Paint it Black, page 38
The sight of Emerson Margrave, half-carried by an acolyte of Liberation and bearing a pair of devil’s horns, triggered a faded memory of a conversation overheard years ago between Margrave and George. These were their marks of sanctity by which one saint recognized another, visible only to them. The thought made her heart pound, as if the endless ranting of the moth-lord at the back of her mind weren’t enough to remind her she was now a saint like them and needed to remedy the situation as soon as possible.
“Come on,” she said as the last of the procession passed and pushed Dropnick ahead of her.
He led her to a locked door to one of the renovated rooms with a slot in it at eye level.
“Here he is, Mrs. Armitage.”
Gosha released Dropnick, dropped the thread of the concealment spell, and held her face to the slot. Alfie lay inside, strapped to a steel frame bed, a host of devices attached to his body.
“Stay,” chanted the chorus. “Be calm and know yourself. You are a simple man with simple needs. You will be taken from here and will follow, content to follow orders…”
“Gosha,” said a voice behind her that made her freeze.
George.
“I thought you’d come for your fancy boy. I didn’t expect you to bring me the treacherous doctor as well.”
45
George stood in the doorway of an empty cell across the way.
“Dear god.” He gawped at her, horrified. “What’s happened to you?”
“Why, darling, I’m just like you now,” she sneered. “I’m a saint. Aren’t we a pair.”
He still looked handsome, though the past few years had seen his face fill out and his middle thicken from indulgence. His mark of sanctity glowed above his head. Of course it was a bloody crown. She wondered what hideousness she’d been saddled with by the moth-lord. Something foul and monstrous, no doubt.
“This one,” chanted the chorus, “believes himself to be chosen, believes himself to be superior, denies the evidence of his own eyes should his belief be shaken…”
Tell me something I don’t know.
The moth-lord began to shout about how George was nothing but a usurper. The commotion inside her head suddenly grew so great she almost dropped the thread of the charm she held over Dropnick. The doctor turned pale and rubbed his temples.
“Were you and Dropnick plotting against me all along?” George sneered.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She rolled her eyes. Just like George to make it all about him. “I couldn’t give a damn about you, George. Haven’t even thought about you twice. Until you kidnapped Alfie.”
“You’re still my wife.”
“Sod off, George. Don’t be such a child.”
A narrow stream of Influence shot from his aura, an aura as depleted as the other saints’ had been, and thrust past her to strike the door to Alfie’s cell. The door vibrated and creaked, but nothing happened. George was still weak, which was just as well. As green as she was at channeling the Between, and without her talisman or her power as the moth-lord’s saint to throw about, this could have been a short fight.
And a fight it would definitely be. Any fear she might have been carrying with her about facing George had vanished in the face of her absolute and all-consuming irritation at the gall of this self-centered man-baby she’d been foolish enough to fall in love with.
“Adulterous whore,” he growled and lunged at her to grab her by the throat, but she parried him easily. She twisted his arm and bent his wrist back.
As he cried out with shock and pain, he launched a stream of Influence at Dropnick cowering behind them. She felt the thread of the spell that held him falter, but she gripped at it, refusing to let it go.
“Really, George,” she hissed in his ear. “Will you ever learn? How many times must I rescue you from yourself? This is Emerson Margrave all over again. Someone offers you a hint of power and you roll over and spread your legs for them. How much money did you throw at Dropnick? Did you ever once consider he might turn all that nasty technology you were paying for against you?”
She pulled on his arm to make him squirm.
“I can see why your father thought you such a disappointment.”
He roared with anger, the surge of emotion bolstering his aura, burning the ethereal suggestion of medieval armor bright around him into a hard shell that pushed her away from his body, forcing her to release him. She hadn’t been able to resist twisting the knife, but she’d pushed him too far.
He spun around and lunged at her, pushing her up against the wall, his face twisted and puce with rage. He pressed his forearm into her throat, Influence jutting out of him in thin shards that impaled her to the wall.
She pulled hard on the thread manipulating Dropnick and the little man threw himself at George, clambering up his back and attempting to pry him away from her, but even though George had grown flabby in his sainthood, Dropnick was too slight a man to make much difference other than offer a distraction. A distraction was all she needed. In the confusion, George lost control over his Influence, giving her room to breathe.
She jabbed her knee at George’s leg, connecting with his own knee, the weak one he’d injured slipping on the grass during an impromptu game of cricket in Hyde Park seven years ago. His body jerked with the pain, and he loosened his grip on her. She swung her left arm up and bashed her fist into his ear. He grunted and loosened her more, and she kneed him again, this time in the crotch. As he whimpered and ducked to protect himself, she pushed him off her.
Dropnick fell off him onto his back. She pulled on his thread, even harder this time. Her vision blurred, and she could see through his eyes, his body becoming an extension of hers. She rolled him on the floor toward George’s legs. When Dropnick was in position, she shoved George, and he lost his balance, tumbling over Dropnick. She leaped on him, dug her knees into his shoulders to hold him down, and pressed his head to the ground with one hand on his forehead, exposing his throat. With her free hand, she took out the switchblade, clicked it open, and pressed the blade against his neck.
He stared up at her, eyes crazed with fear.
“Dear George,” she purred. “I could kill you right here, Lords of Influence be damned, but I love my children far too much.”
“CRUSH HIM,” blared the moth-lord with glee. “CRUSH THE SOUL OF THIS CHAMPION OF USURPERS. FEED HIM TO ME THAT I MAY TURN HIS MIGHT AGAINST HIS LORDS.”
Her vision blurred, and she saw the glow deep within George’s skull that the moth-lord called his soul. It was larger than the others she’d seen, perhaps because he was a saint. She could reach out so easily and destroy it and it would feel so good.
Tendrils of Influence snaked out of her and into George, who drew a sharp breath at their touch, his face growing pale as the blood drained out of it. The tendrils wrapped around his bubble, but with the force of will, she was able to hold them back, despite the furious shouting of the moth-lord.
“Here’s what’s going to happen, darling,” she purred and pecked him lightly on the lips. “I’m going to let you go. You’re going to walk out of here, safe and free. But know this. If you act against me, I will come for you, and I will destroy you, father of my children or not.”
She allowed the tendrils to tighten about his soul-bubble and he began to weep, tears flowing across his cheeks.
“If you try to take back the boys, I will come for you. If you harm Alfie, I will come for you. If you meddle with another witch, anywhere, I will come for you. If you so much as turn in my direction when I step foot out of Cheyne Heath, I will come for you. Put me out of your mind completely, or I will be there in the dark, waiting for you. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he whimpered. “I understand. Please. Please don’t.”
The sneer on her face froze as she tried to pull back the tendrils, but the moth-lord fought her, whipping up the ambient Influence into a phantom storm that threatened her concentration. She reached for the Between and found the calm she needed in its twilight glow to hold the moth-lord at bay.
The moth-lord receded and the tendrils around George’s soul-bubble faded.
She slid off him, allowing him to get up.
“Go on.” Sweat from the effort of the struggle drenched her scalp. She pressed her hands into the linoleum tiled floor so they wouldn’t shake. “Run along.”
He stumbled to his feet and made it halfway down the corridor before stopping.
“No, no,” she called out after him. “No looking back.”
Whatever he had intended to do, he changed his mind and disappeared around a corner.
She collapsed on the floor and allowed her body to shake.
“Interesting,” said Dropnick, looking at his cube device. “The field of psychospiritual force around you is settling into a stable pattern.”
She squeezed her eyes tight and let herself go limp. The only reason she’d been able to resist the moth-lord was because her transition into sainthood was ending. Once it was over, she wouldn’t be able to confound the oath and go through a second Betrayal. She’d soon be stuck like this.
“Open the door,” she said.
“Yes, immediately.”
She opened her eyes only when she heard the door to Alfie’s cell scrape open.
46
The cell was a blank slate of raw construction materials that had never been finished to any standards fit for human habitation. In the center lay Alfie, strapped to the metal bed with an IV drip in one arm and three devices attached to him, one on his chest, one to his head, one to his arm, all similar wood and brass boxes of different sizes.
“Stay, stay,” chanted the chorus as her eyes fell on the large box on his chest. “Be calm. Be content. You shall not move. You shall remain.”
She ran to his side to pull it off him, but Dropnick rushed forward.
“Please be careful.” He reached across the bed to stop her. “The instruments are all carefully calibrated to keep his energy levels in check and to prevent his psyche from fragmenting. Disturbing them would be catastrophic.”
She wrenched her arms away from him with murder in her heart for having done this, but killing him would set the Lords of Influence against her, and she needed him if she was to save Alfie.
“You are not yourself,” chanted the chorus as she looked at the crown of copper wires attached to Alfie’s scalp and brow by electrodes and connected to a device sitting innocently beside him on the pillow. “You are a simple man. You have no past, no needs, no desires. To follow is your only joy. To comply is your only fulfillment.”
“What about that one,” she said. “Can we turn that off?”
“Yes.” Dropnick reached for the box. “Let me get that for you. Its purpose is to condition him to obey orders.”
“I know,” she snapped. “Get it off him. Now.”
As Dropnick deactivated the device and removed the electrodes from Alfie’s head, the chanting chorus fell silent. To hear him talk so calmly about Alfie as if he were an actual doctor trying to help made it so very hard not to beat him to a bloody pulp. Alfie’s eyes flickered open, and he looked up at her, but without recognition. To Gosha’s second sight, his aura glowed a hundred times brighter than even a saint’s and stood out several feet away from his body with a clear boundary that throbbed like an incandescent bulb in a Soho club sign.
“How do we get all that Influence out of him?”
Dropnick looked confused.
“We can’t.” He shook his head slowly, an actual healer delivering the worst possible prognosis to a patient. “It can’t be done. His psyche has been infused with an excess of psychospiritual energy. That energy is part of him now. I could no more separate him from it than separate the molecules of a bottle of water poured into the Thames.”
Her vision blurred, and she was able to see the glowing soul-bubbles within the heads of Dropnick and Alfie. Dropnick’s was as small as all the others she’d seen, but Alfie’s was enormous, filling his skull. Light crackled and sparked across its surface.
“HEAR ME, MINION.”
The moth-lord’s voice forced itself to the forefront of Gosha’s awareness, demanding her attention.
“CONSUME HIM AND HIS POWER WILL BE MINE. CONSUME HIM AND I WILL SURELY WIN THE BATTLE THAT LOOMS IN THE SKIES ABOVE ME. CONSUME HIM, I COMMAND YOU.”
She felt Influence rise up around her, ready to reach into Alfie and crush his soul, but she willed it back.
“No,” she said out loud.
“I beg your pardon?” said Dropnick, but she waved him to be silent and walked away from the bed to concentrate. He pulled out his cubic device and pointed it at her. “Fascinating.”
The moth-lord didn’t acquiesce at her refusal. Its will reached out to the Influence around her, and she struggled to hold it back. He really wanted Alfie.
“Stop it! I won’t let you take him. If you want the power so badly, find another way to take it that won’t destroy him.”
“WHEN YOU PLEDGED FEALTY TO ME, YOU SURRENDERED ALL OTHER ATTACHMENTS. YOU ARE MINE. THIS CREATURE IS NOT. HE IS NOTHING TO ME OTHER THAN A SOURCE OF POWER, POWER THAT I REQUIRE. WITHOUT IT, I WILL FALL IN THE COMING BATTLE AGAINST THE USURPERS, AND YOU WILL FALL WITH ME. CRUSH HIM THAT I MAY BE VICTORIOUS.”
Behind all the bluster, the answer the moth-lord gave her was not a ‘no,’ not Dropnick’s ‘can’t be done.’
“You won’t save him, but you can.”
“I AM LORD OF ANGUISH AND DESPAIR. I AM MASTER OF THE TORMENT THAT RESIDES WITHIN ALL FEELING CREATURES. MINE IS THE REALM OF PASSION AND EMOTION. PASSION AND EMOTION ARE MINE TO GIFT AND TO DENY.”
“So you could, in fact, siphon the excess power out of him. You just choose not to. Why?”
She’d had this kind of conversation countless times with both George and Edmund when she tried to get them to do something they didn’t want to, and they did their best to out-bluster her. The only way through was to stick to her guns and make them see her way was the only way.
“CRUSH HIM AND THE POWER WILL BE MINE, INSTANTLY. IT WILL FLOW INTO ME IN A VAST TORRENT THAT WILL CARRY ME TO VICTORY.”
“So it’s a question of speed of delivery. Is there another way to get you the power that is equally effective, but that might take a little more time?”
“YOU ARE MY CHAMPION. YOU ARE MY STEED, MY CHARIOT. YOU ARE THE VEHICLE OF MY POWER. IT IS YOUR DUTY TO FULFILL MY DESIRES.”
Think again, buster. A witch’s duty is only to herself and the ones she cares for.
“If I’m the vehicle of your power, could you take the power from Alfie, leaving him safe, and give it to me? Then I could bring it to you.”
If she got the power out of Alfie, she might be able to hold on long enough for him to get her back to Cheyne Heath so her mother and the ladies could help discharge it without blowing up half of London. It was a terrible idea, another in a long list of reckless chances she’d taken over the years, but she couldn’t think of another solution. If she didn’t assume the power, Alfie would die, and take out who knew how many people with him. And, if she did, the moth-lord would have what he needed to destroy the other spheres and plunge every living soul in the British Isles into anguish and despair.
Unless she could find a way of denying him the power.
A dark thought coalesced in the back of her mind. If it was too late to get herself free of the oath she’d taken, there were other, more terminal ways to deny him the power…
“A LORD DOES NOT BARGAIN WITH THOSE WHO SERVE HIM. BRING ME WHAT IS MINE, I COMMAND YOU!”
“Looks like we’re at an impasse then, aren’t we? You want me to destroy Alfie’s mind so you can feed on him, and I’m not going to do it. Which is more important to you? That you do it your way, or that you get the job done?”
She felt the moth-lord’s will mount within her, the Influence around her springing to attention, but she beat him back even more easily this time. A bad sign. She was never going to be free of him.
“The other Lords outnumber you. Their combined strength is greater than yours. Yes, this trove of Influence might tip the scales in your favor, but can you be sure?”
"HOW WILL YOU, AN INFERIOR CREATURE OF FLESH AND BONE, A FEEBLE MORTAL HOST OF THE RICH FONT OF BEING, CARRY THIS TROVE TO ME?"
Eleanor always gave her the impression her experience of the Between was some kind of metaphoric representation, rather than a concrete place. From the way the moth-lord talked about the impending battle with the other Lords of Influence, it seemed the Between was as real to it as it was to her.
“Let me bring it to you. You’ve seen me in the field of battle. You know what I’m capable of. I kept you imprisoned single-handedly for over a year. Do this for me and I will cross the veil and bring your power to you in person. And I will fight at your side.”
Silence echoed in the vast expanse within her skull. She would never fight for him. If she was unable to confound her oath, she could think of a dozen substances in her locked pantry at home that were poisonous if consumed in large enough quantities. And if she couldn’t make it home, there were guns littered throughout the warehouse.
But what if I’m wrong? Doubt spread through her body in a delicate caress of bright, anxious fire. What if it can establish itself among the spheres without the Influence crammed into Alfie’s head?
