Lady Sativa (18 page)

Lily had just completed her physical preparations, and was daydreaming along with the radio music while she waited for Maxwell. She was anticipating long, pleasure-filled days with Owen in New York. Everything about him seemed so right. It was the first time in her life she had ever felt so secure about her feelings.

Ever since she’d been a young girl she’d been searching for that security. Not in the sense of permanency, for she’d learned from experience that the only certainty in life is change. But she had to be sure that her emotions weren’t being squandered on a trivial attachment.

When she was a little girl she had been spoiled by her parents, but after their death she shunned the material comforts she’d inherited. Instead she’d embarked on. her search. At first it took her through the intrigues of academic honors and an important career as a television journalist. Her title ushered her easily into the places where money and power called the tune and no one was tone-deaf.

What she heard didn’t satisfy her, however, and her restlessness took her to the flash and flattery of in clubs, fashionable drugs, sexual exploration, and pop notoriety. Her affairs with Europe’s most talented and successful men were duly doted over by the media and she was photographed in the company of film directors, rock stars, and various renegade Members of Parliament.

When that period of her life began to wane, she flirted with a choice of a brilliant marriage or a career in politics.

The surface of her life was as glossy as a magazine, but she was becoming disappointed by the emptiness of its content.

It was then that she had her crisis. She’d always undergone unusual symptoms during the moon phase and as she grew older she came to realize that it was precognition of future events that was causing the disturbance within her.

For a long time she’d been very careful during the time the moon was full, but she suddenly decided to explore her psychic potential. It seemed like a lark to use her powers as a medium.

The press dubbed her the Moon Lady and she” began answering requests for readings during the lunar phase. But then something happened to change the readings from a fun experiment to a nightmare.

The first few sittings were mildly successful, but she suffered unpleasant side effects. Then the sittings started getting out of control. One night she was held by a force that seemed to buffet her very soul with its intensity and she broke down.

While she was recuperating at home, Count Germaine came to visit her. He dropped in casually for tea and before the afternoon was over he had diagnosed exactly what had happened to her. The count had always been part of her family and childhood life and she continued to see him. She’d always been grateful that in the past he hadn’t felt the obligation to advise her, unlike so many other friends of her family. But until that afternoon she hadn’t realized he was so completely versed in the arts of the occult.

Not only did he teach her how to control, direct, and protect her psychic powers during the lunar phase, but he also gave her a new purpose—the quest she’d been seeking all her life.

Then, quite by chance, she discovered another of the count’s secrets, and she decided that above everything else, she wanted to share that secret with him. He refused flatly at first, but she persisted until he accepted her as an apprentice.

There had been a time when she felt she could fall in love with Count Germaine, but as she learned the arts of his science she understood that her most profound emotion had yet to be touched.

It had been Dr. Owen Orient who’d touched that emotion. After years of searching, it had taken her only a few minutes to know that she was in love with the soft-spoken American.

She had sensed the serene strength in his blazing green eyes and she had come to admire his honesty and total lack of concern for material gain. And when they had made love she’d understood that what they shared went far past physical feeling. She recalled the way his mouth turned up at the corners, so that he seemed to be always smiling gently at some unspoken humor, and smiled to herself at the memory.

When the phone rang, she assumed that Maxwell was calling to tell her Germaine was ready. The sound of Owen’s voice threw her into a sudden confusion.

She couldn’t tell him the truth when he asked her about the experiment. The anxiety and guilt of the deception caused her to cut the conversation short.

She was immediately sorry after she hung up and impulsively started to call him back. But then she replaced the receiver.

It was no use, she told herself, she’d only be forced to deceive him again. She wasn’t sure he could accept the truth about what she was doing. It was best to wait until the rite was finished. Her mind went back to his call. Somehow she thought she’d detected a fleeting note of need in his voice. She stood up quickly and turned the radio up louder. She couldn’t allow herself the luxury of personal feelings right now. It was vital that she put Owen out of her mind.

She had to bring her full mental and physical concentration to bear during this last period. Every thought, every emotion, every desire, every conscious moment had to be devoted to the ritual she’d contracted to perform.

13

Sybelle arrived early at Orient’s house the next morning, bright and determined to rouse his spirits.

“All right, darling,” she called as she flounced into the studio. “I’m ready. Did you make a list? “

“A list of what?” Orient grunted, looking up from the tray of slides he was studying. A night without sleep had left him with a hangover and he wasn’t prepared for Sybelle’s bustling energy.

“A list of the ingredients for the formula. The cure, remember? We’ll go shopping this morning for the herbs and things and you can order the poppy seed or whatever it is you need. Did you work out the last line in the rhyme?”

He shook his head.

“I thought maybe it could be a piece of moon rock, or something like that. Do you know anyone at the space agency?”

Orient smiled and put the tray down on the table. “I think the price tag is too high for us right now. I’ll order the opium, but I don’t think the incomplete formula will work.”

“Who knows? In a crisis you have to try everything. Now let’s go. I know a lovely herb store downtown that should have everything you need.”

The sun glinted off the blue surface of the Hudson River like a bright cosmetic, giving the waters an unpolluted sheen. As they drove, Sybelle maintained a running line of patter, like a disk jockey, making it impossible for Orient to tune her out and withdraw into the comfortable shell of his depression.

“You’ll see. I’m positive the formula will clear up those dreadful symptoms. And then as the moon phase is over, we can get after Anthony. Do you think it’s a good idea to hire private detectives? Perhaps not. Much wiser to handle it ourselves. Don’t you think so?”

“It would be difficult to explain a werewolf to a private detective,” he agreed morosely.

“You’re perfectly right, dear. And while we’re waiting for your opium to get here we can go through a few tests of my own.”

“Tests?”

“You know, a psychic reading. After all, I
am
New York’s leading medium. And I know my business. Agreed?”

“You win,” Orient sighed. He didn’t have the will to argue the point. The days were getting short and he would try anything.

Sybelle directed hirr to Khiel’s Herb Pharmacy on lower Third Avenue; there they were able to find mandrake, wolfbane, and belladonna among the hundreds of exotic roots and herbs stocked in the century-old shop.

From there Orient drove further downtown to a medical warehouse and ordered three hundred grams of pure poppy gum. He was prepared for the inevitable checks on his credentials and the ten or so forms to be filled out.

Opium such as he needed formed the base for all of the highly addicting drugs and was under rigid control.

“I was beginning to think you took a cab home,” Sybelle complained when he got back to the car.

“They just wanted to make sure I wasn’t an illegal drug dealer. They had to phone my name to a central computer that checked my record nationwide.”

“Did they tell you when it will be delivered?” she asked anxiously. “I’ve been making some calculations and....”

“Don’t worry,” Orient grinned. “Only four or five days. In time for the next full moon. We can mix the potion then.” He started the motor and pulled the Rolls away from the curb. Somehow the physical activities of the morning had eased his depression considerably. “Lucky for us they use computers now. Otherwise it would have taken a month.”

“Well, anyway that’s taken care of. And in a few days I want to give you the Sybelle Lean treatment. All right?”

“Anytime you say,” he murmured. She wasn’t being unreasonable. He knew that she was highly skilled. Her empathetic powers gave her an amazing ability to make predictions or give advice.

“Call me within the next few days then,” she said. “When you’re feeling cooperative and alert.”

But as the time drew nearer to the moon phase, Orient’s alertness was crumbled to dust by a grinding sleeplessness that became a nightly adversary. He tried everything he’d learned: physical exercise, Yoga concentration and flushing techniques, hot showers—none of it helped. He could only manage an hour or two of rest a day. And then the dreams came, leaving him more exhausted than before.

As the days passed, he gradually lost the ability to perform routine activities. His desire to maintain his spiritual disciplines eroded. He lost touch with Sybelle and avoided contact with Sordi. He spent most of his hours walking the streets, completely withdrawn in his insulated desolation.

He tried to find distractions, but he was unable to sit in a movie house for more than fifteen minutes. Even the time required to eat a regular meal extended past the” narrow limits of his patience. The only amusement he found that could keep him occupied for a few moments at a time were pinball machines.

He realized his sanity was disintegrating, but he kept moving through the city. All function burned out, but his muscles and motor drives accelerated in compensation. As if sheer motion justified the existence of his mindless parts.

He did, however, manage to cling to some habits. One in particular flowered from simple curiosity into obsession. Every night, before he went out, he went to the library and consulted his almanac for the coming phases of the full moon.

Two days before the moon was scheduled to appear, Orient received a telegram. He thought at first it was from. Lily and a sharp surge of expectation sliced through his despair as he tore the message open. But it was only a notice from the warehouse telling him that the opium base had arrived.

The fresh breeze of enthusiasm that blew up when he’d received the message remained and as he drove downtown to pick up the package it occurred to him that he should call Sybelle.

He opened a panel on the ebony dashboard, took out a phone receiver, and pushed the buttons for her number.

Her voice came to him on a cloud of static.

“Darling.
Isn’t that just amazing? I tried to call you just this minute.”

“Something special?”

“What we talked about. Did you get your poppy?” “Picking it up right now.”

“Wonderful. Come see me as soon as you’re finished.”

He replaced the phone receiver and increased his speed, suddenly curious.

Picking up the opium required another round of credentials and certifications and when he finally received the small package the tension that had built up inside him slowly collapsed. His patience had been stretched to the breaking point by the tedious transaction. Still he’d managed to complete the simple task and even that was enough to sustain another rare breath of well-being.

When Orient arrived at Sybelle’s apartment, he saw that she had set up an extra table in her living room and it was loaded with pads of paper, astrological graphs, numerology charts, books, pencils, and other less familiar implements. “I’m simply mortified that I didn’t call you

sooner,” she apologized as soon as he entered. “But I’ve been running a whole psychic profile on you and the graph said you wouldn’t have a good day until today. Was I right?”

“Right on target,” he said, congratulating her. “You have a lot of artillery there. A whole Pentagon of prophecy.”

“Good, good,” she muttered distractedly. “Just sit down, darling, while I consult my charts. I’m glad we’re accurate, but it doesn’t look promising.”

As he sat down Orient noted that Sybelle’s round face was without make-up and she was wearing a simple cotton shift. The absence of jewelry on her fingers made her pink hands look soft and small. The serenity relaxing her unpainted features suggested that she’d been in medita-tion, preparing her psychic faculties.

“Now just tell me everything you can think of,” she said softly, sitting next to him. “Did you sleep well last night?”

He realized she was trying to establish conversational rapport so she could take a psychic fix on his vibration.

At first he just communicated in short phrases, but as he sensed her growing receptiveness he began to speak openly.