Influence (26 page)

‘Now watch, watch
them come.’ Lizzie turned her head away refusing to be a witness but the Serf
grabbed her by the hair and wrenched her head round, Lizzie cried out in pain.
Robe slapped the Serf hard across the face. ‘I said don’t hurt her you pathetic
creature.’ Lizzie felt the Serf’s grip loosen, it let one hand go and it
reached for Robe. ‘What are you doing? Hold her,’ he yelled. The Serf’s hand
returned to Lizzie.

The screams and
shouts from the scattering students began to die off as one by one the mists
overcame them.

‘You’re full of shit
Robe, you know that don’t you?’ said Lizzie, desperately trying to find a stop
to the madness. The protests from many within the crowd had now stopped,
replaced by gurgling and choking.

‘Not now Liz,’ said
Robe, exasperated.

‘You’re nothing but a
bloody hypocrite. A sick fucking psychopathic one, but a hypocrite none the
less.’ Robe turned to her shaking his head.

‘You’re making this
so hard Liz, so hard not to hurt you, maybe I should give you up to them too? Would
that make you happy?’ He pointed at the crowd, some of whom were slowly getting
to their feet with blank expressionless faces. One boy turned his hands over
examining them, as if for the first time, while a girl sat on her knees, an
impossibly large smile growing on her face. She began snapping her head
violently from side to side and the terrible laughter came again, this time
from her.

‘Maybe you should,’
she said, ‘but you won’t; and that’s my point.’

‘Just let me work Liz
won’t you please.’

‘You don’t practice
what you preach Robe, haven’t you realised? It’s like what you were discussing
with Sully that day in philosophy class, what was it? That “Will to Power”
shit. I mean that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? Putting yourself above all
else in the pursuit of power. Abandoning compassion and sympathy?’ Robe said
nothing, he just looked at her, but the Serf’s grip on her shoulder relaxed
slightly. ‘But here I am Robe, I’ve been a pain in your arse from the very
beginning, and what have you done about it? And now at the end, why
am
I
not with them? Why am I standing here watching it all? Not just spared, but
given a goddamned front row seat. It’s like your showing off for me Robe, don’t
you see? You’ve abandoned nothing, you won’t hurt me, not really, but why?’

The Serf’s grip was
all but gone, its hands merely rested on her shoulders.

‘Because we’re
friends?’ said Lizzie. ‘Because you like me? You care about me?’ There was
something in Robe’s face then, something she hadn’t really expected, a resignation
perhaps, or some recognition, something had hit home. ‘Why Robe?’ she said
softly now, ‘Because, you love me?’

The look he gave her
then was anything but subtle, but what was it she thought, fear? Chagrin? The
candles in the room reacted in kind, sparking back to their normal flame. The
Serf jolted, some invisible manacle falling from him.

‘Is that really it
Robe? You’re in love with me?’ said Lizzie incredulously.

‘Shut up, just shut
up. And you, I told you to hold her, shut her up.’

But the Serf did not
obey. It lurched forward, some remnant of Robe’s control resisting its advance.
The students who had not yet been overcome by the mists were being set upon by
those who had. Shrill screaming and defiant yells clashed as they were locked
in combat.

‘But you never said
anything Robe,’ said Lizzie, trying to keep her voice steady and calm, aware of
the danger the students were in. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’

He ignored her,
instead focussing on the oncoming Serf.

‘Get back you idiot,
what are you doing, seize her.’ The mist strands were retreating, the Serf
struggled forward; Robe’s control was quickly evaporating as his hubris
haemorrhaged from him. The Serf’s movements slowly became free, and the
possessed students had stopped attacking the others, they stood statuesque,
their focus now on Robe who backed towards the door and pulled on it only to
realise it was his turn to find himself trapped. Part of Lizzie wanted to help
him, and part just wanted to look away, in the end she could do neither, she
stood and watched.

The Serf seized him
by the throat and lifted him from the floor. Robe clung to the arm holding him
and kicked. Sully sprang down from the altar sensing his moment, and searched
through the parchments on the floor. He began to chant.

Lizzie barely heard
the words, her thoughts had returned to the day they had discovered Robe’s body
in the woods. She had been unable to go to Vic’s side as he knelt by his dead
brother, while she had stood on the path and cried. What if she had been strong
enough to go to him then? Would she have seen what Vic saw? What Robe wanted
him to see? Or like in the photographs, would she have seen the body for what
it truly was? How much heartache could have been avoided if she had been
stronger?

She couldn’t bring
herself to look at Robe’s dead body then, but she couldn’t stop herself
watching him die now.

The candles flared
brightly as Sully began his own incantation. The Serf dropped Robe who crumpled
to the floor clutching his neck gulping air.
The students were slowly coming to, as the strands of mist were
being pulled increasing quickly back towards the mirror shards. Some unseen
lasso pulled the Serf backward. Lizzie saw that the largest of the broken
mirror fragments, barely a foot wide, was aglow, dust and the remaining mist in
the room was being sucked into it as Sully performed the banishing rite from
the third scroll.

The Serf’s greatest
desire was to be free of the bonds of flesh and to leave this plane, but it
resisted the pull for one other desire. With great strength it lurched forward
once more grabbing Robe by the arm. A great wind cycloned through the chamber.
The students anchored themselves together and Lizzie tucked her arm under the
stone altar. Sully’s robes billowed around him but he was unmoved, he yelled
the words from the parchment. The Serf, with a screaming Robe in tow, accepted
the pull of the ritual and allowed itself to be hauled backwards towards the
mirror fragment, now a gateway. At the edge of the portal the body of Todd
stopped, no longer compelled, a dark shadow, twice the size of its host, was
being sucked from Todd’s bones. A long, dark, and translucent arm still clung
to Robe as it was drawn down through the mirror hole; Todd’s body fell
backwards to the floor. Robe’s arm was pulled through, but the hole was not
wide enough for his shoulders. His arm disappeared and he screamed in agony while
he frantically slapped the floor with his free hand trying to find some
purchase. He grunted as he managed to pull himself a few inches up before being
slammed back to the ground, the wind rushed through the gaps around the hole.

Robe looked up at
Lizzie, she could not tell if the look was one of regret, sorrow, or just
defeat, but he was no longer screaming. He closed his eyes as a sickening
crunch echoed through the room, Robe’s broken body was dragged through, his
legs slapped the edge of the hole as the Serf took him.

The rush of air slowly
ceased, the candle flames receded and the glass portal became glass once more.
One student made a run for the door finding it free and the rest quickly
followed helping the boy the Serf had choked who was, at least, on his feet.
Sully was on the floor telling a semi-conscious Todd not to move.

Lizzie sat,
sniffing the air, trying to place the faint smell. Sully closed the door of his
office and took his seat behind the desk.

‘It’s
single malt, fifteen years,’ he said.

‘What is?’

‘The smell,
it’s single malt, of which I suspect you owe me a bottle,’ he said giving her a
wink.

‘Ah. Yes,
sorry about that, it was an accident.’

‘Don’t
worry about it. Thanks for coming in to see me. I would have come to see you,
but I didn’t want to put you in a position; I don’t know how much you’ve told
your aunt, or how much you want her to know. I wouldn’t have blamed you in the
slightest if you hadn’t come, but there are some things I think we need to
discuss.’

‘You mean
like whether or not I might go to the police?’ Sully smiled, he knew he could
rely on her to cut to the chase.

‘Amongst
other things, but yes. Also I wanted to give you this.’ Sully went into his
desk drawer and retrieved a white envelope.’

‘What is
it?’ she asked.

‘It’s what
I wanted to see you about when I spoke to you in the hospital. I wanted to get
your permission, but in the end I just went ahead.’

‘Went ahead
with what?’

‘It should
be self-explanatory. Anyway how are you?’

‘I’m fine,’
said Lizzie, only half paying attention to him, as she ripped the corner seal
of the envelope.

‘Just pop
it in your bag Lizzie, open it when you get home. I’m sorry I haven’t had a
chance to speak to you properly since all the trouble, but I wanted to let the
dust settle. So you are well?’

‘I am,’
Sully gave her a suspicious look. ‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Don’t get me
wrong, I don’t suppose I’ll ever manage to get some images out of my head, but
the fact that I know it’s over, really over means I’m able to, I don’t know,
sort of leave it all behind now. I know that sounds strange considering what
happened, but somehow I find it easier to deal with this than the mystery of
Robe’s death, his first one I mean.’

‘It’s not
that strange,’ said Sully, ‘I think I know what you mean. I wanted, if you
like, to try to answer any questions you might have. I think that’s only fair
after what you’ve been through.’

Lizzie sat
forward in her chair thinking.

‘You know,
I probably have a hundred questions, a thousand maybe, but right now I can’t
think of any. Well, perhaps just one. When I think about that night in the
library one thing confuses me, what exactly happened to Robe? Why did that
thing, whatever it was that was in Todd, attack him?’

‘Actually I
had wondered if you knew just how brilliant you were that night,’ said Sully,
‘whether or not you were aware of how important your actions were.’ She gave
herself a moment to try to work it out.

‘All I know
is the more I challenged Robe on his bullshit the less control over things he
seemed to have, so I just kept pushing him. I didn’t know what was going to
happen. I was just desperate, clutching at anything.’

‘Well
you’re right, more specifically, now how do I explain it? It revolves around commitment
and confidence. It’s hard to put into words, but basically Robert’s control of
his servant creature, The Serf as he called it, was based on his ideals of full
commitment to his cause, this “Will to Power” concept. Whether or not he actually
needed to commit to this to control the creature is unclear, but what is
certain is that he believed he did. And when you penetrated that belief it
crumbled, along with his control.

You see the
pentagrams, the cloaks, the ceremony of the whole ritual thing, isn’t, in
itself, necessary to achieve results, but it all serves to focus people into
what they’re doing, it unites and commits them.’

‘The right
words, in the right order, with the right conviction?’ said Lizzie using Void’s
words.

‘Exactly,
and when you took away Robert’s conviction he was left with an extremely pissed
off demon he could no longer command.’

‘That’s
what The Serf was?’

‘I believe
so yes, using the first scroll he was able to bring it through from its own
realm, but with the three scrolls united he was able to tap into something far
deeper, far more dangerous.’

‘The black
creature and the others. What are they?’

‘I don’t
know for certain, but from the names he spoke during his summoning I think they
were some of the greater demons, things so old and evil it would have been the
end of us all. But for your intervention Lizzie, I can only guess at the
horror. So I will always be more grateful to you than I could ever hope to
express.’ Lizzie blushed.

‘Hey I was
just trying to save my own ass,’ she said, ‘you just happened to be in the
room. So, the other people there that night, what’s happened to them?’

‘I’m still
working my way round them, to see what their intentions are. Some of them were
pretty shaken up and I’m not sure if they intend to talk to third parties about
what happened. We’re obviously concerned about a media backlash as well as any
legal difficulties. That said Lizzie, you are perfectly entitled to do as you
please, the same has been said to all those present that night.’

‘By “we” do
you mean the university or The Council? Or are they one and the same?’

‘Well yes,
that’s a good question, and I know Frank has discussed some of it with you but
I’m not sure just how much he explained?’

‘Not much
really,’ she said, ‘I sort of thought that you
were
The Council, but now
I’m not so sure.’

‘Oh no, the
Esoteric Council goes much further than me. What you saw was just a branch of a
much larger tree. I won’t say too much right now but think of the Council as
just that, a parochial little council, a small cog in a system that stretches
eventually to the highest levels.’

‘Really?
Why?’

‘It’s
complicated,’ Sully paused, his eyes searched the ceiling while he gathered the
words. ‘These elemental forces you were witness to, and the darker element we
all nearly succumbed to, are well documented through history albeit in
antiquated texts and have had little testing by modern standards. The thing is
this… power, for want of a better expression comes and goes.’

‘Yeah Void
said something about how it ebbs and flows, and that it’s currently strong?’

‘That’s
putting it mildly Lizzie, it’s incredibly strong and has been for a while, we
don’t know why but we do know it’s incredibly dangerous and there’s a growing
fear that it’s building to something, but we’re completely blind as to what it
might be. Anyway this power exists, and is available to anyone with the right
knowledge whether we like it or not, so we are faced with a choice, do we
condemn and forbid anyone to dabble in the art? Or do we explore it and try to
understand it? The former may have worked in the dark ages where society was
reined and controlled with a steel fist, but today in our liberated world that
would be impossible, it would simply force the thing underground. So the
Council, and others like it, have been formed to, quietly, explore the
phenomena and, more importantly, find ways to defend against it. Unfortunately
by trying to do that we inadvertently placed you and others in direct danger
and for that I cannot apologise enough Lizzie.’

Lizzie sat
quietly for a moment. ‘What happened,’ she said, ‘wasn’t your fault, I can see
that now, I’m not sure how you could have seen it coming.’

‘If I’m
being totally honest Lizzie, I suspected something was going on, but I couldn’t
place it, couldn’t put it together. It became clear to me that someone was
trying to lay their hands on the Lockwood scrolls. The first scroll is held
here in Oxford and the importance of it and the others is explained to those
joining the Council. The dangers of what the scrolls represent is also
explained, we would never have suspected someone within the Council would be so
reckless as to try to put them to use. The general whereabouts of the other two
scrolls were not considered to be a dangerous secret as there are protections
in place, but that was my mistake. One night I received a phone call from the
Cambridge University Library, where the second of the scrolls had been placed,
telling me they believed someone had tried to take it, but had failed. To be
safe I gathered them together while we investigated, it never occurred to me
that someone could just view it and memorise it.’

‘Robe’s
photographic memory?’

‘Yes. The
Scrolls will be placed away safely now, by people much further up the food-chain
than I, although I don’t know, at this stage, if that chain even exists to me
anymore.’

‘What do
you mean?’ asked Lizzie.

‘The
Council has been suspended indefinitely pending a full investigation, which in
many ways is a shame since Frank believes you have an incredible aptitude for
magic. I would have loved to see what you can do; I honestly don’t know if it
is this talent you have or the way Robert felt about you that meant his
glamours didn’t work on you, but I would have loved to have had you around to
do some tests, but I doubt they’ll let me head up another Council any time
soon. I saw what you did with the candelabra in the chamber, you saved that
boy’s life.’ Lizzie shifted uncomfortably.

‘You saw
that? I wasn’t sure I did it or not. I don’t really know what to think about
that, so I try not to.’

‘Fair
enough, perhaps we can discuss it some other time.’

‘So Void
told you about their little sub-group? The circle within the circle then?’ she
said moving the conversation on.

‘Yes,
although I already knew, I just turned a blind eye, I trust Kara to keep things
under control.’

‘Well you
can tell those it matters to that I have no intentions of going to the police.
They were worse than useless the last time I spoke to them anyway. Besides,
something tells me that if anyone
were
to spill their guts to the
authorities the whole thing would mysteriously dissolve anyway.’ Sully laughed.

‘Probably,’
he said. ‘So enough about all that, how is Frank? I understand you’ve been
seeing a lot of him?’

‘He’s fine,
although you wouldn’t think it by the way he’s milking it. He complains about
the plaster-cast, but he’s fooling no-one, he loves it; he has this elaborate
story to tell anyone who’ll listen about how he broke his arm after disturbing
a robbery at a Post Office and chased off four guys before they turned on him.
It’s a bit pathetic, and I swear he does it to wind me up of course. I mean
it’s not like I can call him on it, tell his captivated audience – That’s not
how it went down, here’s what really happened.’ Sully laughed again.

‘And what
about you two? What’s going to happen there?’

‘I don’t
know, we haven’t really discussed it, I’ll be gone at the end of the summer, so
I guess we just enjoy it while it lasts.’

‘That’s a
good attitude, and you never know what’s round the corner, stay positive.’

‘Hey, you
know me, always sunbeams and lollipops,’ she said getting to her feet sensing
the meeting was over. Sully stepped out from his desk and opened the door for
her. ‘How’s Todd?’ she asked, feeling a little guilty that it hadn’t been her
first question.

‘Physically
he’s fine, and he doesn’t remember a thing. We’re working with him to help him
understand what happened. We’ve had to coach him while he speaks to the police.
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that the bodies of his friend Dale and another man
were found in his flat?’

‘I read
that in the paper. Do they suspect him?’

‘With a
little help from us, the investigation has centred around a murder suicide
theory and if it sticks it will keep Todd out of trouble, but it’s early days.
Thanks for coming in Lizzie, it was nice to see you. I’m sure it won’t be the
last time, but just in case look after yourself.’ He held out his hand for her,
but she side stepped it and hugged him.

***

Janice and Maggie were out.
A plate of lasagne sat on the kitchen table wrapped in cellophane with a note
telling her not to wait up. They had recently unravelled one of her many
secrets – her relationship with Void, but she hadn’t yet subjected him to them.
However finding excuses not to introduce him was becoming increasingly
difficult. Still, her unusual behaviour over the past month or so had now been
attributed to him, and they had stopped asking so many questions.

She didn’t
want Janice to know about what had happened, at least not for the moment, what
would be the point? And where the hell would she start?

She sat
with a cup of tea while her dinner revolved in the microwave. She flicked
through the mail lying on the table, nothing for her, but it reminded her of
the letter Sully had given her. She fished it from her bag and examined the
front of the envelope. Her name, handwritten, was the only inscription and
there was nothing on the rear to give any clue as to its contents. She tore
along the envelope’s edge and pulled out a single sheet of typed paper, she
read: