Resurrection (22 page)

Three witches, three warlocks, three mages, three wizards. The triangle was the most stable of all conjuring images. After all, what was a pentagram but triangles within triangles within triangles? Trinities within trinities.

Nicole thought of how demanding she'd been with her mother, insisting on preferential treatment,
and how contemptuous of Richard, her father, who had known his wife was having an affair—with Eli's father!—and had done nothing about it except look sad and depressed. But Richard Anderson hadn't left. He'd stayed…for his wife, and his children. Love endured all things.

She thought back to Cologne again, unsure why her mind kept going there. Musing, she reached for her cup…

…reached for her cup…

…reached for her cup…

It was no longer there.

And neither was she.

The Temple of the Blind Justices: Nicole

Nicole staggered in a little circle. She was surrounded by a white mist, and as it cleared, she saw that she was standing in the middle of a ring of Grecian columns that rose so high into the boiling clouds overhead that she couldn't see their tops. Between the columns men and women sat on white marble chairs wearing Grecian-style togas. Their eyes were milky white, and their faces were youthful and unlined. Some were as white as bone; others, golden-hued, mocha-brown, purple-black.

“Where's Owen?” she cried. “Where am I?”

“Nicole Anderson-Moore, you face the Blind Justices.”

Her attention darted from face to face. She didn't know who had spoken. No one's mouth had moved.

“Where's my baby?” she yelled. She ran toward the closest man, smacking into an invisible barrier about five feet from him. She slammed her fists against it. “Owen!”

“The baby brought you here,” the voice said again. Again, none of them seemed to have moved a muscle.

“What do you mean?” She rammed the barrier again.

“If you will calm yourself, we will tell you.”

“Are you Deveraux?” she asked them. And something happened. Something shifted. She looked at each face in turn. Milky-white eyes stared back at her.

“We are not Deveraux, or Cahors, or any other name belonging to a man,” said the voice. “We have moved beyond all that.”

“Owen—”

“The name you gave him.”

She caught her breath. “Does he have another name? Do you know who his father is?”

“That is for you to tell us. That is why we have brought you here. For confirmation.”

“You…You think you know who it is,” she said slowly, as her heart pounded. She felt dizzy, a little sweaty. “Tell me.”

There was silence. “You have been brought here because this child was not meant to be.”

She was speechless. Terror ripped through her. They were going to hurt Owen.

“Yes, yes, he was,” she blurted. “Of course he was.”

“Then you have aided and abetted in altering the balance,” the voice said. “And for that crime you must pay.”

Ise, Japan, 1281: Nicolette, Elijah, Louis, and Marie

Kameyama, the great cloistered emperor of Japan, prostrated himself in the black robes of a Shinto priest, forehead to tatami mat. A table held the sacred shining Mirror of the Goddess Ameratsu, his patron and heavenly consort. He prayed to Her without words, for She knew his heart, and he would never be so disrespectful as to address Her directly, even though, once a year, they communed sensually and brought blessings on Japan.

Outside the simple wooden shrine thousands of Kameyama's subjects prayed as well. It was the most massive vigil ever held, and belief that Japan was divinely favored surged through the petitioners like a living being; for had not Ameratsu driven back their enemies seven years before, with bad weather?

But this time there were one hundred forty thousand rampaging Mongols of the fearsome Kublai Khan, using new weapons and new battle tactics. With their four thousand four hundred ships, the barbarians
fought not in the traditional Japanese way, one warrior targeting another, for honor and focus—but in enormous formations working together, like some strange superior being. The Japanese army fielded only forty thousand men, trained to respect the enemy in hand-to-hand combat—and they were dying for it. The sea surged red, with Japanese blood.

Japan had been saved seven years before by violent sea storms that had sunk half the Mongol fleet. Surely such weather had been created by the great Goddess Ameratsu. Surely, if She heard the pleas of her devoted followers, she would create such a miracle once more. Thus, the days and nights and days became one long prayer, sent up to heaven with incense, bells, and chants.

But the weather that day was fine, and the enemy was slaughtering Kameyama's men up and down the coast. Mongol arrows and Mongol blades mowed down loyal samurai like rice seedlings. Kameyama feared that soon the Japanese enemies of the imperial family would also rise against the Chrysanthemum Throne, when it was weakest.

And so, Kameyama prayed to his Goddess. And hidden in the shadows, the most powerful witch and warlock in the world worked to aid Ameratsu, in their own way. They were Nicolette of House Cahors, and her Deveraux husband, Elijah.

Kameyama didn't know everything about their magic powers, but he knew that Nicolette prayed to the Goddess, and Elijah worshipped the Horned God. Wind began to ripple like a river as the arcane words of the oldest language intermingled with Latin, Greek, and old French. He didn't know their spells and incantations; they spoke to him in Japanese.

The magical ones both wore formal black kimonos—they and their children, Marie and Louis—intertwined with crests of Pandion, the lady hawk, and Fantasme, the cruel hunter. There were also moons, for the Goddess, encircling the head of the Green Man like a halo of holiness. The blood of sacrifices sizzled onto white-hot charcoal simmering in black braziers, which Kameyama pretended not to know were there.

Elijah and Nicolette conjured the elements. Both parents were quite aware that despite the love they bore for the children—and love was the force of light—their spells were curses, dark and deep. They willed evil weather into the world—fierce lightning, wild and divine wind; they wished for the deaths of thousands. Perhaps later Cahors or Deveraux would walk in the light. The times in which they lived brooked no mercy. Kameyama was their ally, if not their friend—witches and warlocks had no friends among the non-magical. In most fiefdoms and demesnes, those discovered practicing the air were torn to pieces with pincers, their
eyes burned out of their sockets, their babes ripped living from the wombs of their mothers.

Mercy was a dream promised by the Christian God, whose priests were the most merciless of all men. A dream promised, but forever denied—or so it seemed to those who did not worship Him.

And so, Elijah and Nicolette poured all their energy into defeat of their enemies, into death and destruction. While Marie sucked her thumb and watched the dead animals on the braziers turn to charcoal and Louis tossed a rat's skull from palm to palm like a juggler's ball, their parents brought evil into the world.

The sky began to howl, the wind to shriek. Nicolette heard the murmurs of the Japanese faithful outside the sacred shrine and wondered if they would begin to panic. Elijah was speaking words so evil that she wanted to cover their children's ears. But in those days there was more power in evil than in good. Let those who had ears to hear…
hear.
It was their legacy. Their children would be even more powerful than Nicolette and Elijah were.

A thunderclap split the sky, and lightning illuminated the room. Rain shot down like Mongol arrows, hard and cruel. Nicolette smiled and put her hand over her husband's. It was done. She closed her eyes and saw the clouds and the currents switching places;
Elijah lured chaos to come into the world, and to the Sea of Japan that licked the shore like a lover.

The wife of Elijah Deveraux promised delight and joy to Pan if He would blow His essence into the typhoon. Before arriving in Japan, the family had gone to India, and Elijah had promised the same to the Goddess in Her incarnation as Kali, the Goddess of time and change. The Magnificent One promised a world that bowed to Cahors and Deveraux. There was no pairing more deadly, no conjoined family more powerful. They were in thrall, lady to lord. Japan was nothing to them; they would travel back and forth in time and space, bending it to their will.

“
Maman, j'ai peur,”
Marie whispered, tugging on the long sleeve of Nicolette's kimono.

“Fear is not for you. It is for them,” Nicolette said.

Then the typhoon hit—a gale, a tsunami tidal wave of unimaginable fury. The elemental forces had been driven mad with magic, with demonic omnipotence. In a whiplash fury the shrine was gone, blasted into kindling; Kameyama's shout was lost as Nicolette was whirled in a circle, crazily, tumbling heels over head. She screamed for her children, and Elijah, screamed over and over, and saw images—

She saw a Cahors witch burned at the stake.

She saw a woman drowning as a dam broke and flood waters tore apart a town.

She saw a Deveraux man and a Cahors woman buried in a building as an earthquake shook it.

And then time froze inside the whirlwind and everything halted. Nicolette was surrounded by cool, white ether as she sank slowly to a cold white marble floor. Then, as the mist thinned, she saw Elijah across the floor, but the children were nowhere to be seen.

“Marie! Louis! Where are you? Elijah!”

Nicolette tried to run to him, and found she could not. She was rooted to the spot. She screamed…but no sound came out of her mouth. Elijah's dark eyes burned as his mouth worked. She could tell he was trying to free them both from whatever magic held them fast.

The last of the roiling fog vanished. White columns rose high above her, disappearing into mist. Men and women with milky eyes sat on white marble thrones. They were draped in white robes, and she was afraid to look at them.

“
We summon thee, Cahors and Deveraux,”
a voice said, although none of their mouths moved. “
You destroy the balance. You affect time and space. This cannot be allowed.”

What?
Nicolette thought, still unable to speak aloud.

“
We are the Blind Justices. We preserve the balance between good and evil. And you are growing too strong. Cahors and Deveraux may not exist in harmony, or the world
will cease to exist. Henceforth, let your Houses war against each other. Let them battle and plot. Where there was love, now there is murderous vendetta.”

Elijah, my love,
Nicolette thought as each Justice in turn blazed in a nimbus of light. Then all the brilliance was sucked from the room.

“Cast out,”
the voice said.
“Cast out of the paradise of true love. Cahors, Deveraux, you may never enter it together again.”

No!
Nicolette screamed. She stared at Elijah, willing him to stop them, slay them, call down the wrath of his God upon them. His eyes were burning; flames danced inside them. Ebony flames, black fire, and then…

…and then she saw a young woman, weeping tears of black fire; she was a child of the future; she was Holly, of the Cahors, and she loved Jeraud Deveraux.

Oh, my sister,
Nicolette cried out to her.
Don't let this come to pass.

Then she saw nothing as she fainted dead away.

Nicolette, Elijah, Marie, and Louis were never seen again. Deveraux blamed Cahors for the disappearance. Cahors knights snuck into Castle Deveraux and assassinated the six children of the reigning duke in an act of vengeance. The two families hated each other, with wrath that pushed past sanity; a rage as vast as that of Kali fed the hatred that tore them into factions and wars and hatred and bloodshed.

Across the continents and oceans, knowing sorcerers and wizards sought to keep it that way. If the Cahors and Deveraux hacked at each other's necks, they would hack at no one else's.

Scarborough: Richard, Anne-Louise, Owen, and Sasha

Richard paced, worried for his daughter and feeling more helpless than he'd felt in a long time. “Is it possible she went after Amanda and Tommy?” he asked.

Anne-Louise shook her head. “I don't think Nicole can open a portal by herself, and besides, I don't think she would leave Owen.”

He knew she was right, but he didn't like it. Divide and conquer. It was an old battle tactic, and you didn't get much more divided than he had been in the last several months. Enough.

“Can you find the ones in India again, get a good location and open a portal, a two-way one?”

“Maybe I can open a portal,” Sasha said. “It seems I'm getting rather good at that.”

“Or someone is,” he replied pointedly.

She hadn't told them very much about her encounter with Merlin. But it was clear she was terrified. He would let it go for the moment, but sooner or later she was going to have to tell them everything she knew.

Anne-Louise headed for her room, and a moment
later was back. “A strand of Pablo's hair; that will help us find them.”

“You're wanting to go to them?” Sasha asked.

“No. I'm going to go and bring them back.”

House Moore might have been a death trap, but at least it was one he was getting to know fairly well.

Mumbai

Armand turned around and killed a demon that had been trying to catch him unawares. Beside him a portal shimmered, and Richard Anderson stepped through. He was carrying a machine gun.

The man flashed him a wicked grin. “The cavalry is here. Now get the hell out,” he said, jerking a finger over his shoulder to the portal.

“Pablo!” Armand shouted. In an instant the boy was by his side and they stepped through together.

Demons flew through the air and crawled across the ground in an attempt to follow. Richard fired on them and was pleased to see that the magic in the bullets had as great an impact as the bullets themselves.