American Goth (35 page)

“They say,” Cort began after a session that had further developed my ability to monitor and to affect small changes in metabolism, “that Judas had thought to escape his fate, his karma, his wyrd,” and he grinned at Elizabeth and Fran when he said it, knowing that was the preferred word in their tradition, “by hanging himself. But he did not. In fact, the legend says that while he seemed dead, the Lords of Light had sentenced him to walk the earth until he could save as many as his actions had betrayed. And in greedy zest for mortal life, he learned how to steal, to drink, to trade in the essences of life for youth of the body, of the mind.

“In time, a cult grew around this, believing that to steal another’s essence was to increase one’s own. They each wear a token—and since they’re all
about
power, the placement of the token varies with position in the hierarchy.”

Fran curled her fingers into mine on my lap and snuggled closer into my shoulder. “Well, what is it?”

Cort gave a grim little smile. “Since he hanged himself, the token is a piece of rope, usually hemp of some sort. Hounds who are not vessels—do you understand what vessels are?” he broke off to ask, his gaze resting on each of us in turn.

I took a wild guess. “Voluntary servants or something?”

The twist on his lips tightened further. “They voluntarily give their services, their minds, and their energies, to a dark Master and their hounds.”

Cort nodded into the silence that greeted that. I couldn’t think of anything more horrifying. To knowingly,
willingly
, give oneself up like that? But why? Why would anyone choose such a thing?

But there was something even more important to know for now. “So the hounds have tokens too?”

“They tend to wear them about their wrist or ankle. Vessels and those chosen to advance will wear one about the neck, and those fully fledged…well…” He stared into the fire. “They bear a mark,” he said softly. “They wear a rope around their bodies in ritual, and are marked by a brand, an incised brand, where they say the heart used to be. Those chosen to be devoured are marked similarly, with an iron cross.”

“Are they right?” Fran asked.

“In what way?”

“Can they actually extend their lives?”

“Legend says so.”

I shifted in my seat. Maybe there was something here after all. “How long?”

His eyes rested on mine with serious intent. “No one knows for certain—nor how they die either.”

I nodded as I absorbed that. “Ignoring the live-forever thing,” I said, “what does that do? Stealing essence, I mean?”

“It can extend their abilities through the Aethyr, and they can share some of their abilities with their hounds and vessels,” Elizabeth said.

I twisted my head to see her clearly. “What do you mean? What abilities?”

She answered quietly and her face bore such quiet anger I almost knew what she’d say before she spoke it. “The ability to track and follow, to reach through one to touch another, and the breach of the natural shield—the forced rapport.”

I didn’t know if it was Fran or I who shivered at that, and I held her tighter even as her hand closed with strength around mine.

“If the cult’s been revived, then how do we stop them?” That’s what my father had thought, and if his theories were as sound as his notes…

Cort stared into the flames and they reflected back into his eyes, making them burn from without as well as within when he faced me.

“There are two ways,” he said. “You can strip them of their abilities—bind and contain them on the Astral or,” he took a deep breath, “your sword, yours specifically.”

“So, if we find them and contain them, we can eliminate the threat?” I asked, puzzling it out aloud.

“No.” His answer was curt, abrupt. “If Judas still walks, they look for him. Every incarnation of the cult has sought to find and put him into temporal power.”

“But this is a legend,” I interrupted. It was confusing because he’d began as if he was sharing a story, but now, it seemed as if he considered it more than that.

“All legends have a root in truth,” Fran said quietly.

“Well then,” I asked, “what if we find and contain
him
?”

The tiger that I saw so often in Cort’s eyes came roaring to life as he gazed at me. “He cannot be contained—only destroyed.”

“Then the real question is,” I said as I thought it, “
who
is Judas?”

Cort shook his head. “No one knows—but then, no one is certain that it’s
that
much more than legend either.”

His jaw set as he stared once more into the flames and I felt the anticipation that waved from him, from Elizabeth, become something thick and heavy in the air as everything suddenly clicked, a definitive lock in my head as pieces fell together.

“What’s the relic?” I asked into pregnant silence broken only by the occasional pop in the grate. “What’s the heart of the blade?” I’d held it so often, had felt its vibrations and carried its extension through the Aethyr, the Astral, on the Plains, and now it had a connection to a legend that my Da had died to prove had been brought to life.

I didn’t know if I was afraid of the answer, didn’t know if it would make sense, might fit into the puzzle in a way that would give a hint of the larger picture, but if it was worth my father’s life to find out, then it was worth my discomfort to ask.

When my guardian and teacher faced me again, his eyes seemed haunted.

“A nail,” he said finally, “a very old nail.”

*

In the week before Samhain, Cort and I spent the first three days traveling. It would have been a few hours’ ride, he told me, but there were more people to see and speak with on the way—the Inner Circle was being called and told the location as close to the time as possible.

As he explained to me on our way in a car he’d rented for that very purpose, any member about to be inducted to the Inner Circle faced, as he’d put it, “certain mortal peril,” which meant no riding about on my Vespa, no wandering around town without him, and pretty much no
anything
outside the apartment that was not under his very watchful gaze.

Thankfully, our very first stop would be Lyddie and Graham’s, and as we rode along through the traffic-congested streets, Cort explained some of the details of the Rite to come. I’d be asked to maintain a three-day vigil, a trance that he would monitor throughout, to face for the first time, truly alone, whatever waited out there on the Plain and to confront it as best I could, armed only with what I knew. I would be given breaks, small ones for essential food and water.

I nodded grimly, wondering if I’d be able to endure it and determined to no matter what. My Da had done it, and so had his mother, my grandmother, the woman neither of us had ever known.

“You’ll need a second,” Cort said.

“What’s a second?”

“Someone to follow you on your journey, to be the living recorder of what happens. And since I’m certain you’ll be nervous,” he cut his eyes toward me and gave me a grin, “to make sure you’ve been properly prepared, haven’t forgotten to tie a shoelace or some such, once the Rite begins.”

He answered my question before I spoke it. “No, it can’t be Fran—she has her own part to play.”

I wondered about that as we stepped into the building.

“The time and place have been decided,” Cort said when Lyddie opened the door.

She took my hands in hers and bowed her head over them. “I welcome the youngest of the Inner Circle to my home,” she said.

The words had the force of ritual behind them and I didn’t know how to respond.

At that moment, Graham stepped up and Cort clapped a hand on my shoulder.

“Well, ask him, then,” he said, and I could hear the humor in his tone. I glanced back up at him to see the briefest twinkle of amusement in his eyes.

I took a breath, not certain if I felt anything other than numb. “Graham…I need a second. Will you be mine?”

“To work with the Light Bearers,” he whispered reverently, eyes shining. “To be your second, your shield bearer? Yes, of course,” he answered and we shook hands to agree.

He pulled me into a strong hug which I returned. “I won’t let you down, brother,” he promised solemnly.

“I know you won’t.”

My second. With everything else that was about to happen, it was reassuring to have Graham with me.

Since Graham would stay with us for the next few days, we stayed long enough for him to pack the things he needed while Cort and Lyddie covered whatever details they had to, then he continued the journey with us as Cort took me through the rounds. They all greeted me in the same way Lyddie had.

“This isn’t everyone,” Cort said as we pulled back to the apartment. “There are a few—not all of them part of the Circle, but certainly part of the plan—you’ll meet the night of your sealing.”

I felt light-headed as we trooped up the stairs after we’d hung up our coats by the door, and even with the almost festive air during dinner after Graham had been shown his room, as well as the very real joy Fran and I shared later, I couldn’t help but lie awake even as I tried to force myself to sleep, not because I didn’t know what tomorrow would be, but because I did.

Everything I’d learned would be tested, would bring what had previously been practice, lecture, and exercise into a very visceral reality—a reality where my Da had been killed, not because he was a fireman in the line of duty, but because of this, the pursuit of a legend, a reality where innocents had been hurt, maimed, murdered, for sport, with greed—in fear for the protection of a secret I now knew only the most surface part of, a secret that put people I loved in danger.

The days that followed the Sealing would bring the search for the truth my father died for and the identity of whoever had killed the hound I’d hunted what seemed like ages ago on the Astral. Tomorrow would bring me closer still to the coming separation from Fran, from
everything
in so many ways. The future carried the sword I still wasn’t sure I could use or how, and the very real confidence that Cort and Elizabeth seemed to have that I could live up to whatever it
really
was that was expected of me. And the very real probability of a particularly violent death.

My Da had died to find a truth, my grandmother in a failed defense. I didn’t know how I could do or face
any
of that, and accomplish what they couldn’t. That…scared me.

I am the Hunter and Hunted,

I am the Wolf and the Shepherd,

I am the Vine and the Grain.

—The Charge of the God

Three days. Three days on my knees, maintaining the trance that would bring me through to the Astral, to the Plain. I traveled through the Aethyr, found spots of darkness that hid among the brighter lights that shone from healthy human life, ran with wolves through the Plain, was forced to wrestle something that looked like a bear only it had no fur. And throughout, the bright spark that was Graham was never too far in the distance.

Twice I came out of the trance with my nose bleeding freely while I ate blankly, drank enough water to maintain my system, then went back under.

I traveled through memories older than myself, fought and died with my family when they were attacked by Northmen who announced their presence by releasing herds of hogs to rampage through small towns and villages before they would strike, butchering all, letting the hogs root through the remains before they burned the rest; died and died again, shot through with a black and yellow feathered bolt that flew from an unseen hand rather than let my brother, recently handfasted and awaiting his first child, take it in his own body; shot again by my own hand in yet another land when I thought someone I’d dearly loved had died.

I saw them, saw them all, my family, my friends, my loves, different names and faces, different bodies and relationships, and saw clearly the connections through space and time, the inevitability of the past and how I’d come to my present. I understood the ancient word
wyrd
, the concept of karma, Fate, and when I grounded back to the Material, Cort’s voice sounded in the room.

“It’s time.”

My sealing was to be held in a semiabandoned warehouse off the docks, an ancient brick building still scarred from an explosion almost a generation ago.

I’d been dressed in white and waited by a fire that had been set in a large clay bowl as the Circle formed around me. All wore robes and three were hooded, shrouded from my sight. Somewhere far above my head and hidden in darkness, pigeons roosted and complained about their interrupted sleep.

I was handed a chalice that I passed to everyone else before I sipped. This wasn’t the same drink that had been given at Fran’s sealing. This was thick, spicy, and not quite as sweet, and I felt light, almost gauzy as the Circle closed around me.

“Let her summon the Elementals, complete the Circle,” a bass voice commanded.

When I turned to the directions the elements corresponded to, I made the request, not to the elements but to their Kings, as I’d been taught. As they manifested to the Material, they brought their attendants. The fire leapt with greater brightness, a gust of air blew the robes about, a spatter of rain struck the windows, and the stone vibrated under our feet.