by Graham, Jo
Mitch and Alma came back from the hanger together, Alma with a paper bag in her hand that turned out to contain more sandwiches. It was cooler under the shade of the wing than in the cabin, and Lewis wolfed down half of one while they waited for Jerry.
“I got the control tower to radio ahead to Iowa City, let them know we’d be coming in after dark,” Mitch said, “and they said they’d have the field lit for us. They wouldn’t radio Chicago, though, said we’d have to do it from Iowa City.”
“I suppose I understand it,” Alma said. “Most people aren’t going to want to make a night flight. But —”
“We’ll be into Iowa City around ten,” Mitch said. “The tower will still be open at Chicago, and they’ll wait for us. Not to worry.”
“I’m not worrying,” Alma said.
Mitch lifted an eyebrow at her, and, reluctantly, she smiled.
“Ok, maybe I am, a little.”
“We’ll be fine,” Mitch said. “Lewis will take us to Iowa City, and I’ll get us to Chicago.”
Lewis nodded his agreement. He would have liked to add something, but there really wasn’t anything more to say.
“Right,” Mitch said. “Now — where’s Jerry?”
Alma looked over her shoulder, and Lewis said, “There.”
Jerry was limping toward them as fast as he could, his artificial leg dragging awkwardly in the clipped grass. “I got hold of Henry’s hanger manager at Chicago,” he called. “I told them we were doing a test flight, that we’d need to use their shop when we got in. They’ll leave the key for us at the tower.”
“Nice work,” Mitch said.
Lewis nodded agreement. That would make things easier, all right. He’d been imagining something out of Black Mask magazine, picking locks — or, since he had no idea how you actually went about picking a lock, climbing in through a window or something — and not having to worry about the night watchmen or the police was definitely a relief. “Are we ready, then?”
“I’d say so,” Mitch answered, and looked at Alma.
She nodded. “As ready as we’re going to be.”
Lewis settled himself into the cockpit, Mitch in the copilot’s seat to his right. They ran down the checklist — Lewis was pretty sure he had it memorized by now — and the flagman waved them out onto the grassy runway. There was a nice gentle breeze, just enough to lift the windsock on its pole outside the hanger. Lewis pointed the Terrier into the wind and opened the throttles.
He had to admit that the Terrier was much easier to fly without the weight of the supplemental tank. She climbed easily past 6500 feet, low enough to see the landmarks in what was left of the daylight, and Lewis leveled out, adjusting the fuel mixture as they reached a cruising altitude. There were clouds on the horizon, blending into the deepening dusk, and he glanced at Mitch.
“Did we get a weather report?”
“Alma did,” the other man answered, and twisted in his seat. “Al? Weather report?”
“Sorry.” Alma scrambled forward, handed the typewritten sheet to Mitch. “High clouds, maybe a little more wind, but otherwise it’s still fine. Tomorrow and the day after — that may be another matter.”
“Thanks,” Lewis said.
“With any luck at all,” Mitch said, “we won’t be flying then.”
Lewis looked for wood to touch, but there wasn’t any, and contented himself with tapping his own head.
The clouds were definitely closing in with the night, gray hummocks and rills filling in the sky around them, sheets of pale haze that thickened as he watched. The air would be smoother above them, Lewis knew, but he didn’t want to be landing through the cloud deck in the dark when he didn’t have to. He pushed the wheel forward just a little, letting the Terrier descend decorously, a hundred feet, three hundred, a thousand, and leveled off again when he thought they were well below the clouds. The sun was low enough behind them now that it was below the clouds, too, striking last flecks of reddish light from the landscape below. Mitch checked his notes, gave him the compass reading, and they flew on into the deepening night.
The air was a little choppy, just enough to require attention and strength to keep the Terrier mostly level. Lewis thought the weather report was probably right, there would be weather coming in behind them, sending out feelers ahead of the storms. Below them, the countryside was mostly dark, a cluster of town lights occasionally passing beneath the wing. That, at least, was nothing like France, where the night flights had been broken only by the flash of artillery, and he was grateful for it.
“Keep an eye out for the beacon,” Mitch said. “We should be seeing it pretty soon.”
Lewis nodded, his eyes flicking from the compass to the invisible horizon and back again. For a few long moments, there was nothing but darkness and the drone of the engines, the instrument panel glowing softly, the dimmed lights of the passenger cabin barely passing the cockpit door. And then, so faint at first that he thought he’d imagined it, he caught the first flash of the beacon, the edge of the beam sweeping out into the night. They’d barely been off by three degrees: he smiled, and steadied the Terrier on the new heading.
Iowa City was waiting for them. The lights came on as he made his first approach, circling over the beacon to get his bearings, and it was easy enough to let the Terrier down onto the well-manicured runway. He taxied to a stop beside the hanger, and they climbed out again so that they could top up the main fuel tanks as quickly as possible. Lewis lit cigarettes for himself and Alma, and stood for a moment letting the night breeze play over him. It had been a hell of a long day, and it looked like it was going to get even longer. Maybe he could catch a catnap on the way to Chicago….
“Nice landing,” Alma said, and exhaled a plume of smoke. “I still don’t much like night flying.”
Lewis shrugged one shoulder. “At least we have lights.” And nobody’s shooting at us, he added silently. The way things were going, saying it aloud felt like tempting fate.
It didn’t take long to finish fueling and to radio Chicago to tell them they were coming. Alma settled down in the seat in the back as Mitch prepared for takeoff. She didn't even need to have a look at him. The Terrier was his baby, and he had the smoothest hand with it of all of them. Jerry didn't look up either.
"So, Jerry," she said. "How is it?"
Jerry folded the book down. "It isn't," he said quietly. Certainly his voice wasn't audible in the cockpit over the engines. "I'm not sure this can be done, Al. Not with what we have and the time available. I'm not sure I can design something that's actually bombproof that's small enough and that we can make with the materials we can get and that we can do in a couple of hours. And if it doesn't work…." He shook his head.
Alma frowned, leaning forward. She knew she couldn't be heard in the cockpit either. "Look, resisting possession is about will, right? That's what it comes down to in the end. It's about knowing you have sovereignty over your own body, and having the will to make it so."
Jerry let out a long breath. "Of course it is," he said quietly. "But do you think most of us believe that?"
"Jerry…."
"We don't believe that we have that kind of control. We don't believe we have the right or the strength or the ability to say no to a demon. And so it controls us." Jerry ran one hand through his hair. "We call upon external aid. We ask Diana or St. Christopher or whomever to help us. We say, I am weak, my dear, carry me. I am lost. Find me." His blue eyes met hers. "Everyone needs it sooner or later, Al."
"I know," she said. "I have."
He reached over and took her hand, folded it in his. "I know you have. And I'm glad I could be here."
She squeezed his fingers. "I am too, Jerry."
He looked away. "You know, after the war, you and Gil…."
"You don't need to say it," Alma said.
"If you and Lewis work out, I couldn't be happier for you."
Alma searched his face, and then nodded slowly. "Thank you, Jerry."
He drew himself
up with effort. "So. About these sigils…."
"It has to be strong enough for us to believe in. That's the important thing. Not being consecrated at the right hour of the night in the right phase of the moon. All of that is secondary to belief."
Jerry sighed. "I think a sigil of Sagittarius on one side and the crescent moon on the other is the best we can do given the constraints. That's probably simple enough for Lewis to engrave on a small piece of metal." He shook his head. "I'm giving up on the quill taken from the left wing of a male gosling and the virgin parchment…."
"Or any other kind of virgin," Alma said.
Jerry gave her a quicksilver smile. "Or any other kind of virgin. Consecrate the burin with perfume of the art…. I don't suppose you have any perfume?"
"Not with me." The plane had leveled off, and Alma turned and called to the cockpit. "I don't suppose either of you have some cologne?"
Mitch didn't look around but shouted back. "I've got a bottle of Musgo Real after shave in my kit. If you want that."
"What's in it?" Jerry called.
"I don't know."
Alma rolled her eyes. "I'll find out," she said, undoing Mitch's case. She found the bottle and unscrewed the cap, taking a deep sniff and handing it to Jerry. "Vetiver," she said. "Sandalwood."
Jerry sniffed and nodded sharply. "That will do. Musgo Real it is!"
From the cockpit, Lewis could be heard querying Mitch, "We're going to do a magical thing with Musgo Real?"
"Better than Burma Shave," Mitch said.
They followed the Chicago beacon into the Municipal Airport, the rotating beams of light like a landlocked lighthouse. Mitch brought the Terrier down between the lines of boundary lights, his eyes roving from the instruments to the barely-visible field and back to the instruments. His gut shrieked that they were turning, right wing pitching up, but he ignored the sensation, focusing on the turn indicator. It showed straight and level: his body was lying again, no surprise there. He stole a glance at Lewis anyway just to check, saw him relaxed and easy in the copilot’s seat, and then he was below fifty feet, the ground rising to meet his wheels. He let the Terrier stall, and dropped neatly onto the runway.
It was just a little before midnight, but they were not the last expected flight. One of the passenger lines was scheduled to land just before one, so there were still lights on in the terminal, and a handful of porters waiting by the main entrance. Mitch taxied the plane to the only available hanger, and began shutting everything down while Alma and Lewis went in search of coffee, and to fetch the key to the Kershaw machine shop from the tower. He had just finished setting the chocks when Jerry came down the steps. He looked tired and a little drawn, and Mitch guessed the leg was beginning to hurt again. He knew better than to ask, though, and said only, “Do we have a plan?”
“Of course,” Jerry said, so brightly that Mitch gave him a wary look.
“I’m serious.”
“I do have a plan,” Jerry said. “I just didn’t say it was a good one.”
Chapter Twelve
"Oh Adonai most powerful, who hast established all things in thy wisdom, who didst choose Abraham to be thy faithful servant and didst promise that in his seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed…." Jerry intoned solemnly, his hands raised before him.
Lewis found his mind wandering, much as it had in long ago days as a choir boy and an acolyte. This "operation" seemed about as long as a full Mass, and not entirely dissimilar. There were endless invocations and readings, including the entirety of Psalms 8, 11, 27, 29, and 32 before Alma put a stop to it with apparently several more Psalms to go. "I think God has the gist of it," she said. "And it's nearly two, Jerry. We have to have time to make the actual sigils."
He'd already cut the sheet metal into 3 inch by 3 inch squares and made a small hole in each for a chain or string to go through. Well, after Jerry had endlessly blessed Henry Kershaw's shop equipment. Any fear and trepidation Lewis had felt at the darkened shop and talk of demons had vanished in the face of Jerry reciting Psalms 51 and 72 over the miter saw and anointing it with Musgo Real after shave. Instead, this all began to feel just a little silly.
Which was probably not the proper frame of mind, given that he still had to engrave the four pieces of metal. If Jerry ever got done summing up the entire Old Testament.
"…Thou who has appeared unto thy servant Moses in the form of a burning bush, and hast made him to walk upon dry feet through the Red Sea, who gavest the Law to him upon Mount Sinai, Thou who hast granted unto David kingship and unto his house thereafter…."
Mitch shifted from foot to foot, a solemn expression on his face, his eyes downcast as though in church. He looked like an overgrown choirboy too, and Lewis had a sudden vision of a row of well-scrubbed children lined up in a pew in order of height from Mitch at the end about fourteen all the way down to a little boy still in skirts holding on to his sister's hand. There was the sharp, clean smell of the pine boughs adorning the plain glass windows, the spicy scent of cinnamon. There were cakes on the altar where there ought to be bread, or cookies maybe, wrapped in different baskets and cloths, some of them still warm. Their scent mingled with the smell of beeswax from the candles. A woman's voice rose in sweet song, accompanied by an old fashioned harpsichord. "Silent night, holy night…."
Lewis blinked. Jerry was still running on, having got up to King Solomon. That was not Lewis' memory, not his own thoughts. Christmas Eve, yes, but not the Mass, not the familiar words, not the priest at the altar. This was entirely different, and yet the same in spirit. A different Christmas Eve, a different home.
He glanced over at Mitch, who still stood with his head bowed. Was this Mitch's memory? Had he somehow shared it for a moment, thinking too of church as a child, half lulled to sleep by Jerry's voice?
Alma cleared her throat, catching Jerry's eye. Her meaning was clear. Wrap it up. They were running out of time.
"Yes, um," Jerry inserted suddenly, his lengthy recap breaking off. "Moving right along." He lifted up the four small squares of metal. "May these pentacles be consecrated by Thy power that we may obtain virtue and strength against all Spirits, through Thee, Most Holy Adonai, whose kingdom endureth without end." Laying them on his handkerchief, he handed them to Lewis. "You can start engraving now."
"Thanks." Lewis took them carefully, for all that they were pieces of metal he'd cut himself less than an hour before. He laid them out and then chose one, picking up the burin carefully. Sweat stood out on his brow.
Mitch touched his arm lightly. "They don't have to be perfect," he said. "It's the intent that's important."
Obscurely that made him feel better. There would be time another day to ask Mitch about what he'd seen, whether it was real or just his imagining, but he held on to that feeling of peace. There was something stable about Mitch, solid and bright beneath whatever darkness overlay it. His hands were cutting, tracing the symbols dark on bright, but he was only half aware of them. Yes, there was a darkness there, something the color of old blood beneath affable charm. There was a shadow, and against it the flame burned all the brighter. A decision reached, an acceptance sought again and again. He couldn't name it, didn't need to, but it stood at the core of Mitch, just as Mitch stood at his shoulder.
"Very nice," Mitch said, as Lewis lifted the first amulet and turned it over, ready to begin the back.
"This one's for you," Lewis said. "It has you in it."
Alma's eyebrows twitched.
Hers was the second one. He made the first cuts with care, the long semicircle of the huntsman's bow the twist of her smile. She was strong, stronger than anyone, practical and competent. And under it was joy. For all the sadness that came to her eyes when she spoke of Gil, she had no regrets. Alma never would. Courage came from joy, and for her life would always be sweet no matter what it held. It drew him to her in laughter and tears alike to share in that evergreen strength.
"This one is for Alma," he said, his fingers tracing the crescent m
oon. The new moon pale over forests of dark cypress trees, fragrant wooded glens cathedrals beneath the stars….
Jerry's was hardest, as he'd expected. Mercurial, brilliant, shifting as the seas. It didn't want to take. His hands slipped on the burin, the lines wavering, and he pressed it back, like holding on to the controls bucking in an unexpected thermal. There was strength there too, strength in yielding, the inexpressible, immovable permanence of the sea. Water yields. It gives, it pours, it shapes itself to whatever contains it. And yet it is nothing but itself, flowing with unimaginable might, unfathomable depth. Jerry yielded. But he did not surrender.
"This one's for you," he said, placing it in Jerry's palm still warm from his hand. There was a quick flash of amazement there as he felt it, and Lewis thought yes. That is how it should be, each suited to the one it belonged to, hallowed by the craftsman's love. He could not speak names of power, recite rituals to consecrate. But these were made of his love and concern, and that had power of its own.
The last one. The one for himself. He had been mistaken that Jerry's was hardest. The hardest was his own. A wave of fear washed over him. He could not make something that would protect himself. He didn't know how.
The shape of the moon mocked him, the hunter's bow eluded him. Darkness moved with a thousand whispers. They would never get back. They would never make it. If everything depended on him, they would die. He stood in memory beside the downed plane, tugging at Robbie's jacket, searching for a pulse. If it were up to him, it was over. Night crawled around him.
A dog howled, high and longing. Then another, and another.
That was as it was in the first dark, when man knew no fire. There was the pale moon rising to cast her light, heralded by the long song of the wolf. They were not foes but friends, packmates brought among men to work at their sides, and their presence made the night safe.
Lady of Hounds, Lady of the Crescent Moon, bright protectress…. The metal shone bright, burnished with her light.
