DARKNESS EVOLVES Chapter Eight
Daniel and Chris were both passed out on the bed. I limped into the bathroom and took a long, hot shower. Then I soaked a face-towel in warm soapy water and cleaned up Daniel's penis. He didn't so much as twitch as I did it. After that I went into the living room to put away the leftovers and switch off the music. I turned the lights off and came back to the bedroom.
The alarm clock next to Chris' bed flashed 9:15. It was still too early. I turned off the lights and slipped into the bed between the two sleeping men.
For the next two hours I lay in the darkness, listening to my brother and Chris as they slept. Neither stirred when I finally got up to stand naked at the foot of the bed.
In front of me was a wall. I channeled the Darkness I had taken from them and touched the wall with the tips of my fingers. Because I willed it and knew the way, color and substance ran out of the wall and it became a window. This was a lot harder than looking through Daniel's painting. The place I was peering into resisted uninvited visitors.
It was an underground oval room. The room's curving walls were highly polished stone, like you'd see in the lobby of a swanky office building. Discreet sconces cast cool ambient light. Inset in the stone floor in silver thread was a large ellipse. At regular intervals around the outside edge of the ellipse, also in silver inset, were the twelve signs of the western zodiac. Inside the ellipse, at one of its two foci, was the sign of the thirteenth zodiac, Ophiuchus.
Standing on Ophiuchus was Katerina, the coven mistress. Around her, each on a different sign, stood the members of the Estrella first line. Only half of the zodiac was occupied; the coven had been running lean for decades.
At the other focus of the ellipse, on top of an obsidian pedestal, sat a chunk of natural quartz. In the secret grimoires of the Estrella lineage, that jagged lump of quartz is called the Crystal Palace. Among themselves the first line just call it the Stone.
Grantie Rose was the first to notice me. "Brother Dark!" she clapped her hands.
The rest of them turned.
Within the polished stone wall, a ghostly image in a ghostly mirror, I appeared naked before them.
"Cousin," Katerina greeted me, her expression unreadable. If she was surprised that I could manifest here, in the Estrella covum sanctorum, she didn't show it.
"Cousin," I replied.
We looked at each other.
"Joseph, are you all right?" Aunt Vivana broke the silence.
"Yes, Aunt Vivana."
"What about Daniel?" asked Amber. "Is he ... ?"
"He's okay."
She sagged in relief.
"Why are you here?" asked Katerina.
"I need help."
She nodded slowly. "What kind of help?"
"What do you know about the attack?"
"We've been searching, but so far not much. No one in the Family was involved."
"Really?" I turned to look at Opal. Her eyes narrowed into a glare.
"No Estrella was involved," Katerina repeated. She pointed at the cross around my neck, the only thing I was wearing. "Is it still bound?"
"Yes. Why?"
"A demon caused the plane crash."
"I know. You thought it was mine?"
"No. The signs are that this one's a fiend."
Demons are all basically alike in their nastiness. But they have their preferred diets. My darkfather had been an incubus; it fed off lust. A fiend feeds off aggression and violence.
"It's possessed the Internet," I said. "We're hiding from it, but we don't have any money. We need some cash so we can stay out of sight for a while."
Katerina turned to Sherietta. "Sister?"
Her older sister nodded. "I can get ten thousand in twenties and fifties from the office safe tomorrow morning. For more than that we'll have to wait until Monday." She frowned. "If it is true that the Internet now has an indweller, we'll have to maneuver carefully."
"Ten thousand is okay," I said.
"How shall we get it to you?"
I looked back at Opal. "Do you remember the bar where you first met Daniel?"
She nodded, still glowering.
"Can you meet me there tomorrow afternoon?"
"Oh, please. You've got to be joking."
I didn't answer.
The glower gave way to something else. She glanced nervously at Katerina.
"Will she be safe?" Vivana asked me.
"That depends."
"On what?"
"On what she did, the night she left the Valley after the convocation."
Opal's eyes went wide as saucers.
"This is bullshit," Brenette snorted. "Kat, he called you cousin,' not mistress.' You brought him into the Family and he hasn't even acknowledged you as head of the lineage. Now he's spouting this crap about a demon living inside the Internet. I don't care if he is a kick-ass sorcerer, he's still a dangler and a runt. Why are you letting him talk to you this way?"
"Peace, Brea," interrupted Amber, "he's just lost his home. I'll do it, if Opal doesn't want to."
As the others talked, Katerina continued to watch me. Something about the tilt of her head made me pretty sure that she was listening to the Stone.
The Stone is a spirit trap, similar to the one the coven created to imprison my demon. Only the Stone is bigger and it doesn't hold demons. It holds the shades of the past mistresses. They're all in there, like my mother's shade is inside me, only stretching back for generations. Katerina was probably getting an earful from Momma Lolotta.
Her gaze broke from me and slid to our great aunt. "Grantie Rose?" she asked.
The old lady raised her hands, like she wasn't sure whether she wanted to pull me close or push me away. "They are our ark," she said.
Great aunt Rose isn't as senile as she looks. Her problem is that she's a prophetess. That's a rare talent these days and it's always been a tricky one. There's a limit to how much the future can be predicted. The basic orderliness of the lightside of the universe pushes back against the manipulations of Darkness. People who see far down the time-paths, like Rose does, have a hard time interacting with the here-and-now. Communication with others becomes garbled. It's another of the Dark Mysteries: the more you can view of the future, the less influence over it you have. Grantie Rose sees too much. She's a Cassandra.
Katerina nodded. She doesn't have the foresight that Rose does, but she pays attention.
She locked gazes with me again. "Amber, get the money from Sherietta and meet him there. Is there anything else, cousin?"
"Yes. Whoever's behind this is going to be sorry. Protect yourselves; stay out of my way."
"Vengeance is thy sword," Grantie Rose smiled sweetly at me, "but love is our shield."
I swept my arm up and around, like I was throwing a cape over myself, and severed the connection. The window became a wall again.
All in all, that had gone pretty well. I wasn't certain that we'd need the cash, but we might. I didn't want to rely too much on our host. Chris was expendable.
It was feeling more and more likely that the source of the attacks was entirely demonic, and that no humans were involved. There's plenty of demons out there. They're messing with the world and getting bottled up by witches all the time. They figure out ways to get unbottled and go right back to messing with the world all over again. It's like a giant game of magical cops and robbers.
But the things I'd been doing to my darkfather weren't normally part of the game. The other demons probably hadn't liked that. Maybe one of them had decided to do something about it.
We all slept together in Chris' bed. Even though I didn't wake until mid-morning, I was still the first one to get up. Usually Daniel's up before me, but he was still recovering from last night. Chris probably wouldn't stir for hours.
I found a grey t-shirt at the bottom of one of the dresser drawers that wasn't too big on me. I went into the kitchen and got the coffee machine started, then rooted around looking for breakfast stuff. On a shelf under the counter was a box of pancake mix that Chris' mother had given him when he had moved into the apartment two years ago. There were fresh eggs and milk in the fridge, and an untouched bottle of syrup that she'd bought with the mix. Plus there was a more recent box of frozen sausage patties in the freezer.
Daniel padded into the kitchen when the smell of coffee had permeated the apartment.
"Good morning, Daniel," I said.
Ignoring me, he poured himself a mug.
"Do you want some pancakes?" I asked.
He grunted.
I let him drink his coffee and went back to stirring the pancake mix.
Around half way through his second cup Daniel let out a huge jaw-cracking yawn. He stretched, popping joints in his shoulders and back, rolled his head and neck, and sighed.
"Alright," he said, "so now what's the plan?"
"What do you mean, Daniel?"
"You said to come here and we're here. Now what? How long are we going to stay? He — " Daniel jerked his head toward the bedroom, "is going to get up eventually. At some point he'll check the news and find out about the crash. What then? Tie him up and stick him in the closet?"
"He might like that," I murmured.
Daniel scowled. "Not funny. What happened last night — whatever that threesome thing was — I can't do that again. Don't ask me to."
"I'm sorry, Daniel. I won't." I paused, to let him know I was treating what he'd said seriously, then added "I talked to Katerina."
"What? I thought we weren't going to contact anyone who knew us. Why didn't we call her yesterday? Maybe we could have stayed at the penthouse."
"I didn't use a phone. Anyway, I don't know her number."
"So you spoke to her through the Force?"
"Sort of. The first line met last night at the Valley. Katerina summoned them all when she heard about the crash."
"How the hell do you — forget it. What'd she say?"
"They can give us some money. This afternoon Amber will be at the bar where you first met Opal. I told her we'd meet her there."
"Good. So we can go, get the cash, and head out of town."
"I ... I don't know yet."
"What do you mean?"
"Coming here wasn't just about having a place to hide. Chris can help us."
"Help us? How?"
"I'm not sure." I had to be careful; you can't wander too far down the road Grantie Rose had gotten lost on.
Daniel frowned. "You know that doesn't make any sense, don't you?"
"No," I agreed, "it doesn't. There's no lightblind reason to be here. But the Darkness says there is."
"You're still looking for the demon?"
"Yes, Daniel, I'm looking for the demon."
"And what happens when you find it?"
I felt my fingers curl. "Then I convince it to leave us alone."
"Okay." He sighed. "What do you need from me?"
"I'll need some time with Chris today. He's the key, I know it. I just need to understand how."
"Are you going to have sex with him again?"
"Maybe, if I need to. You don't like that, do you?"
"Fuck no. I feel like I'm your pimp."
"Daniel, it's not like that."
"Really? How is it then?"
I shrugged. There was no way to explain it that would make him feel any better about himself, or about me.
"Still waiting for an answer."
"I'm sorry, Daniel. It's hard to put into words."
"That so? You seemed to have no trouble finding the words you wanted last night."
Daniel wasn't really expecting an answer. I studied the kitchen floor. It was made of speckled white linoleum tiles. Chris kept it pretty clean.
"Shit. When you figure out how to explain it, will you tell me?"
My eyes on the floor, I nodded.
"Really, Joey — I'm serious. This isn't a game."
I nodded again.
Daniel stared at me for a long moment. "Fuck." His shoulders slumped. "So ... what about those pancakes?"
I turned back to working on breakfast.
While I cooked Daniel figured out how to turn on Chris' big TV to watch the news. We ate at the coffee table again. The crash was still all over the local stations and had even earned a sixty-second clip on CNN. After half an hour Daniel couldn't take it any more and he turned it off. Losing our home was tough, but the thing that upset him most were the people who died on the plane.
I couldn't really understand it. On any given day there's people being killed in far-away places all over the world. Hardly anyone gives it much thought. But when something bad happens nearby, suddenly it's a terrible tragedy and everyone gets upset. Why should where or how it occurs matter? People are born, things happen, and then we die. That's how it is for all of us.
After breakfast Daniel decided he wanted a shower. He rooted around in Chris' dresser and found some clothes he could wear, then went into the bathroom. While he was did that I cleaned up the kitchen. As I was finishing, our host stumbled out into the living room. His hair was a matted mess.
"Good morning, Chris," I said.
"Whoa — Kiddo!" He looked startled. "You're for real?"
"Yeah." I grinned. "What'd you think?"
"I don't know, thought maybe I dreamed you." He frowned. "And is your brother really – "
The bathroom door opened and Daniel walked out, fresh from his shower.
Chris stared. "Right. You are."
"I'm what?" Daniel asked.
"Different." He gestured vaguely. "I mean how you look."
"Got it. I borrowed some of your clothes. Hope that's okay."
"Sure." Chris sank into the couch.
"There's coffee and I made pancakes and sausage," I said. "Do you want some?"
Out of words, he nodded.
By the time Chris had eaten, showered and generally woken up, it was after noon. Our host didn't know quite how to treat us. He couldn't decide whether we were weekend houseguests, tricks who refused to leave, or absinthe-induced hallucinations that might vanish at any moment. In the end he decided to just continue on with his normal Saturday routine. Mom's shade told me that's a pretty common lightblind reaction to contact with Darkness: close your eyes and pretend nothing unusual is happening. Fellers had probably had a technical word for it.
It turned out that Chris typically spends his Saturday afternoons playing video games on an impressive computer set-up that occupies the second bedroom of his apartment. The one he was most into was a role-playing game set in a virtual world of elves and goblins and dragons. I kept him company, watching him control a heavily armored hero with a glowing two-handed sword as he hacked through a variety of villains and undead monsters.
"What are you playing?" I finally asked.
"WoW," he answered, his hands dancing over the controls.
"What's wow?"
"World of Warcraft. Where've you been for the past decade, Kiddo?"
"I've slept a lot."
"Sleeping Beauty, eh?" He shot me quick grin and wink before turning back to the screen.
I watched him some more. Something here was drawing my attention. Something important. It had to do, I kenned, with why I had told Daniel to call Chris. I needed to find out what it was.
"Are you playing by yourself, or are those other players?"
"Those are just NPC's — that's nonplayer characters. This is just a thing I'm doing on my own. Later on I'm meeting up with some guildmates. They're real players. We're going to take down a boss."
"How many people play this?"
"You really haven't heard about it? World of Warcraft is the biggest multiplayer game in the world. There's like a million people who play it."
"And they're all on the Internet?"
"Well, not all at once. This one's a North American realm. There's probably like tens of thousands of accounts on this server. I don't know how many players are on at any given time, but it's a lot. Thousands, maybe."
Thousands of people, all immersed in an online fantasy world. A world devoted to fighting. An incubus living in the Internet would hang out at porn sites. A fiend would find sites where human aggression was given free reign. This game Chris was playing — World of Warcraft — it looked like just the place.
My body shivered as Darkness rang. Now I understood. The demon that had attacked me by trying to hurt Daniel was using WoW as its own private cafeteria. This was why I had told Daniel to call Chris. Our host was a regular at the fiend's dinner party. All I had to do was get him to take me along as his date.
First, though, I had to get Daniel out of the apartment. I went out to the living room and found him laying on the couch, his eyes closed. He opened them as I walked up. His werewolf hearing had probably caught everything Chris and I had said.
"Hey," he said, "shouldn't we be heading out to meet Amber soon?"
"I need to stay here. Maybe you could go meet her by yourself."
He frowned. "You said you told her that we would meet her."
"I know. But I can't leave yet."
He looked at me for a long moment. "Do you think it's safe to take your car?" That wasn't what he'd really wanted to say.
"Probably not." I turned toward the bedroom. "Hey, Chris!" I called out.
"Yeah?" he called back.
"Can Daniel borrow your car to run some errands?"
"Sure. Key's on the coffee table."
"I see it. Thanks."
Daniel looked at me suspiciously. "Are you doing something to him?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Like enchanting him, or whatever you call it."
I shook my head. "He's just in a mellow mood and he's feeling comfortable with us. He really is basically a pretty generous guy."
"Okay."
"Hey, Daniel?" Chris's voice floated from the other room.
Daniel tensed. "Yeah?"
"Will you pick up some more Pepsi?"
"Okay," Daniel called back. He shook his head. "The whole world's gone fucking crazy."
He scooped up the keys and stood up. "You sure you'll be okay?"
"I'll be okay." It wasn't me I was worried about. I reached up to unclasp the cross from around my neck and held it out to him. "Here," I said, "I want you to take this with you. I want you to have it."
He eyed it. "What the hell are you doing, Joey?"
"I'm giving it to you. I want you to wear it."
He didn't move. "Why?"
"It'll help keep you safe."
He snorted. "How is wearing a demon around my neck going to keep me safe?"
"It's not a demon any more. I've changed it, Daniel. It's sort of ... rehabilitated."
"Rehabilitated? How did you do that?"
"I took away all its memories. It does what I tell it to now."
"Hold on." Daniel looked incredulous. "Are you talking about the same big bad demon that possessed you and killed Fellers and Momma Lolotta, and was going to do something really awful to us at Walter's house? Now it does what you tell it to?"
"Yes. Trust me, Daniel."
His dark eyes bored into mine.
"I know stuff is happening that doesn't make sense. I'm sorry, Daniel. I'm just trying to make things better. Please trust me." I stepped closer. "Please?" The plaintive sound in my voice surprised me. I hadn't realized how much I needed my brother to trust me. I don't care about anyone else, but what Daniel thinks of me matters.
"I trust you, bro," his eyes softened. "But are you sure it hasn't tricked you? Maybe this is just a ploy to get you to release it from the bottle."
That was a pretty good question. But the demon hadn't tricked me. I'd eaten it — all the way down to its indigestible bones. And then I had grown new flesh over them.
"It isn't." I stepped closer and fastened the chain behind his neck. He didn't resist. Since Daniel's neck is a lot thicker than mine, the cross rode higher on his chest. The top of it rested just below the notch where his sternum meets the base of his neck. It nestled in a thicket of black hair.
"How is this going to keep me safe?"
"It's still trapped in the cross, Daniel. I won't let it out. But it can help you. As long as you're touching it you can talk to it in your head. Its name is Tarriel. Say hello to it."
He looked at me dubiously.
"Try it, Daniel. Please."
After a moment he reached up to touch the cross and closed his eyes. A few seconds later they flew back open. "It sounds like a little kid!"
"It is, sort of. I've told it to warn you if it senses danger coming toward you, and to try to protect you as much as it can. Also, if you need to tell me something when I'm not around, say it to Tarriel and Tarriel can relay it to me."
"Like a magical walkie-talkie? That's pretty cool."
"Thanks, Daniel. There's one thing, though. From now on, don't ever say Tarriel's name out loud. You don't want anyone else to know it. Always talk to it just in your mind."
"Fellers could read minds."
"All vampires can. So can some witches, a little. But they can't read you any more. They can't mess with your thoughts. That's something else wearing the cross does for you."
"Cool," Daniel grinned. "I've got Magneto's cap." The grin vanished. "Shit," he sighed. "The Professor's gone." He looked sad.
"I liked him," I said.
"Yeah. Me too." He reached out and wrapped me in a hug. I closed my eyes and buried my face into his chest. Tarriel observed us curiously, but I ignored it. While Daniel held me I didn't want to think about anything else. I wasn't going to let anything come between us.
"You know," he said in my ear, his arms tight around me, "You're still going to have to explain more sometime."
"It's hard."
He chuckled. "Yeah, and it's been such a walk in the park up `till now. Trust works both ways, you know."
Actually, I didn't. But he's my older brother, and he knew a lot more about relationships than I did, so he was probably right.
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