The Graves of Saints (18 page)

He rolled it around in his mind, feeling eyes on him. Everyone in the room watched him, curious and wary.

‘It
is
my call,’ Octavian said at last. ‘It’s your team. Task Force Victor is yours. But if you give the order for them to go ahead and Cortez
is
there,
and they lose him . . . I’ll hold you responsible, Leon. You know I’m the best chance you have of getting this guy, exposing his coven and whatever his big plan is and exterminating
them. You really don’t think your people can do surveillance for twelve, fourteen hours, until I can be there?’

Metzger fumed for a moment. Then he cleared his throat and gestured for the woman seated at the laptop in front of him to rise.

‘Go,’ Metzger said, glancing up at the rest of his team. ‘Give us the room, please.’

The staff seemed surprised. They were clearly performing certain vital duties, though the real battles were taking place a continent away. For Metzger to dismiss them in the midst of their work
was foolish. All of that, just to save face?

‘If you wanted a private chat, you could’ve just come to see me,’ Octavian said. ‘You’re inconveniencing a lot of people to save yourself the trouble of walking
down the hall and knocking on my door.’

Metzger waited for everyone to clear out, not speaking until, at last, the door clicked shut, leaving just the two of them and the hum of the laptops in the room.

Then the commander furrowed his brow and glared at Octavian.

‘What the fuck are you still doing here?’

Octavian cocked his head and gave a little laugh, restraining himself. ‘Excuse me?’

‘You have my sympathies, Peter, but I’m done pretending this is anything less than a callous indulgence on your part.’

‘Look, if Cortez is there and he tries to leave, the strike team will—’

Metzger threw up his hands. ‘Christ, I’m not talking about Cortez! I’m talking about demonic incursions. I know you want to put Nikki to rest, but you could have postponed the
funeral until this is all over. That should’ve been the first thing you did when I told you what was happening in France. Do you have any idea how many people have been killed? Never mind the
ruin of homes and businesses and parts of French history. And you’re just fucking brooding.’

Octavian shook, his skin prickling with the power that rippled through him.

‘You’re pissed. I get it. What are you going to do, kill me?’ Metzger went on, pointing to Octavian’s hands. ‘Blow me through the wall? Burn a hole through me? Turn
me into a goddamn toad?’

Octavian looked down at his hands, clenched and unclenched his fists, unable to draw back the dark, gold-black magic that crackled and sparked around them.

‘I want to kill
Cortez
.’

Metzger threw up his hands. ‘And yet here you are! Stewing in a hotel room. People are dying. Somewhere this Cortez asshole is laughing at you. We both know that’s why he killed her,
just to piss you off. He wanted to poke the bear. But what does he get in return? Nothing. A statue, sitting in a room. You might as well be made of stone, the middle of a fountain somewhere, birds
shitting on your head, for all the good you’re doing the world right now.’

‘The world is not my problem!’ Octavian roared, roiling the air with power that cracked the television and knocked two laptops off the table, sending papers flying everywhere.

‘It’s still your world. The only one you’ve got,’ Metzger said, ignoring the destruction.

‘Don’t tell me how to grieve, Commander. Don’t you presume—’

‘I didn’t know your lady, but I’m betting she’d be feeling sick right about now. Probably turn over in her grave if she knew what you were letting happen in
Europe.’

A chill went through Octavian and an icy numbness came over him. The magic buzzing around his fists diminished and he exhaled. How had his life come to this? Why did this weight sit so squarely
upon his shoulders?

‘We’ve been through this,’ he said. ‘I’ve put in the calls. You’ve got mages on site in France, people I trust, not to mention fucking armies. I’m not
the only man in the world who can do something about this.’

Metzger lowered his voice. ‘Maybe not, but you’re the guy we need.’

Octavian shook his head and turned to leave. ‘There’s no funeral mass. Just a graveside blessing and a burial at half past eight tomorrow morning. I don’t want anyone to die,
but I won’t bear the responsibility for them when you’ve got the French army, UN Security Forces, and Task Force Victor on site, plus two very capable sorcerers.’

‘After which, you go hunting for Cortez.’

Feeling deflated, Octavian turned to face him again. ‘I’m not a monster, Commander. I’m gathering my own people, Shadows and otherwise. The funeral will be over in twelve
hours, probably less. The second it’s done I’ll send more help to Saint-Denis, and if they’re not enough, and if we don’t find Cortez in this nest in New York, then yes, I
will put off joining the hunt for him long enough to go and try to handle the incursion myself. But it shouldn’t have to come to that. You have all the tools to deal with this incursion. Do
your job. The French will love you like you’re Clint Eastwood. Maybe you’ll get a medal.’

‘It’s not just France,’ Metzger said.

Octavian froze in mid-turn. ‘Excuse me?’

Metzger frowned. ‘You didn’t know? I thought Allison would have told you. There’s another incursion, this time in Italy.’

‘Rome?’

‘Siena. The basilica there, just like in Saint-Denis,’ Metzger said. ‘We’re sending local law enforcement to check on every cathedral and basilica in Europe and putting
out warnings to the rest of the world as well.’

Something niggled at the back of Octavian’s mind. ‘You think it’s as simple as that? We’ve got incursions coming through major churches, okay. But why these two?
They’ve got to have something else in common. If it was just that they’re churches, I think we’d have a hell of a lot more of this happening.’

Metzger nodded. ‘Of course I’ve got people looking into that.’

Octavian didn’t reply. He narrowed his eyes, thinking, sifting through what he knew of Siena and Saint-Denis, of the basilicas there. There had to be something more. The demons they were
dealing with weren’t going to choose churches just to make a point. These were monstrous evils that hibernated or thrived in a thousand hells in realities parallel to this one; most of them
were possessed of little more than savage intelligence. Even the smart ones weren’t going to do anything for dramatic effect. They were full of hunger or hatred or both, all base desires. All
they wanted was to break through. With the wakening of Navalica, they would have become aware that the human world’s defenses were failing and they would have sought the weakest part of the
barriers to force their way through. They—

He looked up, staring at Metzger. ‘I’ve got it.’

‘Well give it to me, then.’

‘The Gospel of Shadows is lost, but I spent centuries studying it. The Vatican sorcerers who created the barriers against the supernatural, who banished those things from the world . . .
what they did was like weaving, and there had to be someplace to tie the knot.’

‘What the hell—’

Octavian hushed him with a wave. ‘Better yet, think of them like gates. You build a fence, you always have a gate. And gates need locks. The places where the Vatican sorcerers cast their
defense spells were the places where you’d find these locks. But it’s been so long since anyone was paying attention to them that they’re rusty. The locks. The hinges. The gates
themselves. Those are going to be the weakest spots, now. And if you want to crash through, that’s where you’re going to try first.’

Metzger nodded, processing the information. ‘You’re saying the basilicas – or cathedrals or whatever – they’re the places the spells were done way back when? The
rusty gates?’

‘Not the cathedrals,’ Octavian said. ‘It’s the crypts.’

‘What?’

‘The head of Saint Catherine is buried in a crypt in Siena. The head of Saint Denis is in that basilica in France.’ Octavian looked up. ‘I don’t remember all of them, but
you find saints known to have been beheaded. Those are the Vatican sorcerers’ gates. You want to figure out where the demons are going to come through next, you locate the graves of headless
saints.’

Brattleboro, Vermont

Tori had always loved the autumnal equinox for its meditations on gratitude. Over the past century, the comparatively small earthwitch community – the true elementals,
they sometimes called themselves – had co-opted bits and pieces of ritual from other pagan groups’ ceremonies. But they all recognized that harvest season was a time to be grateful for
what the goddess provided and for all of the blessings in one’s life. At the same time, there was a melancholy air about the arrival of the dark season, an acknowledgement that every season
of growing must come to an end, that every summer leads to winter, tempered by the joyful knowledge of spring’s rebirth.

Bittersweet, then. Like life. Tori had seen ugliness and cruelty in her life, but had found far more joy and beauty, and she believed that was both her choice and her gift . . . to be open to
receiving the beauty that her life and her world had to offer.

Taking in a deep breath of the cool September air, she exhaled with a smile and glanced around the circle at her sisters and brothers who had made the pilgrimage to be here with her and Cat
tonight. Her heart ached that Keomany was not among them, but she was so happy to have Heather and Jaleesa, Vicky and Ella, and so many of the others there with them.

The move to the clearing behind Row 46 had gone well. It wasn’t the perfect location, the ground not quite as aesthetically pleasing and the apple trees not quite as robust, but it would
do nicely. The altar had been built from boards cut from the oldest tree at Summerfields, the cloth that covered it handwoven by Ella, a gift at last year’s celebration.

They had sung and danced and passed cups of wine around the circle, then poured the rest of the wine into the earth as a blessing. Now each of the earthwitches held up the apples they had been
given when the ritual began and the small ceremonial dagger each of them had brought along. The daggers were special to each of them, etched with personal thoughts or the names of dead loved ones,
handles decorated with dried husks or polished stones or twines of hair from beloved pets or children, so that they were an extension both of earthwitch and earth mother, of human and goddess.

Cat moved to the center of the circle. There were late season flowers in her hair and she wore only the sheerest, plainest white dress, which clung to her every curve in alluring fashion.
Tori’s heart quickened at the sight of her, and she smiled.
Look at that dress,
she thought.
And she wonders why I get horny during these things.

She knew some pagan circles engaged in sexual rituals during these celebrations, but she’d never known earthwitches to go that far. Nudity, yes – Jaleesa was gloriously naked even
now, the moonlight gleaming on her dark skin – but that was a personal choice, related to sexuality but not to sex. No one would be fucking in this circle.

At least not until later,
Tori thought, almost giggling.

What is wrong with you? Focus!

She inhaled deeply. Exhaled, and a new sadness settled over her. No, she was lying to herself. This sorrow had not just arrived; she had been carrying it with her all day. The new growth in the
other clearing – the secret they had kept from the eyes of passersby with a makeshift fence – gave her a hope of which she dared not speak. Surely part of it was Keomany, but until they
knew precisely what it was, she would still grieve. Would the thing in the clearing, that wood sprite rooted to the soil, open its eyes and speak to them? Would it know them?

Tori knew she was meant to be focused on her gratitude and on the balance that the goddess gave the world, but she found it so difficult. Her thoughts kept slipping, her subconscious distracting
her. Tonight they celebrated the equinox, recognized that they were halfway through the wheel of the year. Despite the gifts of the harvest, it was a time of endings, and the beginning of a turn
toward darkness. They spoke prayers to the goddess, Gaea, the soul of the Earth, thankful for abundance and hopeful that others who were less fortunate would receive abundance of their own. They
recognized the balance between light and darkness, standing precipitously in this moment when the sun and shadow were equal partners.

But Keomany was dead, and this new thing was growing in her place. What would it mean when
it
was ready to be harvested?

The sound of Cat clearing her throat made Tori blink and glance around. She’d been ruminating and had missed her cue. The prayer was done and the others were cutting their apples. With a
nervous smile, trying to reassure Cat that she was all right, she pushed her dagger through the skin of the apple. The juice ran down onto her hand and the bittersweet smell filled her nostrils,
and somehow that made it all right.

She exhaled again, focusing on the apple. It would be all right. Whatever was happening to Keomany, it had to be what Gaea wanted, and that would be what was for the best. She cut through the
apple, evenly separating the top from the bottom and tossing the bottom half so that it rolled toward the altar. Two dozen apple halves collected around Cat’s feet.

Tori held up the top half of the apple, looking at the five-pointed star pattern left behind when the core had been halved. The wind picked up and she felt a refreshing, cleansing chill.
Shivering, she turned the sliced part of the apple toward the center of the circle, as did all of the gathered earthwitches, so that each of them could see the others’ fruit.

‘We have come to the dusk of the year, my friends,’ Cat began, loudly enough so they could all hear. ‘The moment of balance is upon us. Thankful for all the goddess has given
us, we approach the season of long nights by offering our respect to dark mother winter, that we may – like bare branches on Gaea’s tree – blossom once more in spring.’