Summer's End (5 page)

October 27

Time Unknown

…First are the smells, my head is
flooded not just with the scent of cooking meat from the apartment below but
the half-wrapped chocolate bar I left on my desk, the jasmine soap from the
bathroom and the odd chemical tang of dishwashing liquid and detergent from the
kitchen (and how is it possible I’ve never noticed before how intense that is
and how it grates), I can feel every fiber of the carpet beneath my bare feet
and the air on the skin of my arms and face and the sounds—so many, so loud—the
sounds of music thumping from somewhere nearby, a helicopter whup-whup-whupping
overhead and a bass rumble which it takes me several seconds to identify as my
own heartbeat and I still taste the wine I drank an hour ago and the brightness
of my computer screen nearly forces me to turn my head away but it’s glorious,
a fire that glows unlike any we’ve seen before-and it is “we” now, because I
share these wonders with another who has fit into me like a sleek hand into a
glove, I can feel the energy she brings with her throbbing and pushing fire
through my limbs and she tests them, moves my arms and then my legs and we’re
outside, running through the October night, no shoes but it doesn’t matter
because nothing can hurt us, not the speeding cars that we leap away from,
clearing the hood of a parked truck as easily as stepping over a bump in the
ground, we run, reveling in the rush of our own blood as it flows through
muscles that she has made flexible and fit, it’s not just the
particle-thickened Los Angeles air we can feel on our flesh and within our
lungs, but we can feel the veil, too, the membrane that separates our worlds,
we can almost glimpse what lies beyond it, the grimacing
sidh
and the
shadowy dead ones, the things with shifting form like smoke and with black
hearts that seek to suck and devour, and we see how thin that veil is, because
it’s almost the end of the month (of summer, and of the year), it’s only a few
nights from Samhain, when that skin will be thinnest, and one with craft—one
like a Druid—could reach past, yet that world doesn’t interest us right now
because we’ve heard something coming from one of the intersecting streets ahead
of us, a voice raised in anger, and that tone reacts within her like a
flammable chemical set on fire so we follow, moving so quickly that the houses
and apartment complexes and parked cars are a blur, we run three blocks to
where the buildings are a little older, a little more in need of repair, and
coming from a bottom-floor apartment is the voice of a man shouting obscenities
at a woman, who offers nothing but weak, sobbing responses, and we draw closer,
standing outside the door of the apartment, listening, and something within crashes
and shatters, and the woman cries out, and then the door is flying open (it was
so easy to break its flimsy lock), and there’s a man, young, heavyset, wearing
a stained T-shirt, drawing back a fist, but the woman is already bleeding from
the nose, her eyes wide as she sees us, and he turns and swings at us instead;
we catch the blow and laugh at the expression on his face as we squeeze his
hand, grinding the fingers against each other until he screams; we force him
down while the woman stands back, silent now, staring in disbelief; with our
other hand we strike him again, in the temple, and he wobbles but doesn’t fall,
and I know one more blow will kill him and we’re pulling back our arm a second
time, and I know I can stop this now, I can take control and we can leave,
return home before we take this man’s life, leave him to prey upon her until
she dies at 28 or 32 or (unlikely) 40, beaten down and used up, but I don’t
stop it, I want to feel this happening, to rid the world of this abuser and to
know what death feels like; so I let her draw back our fist and bring it down
again and this time his eyes roll up and he falls like a butchered steer, and
we can no longer hear his breath or his heart so we know he’s dead, and we turn
to the woman, and  I understand that by tomorrow she will describe us as a
male, six feet tall and tattooed, and we turn to leave, half-drunk on violence,
and
her
influence is ebbing as she takes us home again on middle-aged
legs that pump now with a failing rhythm, as we reach home I notice the blood
on my fingers and the panic I feel is mine alone and she leaves then, and in
that instant, when all that she brought with her is suddenly taken from me, my
legs give way and my eyes lose focus and…

October 28

Day

…The first thing I noticed when I woke
up in the morning was how much my hands hurt.

Then I realized I’d fallen
asleep fully dressed on the couch in the living room. I sat up, aching from the
cushions, bleary-eyed, blinking against morning sun. I raised a hand to rub
away the sleep—and saw the blood crusted across my fingers.

I…
we
…killed a man last
night.

The memories washed through me,
a toxic rain poisoning whatever it touched. I remembered all of it.

Or did I?

I ran to my computer and
googled “North Hollywood Crime News.” The search took me to a local news
station’s updates…and there it was, under the headline “NORTH HOLLYWOOD MAN
FOUND DEAD BY ABUSED WIFE, SUSPECT SOUGHT.” They were looking for a male,
approximately six feet tall, medium build, brown hair.

It had happened. Exactly as I
remembered it, down to the Morrigan using her influence to guarantee the wife’s
unwitting complicity.

There was something else there:
Last night, I’d apparently typed the account of the possession, while it was
still fresh.
^[15]
I had only a vague memory of doing it, in some sort of dreamlike state.

I ran to the bathroom, turned
on the shower, and stepped in, still clothed. There wasn’t much blood on
me—mainly on my hand, and some of that was mine—but I still planned on washing
these clothes after, then driving to some distant dumpster and disposing of
them.

As the hot water flooded over
me, turning pink when it swirled around the drain, I began to remember more.
The Morrigan had left me with thoughts tucked away, thoughts I pulled forth as
I relaxed beneath the steady warmth:

I saw, clearly, an archaic,
idyllic settlement, perched on a green hill. Spacious houses built of wood and
stone clustered about a palace ornamented in gold; I recognized the geometric
spiral ornamentation as Celtic in origin. Smoke curled from a hundred chimneys,
the people wore heavy torques over fine robes, and they glowed with health and
happiness. I understood that an old man, still hardy, his white beard and a few
wrinkles the only clues to his longevity, was more than 150 years old. I saw a
school where young men and women studied history and lore, and I felt a strange
kinship with them.

This was Mongfind’s world,
before the invaders came.

Another memory appeared in my
mind’s eye, and I saw a Samhain ritual. A great cake was prepared, cut into
small portions, and one portion was rubbed with charcoal on the bottom.
Warriors and young nobles lined up to choose pieces, and when a handsome young
man turned his over to find the blackened underside, he smiled and received the
congratulations of those around him. At night, the Druids led him to a pond;
there, as he stood quietly, dressed in the finest jewels and raiments, they
began the Samhain ritual. Mongfind and Mog Roith used chalk dust to draw a
protective circle around those present, while they invoked sanctuary. First,
the two Arch-Druids offered a black sheep; they moved in perfect, long-practiced
unity, and the animal died almost instantly. Then, with great dignity, Mongfind
knotted a rope about the neck of the handsome young man as she chanted a prayer
to Bal-Sab, the Lord of Death. At a signal from her, the sacrifice knelt by the
side of the bog, his expression serene. Mog Roith stepped up, and while she
tightened the noose, her male counterpart thrust a ceremonial dagger into the
young man’s chest; then, together, they pushed his head down beneath the waters
of the bog. He was, in effect, simultaneously hanged, stabbed, and drowned,
satisfying the classic Druidical obsession with the number three.

With the sacrifices completed,
a weight filled the air. The fires ringing the bog darkened; even Mongfind was
plainly unnerved.

Bal-sab had come.

I felt Mongfind’s anxiety as
she waited with the others. The air literally thickened, pressurized; one young
man’s knees buckled and he sank to the soggy ground, gasping. A noxious odor
arose, the scent of spilled blood and decayed corpses. Mongfind fought back an
urge to gag, then withdrew her own knife, ready to offer herself should the
protective circle prove insufficient.

Seconds passed like small
eternities. The future hung on this void; if it found the offerings unworthy,
it could release horrors beyond death on the people. Mongfind offered up silent
prayers to the other gods, but this was Bal-sab’s moment.

The dark god’s overpowering
presence vanished abruptly, and the gathered Druids all exhaled in relief. Bal-sab
had accepted the sacrifices, and ensured another year of prosperity for his
worshippers. A feast would commence now, and even if the
sidh
should
cross over, Mongfind and Mog Roith would be ready. The Celts would enjoy
another year of prosperity, until next Samhain.

Samhain…Halloween…four days
away.

I finished the shower, dressed,
walked to the living room on legs gone numb, didn’t even correct myself when I
missed the couch and sagged to the floor.

True. All of it, true.

The Morrigan had possessed me
last night, and together we’d committed murder. I’d just washed our victim’s
blood from my hands, and yet that wasn’t what had taken the feeling from me and
dropped me:

I couldn’t deny what had
happened last night—any of it. There was a world beyond ours—a world of violent
gods and ancient magic and hunger for human life. History is a lie and reality
a thin sheet, beyond which we sometimes glimpse shadows that strut and grasp at
us. Nothing in Mongfind’s journal was fantasy or deception; it was the truth,
not what I’d spent my life experiencing and believing.

And ó Cuinn…he’d known exactly
which spell to send me to, the one that would provide an encounter so intimate
that even the most confirmed of skeptics wouldn’t deny it. This couldn’t be
explained away as a cheap Halloween mask, or even the finest special effects trick
created by a master wizard.

Or could it?

I still couldn’t accept it
completely. A drug, perhaps; certain psychotropics were widely used to induce
ecstatic states. Could ó Cuinn have somehow slipped me something? I thought
back to everything I’d eaten and drunk yesterday—tea from my own supply, Thai
food from the same restaurant I ate at twice a week, wine from a bottle I’d
just opened. It didn’t seem likely, but…

What if he hadn’t tampered with
my food? That meant he was right—that we were both Druids, that he had called
up the
sidh
…

That they’d murdered Wilson
Armitage.

Had ó Cuinn meant that to
happen? Or had he been unable to control his guests once they’d arrived here?

After some time I found the
strength to rise, and resolved to continue with my schedule as planned. I’d
taken this week off from my day job as a bookseller to focus on my Halloween
commitments, and I wouldn’t abandon those now. I had a phone interview set up
with the BBC in thirty minutes—I’d be damned if I’d give that up now because I’d
had a psychedelic trip into fairyland.

Even as I thought that, I hoped
I wouldn’t be damned for other reasons.

October 28

Evening

I managed to get through the day
somehow. In between interviews and answering e-mails, I packed last night’s
clothes into a trash bag, drove to an alley thirty minutes away, found an open
dumpster, tossed the bag in and came home again.

Night fell, and I drove to Dark
Delicacies, a nearby genre specialty bookstore, for a signing. I didn’t like
the idea of being out at night, but this wouldn’t be like walking across a
large, empty campus; even if I had to park a short distance from the store, I’d
be walking past stores on a heavily-trafficked street.

The signing was pleasant if
under-attended (aren’t they all), and afterward I ended up walking with friends
to a coffee shop two blocks away, where we gabbed over tea and dessert. For an
hour or so, I was able to forget about goddesses and murder and pagan rituals,
as we lost ourselves in the simple, mundane pleasures of gossip and jokes.

At 11 p.m. (how had it gotten
to be that late?), the shop closed up and kicked us out, we said our goodbyes
on the sidewalk, and I turned to head for my car, now parked several blocks
away. It was late enough that the stores had closed, and few cars drove by. In
the distance I could hear the ever-present sound of sirens (in an area as big
as L.A., there’s always a catastrophe happening somewhere) and the thrum of
freeway congestion.

I came to an intersection, and
even though I couldn’t see any approaching cars, I waited for the crosswalk
light to turn green—the last thing in the world I needed right now was for a
hidden cop to nab me for jaywalking.

“I’m really sorry, officer,
and—what? No, that’s not blood under my fingernails, of course not…” My
rational mind assured me that there was no visible blood beneath the nails of
the hands I’d scrubbed until they were raw and red, but I still wasn’t taking
any chances. I waited.

The shop on the corner was one
of those little cluttered gift shops, the kind that you glance in and you can’t
imagine buying any of this kitschy nonsense and you wonder how they stay in
business. Because it was Halloween, their front display windows were full of
little papier mâché pumpkins (some were sprayed with glitter or even wore
little aprons, which offended my highly-honed sense of Halloween decorum), cute
witch and cat figurines, and gingerbread-scented candles. There were Halloween
salt shakers and mugs and hand towels.

Near the bottom was a
jack-o’-lantern that made me stop and stare. It was white, almost the size of a
real pumpkin, and lit with some sort of reddish glow from within. It also bore
one of the most grotesquely carved faces I’d ever seen—eyes with knitted brows,
a huge snaggletoothed grin, and two slits for a nose. It didn’t begin to match
the other items in the window, all of which would have been more at home in an
Anne Geddes photo book than a Stephen King novel, and it was the only piece
that seemed to be lit.

I was bending down to look more
closely at it when it moved. It turned and looked directly up at me.

Now I knew why it looked
familiar. I’d seen it before, outside the window of ó Cuinn’s office.

But this time it didn’t vanish
abruptly—I think it wanted me to see it. Its rictus grin widened, spilling even
more crimson light out around it, although I couldn’t make out the rest of its
body. I took one, two steps back—

HOONNNK! I’d backed right into
the street, and hadn’t even noticed the car barreling through the intersection.
Heart hammering, I leapt back up onto the curb and the car sped off into the
night.

When I looked back at the
window, the face was gone.

It was coming for me.

Fuck it—I ran, then, ran
against the red light and regardless of who might see me and wonder what I was
running from. I didn’t look into any of the other windows I passed, or listen
for the sound of tiny footsteps coming up behind me, closer and closer…I ran,
digging into my purse as I neared my car, trying to find my keys which always
fell to the bottom of the voluminous bag, requiring precious extra seconds to
dig them out—

I had them. I flipped up the
car key, jammed it into the lock, threw the door open, and fell into the front
seat. I slammed the door behind me, pressed the lock button—and flinched as
something hit the door outside hard, making the whole car shake. I heard a
high-pitched squeal.

 Somehow I managed to get the
right key into the ignition, start the car, and take off, burning rubber. I’d
driven two blocks before I realized the parking brake was still on. I ran one
stoplight (got lucky), then risked a glance in the rearview mirror.

Nothing but a quiet street of
closed shops. A few headlights in the distance. Nothing chasing me, no sign of
anything unusual.

Five minutes later I was home.
I waited a few moments before I opened the car door—what if it had somehow
attached itself to the car, or followed where I couldn’t see it? Did it even
need normal laws of physics? Could it simply wish itself here, to continue its
mischief…or worse?

When it proved quiet, I opened
the door and stepped out. Still safe. Closing the door, I glanced down—and saw
a dent in the door panel.

So much for the drugged theory.

I walked, fast, to my front
door, got in, closed it behind me and checked all the locks, then collapsed
onto the couch. I’m not used to adrenaline rushes, and I was surprised to
realize I was shaking. My little tortoiseshell cat, Roxie, helped by sitting at
my ankles and mewing at me in gentle concern. The simple act of stroking her
warm back and feeling her purr beneath my touch calmed me. We sometimes forget
the power of the most common acts, don’t we? This ancient communion with
another species, something that has been part of human life for thousands of
years, was its own kind of magic, with a peculiar power to restore and heal.

The phone rang, jarring me from
my brief peace. I got up, stepped around Roxie, and checked caller ID—it was
Ricky, calling from North Carolina.

Hearing his voice was another
gift, but—after exchanging the usual greetings—his message was disturbing. “I
had the strangest thing happen tonight, and I knew you’d appreciate this.”

The film had put their cast and
crew up in a nice hotel in downtown Wilmington. Ricky had a room on the fifth
floor, and we’d already joked about how they called the view from his window
“Cape Fear Riverfront.” It was too bad he wasn’t making a horror movie.

“I had this nice dinner tonight
with a couple of guys from the crew—we found this little seafood place you’d
love—and then I came up to my room. I was just getting ready for bed when I
thought I heard something on the other side of the window, so I looked—and
there was some kind of strange face out there. I only got a glimpse of it
before it disappeared. It must have been one of the guys punking me, because
they know about you and Halloween—at least that’s all I can figure.”

Cold rushed through me,
freezing me to the spot. “What did this face look like?”

“Well, that was kind of the
giveaway: It looked like a jack-o’-lantern. I figure they probably picked up
one of those battery-operated things that are in all the stores right now and
lowered it down on a line. In fact, it was probably Dave from Effects—he’s been
teasing me all week.”

A jack-o’-lantern. Of course.
It was so obvious, and yes I’d missed it—they looked too much like malevolent,
glowing jack-o’-lanterns for it to be sheer coincidence.

“Hon…you there?”

“Sorry. Long day. You’re not
going out again tonight, right?”

“No. Why?”

What could I say? That what
he’d seen hadn’t been a cheap Halloween prop; that he was being threatened by
otherworldly forces because of me? Because of something that an Irish
archaeologist in Los Angeles had unleashed? Something that pulverized the
well-ordered, rational world we both believed in…or at least, used to believe
in?

And then there was his job—this
film was important to both of us. It was a good supporting role in a serious
movie, with a young writer/director who we liked and admired. And, frankly, the
money would make our lives much easier. If I told him now I was in trouble,
he’d leave the movie and come home. We couldn’t afford that…and frankly, I
wasn’t ready to involve him in this. There was only one person who could help,
and I would need to deal with him alone.

“Just be careful.”

“Are you okay?” He knew me too
well, and his warmth thawed the chill that had paralyzed me.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just another
long day.”

We spent the rest of the call
talking about my signing, the interview I’d given today to a Montreal radio
station, a nice customer review that had gone up at Amazon for my book. We said
the things that parted lovers have said to each other, in letters, on phones,
in text messages, for centuries. Then we hung up.

I checked the locks again,
risked a glance outside, and decided to try to sleep, even though I knew it was
unlikely. And if I did…would my dreams leave me more exhausted and unsettled in
the morning?