How very astute of you, by the way. There are only two unnatural metamorphoses––and vampires is the other one. It affects the blood, the Suck, even as it effects it.
Change is a constant in all lifeforms. Even yours.
Please, do not scratch my car.
* * *
He didn’t bother to sign it.
Halsey
Dear Diary,
Breakthrough! I’m going to have to buy you another diary, so you can be boyfriend and girlfriend together. I’ll write in that one, too. Then you can whisper between yourselves, and figure out what I’m keeping from you both.
Ballard and I have been pussyfooting around this ‘Supernatural’ issue. I don’t know why when we have openly avowed a suspicion that such things may, in fact, exist.
I had Lia bring him over, even though she was against it. She told me I was putting ideas into his head. I said that’s what heads were for. Except in her case, Diary.
Then I took Ballard over to my local scooter rental outfit, and being a girl of independent means, I rented him one. At least until he can afford to fix the damage done to his Ducati-thing. He made a face, but eventually shrugged. “I’ll pay you back,” he said.
That means we can back-and-forth instead of just e-mail all the time. Which is good because I can be online anywhere. I have half the summer left in Rome and I don’t want to waste it. It’s approaching the end of July, when everyone gets out, and I want to enjoy it while it’s still peopled.
You should see my skin. I’m almost golden. Growing up in New England, I didn’t think I had any skin pigmentation in me. Ballard of course is just naturally that way.
We drove south, to more ancient areas. All the way to Via Appia Antica. One of the oldest paved roads in existence. It was lined with ruinous crumbling tombs––some no more than mounds of dirt. Lizards basked in the sun, regulating their body temperatures.
Travelers along the road included a Who’s Who of Biblical figures.
The stones along the road were laid flat and smooth. Countryside went into the distance on either side, followed by the Alban Hills. Tall pointy cypresses and thin broccoli-shaped ones shaded the joggers and cyclists from the midday heat.
It was a wild and overgrown area––full of whitepinklavender orchids and hawthorn.
This, Diary, was the spot.
Ballard seemed uneasy; he suspected me, I could tell.
We were alone for half a mile in every direction. A volpe, which is Italian for fox, came out from wherever it was hiding, and stared at us; he had a shaggy head, and a red fur coat. He suspected me of duplicity.
Ballard. Not the fox.
“So,” he said, then did an arm swing thing. Was Ballard uncomfortable? He was always so nonchalant. Which was exactly the problem.
I picked an orchid. It looked like a fiery red flame with points of white. Then twirled it in my fingertips. Ballard was taller than I was. I looked up at him, from underneath my eyelashes.
The wind picked up and caught my hair; I could see it blowing licks, this way and that. Smelling the orchid, I walked up to him, equally nonchalant, and then turned aggressive.
He dropped his hands to his sides and then looked down at me––his thoughts not so inscrutable, after all. But I wasn’t here to take advantage of him, Diary.
I backed him up against a cypress tree; I think I will never forget the smell of that field. A dry, sweet, serene scent. It was the easiest thing.
His back thudded against the cypress.
He had a look on his face.
“I know you’re hiding things from me, Ballard. Don’t play coy,” I said.
“What––whatever––do you mean?” he said.
I was inches from him. He had held his breath, expectantly. The orchid looked like some alien plant, like the iron roses––twisted.
I lost heart.
“Romulus and Remus,” I said. “The founders of Rome. I looked them up––” And so I had.
He searched back in his memory, breathing again. “What––what about them?” he said.
“Well, you said,” I said, twirling like the orchid, and then tossing my head, so my hair did interesting things, “that your family––has a Legend.”
“Oh. That,” he said.
I did a cartwheel, and then threw my head back. I was crouching, half-wild, looking up at him. “Yes, that,” I said. I picked another orchid. A blue one. The two, complementary, set each other off.
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“Do I have to spell it out for you?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“No problem.” I began picking at the orchid, destroying it. The twisted one I let live.
“They were suckled by a she-wolf. Right?”
I looked at him, between my eyelashes, like two giant staring liquid eyeballs, beady and insect-like, ready to pick him to pieces. And then did the face, blew the strand of hair out of my face again. So I definitely had his attention, Diary.
“I heard you say the word ‘outlaws,’” I said, “fuorilegge.”
“Oh. That,” he said again.
“You edit. Withhold. Pussyfoot.”
“What?” he said. “Wait.”
I turned back around; I had been about to leave.
“Go on,” he demanded.
“They were outlaws. Fuorilegge.”
“So what?” he said.
I said, “So that’s code, all right? It means werewolves. That’s why I’m here, Ballard. Don’t you see? I did some digging. It’s called lupo mannaro. Italian lycanthropy is perfectly well documented.
“Who’s to say what is real and what isn’t?” I went on. “Do you know, they found a two-thousand-year-old computer lost off the island of Crete. People bend spoons with their minds. Do you believe in the Resurrection? The Holy Eucharist? That a man can transform himself into the ravening figure of a wild dog? I do.”
“There’s just one problem,” he said. “I’m not a werewolf.”
“The moon is steadfast. It never turns. It also doesn’t show you what it’s got behind its back,” I said, coming towards him. “It has a dark side, the moon, which it keeps to itself.”
“And you think I do?”
“You hide,” I said.
“I’m not a werewolf,” he said again.
“Ballard... Your parents went to Greece.”
“So?”
“So that’s where werewolves are from,” I said. “And when Greek writers were done writing about werewolves, the Romans picked them up. They probably traveled on four legs and set up shop here. Romulus and Remus.
“Do you know what an outlaw is?” I asked him. “It’s someone who has, in effect, been banished. Its roots date from early Roman history. In a law called homo sacer. All the way back in a time just after Romulus and Remus, your forebears, died. Put simply, it meant you could kill them––these outlaws. Heck, it was your duty to kill them. But the words had a deeper meaning. ‘Cursed.’”
I explained to him that it persisted through history––these cursed men who were banished, hunted, and murdered––until the Middle Ages, when such an individual was called vargr.
And that was the Old Norse for outlaw. But it also meant wolf.
“Werewolf,” I said.
He said I was crazy.
“Let me get this straight,” he said.
I cut him off. I wouldn’t allow him to cheapen this. This wasn’t some specious argument. “Risky knew wizards,” I said. “Think about that. Which, by the way, I am one. The only thing I can think is that you haven’t gone through ‘the Change,’ yet, so perhaps don’t know what you are. Instinctively, you’re cool with it, though. You’re cool with us.
“Which is cool for me, because I need your help,” I said. “I did some major crumpling of my forehead last night. I was bothered by the symbols. You know the ones? Suddenly, it came to me. Change.”
I heard some rustling and looked up.
Ballard was gone.
&nbs
p; I turned around and saw him stalking into the high grass. He was pacing around.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I’m fifteen.”
“So?”
“So I’ve been through puberty, okay? If I were this––” he couldn’t bring himself to say the word ‘werewolf,’ “––you’d think I’d be scratching around already. Only, I’m not.”
“Ballard. That doesn’t matter,” I said. “The important thing is, we know what you are now. And I looked into the matter thoroughly. Did you know, there are actually people who think that they are werewolves? They’re not. They’re just crazy. But they think they are. You see what I’m saying? So there have to be people who really are werewolves but that think they’re not.”
I was satisfied with my logic. He flipped.
“Ballard... come back...” I said.
He stalked toward me.
He was my Bally: I played him like a yo-yo.
“Why are you upset?” I demanded.
“I’m not.”
“Are. You’re gritting your teeth.”
“It’s just...”
“What?”
We had come to the point, Diary––the brink. If Ballard and I were to continue to be friends––now––this moment––would decide it. He had to start being honest with me. He had to learn to trust me. I crossed my arms, and let my hair do whatever it wanted.
For his part, he completely collapsed.
“It would be so like me,” he said.
I sat down in the grass with him.
“The worst part is watching everyone else. Lia tells me to butt out; it’s hard, knowing that she gets to have all the fun. My parents put her in charge. I’m to go to school and be a good boy. It gets tiring being the one to have to mind my p’s and q’s. Meanwhile, just think about it, Halsey. I never saw anyone get up to something, unless there was something to get up to.”
“What do you mean?” I said, excited he was sharing, but concerned about the off-sounding note in his voice.
“The other night, at La Luna Blu,” he said, “I felt something. I didn’t see something. I didn’t hear it. I felt it. It was the weirdest thing. It was like a calling. A cold fear. A chill in my heart. A little voice in my head said, Something is out there. ‘What?’ I told Gaven about it, and you saw how he reacted. They rode around all night.”
“Did they find anything?” I asked.
“You’re not listening to me,” he said. “If they did, or if they didn’t, why would they ever tell me?”
“So... What are you saying?”
“Only this: You are not the only one who can get online...”
“If you were any more cryptic––” I said.
He pulled out what looked like a flyer. “I found something,” he said, handing it to me.
I unfolded it, and looked at it. It was crumpled in places. It looked like a map, of sorts. Directions. To a club.
“‘Cambiamento del club,’” I read.
“Club Change,” he said, complimenting my pronunciation.
I could see the requisite delta symbol. Again, it looked uncannily like the back of a one-dollar bill. Instead of an All-Seeing Eye, however, or a circumpunct, there were many symbols. Symbols I had seen before.
Symbols that were, in fact, swimming, as if in a constellation of stars––on the cover, and inside of, The Magus Codex itself. My book of magic.
“Ballard...” I said.
“I was thinking, we could go there. And maybe they could tell us... something,” he said. “They seem to be into this kind of thing. Or otherwise, it’s a club for transgenders. Change.”
I felt euphoric suddenly. I checked my watch, and said, “We have to get ready. According to the flyer, it opens at Midnight.”
Chapter 13 – Halsey
It was outside the city, in a little dump off the A1, Italy’s Motorway of the Sun. I think Ballard and I had suicidal tendencies. The citizens of Rome were getting jumpstarts on their summer vacations, when we both nearly died multiple times in close calls navigating the speeding traffic on our motor scooters, along the freeway.
In fact, I had the strangest sensation that we were being followed. A couple of times I saw two large dim headlights in my rearview mirror; they would fall back and reappear. I put them out of my mind. If anyone dangerous were following us, Ballard would feel it. He would feel them.
No matter how many times I tried to comprehend that, it still felt inexplicable.
We were dressed for our skullduggery (I, in a long-sleeved, black-and-white striped T-shirt, with nylon leggings; Ballard in a suit he must have picked up from his dry cleaners, in a time machine that went back to the sixties), ready for whatever Club Change was prepared to throw at us.
We were perfect. We looked like nothing so much as two esoteric devotees of Whatever. I had the diary and my Codex in a purse that finished off my ensemble.
Trust Ballard to put things into nutshells. “What a dump,” he said.
I had grown used to the city, in my small time there: to the Spanish tiles, and the crumbling plaster; to the ivy that hung thick on the ancient iron gates; to the fountains, spewing potable water, sculpted by masters; and to the high-end shops catering to every designer whim a girl could have (which reminded me, I still needed to shop), that in my few weeks away, it seemed like I had forgotten the world outside Rome.
Well, here it was again.
Club Change was hidden away in an old industrial complex that looked as though it had not been in operation for at least twenty years. Huge abandoned warehouses were boarded up. Outside of them, sat many uncoupled semi-trailers, whose prime movers were absent.
I saw quite a few eyes staring out at me, from the backs of them.
Refuse such as cardboard and other bits of paraphernalia littered the gutters as the area had been taken over by a contingent of homeless people. It was very dangerous. Thankfully, I had Ballard with me.
We were not alone on the streets, however. People were gathering, headed toward the light.
Ahead, I saw an unnatural glow. It was almost midnight, and Club Change was set to begin. I saw figures moving through the gloom, headed towards the club.
The lamps, that should have been bright, were dead. And over the whole area, was a patina of filth. Our scooters glided past it all, immune. Ballard slowed.
I pulled beside him––“It feels like All Saints’ and All Souls’,” he said, and made a sound, like a ghost at Halloween. “Woo-ooh-ooh.”
I smiled because he was so right; it felt like we were going up the path to the place no one was supposed to go, to go ring the doorbell, and say, “Trick or treat.” There was no telling what was going to happen.
It was nippy and I had goosebumps from the long drive. A line of cars and scooters, and their drivers, were in front and back of us. People crossed in front of our headlamps, making strange shadows as their figures swept by, all of us going in the same direction.
It was a black cube, three stories tall, when we finally got there. Velvet ropes lined the entrance, where there was a blood-red carpet, and valets to park the Mercedes and BMWs I saw.
Everyone was dressed spectacularly; even the people that showed up on foot.
The prerequisite for getting past the front entrance seemed to be dressing in black. Black was the predominant color; I was one of the few wearing anything but black.
Through the tinted glass, I could see strobe lights, in bright, violent green, pulsing above the crowd of moving bodies. That was floors one and two. Floor number three was opaque: you could not see through the all-black glass. I wondered why not.
Below, it looked like they had a laser beam and splitter. Some kind of light show was going on. Together with the strobe lights, it did funny things to my head.
There was also the beat of loud music. Electroluminescent wire spelled out the name of the club. Ballard and I parked our scooters. We were not in Trastevere, so I made sure to secure the helmet and take my keys with me.
Likewise Ballard, who was suddenly nervous. “I hope you’re not expecting to dance,” he said.
“I thought all Italianos know how to shake their booties,” I said, grabbing my purse. “C’mon.”
He followed behind me, as I led the way. “You do know that Italian and Spanish are two separate languages, right?”
I liked it when he chattered. It meant he was nervous.
“Does everyone not look a little weird to you?” he said.
It was his favorite word.
“We’re all a little weird,” I said, magnanimously.
We found a spot in the back of the line. People continued to pour in. It was hard not to see what he was talking about.
It reminded me of a time I went to a rave with Becca. We had climbed down the pipes and disappeared into the woods surrounding St. Martley’s. Mistress Genevieve punished us for a month afterward, but it had been worth it.
What happened was there had been some drug usage––but neither one of us was into that. What happened was it had been raided. And Mistress Genevieve had had to come pick us up from the police station. It was a sight, seeing her there.
Anyway, Becca and I had been talking to this guy (before the trouble started). I never knew his name. He just gave us a rundown of the ravers. It was one of the most interesting, pretty speeches I ever heard.
“You have your zombies. And over there, the children of the night. They only come out to feed. If they try and give you a party favor, run. The Goths. You have the candies and the perks, the Black Metal, the fetishists.”
He continued to enumerate them:
“Rivet-heads, non-rivet-heads, Cybers, Grungers, and, of course, your wannabes.”
That was pretty much Becks and me.
“Plus a whole lot more.”
But that was what this was like.
Over the glow sticks and rave pants and all of that was this electric energy of anticipation; everywhere were conversations whispering like lit fuses. “Let’s go already!” shouted one American teenager. A girl no older than I was.
Still, how did so many people know about this place? And why weren’t there any cops present? There should be, shouldn’t there?
The Wiccan Diaries Page 15
