Deep Blue

by David Niall Wilson

  She turned away, but not before the fire, deep in the woods, flared briefly. Through the trees, filtering into bare patches and etching itself along lines that should not be there, the red-orange brilliance outlined great, glaring eyes. Their gaze burned into her back as she opened her door and slipped inside, closing it slowly and firmly behind her. The eyes wavered, lingering as long as the image strobed her shocked night vision, then faded into rustling leaves and branches waving cold empty fingers at the moon.

  Sarah strode purposefully to the mantel over her fireplace and opened the hinged wooden lid of the box that rested there. Inside was a small leather pouch, and she drew it out carefully. She didn't open it at first. Instead she ran her fingers over the leather. It had survived the years so much better than her own skin, which was wrinkled and stretched tighter over her bones with each passing year. The bag was soft and supple, and burned into its side was the same symbol etched into her door. The symbol was a cross, but that was like saying that the sky was blue and ignoring the variations in hue, the dance of the clouds, and the birds wheeling overhead.

  Her heels pressed into the wooden floor, and she felt his voice. The Earth breathed, and he spoke through her throat. The wind caught the words and the hills shook the sound from the sky. Sarah pulled the bag and its symbol close to her heart, bowed her head, and prayed.

  At first there was no effect. Then, slowly, she felt his influence flow down and away, receding like the tide. Before it could shift, wash up and over her and drag her into the line of those disappearing into the trees, she opened the pouch, poured a small handful of powder into her hand, and stepped to the mantel.

  The wall she faced was north, and she took a pinch of the powder in her free hand. She tossed it into the air in the direction of that wall, whispering to herself as she worked. Gabriel. Michael. Azrael. Rafael. Uriel. Charon. She called upon each in turn and made a slow circuit of the room, consecrating each wall, and each doorway, neglecting neither window nor chimney. Each time she tossed the powder into the air, something eased in her heart. The oppressive weight that had settled onto her shoulders lifted.

  When she reached Charon, archangel of death, she blew the last of the powder off her fingers and rubbed her palms together in cleansing. He was gone.

  She did not step to her window to watch the last of them disappear into the forest, she went instead to her desk, lit a single candle, and sat down to write. She wasted no words, because there was no reason. In the morning, when the sun had banished all but the bleakest memory of the night's blasphemy, she would take it down the mountain to the mail drop. Beneath her few words, she scrawled his symbol so there could be no mistaking her message.

  In that instant, her candle dimmed. She hurriedly surrounded it with the circle, and banished it with the equal-armed strength of her cross. The candle flickered brightly, and Sarah sealed her missive with a dollop of wax. When it had dried, she traced a small symbol into the still malleable surface to speed it on its way, and she laid the envelope on her desk.

  Then, as the late hour crept up on her, and her waning strength failed, she rose shakily and made her way to her bed. The cottage had only two rooms, and the bed did double duty as a couch. She had few needs now that her son, had gone into the world. She had no daughters, and few close neighbors. She closed her eyes and was asleep within moments, consciously fighting a dream of glowing eyes and deep resonant chants.

  On the edge of the forest, Irma Creed glanced over her shoulder as she crossed the tree line and entered the woods. For just a moment, she stopped and stared. Sarah Carlson's cottage shimmered in the moonlight, and it looked as if it were coated in silver. Then his voice cut through her reverie, and she tore her gaze away. In moments the woods had swallowed her whole.

  They ringed the fire, starting with a single man, slender and old with slate gray hair and bright eyes that caught the firelight and flung it to the sky. From his side they extended in a single, unbroken line, spiraling out from the center. They filled the clearing and threaded themselves through the trees when all of the open space had been filled.

  The one who had called them was nowhere to be seen, yet they swayed to the power of his voice. It crackled in the snap of branches, consumed in flames, and hissed as a brood of vipers rushing through the scant leaves of the trees over their heads. They did not touch one another. They did not speak. The air had grown heavy, not with the moisture of a rainstorm, but with a cloying, musky odor that permeated their clothing, slicked their skin and hair with sweat, and drew them into a single, undulating whole.

  Their voices joined, first the old man nearest the fire, and then each of the others in succession, strengthening the unified wave of sound until it was dragged from its place on the breeze and ripped from the earth beneath their feet. The human spiral began to move.

  Unlike their voices, this motion rolled from the outside in. The furthest from the flame stepped toward the next in line and they rippled, a human domino chain of energy that picked up speed slowly. The precision of it was uncanny; legs flashed beside legs, steps increased in speed, long strides and short, blended in a macabre dance. Seen from above they formed a serpent, uncoiling slowly and flexing its strength.

  As the surge broke through the center rings, faster and faster, the coils tightened. At the end of it all, the old man with the gray hair and flashing eyes spun with the grace of a dancer. He flung his arms out and up. He closed his eyes and drew his legs together, poised. Though there was no wind, his hair lifted up and back from the flames. The chant, so subtle moments before, rose to a roar, rushed at him from behind and drew from the fire at the same time, a vortex of sound. He lifted until only the tips of his toes held his precarious balance on the surface of the clearing. Then the wave hit.

  The others in the line didn't touch him, but he was lifted. He soared about six feet straight into the air and arched into the bonfire. Hot tongues of flame licked at him, even in flight, and his gray hair burst into a fiery halo that left a trail of sparks as he plummeted into the searing heat and the dancing, snapping flames. A collective sigh rolled back along the line and became a loud, hissing moan.

  There were no screams of pain. There was no scent of burning flesh, nor any sign that the man had ever existed. The fire began, very slowly, to pull back in on itself. It was not possible to see it in the darkness, eyes blinded by sweat and brilliant flame, but as it died down its death followed a spiral pattern, mirroring that of the line of men, women, and children who swayed before it, catching speed as they had caught speed. It drew into the Earth at a single point, whipped faster and faster, round and round itself with such dazzling speed that it only appeared to flicker and gutter, caught in the same non-extant wind that had lifted the old man's hair from his head and his feet from the ground. It slid down to oblivion like a serpent entering its lair, and when it was done, he was there.

  Tall shadows fell across their faces, but their blind eyes saw nothing. With the fire so suddenly gone, the moon re-asserted her control of the night. The light was too dim, too soft and silver, and the shadows snaked about them like writhing snakes. They stood very still, and as their eyes adjusted, the shadows took a new form.

  Long, slender branches with pointed tips shot out at crazed angles from the two points where they joined his scalp. The antlers were ponderous, heavier than the largest ten-point buck could carry, thick and knobbed, ropy and twisted. He turned, very slowly, and that shadow wound its way in and around them until it fell across their pale, upturned faces. His eyes glittered like cut gems, glowing a brilliant flame yellow, even in the moonlight. He stood only about five foot eleven, but in that moment he loomed huge and imposing, the twisted shadow of antlers crisscrossing the air above his head like a crown of thorns.

  They moved with him. Even as the sight that met their eyes registered on those gathered, they swayed, undulating in time, coiling and uncoiling. He was the horned serpent head and they his captured, scaled body, held in thrall by the force of his gaze and
the hypnotic swaying motion of his shadow-crowned form.

  He bent down to the ground at his feet, where the fire had crackled and danced so recently, and the motion swept the great shadow-antlers back through them without warning. Where the darkness met flesh, energy crackled, but there were no cries. Those who were touched would bear the scars to their graves, but in that instant they were parts of a single whole, and what they felt spread along the length of the chain and back to its head without a whimper.

  He held one hand out before him. His forefinger was coated in dark, powdered ash. Without hesitation he stepped to the first in line behind him and drew that finger across the skin of a forehead. The symbol was smudged, but clear, obscure and intensely precise. The smudged, primitive image of the black body of a serpent wound its way up the forehead of a young girl, and her eyes went wide.

  She toppled backward and crashed into the man behind her; he screamed suddenly and fell into an old woman with sand-gray hair and a hawk's nose. She had no time to join her voice to theirs before she fell against the man behind her, but moments later she found both voice and heart for it. What had been a coordinated unit joined in motion and grace dissolved to a chaos of sound, screaming voices and high pitched keening. Where bodies had moved in harmony, close as blades of grass but never touching, a confusion of limbs and motion erupted.

  Up until that moment, things had progressed in slow fluidity, one motion leading the next. It had been choreographed to the sound of his voice and the flickering dance of the fire. Now it crumbled. Men ran in all directions, screamed, crashed into trees and trampled those before and behind them, the strong escaping and the weaker falling, or limping, some even crawling to escape that clearing and to get out from beneath the shadow of those huge, ebon antlers. Without the light of the fire to guide them, they ran blindly. Some found the path by luck; others ran deeper into the woods and hills. Children cried out for their parents and were ignored. From where the old man stood, his finger still poised in the air where it had left its mark on the smooth flesh of the girl's forehead, the clearing looked like a panoramic diorama of Hell, complete with tortured souls and a stereo soundtrack. He watched them stumble and crawl over one another until the last of them, even the tiniest child, had disappeared from sight, and then he watched a bit longer.

  He had entered the woods as Silas Greene, but now? He didn't know if the name had meaning any longer. He felt the weight press down on him from above, but his hand passed easily over his head. Nothing. He knew what was there—they all felt it—but on this plane, in this form, everything shifted.

  Then he turned his hand and stared at the black ashes smudged on the tip of his finger.

  "I'll be damned," he said.

  Then he began to chuckle. It was a deep-throated sound, louder and richer than could be expected to emanate from a human throat, particularly that of an old man. The ground shook, and he knew the sound would carry to them, and that they would redouble their efforts to escape. He wondered briefly how many would be lost in the woods come morning, and how many others would be brave enough to enter and search them out. He wondered if they would come back to the ashes of the fire, or spend their day trying to cleanse his mark from their brows.

  They wore it. Everyone who had been touched in that tangle of bodies had been marked as surely as the one he'd touched directly. Others would see the mark in the light, and they would know. They would turn their faces from one another in shame and anger, but they would know. Those who had not been in the woods would know, as well, if they had not already guessed.

  He threw back his head and the chuckle became a full-blown laugh. The sound echoed across the hills like thunder. Then, with purposeful strides, the man formerly known as Silas Greene turned and strode through the forest toward hearth and home. There was a great deal to accomplish, and little time.

  In her cottage at the edge of the trees, Sarah shivered in her sleep.

  Buy ANCIENT EYES now at Amazon.Com

  THE DECHANCE CHRONICLES:

  In the novels Heart of a Dragon, Vintage Soul, the four novellas in My Soul to Keep & Others (Including My Soul to Keep, the origin of Donovan DeChance), and Kali's Tale, you will meet Donovan DeChance. Donovan is a mage, a mystic, a book collector, and investigator, and self-proclaimed watcher over the balance of supernatural powers – particularly in and around the darker side of San Valencez California. In These first two books, Donovan clashes with werewolves, vampires, dragons, voodoo, and a whole lot more, accompanied by his lover and companion, Amethyst, and his Egyptian Mau, Cleopatra. Kali's tale takes them the Great Dismal Swamp in North Carolina, and leads into the brand new Novel NEVERORE, a Novel of Love, Loss, & Edgar Allan Poe.

  Below is an excerpt from HEART OF A DRAGON – Book I of the DeChance Chronicles, also available in unabridged audio, narrated by Corey Snow.

  Heart of a Dragon

  By David Niall Wilson

  Dedication

  This one is dedicated to the editors at the old White Wolf Publishing house, and to Stephen Mark Rainey, editor of the late and lamented Deathrealm magazine, where the original short story—"In His Heart Live Dragons"—was published. Also my heartfelt thanks to Bob Eggleton for the use of the amazing dragon image on the cover, and to my brothers and sisters in Tiburon, MC, where I learned what it’s like to truly belong.

  Special thanks/acknowledgments

  I would like to thank, first and foremost, the love of my life, Patricia Lee Macomber, and my wonderful children, Stephanie, Bill, Zach, Zane, and Katie, who put up with my enthusiastic outbursts about the world of Donovan DeChance on a regular basis, and who have always loved and supported me. I’d like to thank Kurt Criscione, the keeper of the series bible for this and other works of mine, all of which seem to constantly intertwine, David Dodd, for helping me turn Crossroad Press into something more than a hobby, and Aaron Rosenberg, for not only handling most of our print books—but for teaching me how to do it myself. Last but not least, I’d like to thank the words, and the magic, for being my companions in life.

  “I do not care what comes after; I have seen the dragons on the wind of morning.”

  —Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

  Chapter One

  The park was quiet. Clouds scudded across the last remnant of the sunset, obscuring the muted reds and golds that clung to the skyline. The hum of street lamps kicking to life brought dim, yellowed illumination to the night, but it did little to ease the menace of the encroaching shadows. Instead it shaped them and drew them out in elongated patterns on the rolling hills and small forested patches of Santini Park. The hint of a storm crackled in the evening air, bringing the heavy, water and ozone scent of thunderstorm and the soft flicker, far off over the ocean, of lightning fingers stretching down toward the rolling waves.

  On the East side of the park, other shadows moved. They slipped from alleys, slid from between parked cars and out of the darkened doorways of decayed apartment buildings and dingy warehouses. Eyes, teeth, jewelry and blades glimmered softly in the dying light. They crossed the street stealthily, entered the park in silence, and disappeared into its depths. No words were spoken, but there was fluidity to their combined motion, and purpose. They entered like a horde of vermin and disappeared into the darkness.

  Moments later the silence was shattered by the thrumming roar of a single engine. It wasn't the purr of a sports car, or the roar of V-8 power, but the steady throb of a large V-twin, powerful and throaty. The echo of that sound resonated through the park, caromed off buildings and reverberated in the depths of alleys. The sound multiplied and grew, challenging the distant voice of the thunder for dominance of the night. The first bike slid down Holley St. and into sight at the edge of the park. Its single headlight sliced through the blackness. The rider rolled to a stop, the bike's polished tank and chrome reflecting the weak light of the street lights. He pushed the kickstand down and stepped off. He left the engine running.

  Black hair swept over his shoulders,
tied back with a silver clasp that caught the light when he moved. The clasp was a spider, long legs twined about his pony-tail tightly. His eyes were small chips of blue ice. His chest was bare beneath a cut-sleeve denim vest, faded and criss-crossed with stains and patches, chains and memories. He was lean and strong, long muscled legs beneath tight jeans ending in scuffed engineer boots ringed by a leather strap, decorated with chipped conches. From his belt a long knife swung, slapping lightly against his thigh.

  He stood for a long time, bike leaning on its stand, the engine throbbing. He swept the park with a cold gaze that seemed able to cut through the shadows. Nothing moved but leaves sliding quickly across the grass, caught in the grip of the approaching storm. There was no sound but the bike, and the whisper of wind through the trees.

  Snake waited another moment. He wanted to see them, to know they were there, and where, but he also knew that wasn't going to happen. They'd drawn him here, and there was no choice but to get on with it. He reached over and killed his engine.

  He raised his arm and waved it in a slow arc. The sudden silence that had fallen when the engine died was broken by the soft throb of more engines. They ground to life and then rose to a sudden roar. The darkness was crisscrossed by brilliant slices of light, dispersing as the bright headlight beams sliced through it, and reforming as each passed, single file. They parked in diagonals, lining the edge of the park. There were dozens of them, each pausing for a moment, canting to one side to catch on its kick stand, then falling to silence.

  The storm crept slowly closer, just off the coast and heading inland. The lightning flashes grew in brilliance and frequency. Snake stepped forward onto the soft turf of the park common, and the others filled in behind him, row upon row, tattered jeans, dark eyes, their weapons, belts, and leather gleaming with steel and silver. Each wore a sleeveless denim vest with the club's colors, blue and green dragons, whirling in a tight 69, devouring their own tails. The top bar simply stated the obvious: "Dragons MC". The bottom rocker, lined in blue, read "San Valences, CA."