Witch World (38 page)

“The Huns were fearsome warriors. They were especially skilled at using a bow and arrow while riding a horse, and their talent with a javelin was unequaled. However, Rome was Rome and its soldiers had a long history of winning against impossible odds, especially when one of their leaders knew the
secret of gunpowder. They drove back the Huns but Robere never returned from battle. A Hun had pinned him to a tree with a javelin. He died instantly but I think a part of Syn died much more slowly over the ensuing years.”

“She grieved a long time?”

“She barely spoke for years. That was difficult for me to take because I was used to her lively personality. Yet, as time went on, she slowly returned to her old self and in the year 658 she gave birth to a daughter, Era. We were living in Sicily at the time and I felt as if I just blinked and Era was a full-grown woman with two children of her own, Anna and Theo, and a wonderful husband, Peter, who worked as a fisherman. I think the time went by so fast because they were happy days. But it was during this time that the Plague of Justinian, the first of the bubonic plagues, struck Europe and Era and her children died.”

“Were any of them witches?”

“Era and Theo were not. Anna was and when she got ill I tried to connect her in the usual way. But she lacked the healing gene and the process killed her.”

“You weren’t able to heal her yourself?”

Kendor hesitated. “I thought Anna was getting better with the care I was giving her. But Syn insisted she be made completely immune to the plague. She pressured me to connect her.”

“But being a member of the Council, you knew the risk.”

“Of course. That’s why I was reluctant to try it. But Syn felt the plague was the greater danger. It was a difficult call.
You have to understand, the streets were stacked with bodies. Death was all around us.”

“What happened to Era’s husband?”

“When we lost Anna, he drowned himself.”

“Did you have any more children?”

“One. Herme. He was born in England in 1472. He was born a witch, with many genes, including the healing gene. Syn connected him when he was twenty-five.”

“Why didn’t you do it?”

“She insisted.” He paused. “She worshipped that boy.”

“Is he alive today?”

“In 1706 he took leave of us in London and traveled to America. We received regular letters from him up until the time the colonies broke from England. Then we heard from him only sporadically. To be blunt, I blamed Syn for that.”

“Why?”

“Living in America, Herme became an American. He lost all respect for the English Crown. Of course Syn and I had lived in England for centuries. It was home, and to Syn, the king was to be obeyed. She was a great believer in order. Even through the mail she continued to fight with Herme. Immediately after the Boston Tea Party, she wrote him a particularly scathing letter.” Kendor paused. “We didn’t hear from him again.”

“Because he was mad?”

“Herme was a gentle soul. He wasn’t the vindictive sort. He would have forgiven his mother and eventually written.”
Kendor gestured weakly. “We had to assume he was killed in the conflict.”

“Would he have volunteered to fight? On either side?”

“Doubtful. Herme was a painter and sculptor. He had no interest in fighting. He refused all my attempts to teach him the sword.”

“Then why do you assume he died?”

“He was attached to us. Although he fought with his mother, they were close. I can’t imagine him abandoning Syn for political reasons.” Kendor paused. “The not knowing was hard on her. For years, every time the mail came, she ran to the box.”

“I can imagine,” I said.

“No offense, Jessie, but you can’t imagine.”

I nodded. “That was three hundred years ago. Why didn’t you have more children?”

“Syn refused to have any more. After Herme vanished, we never had sex again. Not intercourse. Not where there was a chance she could get pregnant.” Kendor shook his head. “For a long time she’d cringe whenever I touched her.”

“That must have been very difficult for you.”

“It was unbearable, and yet I could bear it.”

“Because you loved her.”

“Yes.”

“You still love her. That’s why you lied to the Council about her.”

“Yes.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Four days ago, near the hospital where you were taken. She was walking along the street, staring off into the distance.”

“Did she see you?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you were together?”

“During World War Two. We were living in Glasgow at the time. The Blitz was on, the Germans’ bombing of Great Britain. It focused on London but hit our city as well.”

“Why did you stay in Europe? Why not come to America?”

“Syn refused to leave. She had decided that what Hitler was trying to do was best.”

I was shocked. “Why?”

“She thought the Nazis could bring order to the world more quickly than anyone else. That was the excuse she gave. But it made no sense. Hitler was obviously a destabilizing factor. We used to argue about it endlessly. Largely because I wanted to take out Hitler.”

“You mean, kill him?”

“Yes. I was fully capable of killing him.”

“With the Council’s approval?”

“No. Cleo refused to grant me permission. I was going to do it anyway and Syn knew it. That’s the excuse she gave for leaving me but I knew it was a lie.”

“Where did she go?”

“To Germany. To work with the Nazis.”

I put a hand to my mouth. “But she must have had another reason. Like you said, supporting Hitler made no sense.”

Kendor was silent a long time. While I waited for him to continue, I heard the low moan I had first heard from the sewer cap. It came out of the cavern we sat beside, from the darkness that seemed to have no boundary. Listening to it, I couldn’t help but think of the German words I had seen written on the sewer wall.

Schmerz wird zum Vergnügen wenn die Macht Schmerzen schafft.

“You hear it, don’t you?” Kendor asked finally.

“What is it?”

“It could be mutants that the Lapras have discarded as useless to their program. Or something else.”

“What?”

“An echo from the past.” Kendor paused. “You asked why Syn went to work for the Nazis. I think it was because they gave her something no one else could.”

“What?”

“A constant source of pain.”

“I don’t understand.”

Kendor shook his head. “When Syn left Glasgow, I almost went insane trying to find her. I used all the contacts I had on both sides of the English Channel. I almost broke the vow I had made to Syn and went to the Council for help. Without
their aid, it took three years before I discovered she was in Germany, and another year to learn she had gone to work at Auschwitz, in Poland.”

I felt sick. “The concentration camp?”

“The most horrifying camp ever built. Millions of Jews lost their lives there. Plus countless Poles, Gypsies, and Russian soldiers. In all of time, in all of history, that camp caused more concentrated pain than anything the world has ever known.”

“Do you know what she did at the camp?”

“She was high up in the command structure. I know that she experimented on Jews with strong doses of radiation. To the best of my knowledge, these were the first tests performed to artificially produce witch genes in human beings.”

“Hold on. That’s a Lapra program. Did Syn join the Lapras at this time?”

“I assume. But I must stress that she’d never expressed an interest in them before. If anything, up until the time she left me, they seemed to amuse her.”

“None of this makes sense. How could a person change so fast?”

“Maybe it wasn’t fast. Maybe I was just blind. After we lost Herme, she was a shell of her former self. Back then I believed in the healing power of time but I don’t anymore.”

“But you must have warned the Council that she’d gone over to the Lapras. No, wait, you didn’t—I know you didn’t.
I heard the way they spoke about her on the phone. They still have no idea who Susan is.”

Kendor didn’t respond. He just sat there.

“How come you didn’t tell them?” I asked.

He spoke with sudden feeling. “How could I? Syn was my life,” he said.

“Are you saying you were ashamed?”

“It was more than that. I couldn’t bear to have them see her in that light.”

“But your failure to tell them weakens their plans.”

Kendor gripped the sword, drawing more blood into his palm. “I know,” he said.

I could see I was hurting him. I could press the point no further. “Why did you say she wanted a constant form of pain?”

“I believe she needed it for another type of experiment.”

“I’m not following you.”

He shook his head. “It’s just speculation.”

“Kendor. You’re too old to speculate.”

“When Germany fell to the Allies, I discovered that Syn had left Auschwitz for Japan. At that time another source of agony was being created, this one by the Americans. It was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay. Using the air force’s most advanced bombers, he had begun to drop massive amounts of incendiary devices on Tokyo and other major Japanese cities. This type of bombing caused more deaths and injuries than anything seen in Europe, including Dresden. Few Americans
realize that LeMay’s aerial campaign killed more people than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

“Wait!” I cried, sitting up. “Syn went out of her way to talk about those cities. She went on and on about how wise Truman was to drop the nuclear bombs.”

“Perhaps because they gave her access to something she’d never had before.”

“I’m sorry, you’re losing me,” I said.

“Follow her pattern. Syn went to Auschwitz because the greatest horrors on earth were taking place there. When the war in Europe ended, she went to Japan to bask in their torture. Wherever there was the most pain, there Syn was. Now, even though I say the firebombing killed more people than the atomic bombs, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still unique events in history. In milliseconds, eighty thousand people died in Hiroshima, while another fifty thousand died in Nagasaki. Many more died later from radiation poisoning. But my point is the explosions gave Syn two exquisite instants of agony that had no precedence. And they were related to the release of massive amounts of radiation. Think about that for a moment. Radiation is the basis of all mutations on earth, and it’s mutation that has given rise to the witch genes in human beings. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about the Tar or the Lapras.”

“The way you talk, you act like your Syn began to chase pain the way a vampire does blood,” I said.

Kendor was bitter. “She’s no longer my Syn. But yes, your
analogy is appropriate. Syn left me in search of pain. Why? It fed something sick inside her. Don’t ask me what; I don’t know. And it opened doors inside her.”

“Doors?”

“Powers no one else has.”

“Bafflement?” I asked.

“Precisely.”

“But Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened more than sixty years ago. The Council never experienced bafflement until Lara was taken.”

“That’s not exactly true. When I discovered that Syn had been at Hiroshima, and survived the blast, I flew to Japan. At the time I had numerous contacts in the American air force. They got me into the country. They even alerted me as to the possible target sites of their next atomic bombs. Kokura was the prime target for the second bomb but my instincts told me to go to Nagasaki. As it turned out, Kokura was covered in clouds and was bypassed. Nagasaki became the next ground zero. Syn must have sensed the same thing I did.”

“Weren’t you worried about dying in the blast?” I asked.

“I had to see her, to save her.”

“How can you be sure she was there?” I asked.

“Because I met her for tea the morning of the blast.”

“You’re joking.”

“No. She seemed cheerful. Happier than I’d seen her in years. Yet there was a weird glow to her eyes that made me
dizzy. When she gazed at me, my sense of perception twisted and became distorted. I can’t even tell you when she and I parted that morning. One minute we were talking and the next she was gone.

“But I remember the blast. It came at eleven in the morning. The bomb was plutonium-based instead of uranium-based, like the one dropped on Hiroshima, and was considerably more powerful. But it was dropped two miles off target in the Urakami Valley, an industrial area, and much of the city was protected from the blast by the hills. That’s the only reason I survived. Still, the weapon created a devastating blow. I was five miles from the center of the blast and I felt as if my skin caught fire. The pain was greater than anything I’d ever known. Nevertheless, I experienced something in that instant that was worse than all my physical pain combined.”

“Bafflement?”

“Yes. The disorientation was worse than the agony. It was like a door to another dimension, to hell itself, had been yanked open and I had been shoved inside. I was lost in a red fog. All sense of distance and time shattered. My brain couldn’t process them because they no longer existed.” Kendor paused. “I wasn’t to feel that again until Lara was taken.”

“But the blast happened sixty years ago!” I repeated.

“It doesn’t matter! Some doors you open, they can never be closed again. It’s my belief that Syn gained access to a power or place that day that she’s never let go of.”

“Then how can she be defeated?”

“I don’t know if she can. I only know we must try.”

I tapped my hand impatiently. “You still haven’t told me why Syn turned so evil,” I said.

“You asked for her history and I gave it to you. She suffered a great deal. She witnessed tremendous suffering. Maybe one day it just became too much for her and she snapped.”

“But you said how strong she was. How full of life. Other witches in her position didn’t crack, and she had you to sustain her. And the love of a man like you, Kendor . . . Well, we haven’t known each other long but I do know that any woman would have died to be with you.” I stopped. “We’re missing something.”

Kendor stared at me. “Jessie, have you ever had a close friend who became a drug addict?”