She was nearly home. About five minutes more along this bushtrack and she would be there. She looked at the darkening track leading to Light Vision, and suddenly she felt an urge not to return. To run from the mountains. Catch a train to Sydney from Katoomba station and leave behind the screams, the heavy silences that filled the house. Escape from the ageing, lost expressions in the faces of Minette and Sophie. Run, as fast as she could from the cobwebs of fear that bound the house. Strange days and confusing times.
Being with Emily Robson had shown her there were normal people out there who would treat her with kindness and respect. Not everybody would judge her because of the way she looked and the fact that she lived in Light Vision. Perhaps there would be others like her, and she could have some form of normal life. A normal life, like the people that shared buses and trains with her when she had worked in Sydney. Wearily making their way to and from some form of work. Talking into mobiles in flat tones, making insecure statements and asking questions.
No, Theresa didn’t want to return to that reality, that grey, twilight world where the people who surrounded her seemed so dazed, the living dead. But maybe there was somewhere else. A peaceful community she could settle in, make a new identity, start a new life. Away from the Light Vision members. But her feet kept moving her towards the house and the gathering twilight behind her seemed to take on a more ominous feel. She knew this path well, having walked it most days since moving to the mountains, but suddenly she felt an overwhelming sensation of terror.
Without thinking, she began to run. Theresa knew she was only minutes from the house, but on that darkening bushtrack it suddenly seemed a far greater distance. Faster, faster, she had to move faster, something horrible was gaining on her. Something malign, foul, four-legged, and yet despite hoof and hair, obscenely human. Made of air, it was invisible and yet she could hear the pounding of its hooves, the stench of its breath as she ran. Her heart was beating so fast it seemed impossible it would not burst, and she was crying aloud as she ran in her panic. Oh God, I’m going to die of fright. I am really going to die of fright. The wind whipped around her ears and for a few weird moments the sound went up in pitch until it sounded like a panpipe note. Her hair was standing on end. Her arms and body iced with terror. So afraid was she she feared that she would forget how to run, how to move her legs. But she knew with every instinct of her body, if the being that pursued her caught up with her, then she would really die of fright.
Faster, faster, urging herself on. Stumbling along a path that seemed to malevolently put obstacles in her way to slow her flight. Faster and faster, she had begun to pray. The house had vanished. Oh dear God, she had taken the wrong path! She was going to die! The thing was nearer. The wind was making that foul sound again. Then she saw it, the front gate of Light Vision, a glow of lights from the window. For a second there was something else. A woman, wild and wonderful, standing near the gate, protected by shadows. She shone with a terrible energy. She had a face like a beast and eyes that glowed in the dark. But Theresa did not care who this stranger was wrapped in the night. She hardly threw her a second glance. The real danger was behind her. She ran screaming, faster and faster. Any second now and those pounding hooves would catch up with her.
A door was opening. Oh God, they were opening the door for her! Lazariel stood looking out into the night, sizing up the situation. He came running out to meet her. He was safety, goodness in slow motion, his wings seemed to unfold as he ran. She was running, howling into the arms of her angel. The thing didn’t seem to give up, it was still behind her. She dragged Lazariel into the house and locked the door, collapsing against it, screaming into her hands. It was only later, when she had stopped shaking and Lazariel had finally allowed her to look into a mirror, that she saw the front of her hair had turned white with fear.
Before going to sleep that night, Theresa lay staring into darkness. The moon’s face peered through the lace curtains gathered tightly at the window. It shone down onto the bush that she had once taken so much for granted, assuming it was familiar and known, But it wasn’t, she knew that now. Nothing was known and anything could change in the flutter of an eyelid. A meteorite could strike the Earth and human civilisation would end in a breath. The bush had eyes, it had a heart and a soul. A rock contained a secret. The air carried a goat-like being who had the power to stop her heart, and the shadows had a face, and a man whom she had once obsessed over, and then got over, could creep back into her heart. Beauty faded, the heart could stop in a moment. It was this thought, the terrible knowing of her own mortality that kept her awake, staring at the fluttering curtains.
Shortly before the lone rooster they kept in the yard began his annoying dawn call, Theresa remembered the woman she had seen outside the gate, and she sat up in fright. She was connected with them, this Theresa knew for a fact. She stared into the darkness, trying to see, pushing down the memory of the ritual night. Scratching claws, eyes of glowing red. Memory scratching; push it away. Further and further down, down. Pray to St Therese. Lie in bed and cry, feeling the memories scratch and howl inside. Pray to the Lady of the Flowers. So strange, the moon mocked her outside. Such strange but terribly interesting times.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
All my possessions for a moment of time.
— QUEEN ELIZABETH I, DIED 1603
Ishran and Sati walked hand in hand in the moonlight. They were in the back garden of the house, and the night air carried fragrant scents to them: lavender, jasmine, roses, banksias, blood, horror, meat.
‘I know you’re here!’ Ishran called. ‘Rashka! I know you are in the shadows. Glazrmhom, don’t hide like a terrified Bluite. Face me! Face your Ghormho!’
Silence. Only the cry of an owl sounded in the garden. Sati cocked her head and listened, a smile on her face.
‘Fly to me,’ she snarled. ‘Fly to me, Johanna, and I will pull your head from your body. I am tired of your games.’
A shadow leapt, came to life and Rashka sprang from the top of the house into the garden below. She landed on her feet lightly. Ishran shrank back at her appearance. Her yellow eyes looked through them, her fangs bared.
‘You do not deserve to call yourself Ghormho,’ she said. ‘You smell like a Bluite. You live like a Bluite. Inside this stinking house of broken dolls. If Seleza saw what you have become, it would break her heart. I rejoice she is dead and cannot see the disgrace you have brought to the Azephim.’
Ishran moved towards her. ‘All your life you have resented me. No kylon, no title. Second hatched and not first. You have never let me forget it for an instant. You blame everything but yourself for the shame of being second hatched, Glazrmhom, your weakness makes me sick! You swagger well, but you’ll never be Ghormho, you’ll never be me!’
The two Azephim began to circle each other, snarling.
‘Stop it!’ Sati screeched. ‘Listen to the two of you! You can each have what you want from the other.’
‘All I want is his heart in my hands,’ Rashka said. ‘He disgraces all Azephim. Look at him in his Bluite clothes. He appals me! Never was a Ghormho less deserving of the title!’
‘Then kill him!’ a voice screeched from a tree above. The three on the ground stopped to look up. High in its branches. Charmonzhla sat, an American baseball cap pulled over his head backwards. He was holding a soccer ball in his hands. ‘Don’t wait a moment, Rashka! Kill the Ghormho! Kill him while I watch and then we can play ball with the moon!’
‘Listen to us!’ Sati expanded her wings to full span. ‘We are prepared to give you the title of Ghormho. Ishran is not interested in ruling the Web-Kondoell. He wants simply to return to the Wastelands and live there in peace. We will never trouble you, never interfere with your ruling of the Web!’
‘Do you take me for a fool?’ Rashka hissed. She spread her wings and pushed her neck out in disgust. Saliva dripped from her fangs, she looked like a deadly swan. ‘The Azephim will never accept my leadership while that spineless creature lives! N
o, I have to kill him to take what is mine. Seleza always wished me to be the Ghormho.’
‘Kill him!’ Charmonzhla shouted again.
Rashka pushed back her head and howled. Sati rushed her in a fury, claws emerging from her hands. She raked her talons across Rashka’s face. The two began to circle each other. Ishran sprang at Rashka, but she threw him up in the air and he landed against Charmonzhla’s tree with a loud whack. The angoli laughed aloud, clinging to his branch above and gibbering like a demonic monkey.
‘Get up, Ishran!’ he screeched. ‘Get up and fight before she kills Sati!’
The two females were impossible to distinguish as they half-rose into the air, twisted together. Fangs ripped flesh, claws scratched eyes. Sati grabbed a handful of Rashka’s hair and pulled her head back. ‘I shall bite out your throat!’ she whispered. ‘Sweet Alecom, I shall enjoy the taste of your blood!’
Rashka pushed her boot into Sati’s stomach and shoved her back, then threw herself onto the ground where Sati lay. ‘Not before I rip your scalp from your head!’
Screaming with rage, Ishran lunged at Rashka’s head, his hands reaching for her eyes. Blinded by his claws gouging her eyeballs, Rashka was forced to relinquish her hold on Sati. She turned around in furious circles, trying to shake off Ishran. Faster and faster she turned, the two siblings screaming their rage at each other, Charmonzhla applauding from a tree. Then Rashka threw Ishran again, and he sailed into the air to crash against the log pile.
‘Game over!’ Charmonzhla laughed, beating his chest maniacally.
Rashka smiled. She was covered in blood. She advanced towards Sati who was on her knees, trying to stand up. ‘Time to die,’ Rashka said. ‘I’ll make it slow.’ She was still smiling when her head went flying off her shoulders and sailed towards Charmonzhla, who kicked it up into the air with a delighted screech.
Ishran stood looking down at Sati, who in her fear had half-shifted into a bird. He held the bloody axe he had found in the woodpile over his head.
‘I am the Ghormho!’ he shouted.
His cry of triumph brought a response from the sleeping house and a light was switched on in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Charmonzhla vanished from the tree. Theresa looked out to see leaves flying in the air and shadows. Only the axe the following day, retained faint bloodstains to prove the scene had ever happened. The house covered its secrets well.
Rachel came with the sunlight, dressed in a bloodstained white lace gown which was too large for her. She was silver dust, an impression of dried rose petals, a cold wind. Rachel was fading away and she was badly frightened. She was Looz Drem! Demon dead, but she did not want to die again, die forever. She sat in the road outside the house, watching the dawn break, seeing shadows emerge from the mural inside the house to retrieve the body of the decapitated Azephim Glazrmhom. She had seen Sati and Ishran embrace and follow the shadows through the portal, Sati in Ishran’s arms. These events did not interest Rachel. She was fascinated by the sensation of light on her skin, the call of the kookaburras and doves from the bushland, the trail of slime left behind by a snail. She watched with glowing golden eyes as the house began to wake.
After a short while she stood up, brushed some dead leaves from her gown and began to walk towards the house, pulled by a thread of longing. She passed through the door with its brass dragon head and once through, hesitated. A thought pattern appeared on the steps inside the hall, a woman lying with her throat slit, her eyes wide and staring. Rachel clapped her hands and the apparition vanished. The house was slowly waking, a light rain had begun to fall outside. In the grey kitchen she sensed the activity of mice and rats. She paused outside the darkened lounge room, listening to the mural breathe. Just for a second she peeped into the room before withdrawing her eyes quickly from the tableau of blood and gore from a past grisly death. She had learnt not to become too caught up in the thought patterns that drifted freely on Earth. There was a danger if you came to believe in what you were seeing.
In this darkened, musty house that reeked of stale blood, people slept, oblivious of the child who drifted around them as soft as a cobweb. Minette and Sophie did not interest her. They were frail and old, used. Their bodies were filled with toxic Azephim juice from the kylon of Ishran. Their minds were crumbling. It was kinder to let them sleep, although neither of them slept peacefully. They both jerked and muttered in their dreams, their hands clenched; even in sleep they looked afraid. Rachel could see the tiny tumour flowers that had begun to bud in Minette’s breasts. Later they would flower, spread throughout her body and kill her. A cloud of small green flies buzzed near Sophie’s open mouth, seeking the dark heavy filth within her.
Rachel tried to imitate the dance of the flies, but her arms were so heavy she wearied quickly. She was not interested in the room where Alan and Daniel slept, but she floated above them anyway. They looked to be dead as they lay in each other’s arms. Daniel had green eyeshadow streaked across his face. Alan had tears that had washed through his orange pancake make-up. They were both clothed in white gowns. Piles of dried leaves covered their floor and a large huntsman spider scuttled across their sleeping faces. Bees waited in anticipation at their window.
She moved quickly through dust and air to find Theresa. When she entered Theresa’s bedroom, an old lady with silver hair, working at a spinning wheel smiled at her and motioned for her to be quiet with a finger to her lips. Rachel frowned and clapped her hands, but the thought pattern refused to vanish. The old lady pricked her finger with the needle, a drop of perfect blood fell onto her work. She sighed heavily, picked up some gleaming shears, cut the thread and began again. Again, she pricked her finger, sighed heavily, took up the shears and began to spin.
Rachel decided to ignore the old lady, and floated above her so she could see Theresa sleeping. For the first time she could see the dark, waiting spider mass that lay within her womb. Like Minette and Sophie, Theresa did not sleep peacefully, despite the somniferous tap of the rain outside on the roof and the hum of the spinning wheel. Rachel tried to lie down with Theresa — she often liked to lie next to her as she slept — but the old lady stopped her spinning and approached the bed, her bright blue eyes glaring. Rachel spat at her, before vanishing, disappointed that Theresa had not been alone. The old lady smiled, resumed her seat at the spinning wheel and pricked her finger. Sighing heavily, she picked up the gleaming shears and cut the thread.
Furious, Rachel flew to Lazariel’s room, where she hoped no spinning lady would be standing guard. And there he slept, wings spread wide, mouth open, snoring slightly. Rachel clapped in excitement to find him thus. Quickly, she slipped herself under his wings and clasped her body to his, wishing she could find a way to enter his skin, to merge with his warmth. She yearned for a friend to confide in about her misery of watching herself slowly die. Outside the rain fell softly and she imagined she could hear the sound of bees buzzing, honey being made. For a while, cradled in the wings of Lazariel, all was right with the world.
Theresa slept and dreamt. In her dream she went to the toilet and when she had finished urinating she saw an octopus thing floating in the pale straw-coloured piss. It was a miscarriage of some sort. She was living in a large brick house on freezing windswept moors, and the house was filled with vampires. An elderly female vampire sat at a loom, beginning and ending lives with her thread as she worked, a young child vampire wandered from body to body, hungry and crying for blood. Theresa knew she had to leave the house, to escape across the moors, but she was too afraid. Lazariel came to her in the dream and convinced her they could escape together. Two beautiful stallions waited to transport them. Lazariel and Theresa wrapped themselves in white sheets, and they fled from the house of vampires in an exhilarating gallop across the frost-covered moors.
When she dismounted from her horse, they were at Bondi Beach. She realised with horror that Lazariel had deceived her; he had attached a small bomb to her vagina that could explode at any time. She ran from him in fear along the beach,
past crowds of people sunbaking, her white sheet flying around her. A fat brown man called to her as he rubbed oil over himself. He was one of her old schoolteachers, but she couldn’t remember his name. ‘Don’t be a fool!’ he called. ‘If you run, you’ll make the bomb explode!’
She stopped, confused, and looked around her. A couple approached her amid the half-naked sun worshippers. She recognised Ishran, but the beautiful woman she had never seen before. They both had long black hair that hung down their backs, and unlike the crowd on the beach they were fully clothed. The woman was dressed in a grey T-shirt and white jeans, Ishram was in black. Theresa could tell they were demons, and also lovers. Their beauty and power was intoxicating as they moved sensually towards her. People turned to stare, even children paused in the act of making sand castles. Many of the people who stared at them lost the power of their legs, and their eyes exploded into flame. They sank onto the sand crying out, their mouths opening in silent screams. Theresa could sense the bliss emanating from the couple.
The woman removed her sunglasses, looking for Theresa. They spotted her and moved slowly forwards. The woman smiled and reached for the head of a surfer who was openly admiring her breasts hidden under her T-shirt on this beach filled with naked breasts. She smiled tenderly at the man, her eyes never leaving Theresa’s. She pushed the surfer’s head towards her breasts and he began to mouth them through the material. She began to feed out of his head, and Theresa could feel the ecstasy the surfer was experiencing as the demon drank his brains. She pushed the spent body onto the shore when she had finished and moved towards Theresa.
Theresa screamed. Lazariel attempted to push her into a shallow grave on the beach but she fought back desperately. The beach was on fire. People were running, screaming. Bodies, living torches, diving into the salt water.
A Fire in the Shell: Circle of Nine Trilogy 3 Page 29
