The Wiccan Diaries (16 page)

Lennox

Lennox,

Next time come for a
more protracted stay, huh? I enjoy what it does to Camille. I don’t think she
has ever forgiven you for that fiasco in the fifties. I would say she needs to
get a life, but I gave her this one, and it’s till the end of All Time. So,
what are you going to do?

Seriously, I’m looking
into blood curses for you. This girl you told me about is American, which will
help. In the Old World, I would have told you to watch your back. They are not
like us. Our two ‘species,’ for lack of a better word, were not meant to mix.
Be careful, is all. She may not be
fledged
, but she is a witch. The Lenoir are picky about such things.

If you care about
that.

It is coming on time
for you. I am forbidden, of course, to inform you of certain aspects of the
trials. But you should not be thinking of anything else. Or anyone.

I do not mean to get
heavy, but there it is. This coven will never be whole, until you are part of
it, in every way.

If you die, I really
will kill you.

Dallace.

P.S. Somebody stopped
by, the day after you left. ‘You cannot go to Paris without going to Rome,’ as
the saying is; ‘and Venice is the go-between.’ His name is Marek. He says you
two
know
each other? I suppose
vampires are the Monaco or Vatican City of all the races, mortal and immortal
alike. We cannot help but prune our numbers, so keep our membership small.

Still, I never heard
of this vampire before. He is coming for you. And I think you know who sent
him. Be sure you don’t get clipped, my friend, huh?

 
Your friend.

P.P.S. Vampires travel
faster than the postal system.

* * *

There was also a letter from John Occam. Unlike civilized
people, he didn’t seem to care how I was, or what I was up to, beyond trying to
identify and do something about
‘this
vamper contagion,’
as he called it.

* * *

Massimo,
he wrote
, is like a crystal ball or a ouija board;
he makes big prophecies of hot air easily debunked, and then tells me I’m doing
it wrong.

Prague is a deeply
disturbing place, still off-limits to your kind. I think if I could take Prague
I could take Paris. Instead I will go sniveling back to them.

I have been searching,
searching, searching for a cure. That fool doesn’t read his mail, and when he
does, he doesn’t understand it. Which is why I’m getting to you so late.

I spend my days in the
library, pouring over old manuscripts, and my nights avoiding what I call the
Human Revenants: the evil Hunters and others of their ilk. I swear, they think
it is like scoring a buck, taking down an Immortal.

I would like to see
them contend with the oldest dead. And watch them fail.

This preponderance of
dead flesh is not unlike other urban myths of viruses engineered to eliminate
so-called cultural undesirables. I think if it is meant to wipe out any
population, it is the vampires; and so originated
with
vampires. At least, that is the theory I am working on.

People only work hard
to kill other people they know. And vampires used to be people.

How very astute of
you, by the way. There are only two unnatural metamorphoses––and
vampires is the other one. It affects the blood, the Suck, even as it effects
it.

Change is a constant
in all lifeforms. Even yours.

Please, do not scratch
my car.

* * *

He didn’t bother to sign it.

Halsey

Dear Diary,

Breakthrough! I’m
going to have to buy you another diary, so you can be boyfriend and girlfriend
together. I’ll write in that one, too. Then you can whisper between yourselves,
and figure out what I’m keeping from you both.

Ballard and I have
been pussyfooting around this ‘Supernatural’ issue. I don’t know why when we
have openly avowed a suspicion that such things may, in fact, exist.

I had Lia bring him
over, even though she was against it. She told me I was putting ideas into his
head. I said that’s what heads were for. Except in her case, Diary.

Then I took Ballard
over to my local scooter rental outfit, and being a girl of independent means,
I rented him one. At least until he can afford to fix the damage done to his
Ducati-thing. He made a face, but eventually shrugged. “I’ll pay you back,” he
said.

That means we can
back-and-forth instead of just e-mail all the time. Which is good because I can
be online anywhere. I have half the summer left in Rome and I don’t want to
waste it. It’s approaching the end of July, when everyone gets out, and I want
to enjoy it while it’s still peopled.

You should see my
skin. I’m almost golden. Growing up in New England, I didn’t think I had any
skin pigmentation in me. Ballard of course is just naturally that way.

We drove south, to
more ancient areas. All the way to
Via Appia Antica
. One of the oldest paved roads in existence. It was lined with ruinous
crumbling tombs––some no more than mounds of dirt. Lizards basked
in the sun, regulating their body temperatures.

Travelers along the
road included a Who’s Who of Biblical figures.

The stones along the
road were laid flat and smooth. Countryside went into the distance on either
side, followed by the Alban Hills. Tall pointy cypresses and thin
broccoli-shaped ones shaded the joggers and cyclists from the midday heat.

It was a wild and
overgrown area––full of whitepinklavender orchids and hawthorn.

This, Diary, was the
spot.

Ballard seemed uneasy;
he suspected me, I could tell.

We were alone for half
a mile in every direction. A
volpe
,
which is Italian for fox, came out from wherever it was hiding, and stared at
us; he had a shaggy head, and a red fur coat. He suspected me of duplicity.

Ballard. Not the fox.

“So,” he said, then
did an arm swing thing. Was Ballard uncomfortable? He was always so nonchalant.
Which was exactly the problem.

I picked an orchid. It
looked like a fiery red flame with points of white. Then twirled it in my fingertips.
Ballard was taller than I was. I looked up at him, from underneath my
eyelashes.

The wind picked up and
caught my hair; I could see it blowing licks, this way and that. Smelling the
orchid, I walked up to him, equally nonchalant, and then turned aggressive.

He dropped his hands
to his sides and then looked down at me––his thoughts not so
inscrutable, after all. But I wasn’t here to take advantage of him, Diary.

I backed him up
against a cypress tree; I think I will never forget the smell of that field. A
dry, sweet, serene scent. It was the easiest thing.

His back thudded
against the cypress.

He had a look on his
face.

“I know you’re hiding
things from me, Ballard. Don’t play coy,” I said.

“What––whatever––do
you mean?” he said.

I was inches from him.
He had held his breath, expectantly. The orchid looked like some alien plant,
like the iron roses––twisted.

I lost heart.

“Romulus and Remus,” I
said. “The founders of Rome. I looked them up––” And so I had.

He searched back in
his memory, breathing again. “What––what about them?” he said.

“Well, you said,” I
said, twirling like the orchid, and then tossing my head, so my hair did
interesting things, “that your family––has a Legend.”

“Oh. That,” he said.

I did a cartwheel, and
then threw my head back. I was crouching, half-wild, looking up at him. “Yes,
that,” I said. I picked another orchid. A blue one. The two, complementary, set
each other off.

“I don’t get it,” he
said.

“Do I have to spell it
out for you?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“No problem.” I began
picking at the orchid, destroying it. The twisted one I let live.

“They were suckled by
a she-wolf. Right?”

I looked at him,
between my eyelashes, like two giant staring liquid eyeballs, beady and
insect-like, ready to pick him to pieces. And then did the face, blew the
strand of hair out of my face again. So I definitely had his attention, Diary.

“I heard you say the
word ‘outlaws,’” I said,
“fuorilegge.”

“Oh. That,” he said
again.

“You edit. Withhold.
Pussyfoot.”

“What?” he said.
“Wait.”

I turned back around;
I had been about to leave.

“Go on,” he demanded.

“They were outlaws.
Fuorilegge.”

“So what?” he said.

I said, “So that’s
code
, all right? It means
werewolves
. That’s why I’m here, Ballard. Don’t you
see? I did some digging. It’s called lupo mannaro. Italian lycanthropy is
perfectly well documented.

“Who’s to say what is
real and what isn’t?” I went on. “Do you know, they found a
two-thousand-year-old computer lost off the island of Crete. People bend spoons
with their minds. Do you believe in the Resurrection? The Holy Eucharist? That
a man can transform himself into the ravening figure of a wild dog? I do.”

“There’s just one
problem,” he said. “I’m not a werewolf.”

“The moon is
steadfast. It never turns. It also doesn’t show you what it’s got behind its back,”
I said, coming towards him. “It has a dark side, the moon, which it keeps to
itself.”

“And you think I do?”

“You hide,” I said.

“I’m not a werewolf,”
he said again.

“Ballard... Your
parents went to Greece.”

“So?”

“So that’s where
werewolves are
from
,” I said. “And
when Greek writers were done writing about werewolves, the Romans picked them
up. They probably traveled on four legs and set up shop here. Romulus and
Remus.

“Do you know what an
outlaw
is
?” I asked him. “It’s
someone who has, in effect, been banished. Its roots date from early Roman
history. In a law called
homo sacer
.
All the way back in a time just after Romulus and Remus, your forebears, died.
Put simply, it meant you could kill them––these outlaws. Heck, it
was your duty to kill them. But the words had a deeper meaning.
‘Cursed.’”

I explained to him
that it persisted through history––these cursed men who were
banished, hunted, and murdered––until the Middle Ages, when such an
individual was called
vargr
.

And that was the Old
Norse for outlaw. But it also meant wolf.

“Werewolf,” I said.

He said I was crazy.

“Let me get this
straight,” he said.

I cut him off. I
wouldn’t allow him to cheapen this. This wasn’t some specious argument. “Risky
knew wizards,” I said. “Think about that. Which, by the way, I
am
one. The only thing I can think is that you
haven’t gone through ‘the Change,’ yet, so perhaps don’t know
what
you are. Instinctively, you’re cool with
it, though. You’re cool with
us
.

“Which is cool for me,
because I need your help,” I said. “I did some major crumpling of my forehead
last night. I was bothered by the symbols. You know the ones? Suddenly, it came
to me.
Change.”

I heard some rustling
and looked up.

Ballard was gone.

I turned around and
saw him stalking into the high grass. He was pacing around.

“What’s wrong?” I
asked.

“I’m fifteen.”

“So?”

“So I’ve been through
puberty, okay? If I were this––” he couldn’t bring himself to say
the word ‘werewolf,’ “––you’d think I’d be scratching around
already. Only, I’m
not
.”

“Ballard. That doesn’t
matter,” I said. “The important thing is, we know what you are now. And I
looked into the matter thoroughly. Did you know, there are actually people who
think
that they are werewolves? They’re not.
They’re just crazy. But they
think
they are. You see what I’m saying? So there have to be people who really are
werewolves but that think they’re not.”

I was satisfied with
my logic. He
flipped
.

“Ballard... come back...”
I said.

He stalked toward me.

He was my Bally: I
played him like a yo-yo.

“Why are you upset?” I
demanded.

“I’m not.”

“Are. You’re gritting
your teeth.”

“It’s just...”

“What?”

We had come to the
point, Diary––the brink. If Ballard and I were to continue to be
friends––now––this moment––would decide it.
He had to start being honest with me. He had to learn to trust me. I crossed my
arms, and let my hair do whatever it wanted.

For his part, he
completely collapsed.

“It would be
so
like me,” he said.

I sat down in the
grass with him.

“The worst part is
watching everyone else. Lia tells me to butt out; it’s hard, knowing that she
gets to have all the fun. My parents put her in charge. I’m to go to school and
be a good boy. It gets tiring being the one to have to mind my p’s and q’s.
Meanwhile, just think about it, Halsey. I never saw anyone get up to something,
unless there was something to get up
to
.”

“What do you mean?” I
said, excited he was sharing, but concerned about the off-sounding note in his
voice.

“The other night, at
La Luna Blu,” he said, “I
felt
something. I didn’t see something. I didn’t hear it. I
felt
it. It was the weirdest thing. It was like
a calling. A cold fear. A chill in my heart. A little voice in my head said,
Something
is out there
. ‘What?’ I told Gaven about
it, and you saw how he reacted. They rode around all night.”

“Did they find
anything?” I asked.

“You’re not listening
to me,” he said. “If they did, or if they didn’t, why would they ever tell me?”

“So... What are you
saying?”

“Only this: You are
not the only one who can get online...”

“If you were any more
cryptic––” I said.

He pulled out what
looked like a flyer. “I
found
something,” he said, handing it to me.

I unfolded it, and
looked at it. It was crumpled in places. It looked like a map, of sorts.
Directions. To a club.

“‘Cambiamento del
club,’” I read.

“Club Change,” he
said, complimenting my pronunciation.

I could see the
requisite delta symbol. Again, it looked uncannily like the back of a
one-dollar bill. Instead of an All-Seeing Eye, however, or a circumpunct, there
were many symbols. Symbols I had seen before.

Symbols that were, in
fact, swimming, as if in a constellation of stars––on the cover,
and inside of,
The Magus Codex
itself. My book of magic.

“Ballard...” I said.

“I was thinking, we
could go there. And maybe they could tell us...
something
,” he said. “They seem to be into this kind
of thing. Or otherwise, it’s a club for transgenders.
Change.”

I felt euphoric
suddenly. I checked my watch, and said, “We have to get ready. According to the
flyer, it opens at Midnight.”