The witching hour

Forty-three

HOW MANY DAYS and nights had passed? She honestly did not know. Unopened mail stacked on the hall table. The phone, now and then ringing-to no avail.

“Yes, but who are you? Underneath it all. Who is there?”

“I told you, such questions mean nothing to me. I can be what you want me to be.”

“Not good enough.”

“What was I? A phantom. Infinitely satisfied. I don’t know whence came the capacity to love Suzanne. She taught me what death was when she was burnt. She was sobbing when they dragged her to the stake; she couldn’t believe they could do it to her. This was a child, my Suzanne, a woman with no understanding of human evil. And my Deborah was forced to watch it. And had I made the storm, they would have burnt them both.

“Even in her agony. Suzanne stayed my hand, for Deborah’s sake. She went mad, her head banging against the stake. Even the villagers were terrified. Crude, stupid mortals come there to drink wine and laugh as she was burned. Even they could not bear the sound of her screaming. And then I saw the beautiful flesh and blood form which nature had given her ravaged by fire, like a corn husk in a burning field. I saw her blood pouring down on the roaring logs. My Suzanne. In the perfection of her youth, and in her strength, burnt like a wax candle for a stupid pack of villagers who gathered in the heat of the afternoon.

“Who am I? I am the one who wept for Suzanne when no one wept. I am the one who felt an agony without end, when even Deborah stood numb, staring at the body of her mother twisting in the fire.

“I am the one who saw the spirit of Suzanne leave the pain-racked body. I saw it rise upwards, freed, and without care. Do I have a soul that it could know such joy-that Suzanne would suffer no more? I reached out for her spirit, shaped still in the form of her body, for she did not know yet that such a form was not required of her, and I tried to penetrate and to gather, to take unto myself what was now like unto me.

“But the spirit of Suzanne went past me. It took no more notice of me than of the burning husk in the fire. Upwards it went away from me and beyond me, and there was no more Suzanne.

“Who am I? I am Lasher, who stretched himself out over the whole world, threaded through and through with the pain of the loss of Suzanne. I am Lasher, who drew himself together, made tentacles of his power, and lashed at the village till the terrified villagers ran for cover, once my beloved Deborah was taken away. I laid waste the village of Donnelaith. I chased the witch judge through the fields, pounding him with stones. There was no one left to tell the tale when I finished. And my Deborah gone with Petyr van Abel, to silks and satins, and emeralds, and men who would paint her picture.

“I am Lasher, who mourned for the simpleton, and carried her ashes to the four winds.

“This was my awakening to existence, to self-consciousness, to life and death, to paying attention.

“I learned more in that interval of twenty days than in all the gracious aeons of watching mortals grow upon the face of the earth, like a breed of insect, mind springing from matter but snared in it, meaningless as a moth with its wing nailed to a wall.

“Who am I? I am Lasher, who came down to sit at the feet of Deborah and learn how to have purpose, to obtain ends, to do the will of Deborah in perfection so that Deborah would never suffer; Lasher, who tried and failed.

“Turn your back on me. Do it. Time is nothing. I shall wait for another to come who is as strong as you are. Humans are changing. Their dreams are filled with the forecast of these changes. Listen to the words of Michael. Michael knows. Mortals dream ceaselessly of immortality, as their lives grow longer. They dream of unimpeded flight. There will come another who will break down the barriers between the carnate and discarnate. I shall pass through. I want this too much, you see, for it to fail, and I am too patient, too cunning in my learning, and too strong.

“The knowledge is here now. The full explanation for the origin of material life is at hand. Replication is possible. Look back with me if you will to Marguerite’s bedroom on the night that I took her in the body of a dead man, and willed my hair to grow the color that I would have for myself. Look back on that experiment. It is closer in time to the painted savages who lived in caves and hunted with spears than it is to you in your hospital, and in your laboratory.

“It is your knowledge which sharpens your power. You understand the nucleus, and the protoplasm. You know what are chromosomes, what are genes, what is DNA.

“Julien was strong. Charlotte was strong. Petyr van Abel was a giant among men. And there is another kind of strength in you. A daring, and a hunger, and aloneness. And that hunger and aloneness I know, and I kiss with the lips I do not have; I hold with the arms I do not have; I press to the heart in me that isn’t there to beat with warmth.

“Stand off from me. Fear me. I wait. I will not hurt your precious Michael. But he cannot love you as I can, because he cannot know you as I know you.

“I know the insides of your body and your brain, Rowan. I would be made flesh, Rowan, fused with the flesh and superhuman in the flesh. And once this is done, what metamorphosis may be yours, Rowan? Think on what I say.

“I see this, Rowan. As I have always seen it-that the thirteenth would be the strength to open the door. What I cannot see is how to exist without your love.

“For I have loved you always, I have loved the part of you that existed in those before you. I have loved you in Petyr van Abel, who of all was most like you. I have loved you even in my sweet crippled Deirdre, powerless, dreaming of you.”

Silence.

For an hour there had been no sound, no vibrations in the air. Only the house again, with the winter cold outside it, crisp and windless and clean.

Eugenia was gone. The phone rang again in the emptiness.

She sat in the dining room, arms resting on the polished table, watching the bony crepe myrtle, scraping, leafless and shining, at the blue sky.

At last she stood up. She put on her red wool coat, and locked the door behind her, and went out the open gate and up the street.

The cold air felt good and cleansing. The leaves of the oaks had darkened with the deepening of winter, and shrunken, but they were still green.

She turned on St. Charles and walked to the Pontchartrain Hotel.

In the little bar, Aaron was already waiting at the table, a glass of wine before him, his leather notebook open, his pen in his hand.

She stood in front of him, conscious of the surprise in his face when he looked at her. Was her hair mussed? Did she look tired?

“He knows everything I think, what I feel, what I have to say.”

“No, that’s not possible,” said Aaron. “Sit down. Tell me.”

“I cannot control him. I can’t drive him away. I think … I think I love him,” she whispered. “He’s threatened to go if I speak to you or to Michael. But he won’t go. He needs me. He needs me to see him and be near him; he’s clever, but not that clever. He needs me to give him purpose and bring him closer to life.”

She was staring at the long bar, and the one small bald-headed man at the end of it, fleshly being with a slit of a mouth, and at the pale anemic bartender polishing something as bartenders always do. Rows of bottles full of poison. Quiet in here. Dim lights.

She sat down and turned and looked at Aaron.

“Why did you lie to me?” she asked. “Why didn’t you tell me that you were sent here to stop him?”

“I have not been sent here to stop him. I’ve never lied.”

“You know that he can come through. You know it’s his purpose, and you are committed to stopping it. You have always been.”

“I know what I read in the history, the same as you know it. I gave you everything.”

“Ah, but you know it’s happened before. You know there are things in the world like him that have found a doorway.”

No answer.

“Don’t help him,” Aaron said.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have believed me if I had? I didn’t come to tell you fables. I didn’t come to induct you into the Talamasca. I gave you the information I had about your life, your family, what was real to you.”

She didn’t answer. He was telling a form of truth as he knew it, but he was concealing things. Everyone concealed things. The flowers on the table concealed things. That all life was ruthless process. Lasher was process.

“This thing is a giant colony of microscopic cells. They feed off the air the way a sponge feeds from the sea, devouring such minuscule particles that the process is continuous and goes utterly unnoticed by the organism or organelle itself or anything in its environment. But all the basic ingredients of life are there-cellular structure most certainly, amino acids and DNA, and an organizing force that binds the whole regardless of its size and which responds now perfectly to the consciousness of the being which can reshape the entire entity at will.”

She stopped, searching his face to divine whether or not he understood her. But did it matter? She understood now, that was the point.

“It is not invisible; it is simply impossible to see. It isn’t supernatural. It is merely capable of passing through denser matter because its cells are far smaller. But they are eukaryote cells. The same cells that make up your body or mine. How did it acquire intelligence? How does it think? I can’t tell you any more than I can tell you how the cells of an embryo know to form eyes and fingers and liver and heart and brain. There isn’t a scientist on earth who knows why a fertilized egg makes a chicken, or why a sponge, crushed to powder, reassembles itself perfectly-each cell doing exactly what it should-over a period of mere days.

“When we know that, we will know why Lasher has intellect, because his is a similar organizing force without a discernible brain. It is sufficient to say now that he is Precambrian and self-sufficient, and if not immortal, his life span could be billions of years. It is conceivable that he absorbed consciousness from mankind, that if consciousness gives off a palpable energy, he has fed upon this energy and a mutation has created his mind. He continues to feed upon the consciousness of the Mayfair Witches and their associates, and from this springs his learning, and his personality, and his will.

“It is conceivable as well that he has begun a rudimentary process of symbiosis with higher forms of matter, able to attract more complex molecular structures to him when he materializes, which he then effectively dissolves before his own cells are hopelessly bonded with these heavier particles. And this dissolution is accomplished in a state bordering on panic. For he fears an imperfect union, from which he can’t be freed.

“But his love of the flesh is so strong he is willing now to risk anything to be warm-blooded and anthropomorphic.”

Again, she stopped. “Maybe all of life has a mind,” she said, her eyes roving over the small room, over the empty tables. “Maybe the flowers watch us. Maybe the trees think and hate us that we can walk. Or maybe, just maybe they don’t care. The horror of Lasher is that he began to care!”

“Stop him,” said Aaron. “You know what he is now. Stop him. Don’t let him assume human form.”

She said nothing. She looked down at the red wool of her coat, startled suddenly by the color. She did not even remember taking it out of the closet. She had the key in her hand but no purse. Only their conversation was real to her and she was aware of her own exhaustion, of the thin layer of sweat on her hands and on her face.

“What you’ve said is brilliant,” said Aaron. “You’ve touched it and understood it. Now use the same knowledge to keep it out.”

“He’s going to kill you,” she said, not looking at him. “I know he is. He wants to. I can hold him off, but what do I bargain with? He knows I’m here.” She gave a little laugh, eyes moving over the ceiling. “He’s with us. He knows every trick at my command. He’s everywhere. Like God. Only he’s not God!”

“No. He doesn’t know everything. Don’t let him fool you. Look at the history. He makes too many mistakes. And you have your love to bargain with. Bargain with your will. Besides, why should he kill me? What can I do to him? Persuade you not to help him? Your moral sense is stronger and finer even than mine.”

“What in the world would make you think that?” she said. “What moral sense?” It struck her that she was near to collapse, that she had to get out of here, and go home where she could sleep. But he was there, waiting for her. He would be anywhere she went. And she’d come here for a reason-to warn Aaron. To give Aaron a last chance.

But it would be so nice to go home, to sleep again, if only she didn’t hear that baby crying. She could feel Lasher wrapping his countless arms around her, snuggling her up in airy warmth.

“Rowan, listen to me.”

She waked as if from a dream.

“All over the world there are human beings with exceptional powers,” Aaron was saying, “but you are one of the rarest because you have found a way to use your power for good. You don’t gaze into a crystal ball for dollar bills, Rowan. You heal. Can you bring him into that with you? Or will he take you away from it forever? Will he draw your power off into the creation of some mutant monster that the world does not want and cannot abide? Destroy him, Rowan. For your own sake. Not for mine. Destroy him for what you know is right.”

“This is why he’ll kill you, Aaron. I can’t stop him if you provoke him. But why is it so wrong? Why are you against it? Why did you lie to me?”

“I never lied. And you know why it mustn’t happen. He would be a thing without a human soul.”

“That’s religion, Aaron.”

“Rowan, he would be unnatural. We need no more monsters. We ourselves are monstrous enough.”

“He is as natural as we are,” she said. “This is what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“He is as alien from us as a giant insect, Rowan. Would you make such a thing as that? It isn’t meant to happen.”

“Meant. Is mutation meant? Every second of every minute of every day, cells are mutating.”

“Within limits. Upon a predictable path. A cat cannot fly. A man cannot grow horns. There is a scheme to things, and we can spend our lives studying it and marveling at it, that it is such a magnificent scheme. He is not part of the scheme.”

“So you say, but what if there is no scheme? What if there is just process, just cells multiplying, and his metamorphosis is as natural as a river changing course and devouring farmland and houses and cattle and people? As a comet crashing into the earth?”

“Would you not try to save human beings from drowning? Would you not try to save them from the comet’s fire? All right. Say he is natural. Let us postulate that we are better than natural. We aim for more than mere process. Our morals, our compassion, our capacity to love and to create an orderly society, make us better than nature. He has no reverence for that, Rowan. Look what he has done to the Mayfair family.”

“He created it, Aaron!”

“No, I can’t accept that. I can’t.”

“You’re still talking religion, Aaron. You’re talking an obdurate morality. There is no secure logical ground for condemning him.”

“But there is. There has to be. Pestilence is natural, but you wouldn’t let the bacillus out of the tube to destroy millions. Rowan, for the love of God, our consciousness was educated by the flesh from which it evolved. What would we be without the capacity to feel physical pain? And this creature, Lasher, has never bled from the smallest wound. He’s never been chastened by hunger or sharpened by the need to survive. He is an immoral intelligence, Rowan, and you know this. You know it. And that is what I call unnatural, for want of a better word.”

“Pretty moral poetry,” she said. “You disappoint me. I was hoping you would give me arguments in exchange for my warning. I was hoping you would fortify my soul.”

“You don’t need my arguments. Look into your own soul. You know what I’m trying to tell you. He’s a laser beam with ambition. He’s a bomb that can think for itself. Let him in and the world will pay for it. You will be the mother of a disaster.”

“Disaster,” she whispered. “What a lovely word.”

How frail he looked. She was seeing his age for the first time in the heavy lines of his face, in the soft pockets of flesh around his pale, imploring eyes. He seemed so weak to her suddenly, so without his usual eloquence and grace. Just an old man with white hair, peering at her, full of childlike wonder. No lure at all.

“You know what it could really mean, don’t you?” she asked wearily. “When you strip away the fear?”

“He’s lying to you; he’s taking over your conscience.”

“Don’t say that to me!” she hissed. “That isn’t courage on your part, it’s stupidity.” She settled back trying to calm herself. There had been a time when she loved this man. Even now she didn’t want him harmed. “Can’t you see the inevitable end of it?” she asked, reasonably. “If the mutation is successful, he can propagate. If the cells can be grafted and replicate themselves in other human bodies, the entire future of the human race can be changed. We are talking about an end to death.”

“The age-old lure,” Aaron said bitterly. “The age-old lie.”

She smiled to see his composure stripped away.

“Your sanctimoniousness tires me,” she said. “Science has always been the key. Witches were nothing but scientists, always. Black magic was striving to be science. Mary Shelley saw the future. Poets always see the future. And the kids in the third row of the theater know it when they watch Dr. Frankenstein piece the monster together, and raise the body into the electrical storm.”

“It is a horror story, Rowan. He’s mutated your conscience.”

“Don’t insult me like that again,” she said, leaning once more across the table. “You’re old, you don’t have many years left. I love you for what you’ve given me, and I don’t want to hurt you. But don’t tempt me and don’t tempt him. What I’m telling you is the truth.”

He didn’t answer her. He had dropped into a baffling state of calm. She found his small hazel eyes suddenly quite unreadable, and she marveled at his strength. It made her smile.

“Don’t you believe what I’m telling you? Don’t you want to write it in the file? I saw it in Lemle’s laboratory when I saw that fetus connected to all those little tubes. You never knew why I killed Lemle, did you? You knew I did it, but you didn’t know the cause. Lemle was in control of a project at the Institute. He was harvesting cells from live fetuses and using them in transplants. It’s going on in other places. You can see the possibilities, but imagine experiments involving Lasher’s cells, cells that have endured and transported consciousness for billions of years.”

“I want you to call Michael, to ask Michael to come home.”

“Michael can’t stop him. Only I can stop him. Let Michael be where he’s out of danger. Do you want Michael to die too?”

“Listen to me. You can close your mind to this being. You can veil your thoughts from it by a simple act of will. There are techniques as old as the oldest religions on earth for protecting ourselves from demons. It reads in your mind only what you project towards it. It’s not different from telepathy. Try and you’ll see.”

“And why should I do that?”

“To give yourself time. To give yourself a safe place for a moral decision.”

“No, you don’t understand how powerful he is. You never did. And you don’t know how well he knows me. That’s the key, what he knows of me.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to do what he wants,” she said. “I really don’t. But it’s irresistible, don’t you see?”

“What about Michael? What about your dreams of Mayfair Medical?”

“Ellie was right,” she said. She sat back against the wall and gazed off again, the lights of the bar blurring slightly. “Ellie knew. She had Cortland’s blood in her and she could see the future. Maybe it was only dim shapes and feelings, but she knew. I should never have come back. He used Michael to see to it that I came back. I knew Michael was in New Orleans, and like a randy bitch, I came back for that reason!”

“You’re not talking the truth. I want you to come upstairs and stay with me.”

“You’re such a fool. I could kill you here and now and no one would ever know it. No one but your brotherhood and your friend Michael Curry. And what could they do? It’s over, Aaron. I may fight, and I may dance back a few steps, and I may gain an occasional advantage. But it’s over. Michael was meant to bring me back and keep me here and he did.”

She started to rise, but he caught her hand. She looked down at his fingers. So old. You can always tell age by a person’s hands. Were people staring at them? Didn’t matter. Nothing mattered in this little room. She started to pull away.

“What about your child, Rowan?”

“Michael told you?”

“He didn’t have to tell me. Michael was sent to love you so that you would drive that thing away, once and forever. So that you wouldn’t fight this battle alone.”

“You knew that without being told also?”

“Yes. And so do you.”

She pulled her hand free.

“Go away, Aaron. Go far away. Go hide in the Motherhouse in Amsterdam or London. Hide. You’re going to die if you don’t. And if you call Michael, if you call him back here, I swear, I’ll kill you myself.”