldn’t grow up sprang into life. He soared up, then around her once. His sharp eyes spotted Lawrence Moth clattering up the path towards them. He laughed and blew on his flute.

  The base of Peter’s statue was covered in rabbits and squirrels, mice and fairies. At the sound of Peter’s flute they came to life as well. With a shout of glee, Peter led the bronze wood-folk in a charge against Lawrence.

  Fiona floated backwards, watching, judging. Lawrence became a whirl of striking limbs as Peter and his wood-folk attacked. They spiralled around him, pulling his attention in multiple directions, trying to confuse him.

  Then they scattered, all at once.

  Sir Cecil, bellowing, riding at full speed, struck Lawrence from the rear.

  Lawrence tumbled over and over. Fiona saw two of his limbs snap off and dissolve into dust.

  But he sprang to his feet as quickly as he fell. He caught the fetlock of Sir Cecil’s horse and pulled. Rider and horse tumbled into the icy water. They disappeared with a
loud splash.

  Peter Pan cried, “Charge!” He and his wood-folk attacked again.

  Not enough, Fiona thought. She didn’t let her doubts convince her he was unbeatable. She reinforced her concentration. “Finished yet, Lawrence?”

  The Moth barrelled through the wood-folk and came at her. Fiona retreated again.

  The trees cleared to reveal the Italian Gardens as they were in Fiona’s time. The fountains were silent and the black waters still. Fiona flew over and settled her booted feet on one of the larger fountains.

  Lawrence raced out of the woods, still on eight of his many legs. Other limbs fended off the wood-folk that continued to harass him. He jumped up on a railing and his empty face fixed on her. She had no doubt he could cross the water easily. He could probably skate across it.

  “All of you,” Fiona called. She raised her right hand. The focusing mandala rotated around her finger. “Wake up!”

  All around the Italian Gardens, urns stood with ram’s heads decorating their sides. Water nymphs sat, attended by swans, and held smaller urns as though pouring from them.

  At Fiona’s call, they all came to life.

  The rams burst from the larger urns. Their marble hoofs found purchase on the icy ground. They lowered their horned heads and charged. The water nymphs raised savage cries and their swans ran at Lawrence, honking and flapping their marble wings.

  The bronze wood-folk and the marble water-folk attacked Lawrence from both sides. He forgot Fiona again as he spun in a frantic defence. His long limbs snapped and clawed and raked and punched. But there were so many of them. He could do no more than hold his own.

  Then, with a roar, Sir Cecil and his horse hurdled the barrier at the end of the Italian Gardens. Water streamed off his horse’s bronze flanks as Sir Cecil waved his sword and crouched low on its back. They charged.

  Lawrence couldn’t get out of the way.

  Sir Cecil smashed into him and knocked him on his back. At once, Peter’s wood-folk and the marble creatures of the water gardens were on him. They sat on his limbs, stomped on them, chewed at them with sharp teeth. He heaved against them, but they were too many, too heavy.

  Because Fiona had imagined them so.

  She kicked off from her fountain and flew across the water. She stood over the splayed creature that still struggled uselessly against her allies.

  “Moonlight,” she said.

  The snow stopped. The clouds cleared. The full moon shone down on them, bright silver in the dark.

  And Fiona’s shadow appeared beside her.

  To the monster in her shadow, Fiona said, “Hold him.”

  Black arms rose up from her shadow and clamped oversized hands on Lawrence. One hand fastened around his knees, the other across his shoulders. Lawrence could no longer move.

  “Thank you, by the way,” Fiona said. “Magic is perception, did you know that? I’ve always had power, but I’d forgotten, so I had none. I keep saying I can do anything in dreams, but I never thought about what that really meant. That maybe I can. Maybe I’ve been trained to. That if I believe in it, the skill will be there.”

  “You can’t kill me,” he said from the void where his face should have been. “I was made never to die.”

  She shook her head. “Weren’t you listening? But first, I want them back. All the people you’ve taken.”

  “They’re part of me,” he hissed. “Consumed. Digested. There is nothing to take back.”

  “I’ll take what I can get,” she said. “At least they’ll be free. Who knows, maybe they can recover.” She sat atop the big black hand clamped over Lawrence’s chest and shoulders. She raised her own hand over the abyss above his collar.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You really don’t listen,” she said. “Anything. Anything I can imagine.”

  She plunged her hand into the void of Ikandror where Lawrence Moth’s face should have been. It was shockingly cold. Down, deeper, to the elbow, to the shoulder. Into the abyss, until she found what she was looking for.

  She drew her arm back.

  Clutched in her hand, gleaming like pearls in moonlight, were the names of all those he’d ever taken.

  Ikandror unravelled. The limbs held down beneath the wood-folk and the water-folk turned to dust. Lawrence Moth’s body slumped, all strength gone from it. The void where his face should have been evaporated.

  Fiona found herself looking at the true Lawrence Moth.

  He was old and worn out and terribly confused. In his pale and faded features Fiona saw a person long since drained of all but the last kernel of self, the only piece that Ikandror had needed to keep to inhabit him. His body had to be long-gone. The remnant Ikandror had left was not enough to survive even as a dream. He would die, she knew, in moments.

  With her free hand, she found one of his.

  His rheumy eyes met hers. And just before the life fled them, Fiona saw him frown in puzzled recognition.

  Chapter 17 – Pavel

  Late Friday afternoon in the old Essex factory and Pavel was fighting to ignore Crispin.

  “How was your flight?” Crispin asked. He sat at the table of laptops with Pavel, his arms behind his head, his legs stretched out under the table. Pavel was worried he would tangle his feet in the laptop cables.

  Crispin’s phone, placed on the desk with its volume turned right up, brought Astra’s voice back to them. “I looked out the window as we were coming into Reykjavik airport. I don’t know how we landed safely when the whole place is covered in snow, but we did it.”

  “Fantastic,” Crispin said. He annoyed Pavel. He made it sound like everything was the best thing ever. “I got a text from Tom a while ago. He and the second group are at Gatwick airport now. Are you sure you don’t want to wait for them?”

  “I want to get out there tonight,” Astra replied. Pavel could understand her eagerness. He wished he was there with her. “I mean, it’s dark already here, but who cares? We’re too close and no one knows we’re here.”

  “I’ll feel better when Tom gets there and your group is at full strength,” Crispin said. “Then, even if someone does know you’re there, you can take care of anyone who shows up. When do you want to start unravelling the maze?”

  “Tonight if we can get set up,” Astra said. “Tomorrow morning if not. With the power of the wizard’s ghost, we should be able to walk straight through it. The only thing I’m worried about is getting phone reception once we’re inside.”

  Pavel bristled, though he did his best to conceal it. Of course his grandfather’s modifications to their phones would work.

  “Konstantin promised they’ll work through anything. Happy grave-hunting, Astra.”

  Crispin tapped the screen of his phone to end the call. Pavel remained hunched in front of his laptop, running through one of the diagnostic sequences his grandfather had designed.

  To his irritation, Crispin clapped him on the shoulder. “Not long now, huh?”

  Pavel grunted.

  “If this is it,” Crispin said, “if this is the right titan, we’ll be so very close to getting what we all want. We’ll be true shapeshifters – more. More than all those werewolves who’ve spat on us all these years.”

  Pavel repeated his grunt.

  “Soon, Pavel. Very soon. Then we can make this country into a fortress, safe for all our kind.” And he clapped Pavel on the shoulder again before getting up to chat to the men strapped into the dentist chairs around the ghost machine.

  Pavel breathed a sigh of relief.

  He didn’t like Crispin. Crispin was flashy and careless. He talked too much. Pavel believed in the principles his grandfather had instilled in him: thoroughness, patience, hard work, discipline. It was hard to imagine Crispin concentrating on anything for more than five minutes.

  And jealousy burned inside Pavel. It was deep down, a bed of coals in a cellar furnace. He kept the doors to it locked and triple-locked. But it was hard when he saw Astra and Crispin together. It was hard eve
n to hear the way they spoke to each other.

  Konstantin came out of the back room where they’d assembled the camper beds. He put a hand on Pavel’s shoulder, but Pavel didn’t mind his touch. Konstantin ran his gaze over the laptop screens, taking his time, noting each detail. His silent nod of approval was worth a year of Crispin’s empty chatter. Pavel swelled with pride, though only his grandfather would see the change in him.

  His grandfather was doing all this for him. Pavel had never detected the slightest hint of shame in him, only a relentless determination to give his grandson the life he deserved. But Pavel felt shame anyway. His grandfather had survived revolutions and wars and famines and persecutions. He had survived the Soviet experiments on werewolves in deep Siberian bunkers invisible to the mapmakers. He had liberated his kind from the scientists’ clutches, led them to prosperity when Russian society changed again.

  Pavel wanted his grandfather to be proud of him.

  But he also believed that the titan they sought could give Konstantin one more thing. He was near the end of his life. One more transformation into his werewolf shape would kill him. The titan could return him to strength and vigour.

  Pavel wanted that more than anything.

  So he tolerated Crispin’s inane chatter. He kept the fires of his jealousy low. There would be time for a reckoning with the others when his grandfather was strong again. When he too was strong.

  He had a hunter’s patience. He would wait until the time was right to kill.

  Chapter 18 – Rob and Julian

  Rob didn’t have a driver’s license, so he sat in the passenger seat while Julian drove their hire car. He munched on a cheese baguette he’d grabbed at a stand in a Tube station while they were still in London and wished it had bacon in it.

  The teleport had been an amazing thing. They’d hidden under the North Circular Road where it crossed the District Line, not far from Hawthorn House. Wearing clothing too heavy for London in December, Julian had spoken and gestured for about two minutes, by Rob’s reckoning, concentrating like Rob had never seen him concentrate before.