Summer's End (8 page)

October 31

Morning

The sun was in my eyes, I was stiff
and cold, and damp from morning dew.

I was still in the cemetery,
where I’d apparently spent the night. That shouldn’t have been possible…yet, as
I sat up and looked around me at the headstones, the morning joggers, my great
tree…it had happened.

The fingers of my right hand
were tight. I flexed them, and something dropped from my grasp. I retrieved it.

It was the wand: A foot-long
section of oak, twisted in a perfect spiral shape, with a neat nob at one end
and a tapering point at the other. It was possible that it had fallen from the
tree above me naturally-the wood felt slightly rough, and there was a slight
center bend to it–but I recognized it without question:

It was the tool that my savior
used during the night to drive Bal-sab back.

I didn’t even ask myself if it
had really happened or if I’d merely dreamed it. At this point, the answer
didn’t really matter.

I was relieved to find my car
where I’d left it, and the gates to the cemetery were open. I drove out without
seeing a caretaker or guard.

It was 7:33 as I left
Evergreen, the morning of Halloween. The day was clear and already warm, with
just a trace of L.A.’s perpetual smog blanket. I was surprised to find that I
wasn’t tired or aching from my night on the ground. In fact, I felt…well, I can
only call it hyper-aware. I saw every detail as I drove towards the 5 freeway:
Every yard of cracked asphalt, every scrap of trash, every used hypodermic
needle or empty bottle, every man who staggered along the sidewalk too young to
have dead eyes, every woman who carried a jar of Vaseline in a cheap purse and
looked for her next trick, every kid whose heart hardened a little as he saw
the bullies coming and wanted to join them.

At first I was glad to leave
the city streets behind and ascend to the freeway that ran above the urban
hell, but the morning rush-hour traffic was in full force and presented its own
grim scenes: A woman on the shoulder, staring with grim desperation at her
broken-down car; a man in a Lexus with a perfect haircut shrieking into a
Bluetooth so loudly that I could hear him across two lanes of idling cars;
honking horns, blaring ranchera music fighting discordant rock, a helicopter
beating the air overhead.

This world was mad.

Two thousand years had led to
this. It seemed ridiculous to think any of it could be reversed. The everyday
difficulties of life, small and large, are too interconnected; severing one
link can’t destroy the chain. But if part of the chain can be weakened, then
maybe we can begin the act of freeing ourselves. Isn’t that why we vote, why we
volunteer, why we donate?

What part of the chain would
break if an ancient death god were appeased?

An hour later, I finally
reached home. Roxie meowed unhappily at me, understandably upset over missing
dinner last night, but even her irritated, shrill little cries lightened my
mood. The world couldn’t be so bad when different species could live together,
with joys, upsets, and experiences shared, and those rare times when simply
nothing happened except each other.

I fed Roxie, then she settled
in at my feet, purring and grooming herself, as I checked e-mail. There was the
message from Conor, with directions; he’d provided a map of the location where
we were to meet. It was forty minutes or so to the west, but I’d be joining the
going-home traffic and so doubled the time. I’d need to leave here at around
3:30, then.

I had six hours to prepare.

And no idea what “preparation”
should be.

October 31

I spent part of the day apologizing.
I’d missed two interviews, one last night and one this morning. I’d
disappointed a New Jersey radio station and a Boston newspaper. And my
publisher.

I called Ricky, but he only had
a few minutes between takes. I lied, and told him everything was fine.

I studied the Samhain ritual in
the journal. We’d begin with a prayer to the gods, we’d sanctify our space,
we’d offer an animal in sacrifice, and then…I had no idea how Conor expected us
to create the triple-death that the Celts had employed, the simultaneous
strangling/stabbing/drowning, unless we were breaking into the backyard of
someone who had both an oak grove and a swimming pool. Southern California
isn’t exactly known for its bogs and bodies of water.

Of course here I was
considering participating in a murder, and I was more concerned with the method
than the act.

I left early. I couldn’t stay
in the apartment anymore, thinking about what was to come. I took the wand and
the netbook that had Mongfind’s manuscript. Conor said he’d have everything
else.

An hour later, I’d driven into
the hills, down a road marked for construction, but which was still surrounded
by undeveloped land. I parked, and hiked a short trail to the spot Conor had
indicated. I had to admit that he’d chosen perfectly: The area was hidden in a
slight depression, was surrounded on all sides by gorgeous old oak trees, and
would be a lovely area to kill someone in.

I had to stop thinking that
way.

Sacrifice has been practiced by
cultures throughout history and around the world. Among the Celts, it had been
considered a great honor to be chosen; those who were, accepted death willingly
to ensure the prosperity of their clan.

This was the right thing to do.

But no matter how many times I
repeated that to myself, it still felt like a lie.

I spent an hour there, trying
to enjoy the sun, wondering if it would rise again tomorrow, watching a small
brown lizard scuttle up the trunk of a tree, before ó Cuinn arrived. I heard an
engine, and was surprised to see a rented four-wheel-drive SUV come bouncing up
to the edge of the grove. Conor parked and got out.

“Ah, good—you’re already here.”
He moved around to the rear of the SUV, opened it up, and revealed a cage
holding a small goat. There was also a metal tub, a five-gallon bottle of
water, and a duffel bag. Aside from the goat—a little gray-and-white kid who
kept squalling piteously—he was alone, although I couldn’t tell if there was
someone else in the SUV.

“Aren’t you…missing something?”

He nodded towards the front of
the car. “I told our special guest to wait until I called for him. I thought
that might be easier on you.”

I started to walk toward the
SUV to look in, but realized Conor was actually right about that. “Yes, it
probably will be.” The kid pressed its little face against the wire mesh of the
cage and bleated at me. “A goat? Doesn’t Mongfind mention sheep?”

Conor shrugged. “There aren’t a
lot of sheep in the L.A. area. The goat was hard enough to find. I don’t think
it much matters exactly what species the animal is.”

“I hope you’re right.”

He set the tub in the middle of
the grove, opened the five-gallon container, and poured the water into the tub.
“Ahh,” I said, watching him, “so that’s how you plan to satisfy the drowning
requirement.”

“Yes. Again, when in L.A., like
a good actor you learn to improvise. What about you—did you have any luck with
the wand?”

I showed him my find, and his
eyes narrowed as he examined it. “Where did you get it?”

“A cemetery, just east of
downtown.”

“You just found it there?”

“Well…not exactly…it was given
to me in a dream, by a woman. I still had it when I woke up.”

“A woman in a dream?”

I nodded. “Yes, but not
Mongfind, or the Morrigan, if that’s what you’re thinking. From her dress, I’d
guess this woman had lived about a hundred years ago, and I’m assuming she
lived in L.A., since her grave is here.”

Conor touched one finger
lightly to the wand, held it there for a second, as if somehow gauging it, and
then pulled his hand away. “She must have been a powerful wise woman. A witch,
I guess you’d say.”

I remembered how easily she’d
repelled Bal-sab. “Yes, she was quite powerful.”

“And now,” he said, moving his
eyes from the wand to my face, “so are you.”

If he’d meant to flatter me
with that, it didn’t work. All he succeeded in doing was making me
uncomfortable again; although I certainly had no objections to accruing power
in some areas, magic I hadn’t even believed in a week ago wasn’t one of them.
“Any power I have is…an accident.”

“No. Not an accident. Call it
what you like—destiny, fate, luck—but I believe that you were born for this
night, just as I was. Most people go through life wondering if they have a real
purpose; well, yours and mine is to set history back on its proper track.
Tonight.”

No, I wanted to say to him, I’m
a writer. That’s my purpose. Not this. But I wasn’t interested in arguing with
Conor ó Cuinn, so I kept quiet.

Overhead, the sky had started
to dim, the blue taking on the deeper, almost metallic shade of approaching
dusk in autumn. The sun was dipping below the hill that defined the west side
of the grove, and Conor turned his attention to the duffel bag. “We need to
move quickly. It’s almost time to begin.”

He handed me what at first
looked like a white sheet. “Put that on.” I shook it out, and realized it was a
simple robe, fashioned from bed linen, probably by Conor himself. I pulled it
over my head, and he handed me a large sash I used to belt it. He’d even picked
up three cheap lanterns that he now lit and set on the ground.

He put his own robe on, handed
me a printed out version of the ritual, picked up his own copy…

We began.

Samhain

I won’t give you the details here of
the first part of what we did. It was hard not to giggle through some of it,
although I thought of Bal-sab as we created the protective circle and any
derisive laughter died in my throat. I’m not proud of my part in killing the
goat. The poor little animal kicked and cried and shook, and even though its
life ended quickly, it seemed like hours for me. Somehow assisting Conor with
the sacrifice of the goat affected me far more than sharing a murder with the
Morrigan had. I grew up with a hunter and tried to imagine this as no more than
cleaning fish with dad, or watching him dress a deer; but I thought even my
father would have a difficult time with a small, howling goat.

Conor, however, seemed to have
no such compunctions. He performed his part of the ritual with clenched-jaw
efficiency. I wondered if he’d done it before.

The goat’s body, head submerged
in the tub of water, had just ceased trembling when the air in the grove
changed. The sky, still a faint shade of purple, abruptly darkened; the
temperature dropped, my skin goose-pimpled.

Conor’s steel melted. He looked
up, eyes widening. “My God…” he breathed.

Yours, maybe. Not mine.

Bal-sab had arrived.

I went over the protection
spell in my mind, hoping we’d done it right. The Lord of Death’s unrelenting
appetite would easily take us if we hadn’t. We waited a few seconds,
breathless—but the circle held. Bal-sab would be taking only what we offered.

“Let’s finish this,” I said to
ó Cuinn.

His attention snapped back to
me, and for a minute I saw him sag. After the way he’d dispatched the goat, I
expected the next sacrifice to be easy for him. He didn’t move, but only gazed
towards the SUV.

“Conor…?”

Without a word, then, he
trudged off to the parked SUV, opened the middle door, and reached in.

When I saw our intended victim,
I understood his hesitation. My own resolution, which I’d spent the
day—days—trying to build up vanished instantly.

“Your son…?”

Because it was a five-year-old
boy he’d brought out of the SUV. The little boy—Alec, I remembered—looked like
Conor, but like the Conor I’d seen in the photograph on his desk: Younger,
fuller, happier. The boy still clutched some sort of little talking stuffed
animal in one hand. He seemed small even for five.

Five.

“No,” I said.

Conor clutched his son’s hand
in fingers still stained with goat’s blood. At least his voice broke when he
said, “We have to.”

“No. This isn’t what we talked
about.”

“It has to be an…extraordinary
offering. We’re trying to correct two thousand years of mistakes with one
night.”

I felt Bal-sab roil with
anticipation above me. I felt the Morrigan’s lingering presence within me,
telling me Conor was right. This would work.

“Daddy?” said Alec, his accent
thick even in two simple syllables. He looked up at his father with love and
confusion.

I tore off the robe.

“What are you doing?” Conor
released his son and started towards me.

“I’m leaving.”

“You can’t. I can’t finish it
alone. The ritual requires both of us.”

I’d nearly reached the edge of
the circle then. “I know. That’s why I’m leaving.”

“You won’t be safe once you
step out of that circle.”

I knew that, too. And I’m
ashamed to admit that I’m enough of a coward that I stopped. For a second. Long
enough to say, “None of us are.”

Then I stepped past the lines
we’d drawn and walked out into the night.

I expected Bal-sab to engulf
me. The last thing I’d feel would be agony, or intense cold, or the breath of
eternal suffering.

Instead there was nothing. As
soon as I was out from beneath the oaks, the sky returned to normal, I heard
the distant sounds of freeways, saw the glow of the valley to the east…

And knew that I’d just damned
the world.