The Wiccan Diaries: Neophyte Adept Part 26

So Vittoria had it too.

"I got the sense that negative aether was like 'dark magic;' that it was really bad," said Vittoria.

"Some would think..." said Lux.

That went into my memory bank; I would have to look at it further.

"All forms of energy can be abused," said Lux. "Let me see if I can just tap into it for a sec."

One of the Initiates panicked. "Won't it race into us, Professor?"

"If I do my job right," said Lux. The next second, I felt it.

It was like another world opened up to me. Like I was me, but not me. Like whoever I was, was over. I was someone new.

And the miraculous thing was, I felt really powerful. I mean death-defyingly jump over whatever impossible thing to jump over powerful.

Lux pulled out and the connection was lost. "Any questions?" he asked.

Hands went up, before, reflexively, going back down. The other Initiates didn't want to give away what Virtue they had become, you see.

Lux said, "It is attractive and forbidding; and it is powerful and addictive, the dark aether. Better you see it from me, than a bunch of aetherheads, out on the street."

Chapter 20 Seeing Paris.

"You told me, yesterday, that you would show me certain things. I want to know what things. And, above all, how Lennox is doing. I have been so busy and self-absorbed that I have practically forgotten that he exists," I said. "And that's another thing. I feel like our relations.h.i.+p was all some magic spell, but I can't craft, can I?"

Asher said, "Tell me what you have seen. Before it can be directed, I have observed that all forms of magic are rambunctious. The shapes.h.i.+fter s.h.i.+fts without thinking it, the witch or wizard disappears or reappears, without meaning to, the vampire kills before it can understand why it is even hungry..."

"Do you know about the dark aether?" I asked. We were in the Columbarium. Asher a.s.sured me we had all night.

"I am not a wizard, per se, but yes, I have heard of it."

"But never seen it?" I said. Despite myself, my voice was trembling. After all, what Asher claimed to be able to do struck me as nothing short of dark magic.

I realized suddenly that that was the way the other Wiccans had been behaving toward Asher, as though they thought he was dangerous, too. I suddenly felt ashamed.

Each new Wiccan discovery hit me with its own particular pang. So this was why ailuranthropes were mistrusted? The dark aether. People thought they had it.

"I should trust you," I said. "Forgive me. I will describe it to you. The dark aether is like an alien intelligence. You can see it, feel it. But you can never trust it. Sort of like it thinks for itself."

"That is exactly how the Dioscuri are," said Asher. "But go on. I want to know what you have seen."

I snapped two of my double-jointed Wiccan W digits. They sparked but did not blaze. To Asher: "Two voices. Don't know who they are," I said. "I've heard them a couple times. I forget what exactly. Something about two of us. 'She must not become Fledged,' or some nonsense. So I guess that means I have time. It'll be almost a year before I'm Adept. How long to Fledged is anyone's guess. But they said that they would try to kill herme, whoever I am; so I guess I don't have that long. If I'm her."

It felt more natural to think of her as being me, and vice-versa.

Asher nodded, as if this made perfect sense.

"The conduit goes both ways, into, and from," he said. "Although why someone would wish to broadcast they mean to kill you, Halsey.... No, I choose to believe you are causing this to happen. You said it has not happened for a while, your mind traveling?"

"Correct."

"I will keep an eye out," said Asher. "Interesting expression. I think I will keep both eyes in, and peeled, except for when I blink, but you get the gist. I will watch to make sure nothing happens to you. Meanwhile, you, Halsey Rookmaaker, must continue to concentrate on your becoming. We are at the Gathering, which is safe. There are too many of us here for any such shenanigans. No one will try to kill you here."

I let Asher believe that; although, I thought, it would be the perfect opportunity. If someone was trying to kill me, what better place? n.o.body would know who had done it. Maybe that was the point. Then, I thought, if they were after me, they, whoever they were, must think I could do it, become fledged!

I did an inner-woohoo and came back to Asher.

"Maybe it's Marek," I said. A part of me that I didn't like to think about got excited at the mere mentioning of Marek's name. "Although he is more of a loner. As in, one. Whoever these people are, there are two of them. One. Two," I said, holding up two fingers.

Asher might have thought I was crazy, because he got this look on his face, so I guessed we were even.

"Are you ready?" he said. "Because I want to show you something. How I do what I do is as important as what I can do."

We sat down facing each other, there in the dirt. The torch, in a bracket, illuminated us darkly.

I became aware of Asher's eyes.

"You look like you want to read me," I said.

"You are not wrong."

"Then why are you hesitating?" I said.

"Because... I am there, in my head, and I am told that you have feelings for this person. His name is Lennoxlove... Lenoir... correct? He is one of the vampires...?"

I looked at Asher, whose eyes were blind. He could not see me. He was someplace else. The place Lennox was at. Far, far away.

"I have to warn you, Halsey, that my gift is an unusual one. I do not merely see. I am a traveler in memories. And a trawler in dreams. I see things as they are, as they may be, and I see things that were, but have not been for a while. No doubt you can appreciate why certain ardanes exist forbidding the use of those of my kind? While I am not a Dioscurus, I have its power. What I will show you is truth, however. What they show is only what they wish others to see. Which is why it is dangerous to put too much stock in their visions."

"Can you see me?" I said.

"Alas, not what you wish to knownor would I tell you, even if I were ableabout your parents and whatnot. Nothing is so destructive as knowing the future. And nothing is as dangerous as the past. I could only help you to experience what you yourself have already seen, and for that, you have your own brain. But we can read Lennox, if you wish. He is experiencing the Agonies this very moment. It is a trial by fire. And I am afraid, you may not like what you see."

"But you can show me?"

"Yes, Halsey Rookmaaker. I can show you. Now, if you wish."

He blinked. Suddenly I was staring at him, into his eyes, which were here with me. I licked my lips.

"Do you think I should look?" I said.

"It's not for me to say. Look and you will see; for my eyes have that power. Do you wish to see?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

I felt myself being sucked into his eyes. Our surroundings vanished entirely. All communication was by telepathy alone. We were flying over countryside. It was dark out. Fires peppered the countryside. I realized they were house lights. They were becoming fewer and fewer. Remember what I told you, he said. My power is in the seeing. Not in the direction of my sight.

We came to a place on the other side of daylight, ill-lit, shrouded by the dark aether itself; the countryside around it barren, craggy, with scattered houses here and there. I could hear the rush of something or other, what must've been the sea, but it was too far away to tell.

Everything was shrouded in the fog of Asher's mind.

I told him this, to which he replied, "That's good. Maybe you are like an aerial. Intercepting traffic."

I thought about that; but it didn't make much sense.

"Never mind that now," he said. "We are almost... Yes; in there are two vampires. One of them, I think, is your Lennoxlove."

"Why are we so far away from everything else?" I said, looking at the barren countryside.

"Probably," said Asher, "because of the screaming." He shushed me and we went inside.

Two vampires were sitting much as Asher and I were, wherever we had left our bodies, back at the Gathering. I recognized one of them immediately. Lennox's eyes were closed. He looked as though he was in deep meditation. But his body...

Lennox's body was emaciated-looking, his eyes especially, the skull so sunken, in some parts, it looked as though he hadn't eaten in weeks. Fed, I needed to remind myself. With any supernatural, their particular rhythms overwhelmed me.

I was on Werewolf Standard Time, when I needed to be on Lennoxwatch.

"Oh, Lennox," I said, coming to him. "I'm so sorry," I said, but he couldn't hear me. His eyelids flickered.

"That is good. I think we will get our opportunity sooner rather than later," said Asher.

"What d'you?"

But before I could inquire further, Lennox's eyelids opened, and a couple of things happened simultaneously.

Lennox said, "Halsey?" And Asher and I jumped into his eyeb.a.l.l.s. It was like falling into an April sky. Lennox's lavender eyes widened, and somehow both Asher and I had landed, smack dab, in both a time and place I did not recognize.

Cobblestones instead of asphalt.

Huge white-washed buildings.

Clapboard houses.

Real gas lamps.

I followed Lennox as he walked down a narrow moonlit street in clothes I had never seen him wear before, with Asher at my side. "Where are we?" I asked.

"Unless I am much mistaken, we are in one of Lennox's memories," said Asher. He shrugged and smiled.

"You mean, you can just jump into people's memories and relive them whenever you feel like?"

"Shh," he said to me. "This is important to Lennox. Pay attention, now. Let us see what we can see. I have heard that is the purpose of the Agonies. They are a sieve, Halsey Rookmaaker. For what, I am not sure."

A carriage pulled by two stallions, came to a standstill some ways ahead of Lennox, who crouched, in his ill-fitting garments, watching the scene unfold. Suddenly a horrible scream erupted from the buggy, which looked like it was about to turn over, it was rocking so fiercely. A woman fell out of it, and began crawling on her hands and knees. The driver of the carriage simply sat their, reigns in hand, ignoring her. Lennox leapt forwards. Out stepped an older gentleman who bent and was about to deliver a backhand strike to her face, when Lennox made his presence known.

"What do you want?" said the older man.

The aura about Lennox changed. The garments he wore, instead of looking as though they had been pulled from a trash heap, took on a different aspect. He simply radiated power. When he took off his jacket, to give to the lady, he looked royal. She crawled up his leg, which he held out jauntily. His open s.h.i.+rt clashed daringly with his well-chiseled profile, I saw smirk, as he dared the other man to say something. Anything.

"Drive on, Rochester. I know a lost cause when I see one," said the older man.

He left the woman to Lennox's ministrations. At once Lennox helped her to her feet.

"My hero," she said. She may have been drunk. Her makeup was smeared. She was in a frock of some sort. It looked turn-of-the-century. But what century? Just how old was Lennox, anyway?

Less than a century, I told myself. Everyone said so.

So this must've been around Nineteen Something-or-other. I didn't recognize the place. Asher helped me there. "Look!" he said.

Rising in the distance was the Eiffel Tower, so we must've been in Paris. The home, I realized suddenly, of the vampires. If I were to believe their conceit that they were the only ones.

Perhaps they made that true by enforcement. I had seen Lennox kill two vampires before.

"Say, whatcha doing here, anyway?"

"You're drunk," said Lennox.

"And you're handsome. You lookin' for a good time, or you just like to wander the streets like I do? Only time to get whatcha really want, at night."

"Can I drop you somewhere?" said Lennox.

"Not unless you're going to give me a piggyback ride," she giggled. She didn't look like she would object.

"I had something else in mind," he said.

"Well, that's gonna cost you," said the prost.i.tute.

"I can pay," said Lennox.

"Just as long as you ain't one 'a them deadbeats. Deadbeats," she said again. "Come with me. Maybe we can find someplace behind a tree or something."

She took Lennox's hand, who did not move.

"Say, you're kind of cold. Whatwhat are you doing? No, I don't wantDon't"

He was rising up with her.

The scene changed.