by Rowan Casey
Finally I gave in to the inevitable, got up and went downstairs to the empty bar. I thought the guitar would help again, as it had earlier. I picked her up and rang out a minor set of chord changes that echoed around the room. My mood was somber and I was feeling low. I knew a happy song wasn't going to help, so I started up an old favorite, one from my mother's notebook, and let it flow through me.
"Ae fond kiss, and then we sever,"
Agnes was still sitting on the table in the bar alongside the counterfeit and she came in to join me in perfect harmony for the second line.
"Ae fareweel, alas, for ever,"
By the time I got to "Had we never lov'd sae kindly," I had tears rolling down my cheeks. Agnes' sweet voice,high and clear and denying her age to show the maiden she once had been, sustained us both right through to an end that hung in the air long after we stopped. The music made the magic.
And I felt much better.
"Come on through and tell old Agnes what ails you, laddie," she said as I went over to the table. "And bring some chocolate."
I did better than that. I took a couple of chocolate bars from behind the bar counter, but I also took the Highland Park and a couple of glasses. I stood in the center of the small dance area, thought of Agnes' chambers, stone and cauldron, frost and Norn, and stepped through a cold mist and heavy weight to her side. It felt easier than ever. Whether it was because I was getting the hang of it, or whether Dante had given me a vitamin booster, either way, I knew I could come through at any time.
I was still considering the implications of that when Agnes grabbed the chocolate bars from my hand. She seemed happier to see them than she did to see me, and wolfed them down with such a look of girlish pleasure on her face I could not help but laugh—and with that, my mood was completely shifted—grounded.
"Tell me about your sister," I said to Agnes, and showed her the whisky bottle, "and we'll have another kind of sweetie—a wee nippy one."
I sat as close to her small fire as I could get; if—when—I came back again, I'd have to bring an overcoat, for it was a cold, dank, place in which to spend eternity. The Scotch helped though, and Agnes took to it with some gusto, smacking her gums with glee.
"Orcadian tasty—like you, Gareth," she said, then seemed to remember. "No—not him—from him, but not him—not my lovely boy. Long time passed. He liked to sing, too. Old songs—sad, sad, songs."
"Gareth? The table knight? I thought he was one of those that helped to put you here?"
"Oh, yes," she said, and put her glass out to be filled. I thought it best that I hold onto the bottle, for she might start into it straight from the neck given half a chance. "My bonny boy put us here, yes, but we deserved it. Sisters were naughty girls—very bad. I remember—others didn't—one lost, one only now."
She was slightly more lucid than on my last visit, but not by much, and I was struggling to make sense of what she was saying. But I had her talking about sisters, so that was a start.
"It's my fate, you know," she said as she knocked back another dram. "I am cursed with remembrance of all that there ever was."
That sentence actually made sense. I credited the Scotch, and gave her some more.
"Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld," I said, remembering something Black said.
She nodded as she drained the new glass of Scotch in one and smacked her gums again.
"Skuld is gone into the place where we are all traveling. Urd is old and cursed but has her songs. Verdandi is now—always now—never look back, never look ahead, misses all the moments of beauty and glory that pass from coming to gone because she needs—always needs now."
"You're talking about Face?"
She wiggled the empty glass at me until I filled it again.
"Face, sister, Verdandi, whore, mother, child, maiden, crone—many faces. All of them now and only now."
I sat for a bit thinking while she worked her way further down the bottle. I was going to have to replace that for George, but I thought he was going to like the story about where it went.
"How long have you been here?" I asked.
"How long is string?" she replied. "Too long, not long enough. Depends who you ask. We were there longer, much longer, than we have been here. And we will be there again. Verdandi has already gone back. Mayhap she will come for me and we will both return to see what has been wrought in our absence. And get more chocolate."
I poured her a last glass of the Scotch. She was looking drowsy now, and some of the gleam had gone from her eyes. She slumped in her stool and I had to catch the whisky glass as it rolled out of her hand.
"My lovely Gareth," she said, half-asleep already. "Sing me a lullaby. Rock me to sleep as you used to."
I knew just the song, one Face had sung to me, long ago and far away.
I searched the moorland tarns and then, I wandered through each silent glen
I saw the mist upon the Ben, but I never saw my baby, O!
Hovan, hovan gorry o go, I never found my baby, O!
By the time I brought it to a soft, almost whispered end, Agnes was soundly asleep and snoring contentedly.
I walked back through to the bar just in time to give George the fright of his life before breakfast. He was smiling by the time I told him where the Highland Park had gone though.
"Did you learn anything that'll help us later?" he asked as he brewed up a pot of coffee.
"I'm still thinking about that," I replied. "Has she done anything overnight?"
He knew who I meant, and shook his head.
"All quiet. I don't like it."
"Me neither, but there doesn't seem to be bugger all we can do about it until later."
"I've been meaning to ask—this 'later'—it's some king of magic mumbo-jumbo, right? A spell, ceremony, what did he call it, a ritual? I don't like the sound of that."
"It’ll be Hollywood magic, velvet robes and wee shiny daggers, incense and pomp, foreign languages that sound funny. That's Black's style. But there'll be just enough real magic in it to get the job done, at least that's what I hope."
"And I hope to hell you know what you're doing, John. Yon hound is still around somewhere, and dogs have a habit of taking a shite when you least expect it."
I hoped to hell I knew what I was doing, too. I had a plan, a pretty fluid plan at that, and I had a definite end game in mind. It was getting everybody lined up to get to that point that was going to be the real trick.
We spent a quiet day in the bar, drinking coffee and playing chess. George won, as usual, three games before the clock ticked round and it was time. I put Agnes and the other tray in my pocket. She never spoke, never even went foggy. I guessed she was still sleeping it off. I hoped she'd be awake in time for the show. I was going to need her.
The Jeep had undergone as rapid, and as solid, repairs as the structure of the bar door; it seemed none the worse for wear after my earlier adventures. George took the wheel as we headed out of the downtown area and out onto Sunset Boulevard.
I checked the rearview—several times, I couldn't help myself. But there was only a carpet of city lights behind us. If the hound was out there, it wasn't hunting, at least not hunting us. But I kept my eyes on the mirror most of the time anyway, all the way along the Boulevard, up the canyon road, until we finally pulled up at Black's driveway and the big iron gates opened to let us inside.
Showtime.
Chapter 22
Black was waiting at the door as he had been on my first visit, but he wasn't wearing his London suit this time. I'd been right about his penchant for pomp, although on a man of his size, the black velveteen robe encrusted in silver with stars and planets looked faintly ridiculous and his bandaged head looked too white against the expanse of black below.
"You need a tall hat, like a druid in the old days," George said to him as we got out of the Jeep and made our way over. If Black got the reference he didn't acknowledge it. In fact, he ignored George completely and spoke directly to me.
"Everythin
g is waiting in the library. I've sent my guards home for the night. I'm trusting you to keep your word on this one, Mr. Seton."
Along with putting on the cloak, he'd lost some of his L.A. accent and gone more old-school English, stuffed-shirt formal. It made him sound like an actor, a bad actor at that, playing the part. I suppose in a way he was. I just hoped he wouldn't fluff the lines I expected of him.
George seemed faintly amused, and wasn't finished with his teasing,
"I hope you've got your trousers on under there and this isn't one of those sky-clad, naked dancing parties," he said. "As a Scotsman I’m used to letting the tackle run free, but I’m not sure I’m ready to see yours."
Black reddened at the cheeks, but didn't rise to the bait, and kept looking straight at me.
"You need to make the circles yourself. I think it's a Seton thing. According to the book, if anyone else does them the spell won't work."
"Circles?" George asked, and this time the big man deigned to reply.
"The protections. We are attempting both a summoning and a binding at the same time. If the circles are not correct, then either procedure could end in madness, death and eternal damnation for our souls."
"I think I've got two out of those three covered already," George replied as we went through the hallway.
As before I gave the hound's head mosaic on the marble floor a wide berth—I didn't want to tempt fate—and I didn't like the way it smiled at me.
Black had cleared the library floor of anything moveable; the display cabinets were pushed back against the bookshelves, and the wooden floorboards had been cleared of rugs. He'd also cleaned up the mess I'd made. There was no sign of any broken glass or smashed cabinet and the dead man I'd left in the doorway on my last visit wasn't there either. The only things on the floor were a small doctor's valise that looked cracked and battered and of some age, and the same old book I'd seen Black read from at our meeting in the bar.
"You'll find everything you need there," Black said. "The valise belonged to an English adept of the early twentieth century, a member of the Golden Dawn I have been told. The book came from his library, and tells of how the circles should be made, and as I said, you have to do it alone."
He looked pleased at that. It made him feel in control again, I guess. He led George over to the fireplace. There was a decanter on the mantle, and three glasses, but I wasn't offered one. Instead George and Black were all too quickly embroiled in a common language to both of them, single malt Scotch whiskies and their relative merits. I knew George would never like the big man, but the water of life has a way of bringing the disparate together. It had done the trick with Agnes and myself earlier, and once again it seemed to be doing its job here.
As for me, I bent to see what had been left for me on the floor. There was a bookmark in the old book, so I picked that up first and opened it to the marked page.
The left side was a diagram; circles within circles, wheels within wheels that seemed to cycle and spin if I looked too closely. I quickly turned my gaze to the writing on the opposite page
“Begin by drawing a circle of chalk exactly ten feet in diameter, using a piece of string anchored to a center point and taking care never to smudge the line at any point."
I looked in the valise. There were small glass bottles, items wrapped in linen, an out-of-place Tupperware box containing peeled cloves of garlic, and, right at the bottom of the bag, several pieces of white chalk, a ball of twine and a wedge-shaped weight with a ring on top. I looked over to Black, but he and George were now deep in animated conversation about the varied merits of island versus Speyside malts—a conversation that might take some time.
I read the passage again, prepared the twine by the simplest way I could see, tying it to the weight and having that as my central point, and got to it. It took three attempts before I got the hang of getting the chalk to make a smooth curve, but once I had the knack, things went faster. As the book then told me to, I made a second circle, a foot beyond the first then I rubbed a broken garlic clove along the line of this second circle.
When this was done, I found a small jar of purified water in the valise and went round the circle again just inside the line of chalk, leaving a wet trail that dried quickly behind me. Within the inner channel between the rings I copied out the signs of what the book called the Saaamaaa Ritual. Then, having to check, recheck and check again that all my lines were straight and true, I made a pentacle inside the inner circle and joined each sign most carefully to the edges of the lines I had already made.
At the points of the pentacle I placed five dry biscuits I found wrapped in the linen, and in the valleys the five phials of the purified water from the valise. All in all it took me the best part of an hour. The other two were discussing how varying strains of barley affected the malting when I stood up to look at my handiwork. It looked a bit like the diagram on the right hand page of the book, but I didn't get the same feeling of spinning wheels and dizziness when I looked at it. I didn’t know if that was a good thing, or a bad thing.
I called Black and George over to get their opinion. Black hadn't forgotten his manners completely; he poured me a Scotch and brought it over with him when he came. I slugged it back while he walked around the circle, hemmed and hawed, sucked at his teeth—theatrically of course—then proclaimed it to be a job well done.
"So what now?" I asked.
"Now we step inside and start the ritual," Black said.
"Wait a minute. There's no 'we.' I thought you said I had to so this alone?"
"The circles, yes. The ritual, no. We all have to be inside the protection. If we're not, we risk either being consumed by the hound, or possessed by the fury of the Norn. The book says that's not a good idea."
"No, I wouldn't think it would be."
"Besides," Black continued, "I'll be performing the chant, unless either of you is versed in Greek, Latin or Enochian?"
He smiled again. He still thought he was in charge. He was the mark, so I let him keep thinking it. Besides, I'd just been flapping my gums, trying to put off the inevitable. I hadn't liked the sick, dizzy, feeling seeing the diagram in the book had brought on, and suddenly my plan seemed flimsy and weak and a long way from an end. But I'd brought it this far, and I still had some tricks up my sleeve for later.
"Just one more thing, Mr. Black," I said. "I'll need Face back. If things go tits up, I want to have all of the mirrors with me. It's a Seton thing."
Again, I hadn't actually lied to him, and he was so into his persona, so ready for the big act that he handed her over to me, taking her from a pocket of the cloak. I put her away beside the fake.
Black stepped over the outside circles and into the center of the pentacle.
Nothing happened.
"After you," I said to George, and he followed the big man, stepping over the chalk as seriously as a kid avoiding standing on the cracks in a sidewalk. He turned once he was inside.
"Come on in, the water's lovely," he said.
"Before you do," Black said, "dim the chandelier. The dimmer is by the side of the door."
"Why would we do that? There's enough to this mumbo-jumbo already without having to do it in the dark."
"You don't have to turn it all the way down, just mostly. Trust me—you'll see—and we need to do it anyway—as proof that it’s working."
"What's working?"
"Just turn down the dimmer, will you—we need to get started."
I continued to allow him the thought of control. I went to the door and turned down the dimmer. As the light from the chandelier dimmed, the circles of chalk on the floor started to gleam, then glow, yellow, almost golden.
"See," Black said, as pleased with himself as if it was somehow all his doing. "Proof."
I walked back over toward them, took a breath, and stepped inside the circles.
Chapter 23
"The next bit is rather tedious," Black said, and patted the book. "I have a long and involved chant to perform in
Enochian, the summoning part of the ritual. It may take some time, and I need silence, so please, let me get on with it?"
The stage magician act was back—or maybe he thought he was more than that—a real wizard—but he had assumed the starched, clipped tones of his English schooling again.
George lit up a cigarette and dropped me a wink as Black started to read aloud. I knew after the first few seconds that I didn't understand a word of it. He could be ordering a pizza, not summoning a Norn, for all I knew.
And it seemed to go on forever; ten, twenty, thirty minutes, and still he droned on and on, with little change in inflection in his voice. A decent actor might have put more into it, but as I've said, Black was a long way from being a decent actor.
I was about to break his request for silence and ask him to get on with it a bit faster when the yellow glow of the circles got suddenly brighter, as if their own dimmer setting had just been turned up. At the same time the air got colder and damper.
Another sound came in, joining Black's chant; faint and distant at first, but definitely getting louder, the howl of a giant hound.
Fog rolled in under the library door, as if curling through from the canyon outside, the gloom swallowing the dimmed light from the chandelier and leaving us with only the soft glow of the circles. The odor came again. I knew it immediately. Wet dog is unmistakable, no matter the size or temper of the beast. Something snuffled outside the library door, as if searching for us in the fog.
Black stopped the Enochian. I had no idea whether the summoning spell was at an end and he was onto something else, or whether fear had caused him to change, but now he started to sing softly. He was almost as bad at that as he was at acting, but this time I knew the source, a soft Gaelic chant, a prayer for protection from evil. When I looked in his direction I guessed this was indeed another part of the ritual. He had the book open in his hands and read as he sang.
