They were rehearsing some modern piece, a mad perpetual-motion blur of bodies in motion. The ensemble of dancers, four men and six women, hurtled across the floor and back again in a nonstop blending, pairing, and unpairing. Claire had been watching in fascination their painstaking process of learning the piece over the past couple of months. Now it had become second nature, and they performed it with seeming abandon and spontaneity although in fact it was the pinnacle of precision.
“Awesome and then some,” Addie whispered, settling herself on the floor near the entrance. Claire joined her. The floor could use a good sweep, but she was in her rattiest jeans, so it didn’t matter.
“Yeah, Jackie told me who choreographed it, but I can’t remember. Thorp or something.”
“Twyla Tharpe. That’s a section from The Catherine Wheel. I saw the whole thing performed when I lived in Boston. It’s a demanding piece—this little troupe is very good.”
Claire folded her legs Indian-style. “Jackie told me they’re not doing a traditional Nutcracker this Christmas. The first half of the program is The Skaters, for all the patrons who need their dose of traditional ballet. They’re ending the show with this.” Claire nodded at the ebb and flow of leaping, tumbling, whirling bodies. “I don’t know much about dance, but I like this a lot. Better than the classical stuff, I think.”
It felt good, just leaning against the wall and letting the dancers whirl her exhaustion away. Jackie’d said it was okay, nobody minded the actors coming up to watch them rehearse. Likewise, she’d noticed some of the dancers slipping into the back row of seats downstairs during their own rehearsals.
Two male dancers tossed Jackie through the air, one to the other, in a move Claire found heartstopping. But Jackie was athletic and fearless. When they were kids, she was always the one you wanted on your team when it was choosing time, either at school or on a weekend game of slow-pitch in the open lot near their houses. She could hit a sandlot softball out of the park on any given day. They’d graduated high school together and Jackie had gone to a university out of state, while Claire signed up at a local technical college for an AA in their Health Services department. Jackie completed her B.S. degree in Movement Science and came back to their old high school to teach what they laughingly called “fizz-ed.”
Claire finished her EMT Paramedic advanced certification in two years, and had worked with a large private ambulance service for nearly twice as long, but the burnout factor they were all warned about in these kinds of jobs was starting to kick in. If it weren’t for Paul, her team partner, who was an island of strength and calm that she could only aspire to in her dreams, she might not have lasted this long. He was a little older than the average paramedic, having served in the First Gulf War. He told her he’d driven a tank. After her first trip out on a call with him at the wheel, she believed him. Nerves of absolute steel. Which brought up the memory of that first dispatch. Barely dawn, heavy traffic on the beltway, a motorcyclist hit by a truck and run over several times before police could get to the scene to divert the steady stream of early morning commuters and 18-wheelers around the scene of carnage. When they’d arrived, his body parts were strewn along a fifty-foot stretch of the highway. A bloody tennis shoe with the foot still in it, an arm with the hand barely attached, and the rest of the mangled body and the crumpled motorcycle further down. She’d almost lost her breakfast on the spot. Paul had just reached over, given her hand a squeeze and said, “Let’s clean him up.” Just like that. And they did. She’d gradually developed her own ways of coping over the months that followed, reveling in the lives saved and disassociating herself from the losses. It was easier now, but she’d never fully expunged that first horrific job from her memory banks.
She’d come to the conclusion that she’d be much happier in a laboratory doing medical research, looking at slides and helping develop a cure for cancer or whatever, but that required a chemistry degree, preferably at the master’s level. She’d talked it over with her mom and dad, and they’d agreed it was going to be costly, but with some government loans it looked doable. Then the acceptance letter came from Emory and she enrolled in the fall term. But Jimmie Porter’s heart attack had forced all those plans into reset.
Her mother told her he’d even had an insurance physical not a month before and was pronounced fit, for a man in his late fifties who smoked and drank and stressed too much. It was like he’d just decided on a whim to check out, no advance warning, no time for goodbye. The trooper who found his Buick angled off the highway into a ditch said he’d probably blacked out at the wheel. Claire wondered if she’d been with him whether she might have saved him; she wouldn’t have been as experienced then as she was now, so probably not.
Claire watched the dancers glide and leap, twirl and turn. Jackie’s strong, compact body curled and unfurled. Claire relaxed, letting her mind drift. After her father’s funeral, her university plans had to be cancelled, and she found herself facing life trapped at home with an invalid mother to care for. At least she had a job, underpaid and stressful as it was. She supposed she should be thankful, but there were times when a black despair settled in her gut and she thought she might be close to losing it. There was a guy on the EMT staff who’d been let go recently for self-medicating his depression with controlled-substance pain relievers that were just too readily accessible. She understood all too clearly how it could happen.
“Hey.” Adelaide was nudging her. “They’re calling from downstairs, time to go.”
“Right.” Claire got to her feet and dusted off the seat of her jeans. They headed back downstairs to see what adjustments had been made to scene three. Claire hoped not much. She liked the new Faustus.
Stepping down into the shadows of the lobby, Claire couldn’t help but glance across the expanse of hardwood flooring toward the closed basement door. She quickly looked away and followed Addie’s shapely hips toward the auditorium. “Hey, you never did answer my question about Wiccans.”
They pushed through the double doors to join the others taking their places onstage. “Tell you what,” Addie said, heading for the stage left steps, “I’ll bring my tarot cards to the next rehearsal and do a reading for you. Then you can ask me anything you want.”
Chapter 4
Thursday, 11:00 P.M.
Kit Bayard stood at his office window, looking down at the sidewalk. The evening’s rehearsal had gone well, even with Danny’s understudy over-acting the role of Faustus. And most of the cast had seemed willing to accept the explanation of Danny’s withdrawal from the company. As far as the production was concerned, it was a stroke of luck—young Tom was a natural and already a much more convincing Faustus than his predecessor. Physically his presence onstage was more solid, although Bayard decided he might have to ask Tom to wear a wig for the actual performance…the skinhead look was probably not going to work. There was some awkwardness at first while Tom and Morris worked out their timing and delivery dynamics, but he could see there was potential for some really good theater. He’d anticipated a bit of prima-donna pushback from Morris, especially with Tom getting in his face like that, but they’d quickly worked it out with no apparent leftover snits. Bayard lit his pipe and inhaled its cherry aroma.
He felt keen anticipation toward mounting this particular play, even if it was a somewhat modernized version of the original. It was his own adaptation, preserving much of the original blank verse but substituting modern phrasing and vocabulary for passages that would otherwise be unintelligible to modern theater goers. Today’s audiences, sadly, responded more enthusiastically to modern-English versions of sixteenth-century masterworks. And the company needed to fill the house for the play’s run during the holidays. The Mummers Theatrical Company had its sponsors and donors, which included the Janus Theatre Preservation Association, but times were hard all over, especially in the arts, and the acting company’s budget was tighter than it had been in years.
Watching the cast trailing away from the theater in twos and th
rees down the sidewalk, Bayard stood still as a shadow. Morris and the Porter woman were the last to leave. She’d annoyed him, asking about Danny and wanting to know how she could get in touch with him, to be sure his wounded arm had been properly tended to.
His fingers tapped a mindless jig on the sill as the seconds ticked by. Her ladyship was demanding payment again, but he wasn’t ready to face her just yet. When it came right down to it, he was bloody tired of having to deal with her altogether. Four centuries was a long time to hold unrelenting control over a creature not even remotely human. Longer than he’d ever imagined when the proposal had first been offered him. Was he allowing himself a moment of regret? But without the stone, he’d have been dead and buried back when those assassin thugs of Walsingham’s cornered him at Deptford. Government espionage in the court of Elizabeth I was a dangerous business, but more lucrative than playwriting, if one lived to collect. For all he knew, that still held true today. He’d been out of the spy business since his murder in 1593.
Bayard arched his back slightly and straightened his shoulders. He spread his listening fingers along the weathered casement…was the building empty yet? Wood and brick responded to him, telegraphing the answer to his query. No ballet dancers, no actors. Bayard sighed and headed downstairs.
He disliked having to put up with outsiders renting space in the Janus, which he’d bought outright with cash nearly a decade ago when he’d arrived in town, but it was a necessity in these tough economic times. His own group of actors was hand-picked and belonged there, although a few like Danny arguably less so. He hadn’t really intended to sacrifice the boy, but the spilled blood on the rehearsal stage, fresh from John Dee’s pearl-handled athame, had to be dealt with. He pressed the sheathed knife, deep in his trousers pocket, against his thigh. It was one of the few things that remained from his old life, from the moment at Mortlake where he’d taken possession of the stone. Carrying it over the centuries, it had served him well. Why it had chosen to sacrifice Danny he wasn’t sure—the boy’s life force was so pale it had gone into the stone practically unnoticed. Not much of a contribution, but not much of a loss, either. It all evened out.
Bayard reached the basement stairs and left the light off. His night sight was as good as any owl’s. He mulled over the possibility that someone might accidentally discover the cornerstone in its current location, although that didn’t seem likely. He kept the basement locked and rarely allowed anyone else access to it. Plus, what lay trapped in the stone had never established communion with anyone but Dee and himself in all its long years of servitude. He supposed for safety’s sake he should weave a stronger net of deception over the area around that section of the masonry, what with more people coming and going upstairs. The last time he’d had to do that little bit of magick, it had cost him—the banshee had ripped at him more savagely than ever, and he’d been afraid their struggle might have been discernible to the outside world. He’d scanned the papers and television local news the next day for reports of earth tremors, insect plagues and whatnot, but all seemed boringly ordinary.
He hurried, surefooted, down the steps and into the gloom of the basement. Going immediately to the spot under the stairs where the cornerstone pulsed dusky red, visible to his eyes only, he put his own heartbeat in synch with the stone. Ignoring the dirt and grime, Bayard stretched out on the floor, his head under the stair risers and inches from the theater’s foundation masonry. He closed his eyes and spoke the summons: “Ecce signum.”
A response formed itself in his mind. Acknowledged.
“As master of the buachloch, I bid thee attend me.”
As quick as thought, the answer filled his mind. So full of yourself. We are here.
Bayard opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on the stone’s pitted surface. It was now black as obsidian, radiating the galactic cold of the void beyond the land of the living. He set his jaw and reached out with both hands. The moment his fingers brushed the surface, the stone became a glistening, pulsating heart, its truncated aorta spewing ventricular blood in a river over his hands and arms. The flood washed over his body, its spicy-sour stench filling his nostrils and engulfing the lowermost stairs.
Bayard struggled to keep his chin above the red tide and shouted, “Cease, damned crone!”
At once the river of blood evaporated, leaving a single drop quivering on the chipped tile beside his hands. Bayard got to his knees and glared back at the stone. “Such theatrics are wasted on me. I won’t be intimidated.”
The drop of blood smoked around the edges. Take care an’ ye not lose thy grip.
“Don’t threaten me,” Bayard warned, anger rising like a flame. “I can send you away as quickly as you were summoned.”
Aye, great one, with each libation thy vigor increases. Have I not kept ye hale and hearty these many seasons, while ye feed me the poorest of libations? A hag’s sneering face hovered over the shining surface of the droplet. Her silver eyes followed his every move, shifting with the pulse of his own heart. What is my master’s will? She infused the word “master” with such contempt that Bayard held his tongue for a heartbeat.
He recalled fleeting memories of Dee extolling the stone’s powers and explaining how he and his mysterious friend had trapped the banshee along with the Irish witch who’d summoned her. He refocused his will, holding the specter at bay. “Servitude becomes you,” he whispered. Wisps of acrid smoke curled around the hag’s face, forming a writhing halo. “Hear me,” said Bayard grimly. “If you place any value on your miserable existence, you will do as I require, and swiftly.”
The basement was still as a mortuary.
“You have not adequately provided the wealth and fame promised me. If anything, my presence has diminished over the centuries. I want to see immediate improvement. And this too…I want to know instantly if anyone touches the stone besides myself. You will transmit this to me without hesitation. You will protect me from any source of danger at all cost.”
The hag’s face disappeared in a puff of smoke. Slowly the droplet congealed and stretched into a red line that coiled around Bayard’s ankle. Scales began forming along its ridge.
“Stop! I forbid it!” The serpent lay half-formed, frozen in the moment. Keening laughter clung to the shadows and hugged itself in the cobwebs.
Bayard swept his hand over the malformation, erasing its near existence. He clambered to his feet and brushed dust from his trousers with trembling fingers.
“You will obey me,” he whispered to the empty air.
Chapter 5
Friday morning
The alarm went off in the gloom just before sunrise, pithing Claire’s brain with its high-pitched buzz. 6:05. That gave her barely enough time to stumble to the bathroom, get into her uniform, tie her hair back, cook a toaster waffle, find her keys, and drive to the emergency service center by 7, the start of her shift. The sky was just turning gray-blue when she pulled into her parking space. Yawning, she got out and headed through the automatic doors to the break room/lounge where the teams spent their between time, waiting for calls.
“Mornin’, Sunshine.” Paul was already there, watching the local news.
“If you say so.” She gave him a weak smile. Just hearing his voice with its brotherly/fatherly everything-is-under-control vibe made her feel better. Maybe today the entire city would drive like sensible, responsible adults and all the looming heart attacks would hold off at least a week. How long had it been since they’d had a slow day? She couldn’t remember. Four days of twelve-hour shifts that often stretched to fourteen, then three days off to recuperate, then back into it again. She lived for those days off.
A new hire was in the kitchen, trying to outsmart the coffee machine with no luck.
Claire took pity on her. “You got to lift the handle all the way up, so it’ll reset. Then you can punch in the cup size, like this.” A flick of the wrist, one quick poke, and the K-cup oozed its brown liquid into the new girl’s cup.
“God, thanks. I was
about to give up on it.” The newbie had a slightly Hispanic accent. She didn’t look a week over eighteen. Claire wondered how long she’d last.
“Rule number one. Never give up on your morning coffee.” Claire tried to sound reassuring, remembering her first week on the job. “Everything going okay so far?” She poked a Jet Fuel K-cup into the machine and pushed the 10-oz button over her own cup.
“Yeah, so far.” The girl was smiling.
“That’s good. I’m Claire.” She held out her free hand.
“Angela.”
“If you, like, need anything or have any questions, just ask me.” Good grief, she was sounding like the nurse at her mother’s doctor’s office. Feeling old as Methuselah, she took her coffee and went back into the lounge area.
She was just settling back against the couch cushions with a gulp of Jet Fuel in her mouth when the first call came in. Paul was on his feet, pulling his jacket over his brawny shoulders. “Time to roll. Bring that with you.”
They settled into the ambulance cab, Paul in the driver’s seat. Claire snapped a lid on her cup and nestled it securely in the holder, then buckled up, listening to the dispatcher describe the situation over the dashboard radio. It was a vehicular accident, on Piedmont Avenue near the beltway intersection, involving a motorcycle and one or more cars. Claire’s stomach tightened.
“Traffic’s moderate to heavy, police just now arriving on the scene,” the dispatcher’s voice was measured and precise.
The Cornerstone Page 5
