Dark Serpent (38 page)

He moved as silently as he could along the path until he reached the dark stand of trees. The glowing energy seemed benign, it wasn’t demon energy. He crept cautiously through the trees and came to a small dark clearing, where he stopped and stared in wonder. Emma was there, curled up next to, of all things, a goddamn qilin lying in the middle of the trees as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

The qilin looked up and saw him, and he quickly fell to one knee and bowed his head.

‘Hi,’ the qilin said. ‘Emma’s great fun — did you know that? When she gets high, she’s hilarious.’

John pulled himself to his feet and eased around the qilin to Emma.

‘It’s okay,’ the qilin said. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

John knelt next to Emma. She was in pyjamas that were soaked with dried blood. He touched her face. ‘Emma? Emma?’

‘She’s out,’ the qilin said. ‘You’ll need to find her medical attention before you can take her back down.’ It nuzzled her hair. ‘Take her to Caer Wydr, the Glass Citadel. The demons evacuated the place; only Semias is there, still locked up. Free him and he can help you.’

‘What happened to her?’ John said, feeling her pulse. Her skin was ice-cold.

‘Demons dumped her here to die.’

‘Why?’ John said, but when he looked up the qilin was gone.

He picked Emma up like a child, summoned a cloud and headed west. The phone guided him for a while, but Caer Wydr soon appeared on the horizon and he didn’t need to use it any more. The tower floated above the land, encased in a crystal dome. Its many windows were round and all different sizes, cascading around the tower in an organic pattern like seeds on a sunflower. Water flowed down the outside of the dome, creating a waterfall at its base, which was filled with rainbows from the light of the morning sun. The land around the tower was green and healthy, with fields of short grass and copses of trees. The tower floated above it all without touching it.

John landed, passed through the curtain of water and peered up at the base of the tower fifty metres above him. Water from a stream rushed into the air and entered the tower through an opening in its base. Close enough.

He laid Emma on the grass on her back and felt a flash of concern at her paleness. She’d obviously lost a lot of blood and needed help quickly.

He became one with the water flowing into the tower, and arrived in an entry hall that encompassed the entire bottom floor. The water streamed into a marble pool, and overflowed into white stone grooves that ran to the edges of the room and then up inside the walls. The walls and floor were white stone carved with fish and birds; and the ceiling was a stained-glass dome showing an illusory sky. Large containers around the area held healthy-looking plants, but there was no animal life.

John opened his Inner Eye and located Semias immediately: he was two floors above in a jail cell. Not a single other living thing was present, human, Shen or demon, so that had to be him, as the qilin had said.

John checked around for an exit from the tower, and found a set of double doors on the far wall next to a staircase leading up. He approached the doors and they opened. He summoned Seven Stars, changed it to spear form and jammed it between the doors to prevent them closing. He walked through and was on the grass next to Emma again. He gathered her up and turned to find the doors hanging in midair behind him. He carried her through, dismissed the spear and hurried to the stairs.

The dungeon was bright from the round window, and there were only four cells. Semias was curled up in a corner of his cell, looking haggard, but he jumped up with delight when he saw them. John carefully rested Emma against the wall, then went to the cell and tried to freeze the bars, without success.

‘Just use brute force, you look strong enough,’ Semias said.

John grasped a bar with his left hand to steady himself, then pulled at the bar next to it with his right. It took all of his strength, but he managed to bend it. He did the same to the bar next to it and Semias could slip through. He ran straight to Emma and checked her pulse, then lifted her eyelids.

‘We need to move her to the infirmary straight away,’ he said.

‘Give me a cup and a knife,’ John said. ‘My blood is a potent healing agent.’

‘Come with me,’ Semias said.

He led John out of the cells and up twenty-four flights of stairs, moving inhumanly fast, then raced out of the stairwell into a long wide corridor. He turned left, ran to the end, then left again and into what was obviously the tower’s infirmary. Four desiccated corpses lay in hospital beds with tubes hanging out of them.

Semias stopped dead. He dropped his head and shook it. ‘I couldn’t do anything for them.’

‘Deal with them later,’ John said. Emma was barely breathing. ‘Knife. Cup. Quickly.’

‘Yes,’ Semias said. He went to one of the hospital trolleys and stared at the contents. ‘I don’t recognise any of this.’

John laid Emma on the floor and went to a cabinet. He pulled out a sterilised scalpel in its bag and a kidney dish. Close enough. He tore the scalpel open, stabbed himself in the vein in his left elbow and let the blood run into the kidney dish. Semias went behind Emma’s head to lift it, watching John with close attention. When the dish had enough in it, John went to Emma and poured some into her mouth. It dribbled out the sides, but Semias helped her to swallow it by massaging her throat.

Some must have gone down, but she wasn’t reacting. John squeezed more blood into the dish and poured it into her. She remained unmoving.

‘Whatever this is supposed to do, it’s not working,’ Semias said.

‘I’m too far from my Centre,’ John said.

Emma’s breathing had slowed to nearly nothing; she was lost. John gathered her into his arms and crushed her face into his shoulder, feeling her last breaths against him and treasuring her scent and touch before he lost her forever.

‘I will travel to your Hell and I will find you,’ he whispered into her shoulder, hoping she would hear his reassurance without the lie in his voice. Once she was in Hell finding her would be close on impossible.

Her breathing was almost undetectable, and John strained to impress on his memory the sweet feeling of holding her before he would never feel it again. The noise whirled around him and he ignored it, concentrating on his last moments with her.

Semias smacked him sharply on the side of the head and he glared up.

‘Bring her into the next room,’ Semias said. ‘We’re not done yet.’

John lifted her, ignoring the trickle of blood coming from his elbow, and followed Semias through the double doors at the end of the room.

The circular room on the other side was five metres across, its floor, walls and ceiling faced with white stone tiles. A black
rectangular stone altar stood in the middle, with a pentagram inscribed into its surface and another on the floor around it.

‘Put her on the table,’ Semias said, gesturing towards the altar. He went to the far end of the room and tapped the wall, which slid open. ‘This will take a minute, so go back and find something to wrap that arm while I set it up.’

John went back into the infirmary and quickly found some gauze and a bandage. When he returned to the altar room, Semias was placing coloured candles at the points of the pentagram on the floor, and smooth coloured stones where the lines intersected.

‘Flower of Life would be more effective, but that’s another hundred floors up and takes too long to etch,’ he said, almost to himself as he placed the stones. He glanced up at John. ‘Does she have any particular elemental alignment? Is she water, like you?’

‘She’s one of the Welsh serpent people,’ John said, watching Emma’s chest rise and fall and expecting each breath to be her last. ‘Apart from that, no elemental alignment.’

‘None of
your
elements,’ Semias said, lighting the candles with his fingertip. When they were all lit, he pushed the end of a stick of incense into one of the flames and waved the incense above Emma. ‘The spirits forgive our haste, our need is dire.’

He put the incense into a holder between Emma’s feet and pulled a black-handled dagger out of his robes. He stood at the head of the altar and raised the dagger, reciting silently. Then he moved to the northernmost point of the pentagram, pointed the dagger outwards at waist-height, and walked clockwise around the edge of the pentagram, creating a visible circle of blood-red energy around himself, the table and Emma.

‘Choose now: in or out,’ he said without slowing his stride.

‘I’m in,’ John said. ‘I lived here myself for a few years and I’ve done this. Anything you need, let me know.’

‘Great Rite?’ Semias said, and winked at him, grinning.

‘I don’t think that’s really appropriate for this situation, but I appreciate the offer,’ John said. ‘If we could hurry this …’

‘We can save her,’ Semias said, and closed the circle with an audible snap. A dome of red-tinged energy surrounded them. He quickly ran the tip of the dagger along the lines of the pentagram on the floor and they lit up with a similar red fire.

‘This isn’t in any of the rituals I’ve studied,’ John said.

‘That’s because this is the real thing,’ Semias said.

When the pentagram was complete, the lines from the floor ran up the sides of the altar and made the pentagram beneath Emma glow, bringing her into relief above it. Semias stood next to Emma’s head and gestured for John to join him. John hesitated about walking over the pentagram, and Semias gestured again impatiently. John moved next to Emma’s head on the other side of the altar from Semias, feeling nothing as he crossed the glowing red lines.

‘Wait, Welsh serpent?’ Semias said.

‘Yes.’

‘Wrong flavour then. Just a minute.’

Semias concentrated and the glowing red energy turned a deep shade of purple-black. John admired its purity; it was an energy that resonated with his own, dark, soft and yielding.

Semias’s face went serene, and a low bass thrum sounded through the floor, a rhythmic pulse slower than a heartbeat. With each beat, the circle lit up from the edge to the centre, dark purple light flowing in circles through the pentagram. The light flowed up the sides of the altar and into Semias, so that he too was glowing with pulsing black-purple energy. His face became beatific and he put his hands on Emma’s chest, thumbs touching, fingers wide. The energy flowed into Emma from his hands and back down through the pentagram on the altar. The purple-black light spread slowly through her, lighting her up from inside with a glowing dark aura.

Semias lowered his head, grimaced, and went stiff for a moment. He grunted with effort and the energy went red. The whole room was bathed in a shifting red aura that continued to move from the edges of the circle to the middle, with Emma at its centre. The energy entered Emma through Semias’s hands and flowed through her, reverberating up and down the sides of the table. Semias’s long thin hair lifted in the energy current and John could feel the heat. The light snapped off, the circle around them disappeared and Semias collapsed.

John raced around the altar and lifted him. He weighed hardly anything and John could feel how emaciated he was underneath his robes. Semias didn’t respond as John pulled him up; he was
unconscious. He put Semias’s arm around his shoulder to hold him, then checked Emma. She was still out, but she had much more colour. He touched her hand and it was warm.

‘Thank you,’ he said to Semias as he lifted him like a child and carried him out to the infirmary. He put Semias gently on the floor, and hunted in a cabinet for bed linen so he could remove the corpses from the beds and make them up freshly for Emma and Semias.

The light was too strong and I opened my eyes. Another hospital room, but this one was bright and cheery and smelled wonderful. I hadn’t realised how bad the places infested by demons had smelled, but it was obvious now I was clear of them. I looked right and my heart exploded with joy: John was dozing in a chair next to me, his arms folded, his chin on his chest. Semias was in the bed behind John, his face peaceful in sleep. I snuggled down. I didn’t need to wake them; let them sleep. I revelled in John’s presence until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any more.

The next time I woke, they were sitting together on the other side of the room, speaking softly.

‘John,’ I said.

He turned and his face lit with a huge grin, making his eyes crinkle up. I was filled with both joy and pain.

He came to me and held my hand. ‘How do you feel?’

‘I lost our baby,’ I said.

He squeezed my hand. ‘I know. But you’re alive.’

‘There’ll be others, Emma,’ Semias said.

‘No,’ John said. ‘There won’t. Saying there will be others is like saying there are plenty more women in the world when your wife’s just died. This baby was unique and there will never be another one like it.’

‘And there won’t be any others anyway,’ I said. ‘The Demon King said I was too damaged inside to have any more babies. That’s why he threw me away. I wouldn’t teach his armies, and I’m no good as an incubator.’

Semias grimaced and turned away.

I dropped my voice. ‘John, I am so sorry. I killed it. I used energy when I was pregnant.’

‘You did?’ John said sharply. ‘I thought I told you not to do that?’

‘You never told me the reason why not. It was life or death, and I thought it would hurt me, not the baby.’

‘My fault, I should have told you.’ He bent over me, concerned. ‘How many times did you use energy? How much?’

‘Only twice. The first time I killed …’ I struggled to remember, it was all a blur of fear and running, ‘three big demons. Second time, I killed another four, and I lost the baby straight …’ I held my voice together. ‘I lost the baby right after.’

‘That wouldn’t have hurt the child, particularly early on,’ John said. ‘If anything, it would have made it stronger and more likely to survive.’

Relief flooded over me. I hadn’t killed the baby; it had been the stress of running and hiding. The baby was still gone, but at least I wasn’t responsible.

John saw my face. ‘Don’t blame yourself, Emma. It wasn’t your fault.’

‘Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?’

‘Because that child was unique. Remember, once you’re Raised things will change,’ he said.

I smiled and my heart lifted. He was right. ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ I said. I turned to Semias. ‘Anything to eat around here?’

He shrugged. ‘They took everything with them when they left. There’s nothing here. If we were in Murias, it would be different, but it’s still overrun with demons and I can barely hold myself together.’

‘What’s Murias?’ John said.

‘One of the Four Cities up here,’ I said. ‘Something analogous to our Four Realms. He’s the North Wind.’

‘No,’ Semias said, shaking his head. ‘I’m not the spirit of the North like Xuan here. I’m the spirit of the city.’

‘You’re the city of Murias?’

‘Yes.’ He straightened. ‘If I wasn’t infested with demons, I’d appear much younger and better-looking, and you’d drop your man in a second for me.’

‘What are you doing in the Glass Citadel instead of looking after your city?’ John said.

‘They locked me in here,’ Semias said. ‘I’m severely weakened being so far away.’

‘What about the other Castellans?’ I said. ‘Are they looking after their cities?’

‘I’m the only one left. Everybody else returned to the Earth.’ Semias gave us a wry grin. ‘I drew the short straw and was left guarding the Heavens.’

‘Alone?’ I said.

Semias’s smile disappeared. ‘It’s been very tough. Even tougher now that the Heavens are full of demons making plans to take over the whole world. I cannot stop them, and our gods are gone.’

‘How are the demons blocking access to the Heavens?’ John said. ‘If we can find a way to bring our army up here, we can take the fight to them.’

‘When the gods left, they sealed the gateways,’ Semias said. ‘They could only be opened from this side. Or so we thought. One of the Eastern demons is highly skilled in the art of energy manipulation; it took him thirty-five years to break the ward, but he managed it. He let the others in, the demons from this part of the world joined them, and from what I can see they’re building a formidable army.’

‘This is very bad,’ John said, rubbing his eyes.

‘We need to go home and warn everybody,’ I said.

‘I already did. The East is preparing for war. We have less than six months before all the demons flood out of here and attack.’ He turned to Semias. ‘I have to take Emma home, but I’ll need to be able to re-enter here.’

‘I can let you in,’ Semias said. ‘I’ll keep a low profile here, and open the Citadel gateway for you.’

‘What about food?’ I said. ‘You’ll have nothing to eat if they took everything.’

He quirked a smile. ‘I’m a city; I don’t eat. I’ll be fine.’

‘We need you stronger before we can take you down to the Earthly,’ John said to me. ‘I know you lost the baby, but you have many, many needle tracks — what were they doing to you?’

‘Bleeding me out,’ I said. ‘Apparently I taste very good.’

‘Is that what they were doing to the other humans here?’ Semias said. ‘Draining the blood from them because they tasted good? That doesn’t make sense; all of them were sick.’

‘Wouldn’t being up here heal them?’ John said.

‘They were very far gone, close to death. They didn’t deteriorate further up here, but they couldn’t get better,’ Semias said.

‘Would they want the blood of serpent people if they were sick?’ I said.

John shrugged; Semias looked blank.

A jolt of dismay hit me. ‘They were AIDS patients.’

‘Why would they want AIDS patients?’ John said.

‘What’s AIDS?’ Semias said.

‘Remember what happened to my arm when the demon essence hit the AIDS in my bloodstream?’ I said to John. I quoted what the Demon King’s Number One had said: ‘
Cut them, break them, nothing can harm them
.’

‘Sweet Mercy aid us,’ John said. ‘They’ll be unstoppable.’ He turned to Semias. ‘Have you seen any demons coated all over with shiny black armour?’

‘No,’ Semias said.

‘Let’s just hope they haven’t worked out how to do it the other way — AIDS blood into demons,’ I said. ‘It seems these were the only AIDS patients they had.’

‘Tell me about this AIDS, it sounds important,’ Semias said.

‘That’s quite recent. Where was I up to?’ John said.

‘About fourteen hundred? Things were happening in Italy — you said a new beginning.’

‘Okay.’ John turned to me. ‘I’m giving him a potted history of the world since the Shen left him alone here. Go back to sleep; you need to rest and get better so we can go home.’

‘Are we safe here?’ I said.

‘They left you for dead, yes? They think Semias is still imprisoned, and they don’t know I’m here. I doubt they’ll come back.’

‘There’s nothing worth coming back for,’ Semias said. ‘Since the gods left, everything has been slowly dying. The animals first, then the plants.’

‘When did the gods leave the Heavens?’ I said.

‘About two hundred AD,’ John said.

‘You’ve been here nearly two thousand years alone? How did you stay sane?’ I asked Semias.

‘Cities can’t go mad. No, I take it back; we can, but it takes more than a couple of thousand years of neglect to do that. I slept mostly, and dreamed of a past when I was full of joy and song.’

‘I hope we can find a way to bring that back to you,’ I said.

‘The gods cannot return,’ Semias said, his voice flat. ‘They are gone. It is all gone. The important thing now is to drive these demons back into Hell, then you can leave me here alone to listen to the lost songs.’

‘Tell me what happened to them?’ I said. ‘I’m awake now, and it will help to take my mind off things.’

John squeezed my hand; he understood. Semias looked to John, who nodded.

Semias pulled a chair up next to my bed. ‘About four or five thousand years ago, our gods were beginning to take form and arrive at self-awareness. Humanity was new and wild and fierce, and the gods loved humans dearly.’

‘That’s about the same age you are,’ I said to John, and he nodded again.

Semias continued. ‘One of our most powerful spirits, the spirit of the sea, was entranced by a human and shared a family with her. They had eight sons, who chose to live on the Earthly. Their father gave them and their wives an island paradise full of magic and beauty.’

‘Atlantis really existed?’ I said. ‘The Archivist said it was a myth.’

‘Hush, I’m telling a story,’ Semias said. ‘The sons of the sons were greater than ordinary humans and wanted to see the world outside their island. They heard tales from traders of mighty deeds and battles fought, and how a man can only be a hero if he conquers wide lands and returns with the spoils to make his clan rich.’

‘That’s the way it was back then,’ John said. ‘You gained wealth by conquest.’

‘They invaded the surrounding seas, destroying whole civilisations in their zeal. They became known as the sea people, and terrorised half the world.’

‘And their father sank the island?’ I said.

‘Yes. He couldn’t bring himself to kill his children, so he took their land away and made them homeless. He vowed to have nothing more to do with them. They were accomplished seafarers so they took their boats and found a new home.’

‘Where did they go?’ John said.

‘They found an island far to the north where they would be safe, and settled there. They had to fight the existing people for it, but they were still stronger than humans and had little difficulty. The local people revered them as gods.’

‘Ireland?’ I said.

‘I believe that is its name now,’ Semias said.

‘What happened next?’ John said, obviously fascinated.

‘They started invading the island next door, and moved to the lands further east. They spread their culture by conquest … again.’

‘Are these the serpent people?’ I said.

‘No,’ Semias said. ‘The gods were unhappy that their descendants, who had the gifts of superior strength and speed, were set again on conquest, but again they could not bring themselves to destroy their own children. Instead, they helped a small growing civilisation to become strong enough to stop them. They went down and lived among the people, shared their stories, had families, and built a fair and just system of government with them that all people could participate in. They hoped that this positive, peaceful society would influence their children by example.’

‘Greece,’ I said.

‘Then Rome. Rome developed as Greece weakened, so the gods moved into Rome and helped the people. They armed them with the knowledge and strategy to defeat the brutal children of the gods that were sweeping over the continent, and compassionate philosophies to enlighten them. More children were born: mighty warriors and talented strategists. Of course, the Romans did what everybody else had done: they started to conquer the lands around them and descended into tyranny. They swept through Europe, destroying everything in their path. They murdered and raped and
mutilated, committing atrocities that still cause me nightmares. They had to be stopped.’

‘So the gods did it again? They created us serpent people after failing twice to control their children? Didn’t they learn anything?’ I said, exasperated.

‘They went to Ireland and took their remaining descendants, now much weakened by time and interbreeding with humans,’ Semias said, ‘and mixed them with captive demons, to create an even more powerful race that could change to serpent. The gods hoped that by making the people snakes, they would have the wisdom and healing inherent in that noble spirit and would resist repeating the same bad patterns. It didn’t work. The serpent people had a demonic thirst for blood and violence. They helped push the Romans back, but at the cost of many lives. The gods saw what they had done and retreated to the Heavens. At the same time, a new religion was spreading across the land, based on compassion and selflessness, purity of heart and freedom from the pursuit of worldly attractions. The gods decided that it was better than anything they had ever done and so they elected to destroy themselves by releasing their spirits into the Earth and sealing the Heavens. They hoped that the new beliefs would make the world a better place without them.’

‘That sounds like the teachings of a Buddha,’ I said. ‘I never thought of it like that.’

‘It probably was the teachings of a Buddha, but it didn’t work,’ John said. ‘One: the demons are here in the Western Heavens; and two: that new belief system has probably led to more deaths than the gods’ folly.’

‘Religion doesn’t lead to deaths,’ Semias said. ‘It’s the people who twist the teachings into something cruel and poisonous.’

‘Which seems to happen all the time,’ John said with regret. ‘Humans twist meaning to suit their own agendas. Teach them to respect all life and look after each other, and watch them turn it into bigotry and oppression.’ He sat straighter. ‘I like to think that they have matured enough now not to need our guidance and are capable of making their own moral decisions. We can control the demon menace and leave the humans to build a society based on reason and their marvellous sciences.’

‘Are they capable of building a caring society without your supervision?’ Semias said.

‘Some of them, yes; they live their lives protecting the world and helping others. Other humans are still full of pride, and their need for dominance over their brothers and sisters saddens us. But I think that very soon they will become a compassionate civilisation without our stupidity affecting their lives so badly.’

‘You’re not that stupid,’ I said.

‘I’ve made some terrible mistakes that have resulted in many lives destroyed,’ John said mildly.

‘So did our gods,’ Semias said. ‘Each decision worse than the last, and the Welsh serpents the most frightening of all.’