The Wiccan Diaries (17 page)

Chapter 13 – Halsey

It was outside the city, in a little dump off the A1,
Italy’s
Motorway of the Sun
. I think
Ballard and I had suicidal tendencies. The citizens of Rome were getting
jumpstarts on their summer vacations, when we both nearly died multiple times in
close calls navigating the speeding traffic on our motor scooters, along the
freeway.

In fact, I had the strangest sensation that we were being
followed. A couple of times I saw two large dim headlights in my rearview
mirror; they would fall back and reappear. I put them out of my mind. If anyone
dangerous were following us, Ballard would feel it. He would feel them.

No matter how many times I tried to comprehend that, it
still felt inexplicable.

We were dressed for our skullduggery (I, in a long-sleeved,
black-and-white striped T-shirt, with nylon leggings; Ballard in a suit he must
have picked up from his dry cleaners, in a time machine that went back to the
sixties), ready for whatever Club Change was prepared to throw at us.

We were perfect. We looked like nothing so much as two
esoteric devotees of
Whatever
. I had
the diary and my
Codex
in a purse
that finished off my ensemble.

Trust Ballard to put things into nutshells. “What a dump,”
he said.

I had grown used to the city, in my small time there: to the
Spanish tiles, and the crumbling plaster; to the ivy that hung thick on the
ancient iron gates; to the fountains, spewing potable water, sculpted by
masters; and to the high-end shops catering to every designer whim a girl could
have (which reminded me, I still needed to shop), that in my few weeks away, it
seemed like I had forgotten the world
outside
Rome.

Well, here it was again.

Club Change was hidden away in an old industrial complex
that looked as though it had not been in operation for at least twenty years.
Huge abandoned warehouses were boarded up. Outside of them, sat many uncoupled
semi-trailers, whose prime movers were absent.

I saw quite a few eyes staring out at me, from the backs of
them.

Refuse such as cardboard and other bits of paraphernalia
littered the gutters as the area had been taken over by a contingent of
homeless people. It was very dangerous. Thankfully, I had Ballard with me.

We were not alone on the streets, however. People were
gathering, headed toward the light.

Ahead, I saw an unnatural glow. It was almost midnight, and
Club Change was set to begin. I saw figures moving through the gloom, headed
towards the club.

The lamps, that should have been bright, were dead. And over
the whole area, was a patina of filth. Our scooters glided past it all, immune.
Ballard slowed.

I pulled beside him––“It feels like All Saints’
and All Souls’,” he said, and made a sound, like a ghost at Halloween.
“Woo-ooh-ooh.”

I smiled because he was so right; it felt like we were going
up the path to the place no one was supposed to go, to go ring the doorbell,
and say, “Trick or treat.” There was no telling what was going to happen.

It was nippy and I had goosebumps from the long drive. A
line of cars and scooters, and their drivers, were in front and back of us.
People crossed in front of our headlamps, making strange shadows as their
figures swept by, all of us going in the same direction.

It was a black cube, three stories tall, when we finally got
there. Velvet ropes lined the entrance, where there was a blood-red carpet, and
valets to park the Mercedes and BMWs I saw.

Everyone was dressed spectacularly; even the people that
showed up on foot.

The prerequisite for getting past the front entrance seemed
to be dressing in black. Black was the predominant color; I was one of the few
wearing anything but black.

Through the tinted glass, I could see strobe lights, in
bright, violent green, pulsing above the crowd of moving bodies. That was
floors one and two. Floor number three was opaque: you could not see through
the all-black glass. I wondered why not.

Below, it looked like they had a laser beam and splitter.
Some kind of light show was going on. Together with the strobe lights, it did
funny things to my head.

There was also the beat of loud music. Electroluminescent
wire spelled out the name of the club. Ballard and I parked our scooters. We
were not in Trastevere, so I made sure to secure the helmet and take my keys
with me.

Likewise Ballard, who was suddenly nervous. “I hope you’re
not expecting to dance,” he said.

“I thought all Italianos know how to shake their booties,” I
said, grabbing my purse. “C’mon.”

He followed behind me, as I led the way. “You do know that
Italian and Spanish are two separate languages, right?”

I liked it when he chattered. It meant he was nervous.

“Does everyone not look a little weird to you?” he said.

It was his favorite word.

“We’re all a little weird,” I said, magnanimously.

We found a spot in the back of the line. People continued to
pour in. It was hard not to see what he was talking about.

It reminded me of a time I went to a rave with Becca. We had
climbed down the pipes and disappeared into the woods surrounding St.
Martley’s. Mistress Genevieve punished us for a month afterward, but it had
been worth it.

What happened was there had been some drug
usage––but neither one of us was into that. What happened was it
had been raided. And Mistress Genevieve had had to come pick us up from the
police station. It was a sight, seeing her there.

Anyway, Becca and I had been talking to this guy (before the
trouble started). I never knew his name. He just gave us a rundown of the
ravers. It was one of the most interesting, pretty speeches I ever heard.

“You have your
zombies. And over there, the children of the night. They only come out to feed.
If they try and give you a party favor, run. The Goths. You have the candies
and the perks, the Black Metal, the fetishists.”

He continued to enumerate them:

“Rivet-heads,
non-rivet-heads, Cybers, Grungers, and, of course, your wannabes.”

That was pretty much Becks and me.

“Plus a whole lot
more.”

But that was what this was like.

Over the glow sticks and rave pants and all of that was this
electric energy of anticipation; everywhere were conversations whispering like
lit fuses. “Let’s go already!” shouted one American teenager. A girl no older
than I was.

Still, how did so many people know about this place? And why
weren’t there any cops present? There should be, shouldn’t there?

I pointed this out to Ballard, who just shrugged. Somebody
tapped my shoulder. “Need to know,” they said. “And you don’t.” I got a little
chill.

It looked like they were letting the VIPs in first. I
suddenly worried that it would be packed to capacity before we ever got there.

But before I knew it, we were in. I saw Ballard tip the door
guy. He was an astonishing mix of naive and shrewd, Ballard. I would’ve missed
that one. It got us through, no questions asked.

“What are we supposed to do, now?” he said, being naive guy
again. I shrugged. I didn’t know either.

I had to shout over the loud noises. “We should probably
start with figuring out what this place
is
,
exactly!”

Ballard nodded.

Everywhere were couples.

Awkward.
There was
no worse feeling than being around a bunch of people dancing, and I wasn’t one
of them. People continued to crowd in.

I saw a flight of chrome stairs leading to the first floor.
“We gotta go to the second floor,” I told Ballard.

He rolled his eyes. I pointed it out with my hand palm down,
as was customary in Italy. Italians must have done that because they were
always pointing to something beautiful––so the gesture had a bit of
an appraisal to it. In any event, he got the gist.

We slipped through the humping and gyrating bodies and made
it to the second floor––and it was subtly different than the first.
In my diary I would have written,
See,
you can go to the first floor––and stop there. Or you can go to the
second floor, and see what’s up. The few go to the third floor.

But I could see no way to get to it. “I don’t get it,” I
said. “If Romans don’t
point
––”
I jabbed my finger at Ballard, “what’s with the hand of the
Colossus
? Never mind,” I said, when I
could see that he didn’t get it, either. He was too preoccupied.

He was trying to figure out how to be one of the few. “How
do you take the road less traveled, if you can’t find the road?” he asked.

The answer came to me all at once. “If everyone could find
the road, it wouldn’t be worth taking. It must be hidden,” I said. Maybe I was
taking it right now.

Ballard got out the flyer. He unfolded it. “Do we just
wait?” he said. I perused it with him. “I think we just wait,” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Look!” he said. He pointed with his palm down.

I could see what he was appraising. The light show had
changed. The splitter was making the laser beam make strange shapes. “Weird,”
he said. Then, “cool!”

A ball of light
exploded
,
scattered, reconstituted.

Before we knew it, triangles began to form in the sky; from
the second level, it was like they were right in our faces, endlessly
repeating, one inside the next.

Then the lights that had scattered at the initial, big
explosion, gathered at the edges of the light show, and built themselves into a
giant circle that enclosed the triangle, and behold, there was a flame in the
center––the flame of the light; and I
Saw
.

My head felt dizzy, seeing the images spin....

“Ballard. I think I need to sit down.
Ballard?”

But Ballard wasn’t looking at the light show. He was looking
somewhere else.

“Ballard?” I said. I turned to see what had gotten his
attention. An elevator opened out of the wall.
It must lead to the third floor
, I realized. A procession of robed
figures was departing from it. With their deep hoods it was impossible to tell
who they were.

“Don’t drink anything they give you, Ballard,” I said. He
nodded. Suddenly, it felt as though we had stumbled upon a cult.

* * *

We were being
herded
down to the ground floor. Surrounding the three robed figures was their staff
of bodyguards. At the same time, someone gave the order to lock us in. The
music had cut out. Over the speakers, a voice was saying, “If you’re not in by
the time the doors close, then you’ll just have to wait until next time. Thank
you so much.”

A nervous twitter went up.

I saw the speaker before I went down the chrome steps. He
was holding a gold-tipped microphone. Everywhere there were excited noises. I
didn’t know what was going on. The bodyguards took their places at the bottom
of the stairs, huge arms folded across their too-tight muscle shirts,
effectively cutting anyone off from getting past them. It was their bosses I
concentrated on, now. I felt Ballard reach for my hand; he took it, forcefully.

The guy with the microphone handled the preamble.

“Welcome,”
he
said, “to Club Change.”

Huge cheer.

“And to the first night of the rest of your lives!”

“Actually every night is the first night of the rest of our
lives,” I said.

“Halls, something is wrong here,” said Ballard.

“How come? Wait... you’re not getting one of your
feelings
again, are you?”

He told me not to draw attention to myself

The doors were locking. More guards stood over them.

Ballard steered me back into the throng.

“We’re here, tonight...” said the voice over the
microphone––

But whatever he said after that I couldn’t hear. The sea of
figures raised their arms and danced around, drowning him with their cheers.
Suddenly, the three robed figures stood forward, and removed their hoods. There
was a
gasp
as the audience saw them
for the first time.

Ballard said, “You know that bad feeling I have?”

“Shh.
I want to
listen.” I was just as enthralled as the rest of them.

When I looked at them all, however, it became apparent I was
not. The sight of the faces of the robed figures had done something to the
audience. It was like they were transfixed, focused on the eyes of the three
faces.

A murmur was going through the crowd. Something was
happening. People in front of me were passing something back.

“Take one!” said the speaker over the microphone.

Ballard shook his head. “Don’t,” he said. I grabbed one and
looked at what everyone was holding. Chew tablets.

Couples were feeding them to each other, letting them melt
on their tongues. Everyone focused again, high overhead.