by Mark Teppo
She closed her eyes and her shoulders started to shake. "Let none henceforth seek needless cause to approve the faith they owe; when earnestly they seek such proof, conclude, they then begin to fail." Her voice cracked on the words, each one more fragmented and broken than the last.
I walked around the counter and helped her sit down on the stool. I took her bloody palm in my hands, sealing her flesh between my own. Valetude. The Chorus smoothed away the wound in her hand as if the flesh was as malleable as hot wax. "I'm sorry," I said as I put her hand in her lap. "I ask for your forgiveness, but know that I can never expect it."
Tears tracked down her face. The drop of blood smeared across her cheek. Nine drops. Nine swords. Cruelty. My past, severed, but not yet cleansed from my soul.
I didn't look at Nicols as I walked away from the counter, heading for the stairs and the street. "Hey," he said, coming after me, reaching for my arm. "What the fuck are you doing?" He gestured back at the crying woman. "Are you just going to leave her sitting there?"
I glanced down at his hand on my arm. The Chorus boiled under my skin and he held his grip for a few seconds before letting go. "Better here than with us," I said, and continued down the stairs toward the exit. He hesitated at the top of the stairs.
Nicols caught up with me again on the corner of Tenth and Burnside. His face was knotted with anger, his big hands working at his sides as if he couldn't wait to take a swing at me but still very aware of what I might do to him if he tried. "Goddamnit, Markham. Not like this. I don't-"
I pointed across the street, through the thick stalks of the steel forest of downtown Portland. "There," I said, interrupting him. "That's where they are."
He looked, following my arm. Peeking over the flat roof across the street was the tip of a black building-a hill filled with metallic ore. Its triangular peak was topped with a neon circle of red light-the bloody eye within the pyramid, the fire within the mountain.
The Tower. At the peak was Bernard and his unholy mirror.
XXVI
Eglanteria Terrace-named, as so much of the city was, after a species of rose-was the flagship of a new millennial architecture. Forty-plus floors of luxury condominiums were stacked on top of eight floors of restaurants, shops, and essential human services. Every need of the residents could be fulfilled without leaving the sanctuary of their building. Self-contained, climate-controlled arks. The only thing it was missing was a petting zoo on the roof.
Placards and posters on the ground floor advertised condominiums available on all floors-"Occupancy at 75 %, buy now!" — and the central atrium, open to the fifth floor, allowed us an upward view of the partially filled mall. There were as many blank walls festooned with "Coming Soon!" signs as there were glass and wood storefronts. The property management was clearly having trouble filling this new ark. Humanity wasn't quite ready to return to the medieval castle lifestyle-hidden behind walls in their own private communities-even if the sanctuary had two massage therapists, an 8-screen movie theater, and an Irish pub.
Glass-edged walkways circled the central courtyard, decorated with strands of white lights that made the walls glittering rings of ice; murals suspended from the distant ceiling were painted in an abstract Impressionistic style with a nod toward Audubon's naturalism. Ducks in flight, their beaks pointed north.
The whole place was deserted, filled with frozen light. Nicols said it, his voice a dull whisper that died as it left his mouth. "Like a tomb."
Beyond the elevators, standing like basalt crypts with marble portals, was the security office. The door was sealed, locked from the inside, and, as we approached the small room, the security officer inside slowly banged his hands against the glass.
His eyes and mouth were black holes in his shriveled face. The body had no soul, filled only with the seeping darkness of the Qliphoth.
"Shit," Nicols sighed. "Well, we're in the right place." He looked like he couldn't decide if he should laugh or cry.
"They'll be at the top," I said, pulling him toward the elevators. The building's systems were still fully functional-technology rarely noticed the disappearance of human operators-and all fourteen elevators had power. Four of them serviced the mall levels only. The remaining ten were evenly split between the lower and upper halves of the residential apartments. We called a couple of cars, and they all had magnetic strips for key cards on their inner panels.
Nicols set down the duffel bag he had brought from the trunk of his car, blocking the door open on one elevator, and thumbed several of the buttons for the upper floors. None of them lit up. "We're going to need a card."
He unzipped his bag and started laying out the contents on the floor of the elevator. "The security guard will have one. I think retrieving it is your job." Mossberg shotgun with a combat grip, a pair of Sig Sauer pistols, an extra box of shells for the shotgun. After the guns and ammo came a bulletproof vest, a pitted conquistador's helmet, three plastic soda bottles, and a red-and-white-striped bandana with kamikaze-style rising sun. "What?" he asked when he noticed I hadn't moved.
"No rocket launcher?"
He shook his head as he began to load shells into the shotgun. "Don't be a smart-ass. You know the paperwork involved in getting one?"
I took the hint and went to retrieve the security officer's key card.
As the elevator ascended, Nicols adjusted the helmet, pulling it down over his ears. The bandana wrapped around the dented dome so that the bloody sun was right in the center of his forehead. An engorged third eye. Pistols on either hip, shotgun slung across his back, he got down on one knee and offered me one of the plastic bottles. "St. Mark's," he said. "It's been a long time since I've been to church, but they've always been pretty accommodating to wayward children who come back."
The Chorus quivered as I touched the bottle, reacting to an electric tingle.
"It's holy water," Nicols said matter-of-factly.
"I know what it is," I said. "I'm just wondering what you want me to do with it?"
He looked up at the digital display on the elevator wall. The number was already in the low 30s. "Come on. We don't have a lot of time. Bless me already."
"I'm not recognized by the Catholic Church."
"Doesn't matter. I'll believe anything you tell me."
And I got it finally: why he was still with me, why he sought to keep me from running. Why his wife's death was both the impetus and the curse of his continued life.
Was I any different? How had I found direction? Even now, freed from the Qliphotic taint, how was I being driven?
I shook the bottle, flushing the Chorus into the water. They made a cheap theatrical flourish of light as they energized the sanctified water-a visible marking that would further give credence to what Nicols believed I could do for him. I spun off the top of the bottle and shook water on him.
He closed his eyes and raised his face to receive the blessing. I took a mouthful of the holy water, changed it to fire in my mouth and spit it over him. He didn't flinch as the fiery spume changed to steam when it struck his water-dappled face. I leaned over and carefully kissed him on either eyelid, the Chorus leaving glittering imprints that sank into his skin. "See True, my son," I whispered.
Like a punctuation mark to the blessing, a pleasant voice suddenly spoke the number of the top floor: "52." The car slowed.
"Drink the rest." I gave him the half-empty bottle.
He looked at the bottle for an instant, delight shining in his face, and then tipped it in my direction. "Thanks."
I turned away from him so that he couldn't see my expression. The void in my gut was an emptiness with presence and weight. These holes are filled by faith, by the things we choose to believe. I heard Nicols sigh as he finished the water.
We believe our faith makes us strong. But that is the Fallacious Illusion of our existence. What assurance do we have that our faith is correctly given? Is it just the fact that we have given it that makes us think it is right? I believed the whispers of the Qlipho
th. John believed I would keep him safe.
If the only vice of the soul was ignorance, then the only virtue was faith. Like good and evil, black and white, light and dark: this was the dichotomy of our existence. How close one was to the other. How dependent.
And how much a vacuum was left when one was bereft of ignorance and of faith.
The elevator opened onto a marble-floored foyer. Three panel-back chairs were lined up against the wall on the left like tired sentries. Flanking the middle chair were two narrow stands crowned with peace lilies in fat Grecian-style amphoras. A large pair of white doors was the only other exit.
The psychic vacuum of the mirror was palpable. A heavy static laced the air, a taste of burnt wire at the back of my throat. The suction was a wave pattern that had an amplitude of a few seconds, a rhythm that throbbed at the base of my skull. The Chorus groaned like an old building settling.
Nicols tapped the conquistador helmet three times with the handle of the shotgun, shoving the metal cap even lower on his head. "You ready?" A vein throbbed in his neck, an unconscious physical echo mirroring the drag of the psychic currents.
I grunted noncommittally in reply as I shoved the two remaining bottles of holy water in the front pockets of my pants. Julian had a predilection for fire. The holy water in and of itself wouldn't have any more effect on him than using a garden hose to put out a house fire, but its sanctified state made it more malleable-more readily changeable.
I couldn't fault Nicols for the desire to weigh himself down with the hardware, but it all failed the primal rule of magickal combat: any physical object brought to battle could be used against you. Guns were too easily turned against their wielder. Water, on the other hand, was just a liquid state of hydrogen and oxygen. Useless without the application of Will. Julian could take the water away from me, but he couldn't abscond with my Will.
The penthouse doors were unlocked. We crossed the threshold, the gravity well of the mirror pulling us into the room beyond.
The central living space of the penthouse was a long L-shape, and beyond an Architectural Digest-style spread of furniture and accessories, stood the theurgic mirror. The tall windows behind it looked out over the Willamette River and the lit arc of the Hawthorne Bridge, gleaming like a handful of fresh-water pearls. The furniture was Italian Industrial Futurist-straight lines and right angles, chrome edging, dead animal hide dyed in grays and burgundies-and the art on the walls was more of the Impressionist Pacific Northwest school that adorned the mall level of the building. Diamond-shaped wall sconces bled weak illumination as if the light was afraid of the smoky darkness of the mirrored sphere.
Two hallways split off at the midsection of the room like the transept of a church. The leg of the L was the dining room, from which issued the steady sound of chanting, a repetitious litany of that guttural language Bernard used to commune with his artifact.
Julian stepped around the corner of the dining room wall. He was wearing a gray and yellow robe, covered with lines and whorls of black script. Floating over his head was a cascade of bright stars. Silver cobwebs stretched from the stars to his head, a crown of filigreed strands.
"Markham." A brief flash of surprise on his face, quickly subsumed into bored disappointment.
"Expecting someone else?"
"I assume you met him on the path." He shook his head. "Not that it matters. This Aeon is almost finished."
I walked through the contortions of the furniture, intent on the far wall and the statue. Julian made no attempt to stop me, his expression slightly bemused and distracted. He didn't seem terribly concerned about our presence. If the crown of light was what I thought it was, I could certainly understand his lack of apprehension. It was probably akin to the conduits Doug had worn in the Arena. Julian was connected to the mirror's storehouse of souls, as was Bernard, who was seated in a meditative pose on the dining room table. The Anointed, in pure energy states, were channeling energy to the magus and the academic.
An involuntary chill ran up my spine. All those souls, keening and whispering in their heads. I remembered the constant buzz of the Chorus when I had first made it a part of me, how that incessant sound had nearly driven me insane. In their case, the noise was magnified a hundred times. Soul-speak. The chatter of the bodiless.
"You've brought your friend." Julian snickered at the sight of the shotgun in Nicols' hands. "He's got better weapons this time. Not that silly pop gun."
"The man's adaptable." Walking toward the mirrored sphere was uncomfortably easy, my feet nearly tripping over themselves in delight. The psychic pull of its hunger became more and more difficult to resist. Like the insistent voice of the Chorus, the stroke of its wave was a seductive lure. Feel the collapsed weight of a thousand souls. Right here. Close enough to touch.
I dragged myself to a stop just short of an arm's length from the statue. The Chorus, split between hunger and dread, were a whirlwind of chaos in my skull. Touch/fear it. I declined both options, and stayed a safe distance.
The facets of the sphere seemed to twist at right angles, a tesseract movement that made the globe appear to be on the verge of implosion. It exerted such a psychic pull that ambient energy was being drawn into the facets of the mirror. I wondered what its gravity would do to magick. If spells would be misdirected due to its influence.
I looked over at Julian standing near the dining room. I was probably going to find out. Sooner or later. In which case, I didn't want to be the one closest to the mirror.
Nicols drifted toward the center of the room, putting the large leather sofa between himself and Julian. It would have been a good defensive position were it not for the gas fireplace behind him. "Julian likes fire," I Whispered to the detective, spiriting my words directly into his ear. Nicols had the presence of mind not to twitch or look; he just kept moving, circling one of the armchairs and gliding toward the right-hand hallway that led to the rest of the penthouse.
Bernard ignored all of us. His litany was an endless loop, each phrase precisely enunciated with no sign of strain or exhaustion. How long had he been chanting? His eyes were fixed on the mirrored sphere and his hands were cupped in his lap. Like Julian, a crown of stars floated above his head. A magick circle surrounded him, drawn with white powder. Salt, maybe. Held in place by the activation of the incantation. I wondered what the circle did; certainly not protection because Julian wasn't inside it. A focus, maybe.
"Nice little party." With some difficulty, I moved away from the artifact. "Are we the only ones coming?"
"Far from it," Julian said. He tapped the side of his head. "There's room for many more yet."
"What happens next?"
"The world ends."
"I was hoping for something a little less dramatic," I said. "What would happen if I tried to break your toy?"
"Most likely, it would break you." Julian glanced at Nicols, noting the detective's position near the hallway. The magus' left hand twitched, flexing about an invisible shape, and the lights in his crown twinkled. Reaching for fire.
Nicols noticed the motion as well, and the barrel of his shotgun dipped to cover the twitching hand. "What's it supposed to do?" he asked, keeping Julian's attention.
I drifted closer to the dining room, a hand resting on the edge of my pocket. My fingers touched plastic.
"You know nothing of alchemy, do you?" Julian asked Nicols. "It's the final step of the Great Work. Solve et coagula. First you dissolve, then you recombine."
"Is that what you call what you did to the people in Ravensdale?" Nicols spat. "Dissolving?"
"Yes. Their souls were poured out of their bodies. The flesh is just a shell, a mold in which the soul is kept. It wasn't necessary."
"A shell? You left a town full of shells!"
A lascivious smile spread across Julian's lips. I was near enough to him now to see how tiny his pupils were, how a tiny black webbing infected the sclera of his eyes.
"He knows," I said. Goose bumps danced along the underside of my
arms. I had driven psychic spikes through his soul when I had pinned him to the wall in the hotel. The darkness beneath the Chorus, the vile spit that had been rising in me, had infected him through that contact. "Qliphotic," I said, pronouncing the word like the curse that it was.
Julian nodded. "They're filled with appetite. The flesh is always receptive to hunger, always ready to accept a purpose."
"Solve," I said. "How does killing a thousand people bring about the realization of the Work?"
"Killing? We didn't kill anyone. We simply separated them. Purified them for a higher purpose."
"Your purpose."
"Absolutely."
"Not God's purpose."
He raised his hands in a lackadaisical gesture. "We are all God's children. How can any purpose we have not be His?"
"These souls can't be put back. They are dead, regardless of how you define 'killing.' How is that part of God's purpose?"
"Nothing can be destroyed, Markham. This is the truth of alchemy." Julian's distracted expression of bemusement crept back onto his face. He turned halfway in my direction. "You know this is an unassailable truth: transformation is the only freedom available to us. Destruction is beyond our comprehension and ability. God exists throughout us, throughout everything, and everything is Him. We can't strip Him out."
"If you can't remove Him, then how do you hope to perceive Him? Isn't that one of the paradoxes inherent to this whole conversation? I don't recall Hermes Trismegistus having any better answer to that question."
"The Creator is His first shadow, and we are the second. We are a rank removed from the Infinite and All-Encompassing. We are caught within the shadow of the Creator, unable to see beyond."
Julian's left hand was still moving, the fingers crawling in an intricate dance. I pretended to ignore the movement, casually pulling one of the water bottles out of my pocket. I was a few steps from him, standing to his right. Bernard was straight in front of me.
