Tall, Dark & Dead

by Tate Hallaway

“I was just thinking about that,” I said. “What if we convince the Vatican we’re dead?” When he raised his eyebrows, I told him everything I’d been thinking.

  He didn’t laugh out loud. In fact, he seemed to be considering it. “The biggest problem I can see with your idea is that there’s no guarantee that the Order won’t just come in with guns blazing.”

  I got off the bike to stretch my legs. The long grass brushed against my calves. “Yeah,” I said. I bent to pluck a seedpod from its leafy sheath. “Plus they have a sensitive who could warn them that magic was happening.”

  “Probably as assurance against precisely this sort of thing,” Sebastian said.

  I chewed on the grass stem, thinking. “How can we get around him?”

  “Well, we could kill him,” Sebastian said matter-of-factly. I couldn’t read his expression in the moonlight.

  I just shook my head.

  “Or, we could just kill them all.”

  “Yeah,” I said dejectedly, “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  Sebastian said nothing. I stared up at the stars. Venus shone brightly in the sky. I recognized a few constellations: Cassiopeia, or as my astronomy professor in college taught us, “the Big W,” and, of course, Ursa Major, the Big Dipper.

  Well, then. “I can’t do it, Sebastian,” I said.

  “You have to. My life depends on it. Yours, too. They’re not going to let you go.” Sebastian took a deep breath and tried to put on a little smile. “Besides, I need your help with the ritual. I’m counting on you to fix it.”

  “I don’t know, Sebastian,” I said. “Your magic is really old. I’m just a garden-variety Eclectic.”

  He laughed as he started up the engine. “Who happens to have called down a Goddess.”

  “About that,” I said. I pressed the flat of my palm into the curve of my belly as though to cover Lilith’s ears. “I don’t want to use Her for this.”

  “Then I guess I’m really, finally dead,” Sebastian said quietly. My mouth worked as I tried to formulate a response. Just then his cell phone rang. He cut the engine. “Who the hell could that be?”

  Turns out it was William calling to let us know he and Parrish were safe and headed back to my apartment to check it out for me. He also had some bad news.

  “William saw Mátyás and the female Vatican agent heading in our direction,” Sebastian said as he snapped the receiver shut on the phone. “They’re coming after us. With weapons. We’ve got to go now.”

  I nodded resolutely; I guess we did.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, as the engine sprang to life with a roar. “Because if you’re going to be watching my back with that Goddess of yours, I don’t want you to have a change of heart.”

  “I’m with you,” I said. “But I’ve never been entirely sure Lilith is on your side, Sebastian.”

  He’d been about to pull onto the road when he paused to look back at me. “What do you mean?”

  “She stole your grimoire in the first place, remember?”

  He frowned at that. “I thought maybe that was her equivalent of leaving a sweater behind, you know? A way of making sure we had a second date.”

  “We’d already planned a second date,” I said. “She wanted to cause you grief.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you took Her blood.”

  “Oh.” Sebastian’s voice sounded small. “And that’s bad?”

  “I got the impression it was,” I said.

  “You can make Her help us with the ritual, right?”

  No way. “Sure.”

  “Good,” he said, taking us farther into the darkness. “Good.”

  * * * *

  About a half mile from his farm, Sebastian stowed Parrish’s bike in a ditch. He disappeared into the night with a promise to reconnoiter and return shortly with a full report. Meanwhile, I sat, feeling useless, in a slightly damp patch of hawkweed and shepherd’s purse.

  I lay back to enjoy the stars. It was so dark that I could see the filmy haze of the Milky Way stretch in a broad band across the sky. A flash of an asteroid burning up in the atmosphere caught my eye, and, at the same moment, Lilith woke. The sensation was becoming all too familiar. I felt a tiny nudge, like accidentally bumping shoulders with someone at the Minnesota State Fair. Then, completely without my consent, I got up, and my legs started walking my body toward Sebastian’s place.

  Eleventh House

  KEYWORDS:

  Agitation, Desire, Rebelliousness

  Lilith made quick work of the distance. I had no idea my short legs could move so quickly—probably they couldn’t; I’d be paying for that overextension in the morning if I was still alive.

  The farmhouse looked dark. Even so, Lilith moved in a military-style half crouch around the building to the rear entrance. I have to admit, from the outside, I looked pretty cool in commando mode, especially when I KO’d the agent who was hiding behind a lilac bush. Lilith gave him a nasty karate chop to the back of the head. She rolled him over roughly and curled my fingers into a claw around his throat. If I’d had control of my eyes, I’d have squeezed them shut. I did not want to see her rip this poor guy’s throat out.

  Luckily, Sebastian interrupted her. He looked a little taken aback to see my hand wrapped around the passed-out agent’s throat, but he calmly said, “I was about to come get you. I think that’s everyone. I took care of the other two.”

  Lilith nodded. My sense was that she knew better than to speak to Sebastian if she wanted to keep her presence a secret. Not only did she talk like a Goddess, she had a different voice than I did.

  As we walked up the back stairs into the house, I understood what Sebastian meant when he’d said he’d taken care of the Vatican agents. Leader Guy and Sensitive’s lifeless eyes stared up at me from where their bodies were stacked neatly against the foundation, vampiric puncture wounds darkly spotting their throats. Oh, Sebastian, I tried to say, but couldn’t, since Lilith had complete control of me. Even so, I knew it was kill or be killed.

  “If only I had the mandrake.”

  Lilith produced the root from my pocket.

  Sebastian smiled. “Garnet, you’re a gem.”

  If I’d had control of my throat, I’d have groaned at his pun. As it was, Lilith smiled stiffly at him.

  “Well,” Sebastian said, placing the grimoire on the small, rectangular coffee table in the living room, “We should get started.”

  * * * *

  Lilith helped Sebastian lay out his ritual. They made space in the living room by moving furniture closer to the walls and rolling up the Persian rug. He brought down various articles from his sanctum, including a black viscous fluid in a test tube. As he produced items, she arranged them. I watched with fascination and no small amount of dread. She was weaving something magical to be certain, but it was not good.

  At one point I saw Benjamin waver into existence, but with a stern glance from Lilith, he disappeared again.

  After the last piece was in position and the candles were lit, Sebastian nodded in approval. “You’ve been studying my grimoire, I see,” he said.

  Lilith took my clothes off.

  I must say I was just as shocked as Sebastian appeared to be. After the initial surprise wore off, his eyes roamed over my naked body hungrily. From the perspective of being outside my body, I had two thoughts: I needed to get out more—my skin was incredibly white; and it was time to get serious about joining a health club.

  “Oh,” Sebastian finally managed to say, as he started to shrug out of his own clothes, “Skyclad. Right. Good idea.”

  Sebastian naked was a fine thing to behold. Lilith might not appreciate it, but I did. Candlelight glowed along the edges of his skin, making muscle stand out as though in relief. I especially enjoyed that line of hipbone that pointed to the shadows between his legs.

  Lilith trailed my fingers along Sebastian’s taut stomach as she walked past him to the coffee table, which they’d placed in the middle of the room as a makeshift
altar. From it, she took a knife. I supposed that the weapon was technically Sebastian’s athame, but it looked much deadlier than anything I’d ever used in ceremony.

  Lilith slashed my palm with it. She must have cut deeply, because blood flowed freely. I heard Sebastian breathe in the scent of it.

  Starting in the north, She began casting the circle. Sebastian watched with wide eyes as Lilith slowly paced around the room clockwise. Drops of blood formed the physical boundary, but where each drop hit, a spiritual wall began to take shape. A shimmer, like a heat mirage on summer asphalt, separated the inner space from the rest of the living room. A bubble formed around us.

  When she reached the spot she started at, Lilith made a second tour around the perimeter. This time, she stopped in each of the cardinal directions. Swirling her hands slowly in the air, Lilith conjured a guardian at the first cross-quarter, east. Even from my Lilith-eye perspective, I could barely see the figure. I could make out the misty shape of bare breasts and long, flowing hair that seemed to be constantly blown by an unreal, unseen wind. In the south, Lilith formed a similar guardian. Only this time, the woman seemed made of smoke, with glowing embers for eyes. In the west, the womanly shape glittered like sunlight on water. The northern guard stood firm and dark as obsidian. They all had the same face, a horribly beautiful face I recognized from my dreams: Lilith’s face.

  As she finished her final round, the walls of the circle became more opaque. The bubble had taken on a pearlescent sheen that shifted and swirled like gas on water.

  This was the strongest circle I’d ever cast, and it torqued me that I didn’t have anything to do with it, not really— although that was my blood all over the hardwood floor.

  Sebastian stepped up. He picked up a stick that branched into a V-shape at the tip. He followed the path Lilith had made around the room, adding his energy to the circle. A dark mist trailed behind his deliberate steps like a living shadow. I literally felt the ground shift when he finished. It was like a mini-earthquake. “We are between the worlds,” he said, his eyes glittering in the candlelight.

  No shit.

  And this was just the boring part of the ritual.

  Sebastian returned to the altar and the grimoire. He knelt on the floor to get a better look at the words on the page. Lilith came around to stand in front of him, so that he appeared to be supplicating her. While his attention was on the book, she squeezed my cut hand so that a drop of blood landed in the test tube containing Sebastian’s formula. A second tightening of my palm, and a splash of blood fell onto the crown of his head. He must have felt something, because he looked up at us then.

  What was Lilith doing?

  Sebastian began an incantation in some language or another. Lilith did not provide subtitles. Occasionally, however, I heard her whisper a word, and two seconds later Sebastian would repeat it. I had no idea if she was adding strength to what he’d already written or changing it completely.

  I had a bad feeling that she was doing the latter.

  But to what end? For someone so cranky about Sebastian having taken her blood, she certainly had no problem spilling it now. Of course, that was part of what worried me. Blood was binding. She was putting a hex on him, and he didn’t even see it coming.

  Of course, she was binding me to it as well.

  Sebastian got to the end of what was written in the journal.

  Lifting the vial of the dark liquid, he drank it in one gulp.

  Then he looked up at us with a sheepish smile. “This is the part where I’ve written, ‘and here a miracle occurred.’ I have no idea what I did to charge the formula.”

  “I have an idea,” Lilith answered with a seductive smile. She held out a hand. “The Great Rite,” she said, her voice resonating strangely.

  Sebastian didn’t notice; he was too busy getting an erection. Typical boy Witch—one mention of the Great Rite, and it’s an instant hard-on. The Great Rite is sex within the context of a ritual. Well, to be fair, when done right, it’s more than just some kind of spiritual public display. It’s the primal force. It’s power of God and Goddess joined.

  Considering what happened when Sebastian added his energy to the circle, the vampire/Goddess pairing had the potential to be earth-shattering. Unfortunately, I was going to be a disembodied spectator.

  “Uh, this is very different from my original spell,” Sebastian said, though he didn’t pull away when Lilith cupped his face in both hands. “Are you certain it will work?”

  “Absolutely,” Lilith said with a bedroom smile. I couldn’t tell if she was leading him on or not. Without a doubt, they needed something powerful. The moon was out of phase, and Sebastian couldn’t hope to duplicate every aspect of his first working. The Great Rite, particularly one involving Lilith Herself, would make up for a lot of missing pieces.

  Sebastian seemed to be falling under Lilith’s spell. All of the subtle things she changed might have the effect of making Sebastian more susceptible to suggestion.

  Lilith held out a hand, and Sebastian took it. He had started to rise from his knees when Lilith exposed his palm and cut it with the knife she still held. He cried out in surprise and pain. She pressed their palms together so that their wounds touched, like you would with a blood brother or sister.

  I felt something. Even in my disconnected state, I sensed the flow of power. Though I couldn’t see it, somehow I knew Lilith was drawing blood into herself from him. This was not some kind of congenial mixing of power, a shared bond. She was taking from him.

  He had no idea. In fact, he looked like he thought he was already getting the best sex ever.

  She leaned over the altar and whispered in his ear, “You’ll make a beautiful sacrifice, child.”

  “Thank you,” he said sounding completely dopey and dazed.

  With a gentle lift of her hand, Sebastian rose to his feet. She led him a short distance from the altar and kissed him. It was a long, deep kiss. And I found myself in the very strange position of being extremely jealous of my own body. However, I was not so blinded by my anger that I failed to notice that Lilith had not dropped the knife. In fact, it seemed to hover dangerously close to Sebastian’s heart.

  I had to do something.

  I felt a wave of panic as Lilith’s knife moved closer. I’d have hyperventilated if I’d had any lungs. Worse, being unable to take steady breaths, I didn’t know how to calm myself. I kept thinking if only I could breathe, I could do my concentration exercises. If I could focus, I could unlock my magic.

  Suddenly, the scene in front of me faded, and I found myself standing in front of the vault where I kept my magic. I ran my hands over the hard steel door, feeling the rough, cold metal beneath my fingers. It had never seemed so real.

  Of course.

  The place Lilith “shoved” me was the same place magic lived. The astral plane. The space between. The place where rituals happened.

  There was no need to panic. This was my place of power. I owned this space.

  I unlocked the door easily. Then, with a thought, I shifted back to where Lilith held a knife to Sebastian.

  The ritual space Lilith had woven was a dark tangle, like a spiderweb. Lines of black energy crisscrossed the interior of the bubble. The space felt stuffy and close. It was hard to move through.

  Lilith s kiss held Sebastian mesmerized. She used the flat of the blade to caress Sebastian’s hip and thigh. In my astral state, I could see the flow of power. Sebastian’s energy, his life, was being drained.

  His life energy poured into Lilith. Her long, wild, salt-and-pepper curls flowed in a ghostly halo to the floor, surrounding my body like a shroud. A tiny silver thread connected my body to my consciousness. Compared to the thick, crackling stream that transferred between Sebastian and Lilith, my lifeline looked skimpy. I tugged on the line and moved in closer.

  Only to become caught in the sticky cords.

  Lilith broke the kiss to look at me, but she smiled when I struggled uselessly against the bonds. She ret
urned her attention to Sebastian, dismissing me.

  You’re killing him! I tried to shout, as I struggled against the astral bonds.

  Lilith ignored me and continued caressing Sebastian. Then she slowly lifted the knife from his body and pointed it in the direction of the eastern guardian. A pure bolt of jet-black energy shot out of the tip of the athame like some kind of anti-laser. The guardian stumbled and started to bring up her shield when the blast hit her square in the heart chakra. Then, as if realizing she was not under attack, she slowly dropped her defensive posture and stood up straighter.

  I watched in horror as she began to solidify. On more than just the astral plane, I felt a gust of wind ripple through the circle. The pages of the grimoire flipped wildly. Outside the circle, I could see curtains billowing.

  Sebastian’s knees buckled. Lilith put a hand under his arm to steady him.

  In the east now stood a flesh-and-blood woman. She looked at her hands, inspecting them, as though the sensation of wiggling fingers and thumb were new to her. I watched her take a shuddering breath.

  Yet, somehow, I knew the guardian couldn’t survive outside the circle. She was only one aspect of Lilith, and until she was merged with her four remaining sisters—the fourth being Lilith, the Goddess herself—she would be incomplete.

  I pushed against the bonds again. An astral hand broke free, only to be captured again by the sticky webbing. If Lilith finished the spell, She could break free of me and become human. She would be the dark Goddess incarnate. And, I suspected, that would be bad, really bad, for any mortal foolish enough to get in her way.

  Lilith pointed the knife in the next direction, south. The power, this time, was narrower, as though waning. Sebastian’s eyes fluttered shut. His face had become gaunt and strained. I could smell the woodsmoke of the southern guardian, but only the unearthly glow of her eyes had become brighter and more frighteningly real. Lilith broke her kiss and glanced in frustration at the half-formed southern guard.

  “The flow of blood will bind this spell,” Lilith intoned as she turned the knife on Sebastian.