by Bill Bennett
The square appeared empty. The surrounding houses were dark – all lights were out. It seemed unusually quiet. Everywhere there hung a brooding energy. Freddie could feel it. It unsettled him. It wasn’t usually like this. He’d been to the Needle quite a few times to hold clinics and provide free medical care. They loved him here. And every time he came there was always a feeling of welcome, of ease and warmth, even in the coldest winter. Not now. There was a chilling dark malevolence lurking here. A fear. It prickled his skin, raised the tiny hairs on his arms and neck.
Joe nodded to someone approaching out of the shadows. Freddie quickly turned. Joe drew his handgun. But as the figure emerged into the light they realised that it was Skyhawk’s mother, Maddy. She looked exhausted and scared.
‘Thank God, Freddie.’
They hugged, then she pulled away and said, ‘They came for her, the demons, but we fought them off. And now they’re gone.’
‘And Lily?’ Freddie quickly asked.
‘I caught her soul before it left this world. But it still hasn’t returned to her body. Skyhawk is working now to bring it back in. But it is not easy. And I worry about my boy. About the two of them. Come …’
She gestured for them to follow her, as she turned and walked back into the dark.
As they approached her house, Freddie heard drums coming from inside – a regular hypnotic drumbeat that seemed to burrow its way into his cellular structure. It had the quality of a mantra, a sacred sound, ancient and persuasive. Maddy gestured them to be silent, then she quietly opened the front door and they slipped inside. She led them to a dark corner of the room so they could watch.
Lily lay inert on the kitchen table, but she was now wearing a thin cotton gown. The poultices were gone. And so too the wounds from the scorpion. Her eyelids fluttered in time to the drumbeat – as if there were some subconscious connection, as though her soul was dancing to the rhythm. The room was full of an aromatic smoke that made Freddie feel light-headed.
Sitting on the other side of Lily was Skyhawk. His shirt was off, his lean body glistened, dripping sweat, and his eyes were closed. He appeared to be in a trance. Between his legs was a shallow-framed shamanic drum, covered in handpainted rawhide. He hit the drum rhythmically with a stick, its tip covered in a hard ball of leather. The sound reverberated around the room, like a monastic chant, like an age-old call to awaken primitive forces.
Maddy whispered to Freddie, ‘I have done all I can. I have driven the poison out. Her wounds are healed, but now it’s her soul. Her soul left its earthly vessel, it began to make its way home, and I sang it back. It didn’t want to come. It had decided to go. Now it’s up to my son. He is using his soul to bring hers back into her body. The two souls are doing a dance. It means that should he succeed, their souls will be forever joined.’
‘What does that mean?’ Freddie asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Maddy replied. ‘I have never seen anything like this before. My son has released his soul to help hers and should his soul refuse to return, then … he will die. They both will. Perhaps that is their destiny. That they die together. We won’t know until this dance of the souls is done.’
Freddie looked over at Skyhawk, the boy whose life he had saved, who looked to him as a father and he a son. He was hitting the drum metronomically, mechanically, as though he was no longer in control of his actions, as though his body was present but his true essence had gone up into the spirit world.
‘His soul is in Upper World,’ Maddy whispered. ‘That’s where they both are right now, doing their shadow dance.’ She nodded to the ceiling of the mud shack. Up in the exposed beams, through an accident of firelight and fittings, two shadows could be seen shimmying, prancing together then sashaying apart. They seemed to move in unison and in rhythm to the drumbeat.
‘I warned him not to do this,’ Maddy whispered, looking across at her son. ‘But we both knew there was no other way to save her. She is a very powerful energy, that girl. Her soul has been here many many times. She is not her earthbound age. I do not know if my son is strong enough to survive this. Or her. Is there not something you can do?’ She looked over at Freddie, her eyes moist with emotion. ‘You are a powerful energy too. And you know ways. Wise ways. Surely there is something you can do?’
Freddie looked up at the ceiling, at the dancing shadows. He shook his head. ‘There is nothing I can do. If they’re in the Upper World then they’re beyond my reach. No, we have to wait, as you said, until this dance is done. I suspect there are past lives, loves, promises and betrayals playing out between them up there. It’s their dance and theirs alone. All we can do is hold their energy, hold it in our hearts, and pray to our Gods that they both will return to us.’
CHAPTER 10
‘Put the top up!’ Kritta shouted above the wind.
They were nudging 90, and the blasting cold air was an onslaught to her. Kritta, being as small as she was, felt the cold bitterly. That’s why she liked wearing her biker leathers, even in mid summer.
Sitting beside her behind the wheel was Kevin Johnstone. He slowed down and pulled over, then reached across, pressed a button on the dash and allow the Mustang’s top to unfurl and cover them, finally sealing them in its canopy.
‘You feeling better?’ he asked, as he locked the top in place, rolled up the windows, threw her an irritated glance and accelerated back to his former speed.
‘Yeah,’ Kritta said dourly.
She’d decided to use his car, the flashy Mustang convertible, even though there wasn’t much room. But it was better than using the stolen four-wheel drive – it would be on every cop’s watchlist and the last thing she needed right now was to be arrested for car theft. That wouldn’t please the Grand Master at all, not with the putrid Book of Light in the trunk. It would end up in a police evidence vault somewhere and then what would they do?
Even in the front passenger seat, she could feel the book’s nauseating white-light energy pulsing out, sickening her, weakening her. She couldn’t think straight and it angered her that she’d been reduced to something akin to a FedEx driver for the Golden Order, having to deliver the book to the mine. They’d been stopping regularly so that she could get out, walk around, clear her nausea and get away from that disgusting white energy for a while. It was slowing them down, and it would be a long and ugly journey to the Deep Sink Mine.
She glanced back over her shoulder, out the window and up into the dark skies. She could just make out the flitting shape of Andi, way above, the golden eagle shadowing them from five thousand feet. And in the back seat was Bess – sprawled out, bloodied and wounded, still a pit bull – forlorn and distressed that she’d failed to get the girl.
Kritta suspected she also felt humiliated that Andi had saved her. There was intense rivalry between the two of them, yet when danger threatened one of them, the other would do whatever was required to keep her sister from harm. In part, it was to protect Kritta. Because if Bess had died, Kritta would have lost a big part of her power. She would have been forever weakened. Andi and Bess, as familiars, were inextricably linked energetically to their host, Kritta. What one suffered, they all felt.
Kritta glanced across to KJ. What was his game? He had a flickering darkness about him, an arrogance and a mercurial intensity that she found enticing. And very attractive. She couldn’t categorise him, she doubted that she could even frighten him. She frightened most men, sooner or later. It was as though he had nothing to live for other than each moment.
He’d turned up at the cave offering to help find the girl. Later, when Bess was brought back to the parking lot by Andi, suffering from wounds she’d received up top of the rock from the villagers, Kritta had flown into a rage. She’d wanted to go up there with Andi and wreak revenge. But it was KJ who’d cajoled her out of her red-mist rage. And in doing so he’d probably saved her life, because she’d been prepared to go up there and slash and slice her way through the entire village with no thought to her own personal safety, just to a
venge what they’d done to Bess.
KJ had calmed her down, talked it through with her, pointed out that the Grand Master had told her to take The Book of Light to the Deep Sink Mine. Those were her instructions. And right at the moment the girl wasn’t a priority. Especially killing her. After all, didn’t Baphomet want her soul extracted, like her mom’s, which meant keeping her alive? Wouldn’t killing the girl deny the Golden Order that opportunity?
He was cool, sensible. Logical. And that enraged Kritta. She wanted to take out a knife and slice up his beautiful face. Cut his nose off and stuff it between his gleaming pearly whites. But she didn’t. Because he was right. In wanting to go up and kill the girl she was ignoring the Hallowed One’s clear directive and possibly putting the entire Unholy ceremony in jeopardy. Perhaps they needed The Book of Light for the soul extraction. Or to prepare the girl’s mother. She didn’t know nor would she ever know, most probably. She was too far down the pecking order to ever find out. She was still a foot soldier and foot soldiers obeyed orders, they didn’t question them, otherwise they were executed.
She’d wanted to kill the girl to get back into the Golden Order’s good books, after failing to capture her. Kritta had thought that would redeem herself in their eyes. But the boy was right. Disobeying orders would have infuriated the Grand Master. It might have triggered her own death. She had to do what she was told, especially as she was carrying The Book of Light, which was an incredibly valuable asset in the fight against Cygnet.
But later, when she thought back on it, she wondered what KJ’s motives were. Why had he turned up at the cave? Why had he offered to help? And why had he talked her out of going up into the village and killing the girl? When they’d met at the farmers’ market she’d promised to introduce him into the delights of the dark arts – and she’d thought that’s why he’d tagged along, for the promise of exotic and erotic pleasures. But maybe she’d read him all wrong. Maybe he was trying to protect the girl. Maybe he fancied her. Perhaps they had a thing going. Or maybe he was a spy – possibly even a white witch, a plant, relaying back to Cygnet what was happening, their movements. He might, even now, be feeding them directions to the Deep Sink Mine, a location that was known to no one outside the Golden Order.
Kritta glanced across at him. He felt her look and glanced back. He smiled. His smile was a sucker punch to any woman. And it didn’t go unwasted on her. But within that smile there was more than just charm, there was something predatory. Something inherently bad. Something that hinted at glorious revelry in all things evil. She shuddered. Was it the cold? Or the thrill of not knowing. Not knowing if she would consume him, delectably, or kill him, savagely.
Or perhaps both.
CHAPTER 11
The drumming stopped. Lily’s eyes stopped fluttering too. They remained shut as Skyhawk slowly came out of his trance. Freddie straightened. Sat upright. He looked to Maddy. She was staring at her son, then at Lily, then back to her son. Had she left them? Had Lily’s soul departed for good. Had it gone home, back to higher realms? Was she no longer with them?
Skyhawk looked around the room, coming back into his body, his wide eyes slowly reacquainting himself to where he was, who he was, what he had just done.
Freddie stared at Lily. Was she breathing? Was there any sign of life? She was still. Like a life-sized photograph frozen in time. Gummi, sitting beside Freddie, wiped away tears that had welled in his eyes, spilled down his cheeks. He too was staring at her, in disbelief. Surely she was alive. Surely Skyhawk had saved her. Any moment now she would open her eyes, look around, she would act confused, not knowing what had just gone down, what she’d been through, but she would be alive.
She remained still.
Freddie looked to her chest, to see if she were breathing.
He could see no movement. Not even the slightest rise or fall.
He walked over, lifted her wrist to take her pulse. To confirm that she was dead.
But Skyhawk gently pulled him back.
‘Let me,’ he said quietly, almost a whisper.
He kissed each of his fingertips, one at a time, then walked forward and gently placed those fingers on her closed eyes. Then he lowered his head and said a silent prayer.
Freddie, Gummi, Maddy and Skyhawk stood around her and looked down on her body.
She looked so peaceful. As if the worries of the world were no longer of any concern to her. She had passed over into that realm where none of it mattered anymore.
Lily opened her eyes.
She looked around.
She seemed confused.
She saw Freddie and she smiled. She looked over at Skyhawk and the smile merged into a look of utter admiration, respect and love.
‘What’s happening?’ she said, sitting up. ‘We’ve got to find Mom. Come on, what are you all staring at? Let’s go!’
She swung her legs off the table and stood, unsteadily. She glared at them all defiantly. ‘I mean it! Come on! Stop looking at me like I’ve risen from the dead or something. I’m fine. Now let’s get to work, figure out how we’re going to do this!’
Freddie and Gummi laughed and clapped. Then Gummi began to sob uncontrollably and, embarrassed at his show of emotion, he tried to stop, but he couldn’t. He sobbed harder. Everyone laughed, in relief, not at him. And he laughed too, through his tears.
Skyhawk looked at Lily and gave quiet thanks to his gods and ancestors.
She walked out of Maddy’s bedroom, wearing faded and worn jeans that hung loose and a plaid shirt that she’d knotted at the waist. Skyhawk’s spare clothes. On her feet were a pair of simple leather sandals that looked like they’d been handmade by a villager.
To Freddie she looked thin. Since he’d last seen her she had lost all her adolescent fat, but it seemed that her body had strengthened. Her arms and shoulders were sinewy, and her eyes blazed with an intensity that her physical demeanour lacked. She was no longer the young ‘sugar pie’ that Freddie had known from a previous life – the sweet young girl that had visited from time to time, laughing and furiously curious about all things. The initiation, her time with Luna in the cave and her battle to fight off the demonic poison had obviously changed her. Settled her. Hardened her. She was now a young woman. A formidable young woman, Freddie suspected. She had developed a don’t mess with me attitude that he found both surprising for someone her age, but also reassuring, given what was ahead of her.
As she walked over to him he stood, being the gentleman that he was. Ordinarily, in times past, Lily would have rushed to her Uncle Freddie, squealing for joy before jumping up and hugging him – but instead she nodded at him, then sat down purposefully on the other side of the table, as if she were a CEO heading up a business meeting, or a four-star general convening a council of war – which was more likely the case.
As soon as Lily had entered the room Gummi had jumped to his feet too, out of respect, and now he was still standing, unable to take his eyes off her, But then he seemed to realise that everyone else was now sitting, and embarrassed, he quickly sat down as well.
Lily stared at each one of them. She held the room. Then she swung her gaze at her uncle, took a deep breath and said, ‘I’m sorry, Freddie. I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused. Luna is gone. She gave her life for me. And the only way I can repay that sacrifice is by doing what I have to do, and that’s to find Angela, bring her back home and then make every one of those motherfucker witches pay for what they’ve done.’
Freddie was taken aback by the curse words. He’d never heard Lily curse like that before. Gummi broke out in applause, but stopped when Freddie turned and stared at him.
Lily was unapologetic. ‘I mean it. I can’t let Luna die in vain, otherwise I’ll live with that guilt for the rest of my life. I can’t do that. I’m going to honour what she did and I’m going to use her death to give me strength. Her sacrifice will feed me, Freddie,’ she said, firmly. ‘It will feed me every moment of every day. I’ll make sure she didn’t waste her life
on me. I’m going to make her proud of me.’
Freddie was surprised at her quiet and steely resolve. This was a Lily he had only previously ever glimpsed. And even then he’d only sensed the potential of what she had now become – someone prepared to lead them into battle to fight for what was good in the world.
‘What about the book?’ Freddie asked. ‘The Book of Light. When was the last time you saw it?’
‘It was in that secret chamber in the cave. There’s no way we could have gone back and got it. That scorpion would have killed us. And there were more witches coming, in a car. But I worry they’ve found it, and they’ve got it.’
Freddie let out a long slow breath, thinking of the consequences. ‘I don’t mean to make you feel bad about this, Lils, but if Baphomet gets a hold of that book, and they can unlock it, then they’ll have access to all our spells and secrets and that’ll be the end of us.’
‘What do you mean “unlock it”? Luna unlocked the suitcase and we looked through the book. I looked through it. It wasn’t locked.’
‘Anyone can look through the book, but the important spells and sections – secret sections – are encrypted with magic. Powerful age-old magic. Like you can encrypt files in a computer. Same thing. It will take a very high-level Golden Order witch to break through that encryption. Very high level. So even if they do have possession of it, we might have some time. They might have to bring in someone from their headquarters in Budapest to break that lock. Let’s hope that if they’ve got it, we can get it back before that happens.’
