Lightbreaker

VI

A tow truck had absconded with my rental car-a reminder from Pender of his omnipresence-so we stayed with Nicols' car, tracing out routes with the Thomas Guide he had in the vehicle. He lived on the Olympic peninsula, and had a fairly detailed knowledge of the roads that were just thin lines on the pages. It still took several hours and a few false starts before we established a better sense of what we were looking for. "Police work," Nicols said after the third barn, "is all about checking every possibility. It's the drudgery that no one expects us to have the tenacity to do, but it is why we get things done. Ultimately you run out of options. You just have to be patient."

Patientia beneficium. I had never been good at waiting.

Nicols shared some of my restlessness. It was at odds with the terminal weariness soaked into the shape of his face but, as I watched the way his eyes flicked away whenever he looked at me, I realized the source of his unease. I was his occult anchor; at the same time, I was alien-bright and shiny in a way nothing ever had been before.

Shortly after sunset, we finally spotted a match for the barn we carried in our heads. A row of ragged evergreens hid the building from the highway, a natural barrier obscuring the property from casual view. We only spotted it because we were on an access road, looking for a way back to the main highway.

The barn had been red once, like all barns built as historical symbols of an anachronistic American cultural heritage. Time and the insistent Pacific Northwest weather had turned this one dull and scarred, like it was covered in old blood. It was fronted by a decrepit farmhouse, squatting like a sullen toad at the end of a woefully uneven gravel driveway.

Nicols pulled the car up to the farmhouse, headlights transmuting the cracked paint into a wrinkled layer of old skin. As he looked in the glove box for a flashlight, I got out and listened. Night was spreading fast, purple to blue-black like a bruise stretching across the skin of Heaven, and the nocturnal world was waking up.

The hiss of the highway was a distant sizzle beyond the row of evergreens. Energy flow along the ley beneath the road was a thin trickle, fading to near nothingness in the distance between cars. An owl hooted at us from the tall trees behind the barn, a solitary call that was more a querulous inquiry than a territorial warning.

Having found his flashlight, Nicols swung its beam across the front of the farmhouse. The windows were boarded over, and the front door was sealed by several clumsily nailed two-by-fours. A "No Trespassing!" sign was attached to the siding beside the door but the faded condition of the letters detracted from the bluster of the message.

The Chorus touched the ley, orienting me on the magnetic poles. The front of the house looked due north, and we walked around the left-the eastern side-of the house to the back. Just as inviting as the front. Nicols examined the slabs of wood nailed over the windows and the back door with his flashlight. I opted for a magickal examination, and let the Chorus read the dilapidated building. Nothing. It was just an abandoned farmhouse, a dead spot on the landscape.

Nicols turned his flashlight toward the nearby barn. He played his beam across the worn surface of the building for a few seconds, and then clicked off the light. In the darkness of the developing evening, a thin gleam of magick leaked through the warped walls.

Definitely the right barn.

The door was on the west side of the building, and a heavy combination lock held the rickety portal shut. Nicols tugged on the lock once, a half-hearted pull in case it hadn't been closed properly. He stepped back, and glanced at the upper floor of the barn. He was trying to think of some acceptable excuse to kick in the door.

I grabbed the lock while he was rationalizing. Elide. The movement of the Chorus in my arm made my skin tingle. The lock held; it was the screws holding the hasp to the door that came out. I tossed the whole assembly aside.

"A little breaking and entering going to bother you?" I asked as I opened the door.

Nicols looked at the lock lying on the scrub grass. "Not as much as how you just did that."

"Just a crowbar of my Will," I said. "Crude, but effective."

"Is that all?" I heard him mutter as he trailed me into the barn.

The barn had no windows on the ground floor, but the interior was illuminated by the phantasmal glow of magickal seals. The barn had been gutted to make room for a ritual platform. It was a large slab of concrete, about three inches thick. It wasn't a single piece, rather blocks about three feet wide-three by three, making it a grid of nine. The platform contained three magickal circles-the central one dominated the space, and the secondaries were laid in opposite corners. The inscriptions along the inner rims were still glowing, the phantom light of residual magick. Drifting in the center of the big circle, coiling upward like a small dust devil, was a wispy column of spirit smoke. More residual energies left behind by the attendees of the ceremony. Left behind by Doug and Katarina.

My chest ached, a chill filling my lungs like atmospheric tension caused by a pressure change. The Chorus slithered along my spine, rising into my head. They wanted that column of smoke, wanted to taste the vibrant lights that had touched each other here.

I swallowed heavily, feeling like a recovering alcoholic who had just found a forgotten bottle of vodka in the freezer. The pressure in my chest didn't lessen as I tried to breathe normally. My lungs were frozen by the resurrection of old memory. I could feel her hand in my chest again. The whispers of the Chorus slithered like poison dripped into my ear.

Nicols swung his flashlight toward my face. "Are you all right?" he asked.

I shook my head, stumbling away from the concrete platform. The Chorus erupted as I retreated from the spirit echoes of Katarina and Doug, as I fled from her. This was what they wanted. What I wanted. Why would I deny them-myself-this? Their voices, a shadow conspiracy carried so long. The taste of her soul, they hissed, after all this time. Is this not the cure? Is this not what you need?

I could taste her on my lips. I could smell her again. So close. The tear in my world was so close to being fixed. Like a chain that didn't quite reach. Just a little more, just a little closer, and I could fit the hook into the ready link. Just one more tug.

This need was mine-had always been mine-and yet, was also not-mine. A Buddhist riddle, an existential conundrum bound into my psyche. The Chorus held the memory of that night in the woods. Her hand, in my chest. They reminded me how she had torn my soul. She had ripped out a piece of me; she had let the darkness find a way in.

This memory predated them. This memory was mine, not theirs, and they had taken it into their core. Why? Deep down in the dark where their roots lie, there was something else, a seed-

The vertebrae in my lower back exploded with psychic pain. The Chorus howled in my head, threatening to detonate another psychic payload in my spinal column if I fought them anymore. Let us-! They dragged at my leg, trying to make me walk toward the circle.

Magick and mysticism are reflections of the expression of Will. The world is mutable, shaped by the imagination of the magus. His transformation-his ascension-is shaped by the focus of his Will. He acts instead of being reactive. The only prisons that can hold him are the ones he makes himself.

I held my ground, and raised a psychic cage-a black iron prison-around the Chorus. I had taken them all-one by one-and lashed them to each other. I had preserved them, saving them from spiritual dissolution. I was their master; my Will was stronger. They tried a final thrust, but I broke it apart with a needle of force. My Will.

I slowly relaxed my fists, the shakes fading. My fingers ached from having been clenched so tightly against my palm. The tension in my chest broke, and my exhalation was a vomit of frost, a gust of cold air spawned by the Qliphotic surge within me.

Nicols cleared his throat uneasily. "Ah, yeah, I think maybe I should wait outside." He waved his flashlight toward the ceremonial platform. "You can explain all this to me later."

"I'm okay," I rasped.

He turned the flashlight on my chest. "I dunno," he said. "I know I'm new at this and all, but from over here, it certainly looks like you're not okay. For one thing, you're doing some weird shit to my flashlight beam."

I coughed up a last bit of cold darkness-a wracking hack of sound that was filled with the fury of the Abyss-and the flashlight was knocked from Nicols' hand. "I'm okay," I said, the last touch of the Qliphoth fading from my voice.

My eyes were drawn to the spirals of spirit smoke in the center of the circle of power. It's just a taste. It won't be enough to assuage the hunger. It won't be enough. It will just make you want her more. It'll just feed the need.

But isn't that why you are here? The Chorus retreated, sulking and yet still defiant.

I wasn't sure. For an instant, I had glimpsed something that lay behind them. It was as if I had peeled back the edge of the world, and seen an infinite vastness beneath. In that darkness, I had felt the presence of something watching me.

"Drawing on my extensive knowledge of cheap Showtime thrillers, I'm guessing these are magick circles," Nicols said, a freshly lit cigarette dangling from his lips. The acrid scent of his tobacco disturbed the memory scent of lilacs the Chorus kept looping in my head. I inhaled his secondhand smoke through my nose, welcoming the distraction. "Summoning Balefour, Demon King of the Perpetual Abyss, or some shit?"

"He's a prince, actually. Holds dominion over gnats and stinging bugs. Responsible for plagues, mainly." I smiled slightly at his expression. "I'm kidding."

The Chorus locked down, I carefully approached the platform again. "They help focus the energy of the participants. There are specific types of circles for specific rites. It can get very complicated."

"I'm sure it does," Nicols nodded. He wasn't too sure he liked the idea of me having a sense of humor.

"Doug had his soul pulled out of his body in the big one," I said, ignoring his tone. "He wasn't alone. He had help, and she was assisting him. The other circles are protective, keeping the adepts safe. In case, something goes wrong."

Nicols got close enough to peer at one of the corner circles. Following my lead, he hadn't made any attempt to step onto the platform. "What happens if something does go wrong? What happens to the pair in the middle?"

I flinched, reacting to a poke from the Chorus. A shard of memory. One of mine. That instant of shock, blisters rising on my skin. Her fingers sliding inside me, like she was putting her hand in JELL-O. My spirit, frantic and desperate to get away from her. I had tried to run-that same instinct-driven response, like Doug in the woods, had been wild and terrified in my body. When she pulled her hand free, all the light began to spill out. Five stars shining on my chest.

"Sometimes people die," I said, pushing the Chorus back, burning the memory away.

"Sometimes?"

"Yeah," I said. "And sometimes that's the kindest thing."

He exhaled a stream of smoke, and watched as it was sucked toward the center of the circle, drawn in by the tiny mystic stain. Nicols had been smoking a long time, and there was enough of him present in that dusty exhalation to be drawn toward the mystical nexus in the circle. His smoke curled upward, winding about the existing spirit spiral like a sycophant eager to please.

"It's a primal attraction," I said as he looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "Systems gravitate to each other. Very little attraction is chemical. Behavioral psychologists would like you to think that we're driven by pheromonal attraction and a promise of hot sex, but actually it's a lot more. . alchemical."

I crouched near his feet, and looked intently at the inscribed circle. One of Solomon's-the fourth medal of the Moon, in fact, devoted to protection. There wasn't any additional magick woven into its hollow spaces. There should be something, a protective trigger that kept random strangers like us from intruding. One padlock on a cheap door wasn't a security solution. There had to be something else, especially the way these circles were lit up. They were still holding energy, even if they weren't active. This wasn't a casual installation. They had been using it awhile. So, where was the booby trap?

"What's that?" Nicols asked suddenly.

I drew back from the circle. "Where?"

"There. Along the edge." He knelt beside me and pointed to the rim of the platform. "It was just a faint glimmer." Nothing happened as he lowered his finger toward the edge, but when I brought my hand close, the inscription running along the edge glowed, a faint purple luminescence. The esoteric scrip grew bright enough to read as I kept my hand near.

"What does it say?" he asked.

"It's a ward of protection," I said. There it is. I wrapped the Chorus in my arm, and touched the surface of the platform. A bright spark cracked when I made contact with the stone, a chain of light and energy shooting up my arm. The Chorus flexed around the current, absorbing and transforming the force, and all I felt was a tingling sensation up to my elbow. "I don't have the key so it rejects me."

Not the most complicated charm to weave. It would take a little while, but a decent adept would be able to put this together. The trick here was how it reacted to magick. Someone like Nicols would be unharmed if he walked on the platform while I would set the stone afire. Which meant it was unstable-volatile, waiting to do damage. I might be able to unravel it, but if I failed, the whole platform would immolate. Probably try to take me too.

The Chorus whined. No, this is as close as we get.

Nicols flicked his flashlight beam around the room. "Okay, if we can't get to the circle, then what else is there?" His roving spot illuminated the dry walls of the barn, the empty brackets where horse stalls had once been installed. A broken ladder reached only a few feet down from an upper floor.

A distant crunch of gravel interrupted our examination. Nicols clicked off his flashlight, and I hurried to the door to better hear the sounds coming from outside.

The crunching was slow and regular, a rolling sound that had echoes. "More than one vehicle," I told Nicols as he joined me.

We had visitors.