‘We didn’t check the backyard,’ she heard Faline say. Theresa didn’t know why, but she really didn’t want to look in the backyard. All she wanted to do was to get the hell out of the house. To run screaming along the road back to Katoomba, catch a train and get away with her unborn child. She couldn’t believe she had been so stupid that she had returned to the house just to help this bunch of crazies. All because Lazariel wanted to, she thought, hating him in that moment. His priority should be protecting his lover and unborn child, not a pack of strangers with some far-fetched tale that could have them all committed. Then, seeing his face with his shoulders drooping slightly, the panic in his eyes, she felt a rush of love for him flood her. This man had suffered. She might never know his true story, but he had known agony. He was an outsider. Even his physical appearance, with his large heavy wings that he tried desperately to keep down, to control, made him an outcast. She loved him so deeply she knew she would never be able to abandon him unless he wished her to, no matter how terrified she was. She felt as if he needed her there to protect him.
All Theresa’s good intentions towards Lazariel vanished, however, when they walked out to the backyard and saw what was swinging from the clothes line. Dea Dreamer was screaming. Everything seemed to happen in a shocking, slowed down blur. Phillip yelled something, some sort of charm or spell, or perhaps he too simply screamed. Faline held Lucius, unable to look. Odolf seemed to be on the point of collapse, his lips turned grey-blue and his breath came in sharp wheezes. Agatha uttered small cries, stepping backwards, shaking her head and crying, ‘No! No!’ Leonora stood, hands to her mouth, her eyes wide as she took in the horror. Lazariel tried to shield Theresa from the sight by stretching out his wing. But it was too late. She saw everything clearly.
There they were, the people they had been looking for — Minette, Sophie, Alan and Daniel. Or what remained of them. They were hanging from the clothes line, pegged on the line as if hung out to dry. There were no heads on the dangling bodies.
‘Take them down! Take them down!’ Theresa wondered who this shouting hysterical woman was, then realised it was herself. One part of her knew this was officially a crime scene, that the bodies shouldn’t be disturbed in case of losing a vital piece of forensic evidence. But she couldn’t bear the sight of them, their legs suspended, pegged out to dry in the backyard, a grotesque mockery of human dignity.
‘Don’t touch them!’ Phillip ordered. ‘We have to close the portal now! Something has come through and killed them. Anything could come through at any moment and we would be powerless to stop it!’
The group began running in a panicked rush to the back door. This is madness, Theresa thought. We should be going to the police, locking the doors. It’s some sort of homicidal maniac on the loose. Where the fuck are their heads?
She dared to ask the question aloud when they re-entered the lounge room, remembering the three figures in the mural with their straw baskets. Was it possible they had come through the mural and collected the heads in their baskets? Or had the butcher taken the heads as some sort of grisly trophy? Then another fear — had some unknown beast eaten the heads? Her questions were ignored by the group and she began to pace the floor, unable to look at the mural for fear of what she might see.
Phillip fought to control himself. He hadn’t contemplated something as shocking as this would occur prior to beginning the ritual. He was afraid the group would find it impossible to focus enough to raise the huge amount of power needed to close the portal. But he had no choice. He couldn’t risk anything worse coming through, they had to close the doorway now. He knew this was their only chance, he would never be able to reassemble the witches. First he would have to calm them down.
‘Dea!’ Leonora screamed. Phillip swung around in time to see Dea being restrained by Lucius and Lazariel. She was fighting them, saying words Phillip could not make out, incomprehensible words that sounded like Latin. She had a small clear vial in one hand, and the oil painting of the owl woman was blistered and ruined by the fluid she had thrown over it.
‘Holy water,’ Lucius exclaimed. ‘She threw holy water over it!’ Steam was rising from the painting.
‘Murderer! Satan witch murderer!’ Dea screamed at the painting.
‘You fool, Dea!’ Phillip shouted, almost beside himself. ‘You’ve probably ruined it all! The years I’ve spent in preparation and you do this to me! You don’t know if Johanna was responsible for those people!’ He had to resist the urge to slap her around the face. Christ knew what disfiguring the artwork would do to the ritual. He had never fully understood the relationship of the portal to the art, all he knew was they were linked.
‘She didn’t do it to you, Phillip. Get a hold of yourself. She did it to Johanna.’ Faline sounded unflustered, but her eyes betrayed her fear.
‘Yes, Phillip. Faline is right. We can’t afford to waste any more time, especially now Dea has vandalised the painting. We have to begin,’ Leonora said.
Theresa and Lazariel looked on as the coven began setting up. They obviously knew what to do, working silently and swiftly. Even Dea Dreamer stopped her hysterics and began helping, although her deliberately slow movements spoke more eloquently than words her resentment at having to do so. An elaborate cleansing ritual was performed where a censer of incense was swung and a small bell chimed into corners to release any evil spirits. Theresa could see handfuls of black mist dematerialising from the room after they had performed this preliminary cleansing ritual. From a black bag he had been carrying, Phillip brought out a long golden staff wand, with the head of what looked like a lion on the end, also made of gold. After carefully shaking this staff into the corners of the room, he drew a circle around each individual.
‘The coven began to disrobe. Theresa and Lazariel hesitated, united in a common reluctance to undress.
Phillip sensed their discomfort. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But this ritual demands we work skyclad. It was how we were when we opened the portal, you see,’ he said as he stepped out of his underpants. Seeing the wide variety in the shapes of the coven’s bodies, and how unselfconscious they all were helped Theresa and she fumbled with her clothing. Did Faline have to look even more perfect out of her clothes than in them? she fumed silently. She couldn’t help feeling a stab of resentment when she noticed Lazariel’s eyes follow Faline. Dea Dreamer had to be assisted by Faline and Leonora. Theresa felt sympathy for her when she saw Dea trying vainly to shield her dimpled, flabby thighs and drooping breasts with her arms. They may have happily performed the ritual skyclad when they had opened the doorway, but one of their number had now changed her attitude dramatically when it came to nudity, Theresa thought.
The group stood together and Phillip began to open the circle using the lion-headed staff. Some of the invocation he used to call in the four quarters was familiar to Theresa, but most of it she had never heard before. Dea, flanked by Phillip and Lucius, kept her eyes shut, her mouth moving in constant prayer. Opening the circle seemed to take a longer time than Theresa was accustomed to. Phillip’s voice was soothing as he blessed and invited the different gods and goddesses to be present and requested protection for the ritual, so much so that it took Theresa some time to work out that he had begun speaking in another language. He was uttering archaic-sounding words, and when he did so he would point the lion-headed staff and scream something that sounded like ‘Hoi!’ The coven would then respond back.
Theresa watched Lazariel swaying as they chanted, his eyes half shut. Well he didn’t seem to be having any trouble getting into it, she thought. The incense from the censers they used to purify the room was getting thicker, stinging Theresa’s eyes, then she realised the smoke she thought was coming from the censers was in fact coming from the end of the lion staff. A thin curl of smoke poured from its open mouth. Its eyes had also begun to glow. They were flashing brilliant green and had taken on a look of intelligence. The head began uttering an invocation, speaking in a tongue Theresa didn’t recognise. Phill
ips’s eyes had also altered, they were totally white, and his body had begun to vibrate as a stream of energy coursed through him.
For one disorientating moment, Theresa received a vivid image of the ritual that had occurred many years before. Phillip’s eyes had become stained with white then, as the lion staff had drawn on his energy. Beside him was a brunette woman who looked like an exotic bird: Johanna Develle. The group that stood in a circle around Phillip now, in the present, hands joined, were so much older, broken and infirm, with the exception of Faline and Lucius, who hadn’t aged since the past ritual. How was that possible? Theresa tried to open her eyes to look at Faline, but it was as though they were glued shut, as the visions continued. She was aware the lion staff was chanting, both in the mental impressions she was receiving from the past and the present. The words brought out a corresponding sensation in her body. Her throat and the top of her head felt light and expansive, glowing with heat. She could hear popping sounds in the air around her. In the past group, a young, slim and beautiful Dea Dreamer stood next to a young man who had the face of an angel. Cael.
Theresa shook off the images, forcing herself to remain in the present. The air around her was stagnant and hot. A montage of quick impressions followed. Johanna was painting the mural. Cael was leaning against the wall in the room, reading to her from a book as she painted. She was concentrating as she worked, her brush moving swiftly. On a small stepladder next to her was a paint-splattered open sketchbook filled with studies she was working from. There were bowls of herbs, candles and crystals placed in a circle around her. A large symbol had been chalked on the floor. She had been afraid of something when she created the mural, and had tried to protect herself with magic. Even then, in the initial stages of creativity, she had sensed the darkness beckoning her to follow.
I want to be free from the burden of having a foot in two worlds and a firm connection with neither. There are days I fear for my own sanity. May the Dreamers protect me — I fear I have brought them here . . .
Words flooded into Theresa’s mind, breaking the wall of resistance she tried to put up. She knew the words were Johanna’s. The artist had paid a terrible price for her communications with these demons. Brutally murdered on a deserted bushtrack, screaming in terror as she fled from creatures from a nightmare. Her blood taken from her body by Solumbi, but not before the owl woman had drunk her soul, her essence, and taken over Johanna Develle totally.
Now the energy in the room intensified. Theresa could sense other beings in the room with them, although she still could not open her eyes. A sickly, pale green light had begun to flow from the mural and small chips were beginning to form in the paintwork. There was a desperate sense of resistance from the mural, as if it was attempting to hold onto its life. Johanna would not like what was happening here, Theresa reflected, and she became chilled at the thought. Owl woman possessing her or not, Johanna Develle the artist was not going to appreciate her precious work being destroyed.
As if in answer to her thought, the air around them dropped to a freezing temperature, and a low screeching began. In response, the witches intensified their chanting. The windows in the house suddenly smashed, and a sound like a thousand bees buzzing filled the room. Even with her eyes closed, Theresa could see what looked to be millions of tiny golden bodies flying around her. Then came a sharp, stinging sensation on her face. She tried to scream, to drop Lazariel’s and Leonora’s hands, but it was impossible, she was held to the spot.
A freezing cold darkness filled the house and for the first time Theresa was aware of an ominous thump, a heartbeat lying beneath the soil of Light Vision. She understood then that the darkness had always been here. Johanna had not painted the mysteries of the night onto the wall with brushes, rather the power had lain dormant in the soil of this area for generations, controlling, influencing and manipulating events.
A smell filled the room, an odour so putrid that several of the witches were soon dry-retching. Decay, death, despair — the stench filled every corner of the house. Theresa’s face was so painful and swollen with the stings that she could hardly think straight. I am going to die of the bee stings. She was screaming inwardly, furious at herself for trusting this bunch of strangers.
She remembered horror stories she had read in the papers of people dying from bee stings when their throats had swollen up. The scream she felt seemed to possess her entire body. Then she relaxed slightly as she smelt the odour of the fresh flowers again. She could sense the saint of her childhood, Therese of Lisieux. If I am going to die, at least my Lady of the Flowers is waiting for me. But a terrible sadness filled her because she did not want to die. She was too young, she wanted to live. Lazariel needed her. He would never be able to function normally in the world without her, and then there was her unborn child. She had so much to live for. It seemed cruel that her life would finish now, when everything had begun to go right for a change. Her face felt as if it had blown up to the size of an enormous football, she felt a heat surging through her veins as the poison flowed through her body. Then she sensed a presence behind her, an impression of flowing white robes, a long black veil, the odour of thousands of flowers. She could smell frankincense, lemons and a thick vanilla beeswax smell. There were cool hands on her, stroking her brow, taking the swelling and the pain. She felt herself to be lifted up, outside her body. A feeling of total liberation and joy. Then a sensation of being propelled back into her body, returned to that cramped, smelly dark place that no longer seemed to fit her. To be returned to flesh was excruciating. She felt an immense well of loneliness settle upon her. She opened her eyes.
She was shocked when she realised she was still standing in front of the mural, her hands clasped with Leonora’s and Lazariel’s. It took a moment for her to orientate herself in the room. She had forgotten that the witches were naked, and they looked unfamiliar to her. Their eyes were wide open, staring straight ahead as they chanted, and their bodies were streaked with sweat. On the floor around them lay what looked to be thousands of dying and dead flies and bees. The lion-head staff Phillip was holding was bright red, glowing in his hand, but he barely seemed to notice. A tongue of fire shot from its mouth and it continued to chant in a deep voice that seemed to fill the room.
Theresa looked at Lazariel, he was standing with his eyes closed, a beatific smile on his face. He had never looked more like an angel than he did at this moment, and Theresa felt a painful stab of love for him. There was a crackling of energy in the air around them like electricity, and a feeling of dampness in the room. With disbelief, Theresa saw that through the floorboards there had sprouted toxic-looking mushrooms, which moved to form one large mushroom, carrying an overwhelming stench of rot and the gases of decay from where it had been curled up in the dark and the earth. Hanging from the stem of the mushroom were bones and skulls in varying shades of white and grey. Then Theresa realised that the top of the mushroom was skin, and from the head of the mushroom hung bits of gristle and flesh. The mushroom burst totally through the floorboards and for a second a wild scream that came from a thousand different throats over time filled the air. The very foundations of the house shifted and moaned as all that was rotten beneath it finally emerged into the light. A woman was screaming, and Theresa wondered who it was; the sound didn’t seem to come from any of the females present. The great mushroom hung over them, hovering and whipping itself madly in the air above their heads and then it collapsed and shattered into a putrid white dust that sprinkled across the dead flies and bees.
Now Theresa noticed the mural. Cracks had begun to appear in its surface. A stench emanated from the paintwork. Thick trails of blood seeped down the wall, and clumps of hair, gristle and bone were mixed into the plaster. There was a feeling of release, of something terrible being extracted. The paint ran down the wall and Theresa could clearly see the look of madness on Johanna’s face as she had painted darkness itself.
Even if she had wanted to, Theresa was unable to release the hands of Leon
ora and Lazariel next to her. A huge cone of power rose around them. The group appeared fixed in a trance. They continued to chant, the whites of their eyes raised upwards, as hell opened around them. Leaves fell from the ceiling, rotten black leaves twisting in the air. There was a confused mass of dark shapes rushing towards the wall. Theresa could hear a pig grunting, a terrible mewing sound and the cries of a woman’s voice: energies from the world beyond, racing to re-enter the portal before it was closed off to them forever. A quick vivid flash of a goat man, his red eyes smiling into hers, the feral musky smell of him as he threw himself head first at the portal.
Theresa was embracing darkness. The air around her was so heavy with sorrows and screams from the past that she felt as if she was drinking it in, and would be forever contaminated. She tried to shut her eyes to block the sight of children’s arms waving from the walls as if imploring her to pull them free from the mural. This is the death of dreams. She could hear whispers from the wall. The smell of bones, mould, lime and broken hearts filled her senses, overloading her with despair and the futility of life. This is the death of dreams. The whispers came again. Feathers fell on her from the ceiling, covering her face, her body, carpeting the floor. Her hair was filled with feathers, they were in her mouth, her eyes; she was being consumed.
Then a furious screeching, the sound of a bird enraged. A shadow fell over the room and Theresa sensed the presence of an energy beyond any frame of reference that she had, an evil phantasm trying to prevent the ritual from continuing. It was beating itself against each member of the nine in the circle, trying to find a weak link, a vulnerability in one of them that it could work through. The witches, as if sensing the new threat began to chant louder, their auras charged with light that radiated outwards from their bodies.
Dea Dreamer was choking, making gasping sounds as the thing attempted to enter her. ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’ she screamed.
A Fire in the Shell: Circle of Nine Trilogy 3 Page 40
