Lightbreaker, p.33
Lightbreaker, page 33
My eyes were hot. "Peace," I said.
His light lessened as if the word made him flinch inside, made him see a part of his own heart that understood such a word. "Peace is not for us, Michael," he said quietly. "Responsibility, yes. But not peace."
I could feel the slumbering warmth of the gas fire as I turned to face the fireplace. "All those souls," I whispered, my voice a grating creak of dead wood splintering. "I let them go and they thanked me. They all thanked me for assisting their passage."
"You have been to the zenith of human existence, Michael. You have stood before the gates of Eternity and had their shape imprinted on your brain. I can't decide whether to be jealous or to pity you."
"They were your people, Philippe," I said, facing him again. "They came from your ranks."
"I know." He reached up and brushed a lock of his thick white hair which had gone askew during his outburst. "You are right. When you were in Paris last, this would have never been attempted. Times have changed. There is much that is different now."
Clumsily, he reached down and tugged at the cuff of his left pant leg. Pulling the fabric up to his knee, he showed me the suppurating blackness of his calf. The flesh was rotten and oozing with venom. "The mythology has its hold over me," he said, releasing the cloth and covering his wound. "I suppose I have you to thank that it has only taken my leg and not all of me."
"That's just a malignant cancer," I said, even though I didn't believe it. "That's not Portland."
He brushed away my comment. "Please, Michael. Stop being childish."
If Bernard's plan for the theurgic mirror had been foreseen, then, too, had this contingency plan. If he had killed everyone in the city and failed to harness that power to remake the world, the destruction wouldn't be unmade. The Land would still be wounded. As would its King. Even in failure, Philippe's adversaries were winning.
"What else?" I whispered. "What else have they done?"
Philippe shook his head as if he couldn't bear to speak of such atrocities. "I've Seen too many springs, Michael, too many years come and gone. My bones are getting brittle, my hands ache all the time, and my heart has a murmur that sounds nothing at all like the regular flow of the Nile." He paused and wet his lips again, a nervous tic of an old man. "I am beginning to forget things. I am no longer healthy enough to face the renewal."
"What about the organization?" I asked. "Is it supposed to die with you?"
He looked at me, and no words were necessary.
"Ah," I said. "I See."
He saw that I did and, placing his hands on his knees, bowed his head. A demur gesture from a man used to commanding allegiances and loyalties. The King, head lowered, showing me the worn shape of his crown.
"I will not be your agent of vengeance."
"No," he said. "You will be your own agent. That is all you will ever be, Michael."
I sighed. Did I have a choice? I could walk out of the room right now, but would that accomplish anything? It would deny the inevitable. With Philippe gone—and Antoine soon thereafter, simply because he sided with the Old Man in his fading twilight—I would become the quarry. I, as the True Agent of their project's demise, would be actively and eagerly pursued across the face of the planet.
He's dying anyway. You're doing him a favor.
No one did honest favors for the Hierarch. Everyone was part of his game, part of his grand machinations of the world. This was his self-realized destiny; his way of choosing his time and place of death.
I bound the Chorus to my Will, forming them into a sharp spike. "I'm sorry," I said. "This won't be pleasant."
He smiled. "It's all right. It'll be more peace than I've had in some time." He sat up a bit straighter.
I drove the Chorus into his chest, spiking my way through his mottled shell and striking at the heart of his spirit. He jerked at my touch, his natural inclination to defend himself tightening around my spike like an iron vise. It took him a second to relax his instincts, to assert his Will over his animal survival reflex—old habits that had saved his life on previous occasions—and he finally relaxed, the smile persisting on his face. The hard lines of his face softened and he exhaled calmly as I poured the Chorus down the conduit.
They knew their task—even these fires freshly laid in my head after the death of Portland—and they fell upon Philippe's soul like a storm of winged serpents.
Harvey was still waiting for me in the garage. He was working a fine chamois cloth along the burnished chrome highlights of the Alfa Romeo. He stood up as I entered the garage. The expression on his face wasn't one of relief, that my business here was done; in fact, seeing me seemed to pain him.
He was Philippe's creature. He wasn't a Watcher, but he was an agent dedicated to them.
"You knew all along, didn't you? The statue was just an excuse to get me to come back to Seattle. Your job was to plant the idea of Katarina still being here, wasn't it?" It had been a masterful bit of seemingly innocent serendipity: while I was waiting for the statue's paperwork to clear Customs, he had invited me up to the house to see his collection and had—so innocently, so carelessly—mentioned her in passing in connection with some preservation work. Just her first name and, when pressed, had admitted to having had dinner with her a few times. Recently. It had all been a hook I had swallowed, my desire to find her making me blind to the subtle manipulation going on.
Harvey worked the rag in his hands as if he were trying to rub off some stain on his fingers. "I never met her," he admitted. "I was given a script to follow. One that anticipated your responses fairly accurately." He shrugged. "In return, I got the statue. That was part of the deal."
"What about this time? What deal did Philippe make with you?"
"No deal." The words made Harvey nervous.
I walked across the garage until I was close enough to make out details of his eyes. My heart was still racing, flush with the absorbed essence of the Old Man, and my eyes were filled with the magick of the Chorus.
He has something for you. The memory was Philippe's, a stolen fragment of time attached to my own memory store. But I have to ask for it. I have to prove to him my worthiness.
I raised my right hand and showed Harvey the ring. "You have a package," I said. Opals in a platinum band: the ring of a king, the circular seal of a thousand years of history. It had gone on my finger so easily.
Harvey showed fear then, a widening of his eyes and a surge in the acrid taste of his scent. He fidgeted, unsure what to do, and finally settled for bowing from the waist. "My liege," he said, recognizing my claim. "Your predecessor said you would inquire about it. He asked that I keep it ready for you."
He fished his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the truck of the car. A silver case—small enough to be a child's lunchbox—was held by a loose net against the side of the trunk. Harvey reached into the car for the case and handed it to me. "Is there anything else?" he asked.
"Yes," I nodded. "The dead king. The Land has claim to him. Your final task under him is to ensure that he is returned to the earth. Do you understand me?"
He swallowed heavily. "I believe so."
"Good." I closed the trunk and set the case on the back of the car. It had a combination dial, but I trusted that the security would be a non-issue, as I touched the tiny wheels with the Buddhist state of no-mind. My fingers moved unconsciously, spinning the wheels in a reverberation of memory, until their position felt right. I snapped open the locks and paused before opening the case.
"Thank you, Harvey," I said to the other man. "It might be best for the body to not be found here. All that art and sculpture in your house. You wouldn't want all those uneducated members of local law enforcement touching your things, would you?" The words came easily, the whispered echo of an old man haunting my tongue. "Put him in the car and drive him to Harborview. Tell them the old man had a heart attack. While you were showing him your car, while you were showing him how fast it went. You tried to get to the hospital as fast as you could, but he went so quickly. Tell them he went quickly."
He nodded slowly, as if he were inscribing each word on the inside of his skull. He fumbled with the cloth for a second more before deciding to take it with him.
When I was alone, I opened the case.
There was a plane ticket on British Airways. Direct from Sea-Tac to Paris. First class. The flight left first thing in the morning. My name was on the ticket. A narrow envelope, not much longer and wider than a credit card, held an old iron key with a tiny strip of paper tied to its bow. The once geometric ornamentation of the top of the key had been smashed into a solid mass, sometime after the small string had been threaded through, and the shape of the bit shifted as I tried to focus on it. On the slip of paper, handwritten in old, faded ink, was a single word: "Abbadon."
The only other thing in the case was a velvet bag. I knew what it was before I even undid the drawstring and dumped the object into my hand. A deck of cards. Too thick to be normal playing cards. The back displayed an old coat of arms, a familiar crest I hadn't seen in a few years. A tarot deck.
I turned them over, and looked at the card on the bottom of the deck. The High Priestess. Written in the margins were a phone number and a name in Philippe's precise handwriting. Marielle.
There would be a storm for the crown of the Watchers—the rank would never accept me as their new liege. But I couldn't flee from the conflict. Not any longer. I had to go to Paris and face the rank. I might not be Philippe's revenge, but I was his successor. Ritus concursus. By right of combat. The old, inviolate rule.
I would need a friend in the city of love. I would need a safe haven. Marielle.
Five years after saying goodbye, I had to call her again. I had two things to tell her: I was still alive, and I had just killed her father.
THE END
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Lightbreaker
Table of Contents
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
EPILOGUE
Heartland
Mark Teppo, Lightbreaker
