The Wiccan Diaries (23 page)

“So you’re him?” said Marek.

“I am Infester, yes.”

“Is that your real name?”

“Names are illusions, boy, given to us before we know who we
are yet. I am who I
say
I am,” said
Infester.

He showed us around; it was like a fortification. “I am
afraid I have the Apocalypse on the brain,” he informed us.

“So you do believe in it? That it’s coming?”

It was Lennox who spoke. Infester looked him up and down.
“It is a pleasure to meet you. Truly,” he said, then nodded. “I am too old, of
course, to fight. Thirty years! It’s a long time to wait... I always imagined I
would be on the front lines. When I tried to tell people, they wouldn’t listen.
They
refused
to listen.”

We followed him into his home. I saw a box with lights
blinking and a large display he had on the wall. It was an image of the city.
There were red dots and blue dots. The blue dots were many, but then the red
dots started taking over. Pretty soon, the red dots were destroying the blue
dots.

“It’s simulating,” he said.

Over and over––the red dots kept wiping out the
blue.

“It’s the Zombie Apocalypse.” He had a high
wee
voice.

I didn’t want him to be right. I wanted him to be crazy.

“We’ve read your book,” said Lennox.

“Good, good,” said Infester.

“There isn’t a date. When is this supposed to happen?”

“Ah, but you haven’t been reading the
signs
,” said Infester. “It’s all in the papers. Murder, death,
mayhem. The signs are upon us. ‘When is it starting?’ It’s starting now, boy.
It’s starting NOW!”

“You know about what’s going on?”

Infester nodded. “The dead rising.
Guardians
... too busy...” He pointed at Ballard with his finger.
“That’s how it starts. They bide their time, you see, building their forces.
When they have enough, that’s us gone, boy.”

“You talk about weapons, in here,” said Ballard.

Infester grinned, playing with his string. “I haven’t been
twiddling my thumbs for thirty years,” he said.

“So you do have weapons?”

“Some,” he said.

“Can we see them?”

“Well, that depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not you’re prepared to swear the oath. ‘I,
state your name...’ Go on,” he said.

“‘I, state your name,’” said Ballard. “What about the other
three?”

“No. Just you,” said Infester, crazily.

He made Ballard do the oath that was in the book. It was
only later that I realized vampires were exempt. It had to be spoken by a
human. So why hadn’t he made me do it? And did that mean Ballard really was
human?

The overriding impression of Infester was that he saw
everything everybody else missed, like he could look right through you.

When he showed them down to the basement, he stopped me, and
said, “Not you.” I looked at him, confused.

“I need to talk to you,” he said. “Have you brought it?”

“Brought? What?” This was when things got really creepy.
Lennox was too caught up with the prospect of weapons to notice I and Infester
had gone.

“The book, child.”

I cocked my head at him. “What book?”

But he rolled his eyes at me. “My book brings you to me, and
your book is supposed to––you know––” he made a motion
with his hands. Did he mean the
Codex
?

I took it out to show him, and he clasped his hands
together. “The book! The book!” The light in his eyes was manic. “May I?” he
said.

I didn’t see why not. He took it and rubbed the cover with
his hand, tracing the symbols, and flipped it open before my very
eyes––like he had seen it all before, and had only been waiting for
time to catch up with his precognition. “I see things,” he said, confirming
this. “I saw you come. I’ve had a long time to think about what I would say to
you. We haven’t got much time. Come, come,” he said. “I won’t take your book.
There. See?” He gave it back to me. “They’ll only be down there for so long,
and then I lose my Sight. Come on.”

I followed him to a place where he could see better.

“May I again?” he said.

I handed him the
Codex
.
“In my visions of this moment,” he said, “you didn’t know about, well, any of
it.”

“That’s me,” I said.

He smiled, warmly. I didn’t know if he was a lunatic or
what. Something told me if this had been a few centuries ago, they would have
burned him at the stake.

He laughed, as if he could read my thoughts.

“For a witch, you have got a delightful sense of humor about
stake burnings,” he said.

I think I just goggled at him. Who was this guy? He had my
full attention. He flipped the book open to the symbols. It was like a tarot
reading––except I really did believe it.

It was like he had seen my future and could tell me what to
look out for. I wanted to know about my parents.

He seemed to get that sense from me. “This did indeed belong
to them,” he said, telling me what I already knew, “but I wonder if you have
truly deciphered it, yet.”

“I don’t know anything,” I said.

“Don’t be hard on yourself. You will get there. I see a long
road for you, full of many adventures. But it won’t be easy. Now. Look.”

It was like watering a rose with my own blood. I looked on
as he described the many symbols.

“You have got them only half right or not at all,” he said.
“Take this symbol, for instance,” pointing to the Greek triangle for change.

“It’s the delta,” I said.

“No. That is only part of it,” he said. “It means more than
that.
Think.
This is a magic book.
These symbols are
magic
symbols. They
are not Greek or anything else. They’re meant for a witch. They also happen to
be
about
a witch. They tell a story
of a young lady with tremendous powers.”

It was like pictograms.

“Exactly,” he said. “They tell the tale in
pictures––or, well, symbols, really. But look.”

He pointed to the first symbol. It was the symbol for
vampire. The circumpunct and triangle.

He told me I had it all wrong.

“It is and is
not
about a vampire,” he said. “With symbol, you’re talking about extremely complex
ideas rendered ridiculously simply. Everything means two, three, four times
more than what you expected.

“For instance, the triangle––Delta, as you
called it. It means change, yes, but it also means
fire
. The vampire symbol speaks of a great romance, i.e., fire or
passion, between a mortal and an immortal.

Lennox
, I thought.

“But look.” He pointed to another symbol.

It was like the moons that I had followed to get to him. “In
Wicca, this is the Triple Goddess. But there they’ve got it all wrong. It is
actually the story of the Three Protectors.”

There was some banging going on downstairs. I paid no
attention to it.

“There is a Legend,” began Infester.

Isn’t there always? I thought. And then mentally shut up.

“...Of a witch more powerful than any of her kind ever. But
she is young and powerless, when the story begins. She doesn’t even know who
she is yet. Then things get really dangerous.

“The Three Protectors are two vampires and one other one,
represented here, by this symbol,” he said, pointing to the Triple Moon. “One
moon is full. It neither waxes nor wanes. It is steady. Like a rock.

“The other two are fickle. And, if you noticed, against one
another. See how they turn in different directions. Their backs are to each other.
Some interpret that as a sign of coming grief, that they will tear her apart.
Which is why the third moon separates them. However, I think something
differently. I think they are vampires, and the symbol suggests that they can
only protect her at certain times of the day.”

“When the sun’s not out,” I said.

“Exactly. The two crescent moons alternate looking out for
her, but they can only do it sometimes. It is the third moon that never leaves
her. They’re represented here also.”

He pointed to another symbol.

“This is the magic symbol for Protection. It’s a trefoil.
Three circles, creating an unbreakable knot. Together they protect her from all
comers.”

He pointed to his own book,
The Urban 411
. “What the cover is really saying, is that
she––this superpowerful witch––is always protected,
come day or night, whether by moonlight or the sun. Which takes us back to the
first symbol. She will meet a vampire. His strength will protect her from
death.”

“The circumpunct was the theta symbol, originally, the symbol
for Death,” I said. I listened.

“And she will be his sun,” Infester continued, nodding.
“That is why the circle encloses the symbol for vampire, the symbol for fire.
And in the very center is his heart. His passion for her.

It looked like a tiny dot.

“But the sun means something else,” said Infester. “Light.
What the symbol is saying is that when they...
join
together... they will have a Power. A Power of
Sight
. It even looks like an eye... You
see?”

I looked at his spooky white eyes, wondering if I could be
this witch. Impossible.

“How will she know when she meets the vampire?” I asked.

He pointed to the quatrefoil. I originally thought it had
meant a warning.