The Colour of Death (41 page)

The chock of her father’s declaration must have breached the blockage in her memory because as she continued up the stairs she remembered her naïve thrill at being summoned to the tower for the first time, on the day she had fled the settlement.  She recalled the Seer leading her up the stairs, watching her closely, studying her reaction to the death echoes, his excitement increasing as hers turned to horror.  On the indigo level he had led her into the room where her mother had died — not from illness as her father had told her, but by his hand.

She recalled his words as clearly as if he was uttering them now:  “Your mother was an exceptional woman, Sorcha, and I owe her a great deal, but she refused to understand what I was trying to achieve in this tower.  She threatened to go to the authorities unless I stopped doing what I was doing, and, of course, I couldn’t allow that.  I couldn’t let anyone threaten the Great Work, not even Aurora.  I’m showing you this, Sorcha, because I want you to understand what’s expected of you.  In the past I’ve asked nothing of you but now I need you to take your place alongside Kaidan and contribute to the Great Work.”

Kaidan had appeared then and she remembered her father holding her down and ordering her half-brother to ‘Do it.  Do it, quickly.’  The memories surfaced faster now, like scenes from a film:  feeling Kaidan lying on her, heaving and panting; herself kicking and screaming as she fought against her father’s grip; Kaidan suddenly pulling back; their father turning on him and beating him; fleeing from the tower, pursued by Kaidan; running into Eve who helped her escape.

Now as she retraced her steps up the tower she wished she had listened to Fox.  In the top chamber, the amethyst plinth had been made up into a bed of immaculate white linen.  A ring of candles surrounded the glowing amethyst symbol on the floor.  Smoke curled in the soft violet light and the smell of incense hung in the air.  She noticed silk nooses like the one binding her wrists attached to each corner of the plinth and her anxiety surged.  As if on hot coals she ran across the glowing amethyst until she was on the plain stone, desperate to distance herself from the death echoes and that bed.  Fox followed and stood beside her, shoulder to shoulder.  The Seer gestured to Zara to remove their gags.  As soon as Sorcha could speak, she turned to her father:  “You can’t do this.”

Delaney turned to the Wives and the Watchers.  “Go down to the bottom and wait,” he told them.  “I’ll call you when we’re ready.”  When they had gone he turned back to her.  “I don’t want to do this, Sorcha.  But it’s the only way to take the Great Work to the next stage.”  He spoke so sincerely that for a second she allowed herself to think he had misgivings and genuinely didn’t want to do it.

“I’m your daughter,” she said.  Now her memory was returning she recognized Delaney as her father, rather than a stranger, making the prospect of incest even more repugnant.”

“It’s wrong.  You cannot do this.”

“How can purifying a bloodline be wrong?” Delaney said, picking up the family Bible from the white table and opening it to the family tree.  “We Delaneys did it in the past and have successfully kept the
mothú
in our bloodline for centuries.”

Fox shook his head.  “That doesn’t make it right.  Even if you ignore the morality of it, this will do the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve.  This will
weaken
your bloodline.  This makes no sense.”

Delaney frowned.  “If you bred thoroughbred horses you’d understand.”

“I do understand,” said Fox.  “Inbreeding has made thoroughbreds brilliant at one thing:  running fast.  But they’re riddled with other problems directly linked to their inbreeding.  Many have small hearts or are prone to breaking bones and bleeding lungs.  This is insane.”

“Did you know about this, Kaidan?” Sorcha said, vainly willing her tormentor to become a protector.  “Do you agree with this?”

Kaidan wouldn’t meet her eye but turned to the Seer.  “When did you decide to do this?  Today?  Or have you planned it for some time?”

A cruel smile curled Delaney’s lips.  “Don’t question me, Kaidan.  You should feel grateful.  You didn’t have the courage or the commitment to do this so I’m having to.  You said you’d support me in anything I decided to do, so long as I released you from doing
this
.  Remember?”  Kaidan nodded, subdued.  “Then let
me
decide what’s best for the Great Work.”

“But why?” Sorcha cried.  “I don’t understand.  What good can this do?”

Delaney sighed and smiled patiently at her.  “On the day you left I was glad Kaidan failed because I finally realized how important you were.  With you, I could complete the final part of the Great Work, which has many stages.  The first was simply to nurture indigos and appreciate our special heritage.  The second was to study the souls of the dead, which is why I built this tower.  I can’t connect like you do, Sorcha, because your
mothú
has evolved more than mine.  You merge with the souls and feel what they’re feeling — but I still sense them.  The third was to practice projecting my astral self from my physical body.  In the tower, when I have sex and reach orgasm my spirit leaves my body and dances with the souls trapped in here.  For a few fleeting moments, I throw off my earthly bonds and become pure spirit.  I become an angel again, a god.”

‘Bullshit,” said Fox.  “You might
feel
like that’s what’s happening, and you might
want
it to happen, but it’s not.  Don’t you understand?  It’s just your synaesthesia.  You aren’t really leaving your body, you just
feel
like you are.  It’s a neurological trick of the mind.  You aren’t communing with spirits or ghosts because there are no ghosts, only echoes.  This tower is nothing more than a jukebox of memories which, because of your synaesthesia, only you, Sorcha and Kaidan can play.  Sorcha feels the echoes more than you because she has empathy/  There’s only one reason you can’t feel the death echoes.  You have no empathy.  You’re a psychopath.”

The muscles clenched in Delaney’s jaw.  “Dr. Fox, you know nothing about this.  You’ve never experienced what I’ve experienced.  Before you met Sorcha you didn’t even know what a death echo was, so please don’t presume to lecture me on what is and isn’t real.  You’ll find out soon enough whether this tower contains the souls of the dying or just their memories — when I add
you
to my jukebox.”  He spat out the last word and turned back to Sorcha.  “Sorcha, these first three stages are but building blocks for the fourth, which is the ultimate aim of the Great Work.  And for this I need you.”

“What is the fourth stage?” she asked, feeling sick.  She glanced at Kaidan and Fox and could see both were listening intently.

“The fourth stage is to reclaim our divine legacy as descendants of the Grigori and the Nephilim, and become gods again.  The ultimate aim of the Great Work is to transcend death and become immortal.”

“How?”

“By reattaching the ageless astral body, the soul, to a new physical vessel.”

As she looked into her father’s eyes she could see that he totally and utterly believed in what he was saying.  “How?” she said again.

“The transmigration of souls works best with unborn babies and babies less than a month old, neonates.  They’re ideal because their physical bodies are so flexible and receptive.  As Dr. Fox no doubt knows, all newborns have synaesthesia, the
mothú
, for the first month of their lives, until their brains develop.  This means that every baby is born an indigo.  The only exceptions are those born beyond indigo.  You and Kaidan were both born violet — as was I.  The point is, there’s a window of time, from when a baby is in the womb to one month after its birth, when it’s an empty vessel, a receptive shell.  The physical body’s connection with its astral twin is still flexible, the silver cord is not fixed.  There’s a hole in their crown chakra — the anterior fontanelle.  You feel it as the soft spot on the top of a baby’s head.  This is the portal.”

He smiled.  “Although I can project my astral body at the moment of orgasm, it’s only fleeting.”  He pointed to himself.  “Because of the silver cord attached to my physical body I must always return to it.  If I’m to lead our people into the future and reclaim our divine inheritance I must transcend my aging physical body.  But when I cut the silver cord and reattach it to a brand new physical body it must be to the right one — a purer one.”

Sorcha’s mouth felt so dry she could hardly speak.  “What are you saying?”

“Our progeny will be the perfect physical vessel.  Your physical body already contains fifty percent of my DNA.  Our child would contain seventy-five per cent.  If you gave birth to a boy, I would have one month in which to take over the body.”

“How the hell would you do that?” said Fox.  His face no longer showed anger, just incredulity.

“When my astral self leaves my physical body at the moment of orgasm, I’ll arrange for my physical self to die.  This will sever the silver cord, freeing me from my old body.  I can then enter the crown chakra of the unborn baby or neonate and reattach my cord to this new vessel.  I will be reincarnated.”

“You really believe this?” said Sorcha.  “You would kill yourself in order to be born again?”

“Of course.  In order to be born again you have first to die.  If you gave birth to a boy I could astral-project into him and be reborn.”

She shook her head in disbelief.  “You’re saying I would give birth to you — my own father?”

“Yes.”  He smiled.  “If you gave birth to a girl I could take it even further.  I’m not yet sixty, I could wait till our daughter reached puberty, then inseminate
her
.  The child she gave birth to would be made up of eighty-seven-point-five per cent of my DNA.  I would be astral-projecting into a vessel that to all intents and purposes was a purer, better version of myself.  Just as Sorcha is purer than me, then this offspring will be purer than her — beyond indigo, beyond violet.  Pure white.  A god.”

“And that god will be you?” said Fox.

“Yes.”

“How do you even know Sorcha’s fertile tonight?”

“This is only the first impregnation.  We may need more.  But this is the most fertile time for all the women in the settlement.  Because of their constant close proximity to each other, all the women in the settlement eventually synchronize their cycles so they ovulate at the full moon.  If Sorcha had been away for more than a month it might have changed, but she hasn’t.”

Sorcha swallowed.  She knew he was right and that made her feel worse.  It was like he had already taken control of her body.  “So the Great Work has got nothing to do with the Indigo Family.  You took over this whole cult and built this damn tower just to create a new vessel for you?  Just so you could live forever?”

Delaney frowned, angry that she and Fox didn’t understand.  “No.  I’m doing this for them, for my people.  I’m simply leading the way.  I’m the pioneer, nothing more.  Because of my work all the Indigo Family will one day be masters of their spiritual selves.  They’ll become like the angels they’re descended from:  immortal.  We’ll
all
be immortal.  I’m merely the leader, taking the first step, making the initial sacrifice.”

“But it’s all fantasy,” said Sorcha.  “You
must
see that.”

“Haven’t you been listening to me?” Delaney said.  “We all have to make sacrifices, Sorcha — even you.  This is the only way ahead.  By  securing my immortality I can rekindle the Indigo Family’s divine heritage and secure its future.”

Fox stepped forward and tried one last time.  “Don’t do this, Regan.  If only because it won’t work.  It can’t work.  You’re basing everything — the belief that you’re descended from gods, the cult, the Great Work, the killings, incest — all of it, on a rare sensory anomaly, synaesthesia.  There’s no substance to any of it.  When you arrange for our body to die you
will
die.  Your soul won’t inhabit your child.  You will die.  You will be no more.  This is pointless and moronic.”

“Pointless and moronic?”  Delaney scowled at Fox, his face pure with rage.  “I’m sick of your certainties, Dr. Fox.  I hoped you could at least appreciate what I was trying to achieve.  I wanted you to understand.  But I can see you’re too stupid.  I don’t care what you think — any of you — because tonight you’ll see I’m right.”  He nodded to Kaidan.  “Call the others up.  It’s time.”

When Kaidan left, Delaney turned back to Fox.  “Let me explain what’s going to happen to you.  Tonight, we’ll both project onto the astral plane:  you through death, me through sex.  You’ll be taken to one of the indigo rooms where a plaque’s been allocated to you.  There you’ll be strangled with a silken garrote.  It’ll be slow and painful, I’m afraid.  A traumatic death is necessary to make a strong imprint.  Some of our early attempts were poor because my devoted followers died too willingly and painlessly.  The very first pioneers, in California, took their own lives — so eagerly and happily that they left virtually no imprint at all.”  He tapped the large lotus symbol on the floor beneath his feet.  “After your physical body has died, your astral body, the freshest imprint in the tower, will flow up the amethyst of this symbol to Sahasrara, the seventh chakra, where you’ll join all the other souls.  At midnight — the witching hour — I will lie with Sorcha here on the amethyst plinth.  As I impregnate her and leave my body I will find you.  We will dance, you and I, the dance of death.  But unlike you, Dr. Fox, I will return to the living.”

Chapter 63

As Kaidan approached, Sorcha moved closer to Fox.  “I’m so sorry I got you into this,” she whispered, voice cracking with emotion.  “I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to you.”

“Don’t worry about me,” he said.  “Everything I did I chose to do.  I wouldn’t have done anything differently.”  As Kaidan and the two Watchers pulled him away he said, “Don’t give up hope.”

Fox didn’t struggle or protest when they led him away.  There was little point:  they were too many and there was nothing more to say.  He caught Sorcha’s eye as the Wives closed in on her.  “It’ll be all right,” he mouthed.  She bravely nodded but he could see from the terror in her eyes that she didn’t believe what he was saying.  He wasn’t sure he believed it either.  Nevertheless, he felt strangely calm.  As they led him down the stairs he could feel the shard of glass he had taken from the smashed window hidden in the hem of his robes.  He glanced down at the tie binding his wrists and hoped that when he had fallen on the stairs and used the shard to cut the silk rope he had cut enough strands.