The Wiccan Diaries (12 page)

Lennox

I felt her blood
call
to me, I had to get away. Things were getting
complicated
. I couldn’t help it, I had been enjoying her touch. I
let myself go, momentarily. I only just stopped her. She had almost tasted
my
blood. That would have been bad,
catastrophic, reprehensible, dangerous. I disappeared quickly. I had to get
away. What she did to me!

Halsey Rookmaaker.

I was irrational and wild with thirst. I thought, for the
umpteenth time, of grabbing somebody, ripping out their throat. I suddenly
wanted to earn her. Somehow, I did not think she would approve. Yet, I had
had
it with stale blood. Hers was like
an elixir to me. I had followed it, from the thick, finger-sized arteries, to
the furnace that beat in her chest, to all the capillaries in-between. Her
blood was alive. Something precious. Something fragile. A liquid stream that I
could trace to its source. And then destroy that source.
No.

I would teach myself a control beyond the limits of what I
had previously believed possible. Otherwise, I would make her a meal. It had
not been easy, control. I had struggled and fought and finally won only a
measure, a measure, of the self-control that I would need.

Being near her was agony. All the more sweet because of what
I could do to her––what I had, at all costs, to prevent myself from
ever
doing to her. Feeding on her
blood.

That was too pedestrian a description.

I had seen the worst in our natures. This went beyond that.

I think it was Occam who described it best, when he said,
“Vampires really
are
stupid.”

This was years ago. “Why, John?” I asked.

“What is a vampire but an immortal human being,” he said. I
could feel a big philosophical rant coming on. It was better to get it over
with. So I coaxed him. “More, yes, good,” I said.

He didn’t say anything else. In all the years, since then, I
have pieced it together myself––which may have been the whole
point. It went something like this:

Vampires are immortal
humans. What would a human do with immortality? Certainly not destroy humanity.
All the works of art, etc. How could you kill humans while at the same time
appreciating their beauty? What they were capable of? It was nonsense.

I thought I knew until I met Halsey Rookmaaker what kind of
immortal I would be.

I yearned for a voice to speak with, somebody with whom I
could connect. I had more people in my social network than just John Bonham
Occam, Supernatural Occult Detective, Esquire. It was time I contacted them.

* * *

I could run across the countryside like a blur, unannounced,
a total ruffian.
Or
, I could send
them a letter through more conventional means. Either way, I needed someone
with whom I could discuss the Halsey Problem.

Because she was.

How to word it?

I hadn’t spoken to my family for a while. Years, in fact.
There was no point. Now, however, I could use their guidance. Ugh. They were
going to rip me for this.

As I sat, perched on the side of a building, with my claws
dug into the stone, looking like a gargoyle with an intellectual problem
gnawing at him, they appeared.

I had been so busy thinking about what I was going to do and
all of the ethical considerations––not to mention the whole loss of
privacy issue that went with it––I hadn’t even heard them creep up
on me, which was unusual, and so unlike me. Ordinarily I was alert and sober.
She had made me, what, drunk, inebriated?
Intoxicated.
That was the word. I was intoxicated by her.
Great.

It was hard to walk a fine line, or at all, besotted. The word
fit me to a T.
Am I ‘in love?’
I
wondered. I couldn’t give it the time it deserved.

They revved their engines and I started running.

I loped on hands and feet, leaping from one building to the
next. It looked like their whole friggin’ gang.

They kept pace below on their motorcycles. I was getting
tired of them. Especially their name.
I
Gatti. The Cats.

To them, I was just some ordinary vamper. Put a stake in it
and be done.
You don’t meet the tiger and
not get the claws
, I told myself.

They followed with their motorcycles whining, as I ran now
flat out, trying to escape them. I was on the cobblestones, taking cross
streets, wary of the fact that they had the numbers. Such was the playbook of I
Gatti.

Track and pack.
They wanted to close in upon me, leave me nowhere to go. Didn’t they know Rome
was dead?

I, being somewhat older and more experienced, managed to
elude them––but it was a close thing; at one point, I faced the
leader head-on. I could tell he was the leader by virtue of his size.

Vampires had something similar. It was age we admired. I
could see the head gatto weigh me on his scales. Then I leapt over him and
disappeared.

I could hear them in the distance, for what seemed the
length of the night, occasionally they even zipped past my house. But they
never found me. Even if they had, Castle Occam was a fortification masquerading
as a regular red-roofed building. It could withstand their attack for a time.

* * *

If I were looking for the worst possible time for this to
happen, I had found it. When the Lenoir got here, they were going to want to
test me. I was sure of it. I needed to get Halsey out of my head.

The first thing I had to do was harvest the revenant.

“It just keeps getting better,” I told myself,
sarcastically.

I put on a new T-shirt and headed down the hall, to the
library, to see what Infester had to say.

I didn’t know why but I trusted Infester. Part of me
wondered how he knew so much about zombies. Surely they weren’t so mundane a
threat as to be wandering around aimlessly in groups large enough to draw
Infester’s eye. Had he been able to study them at his leisure? Maybe I missed
the memo.
Zombie Alert. Watch out.

I had to give it to him. Infester’s sketches and physical
descriptions were spot-on. Not to mention the fact he knew what zombies smelled
like. That had to account for some firsthand knowledge on his part, surely.

“As the outlaws
roamed, so too, the zombie, preying, as it did so, upon the dregs and other
outcasts, for they could be taken in dark places,”
he wrote.

But how do I capture one for study? I asked myself.

I decided to look into their strengths and weaknesses.
Again, Infester had thought to include those sections. He was painstaking and
methodical. He described zombies with a passion which dumbfounded me.

“Zombies are fast.
Foremost is their speed. They are icy. Cold. Dead.”

Check. Got it.

But I had reason to think that they had pumping hearts. I
decided to get a new journal down and label it ANATOMY. The rest of the night
would be turned over to the gruesome. The physical act of writing spurred other
thoughts.

“If,” I wrote, “Infester is correct––and having
handled one, I cannot doubt it––that zombies are cold, it would go
to the fact that the boker is bringing to life dead bodies.
Stiffs.

“But if they have pumping hearts, shouldn’t the blood warm
the body?”

All this talk of blood.

“This suggests the revenants may in fact be
cold-blooded
. Such that the process of
transformation changes their metabolism. I can see two good things coming from
this.

“First,” I wrote, “if they are cold-blooded, it means they
need less nourishment to survive. Warm-blooded creatures have a higher
metabolic rate. They have to maintain higher body temperatures. Which means
they have to consume more food. So the zombies are consuming less food. That
means fewer victims,” I reasoned.

“Second. They may be more susceptible to changes of
temperature. Lizards, snakes, and other cold-bodied creatures, cannot regulate
their body temperatures. They are driven to find shelter. Hot when it’s cold,
cold when it’s hot. They may be alternately attracted and repulsed by cold or
heat, therefore.

“The downside is that even though zombies may not need to
feed often, they do need to feed.”

I had to think about that. I put the journal away. Infester
tended to go off on tangents. The gist was this: zombies moved fast, they were
cold, they were powerful, and they liked to kill.
“...The only thing more powerful than a zombie,”
wrote Infester,
“is a vampire.”

I closed the book. Who was this guy? And how did he know
about vampires or zombies?

I could think of two things more powerful than a zombie.
Three
, if I included myself and all
other vampires. And they were all here in Rome. I went downstairs to meet the
zombie, taking with me the tools to do the job.

Chapter 10 – Lennox

Dear John,

I am sending this care
of Massimo––hopefully, it will reach you before you leave Prague. I
have studied the blood of the revenant, although, at this point, I think it
will be more beneficial if we begin referring to them as zombies. A lot is
happening here.

Straight in.

Blood flow is achieved
by way of a four chambered
pumping
heart. This is significant as it suggests the dead bodies that are being raised
are capable of independent survival.

According to an unofficial
source, the origin of the spread can be traced to a ‘king-sire.’ I think this
must be the boker him- or herself. According to the source, this carrier may
pass as a human being. That includes being able to think and speak.

When I stumbled upon a
figure I thought was the boker, it hissed at me.

The infection is
spreading. I have no choice but to acknowledge this. Your idea of checking the
dead bodies at the morgue paid off, unfortunately.

That means he/she/it
isn’t just raising the dead. He/she/it is creating the dead. Killing some
people.

The police are already
swamped with another serial killer. There is a pair of fangs on the loose,
here. I leave it to you to decide what, if anything, we are to tell the Lenoir.
I cannot see them being happy about how things are progressing. While I do not
fear open hostilities, I cannot help but think we are arming the Lenoir with
just what you were afraid of: justifiable excuses to do what they please.

Rome isn’t the soft,
wide open place it used to be.

As for the blood. Open
sores in the mouth account for the means, and ease of the spread of the
disease. It just has to break the skin to pass it. It may have progressed to
the point where we don’t have any other choice. Lenoir involvement may be
required.

The ‘venom’ includes a
flesh-eating toxin similar to the bite of the brown recluse––a
terrible North American spider that is responsible for numerous deaths each
year.

Something bothers me,
maybe you’ve thought of it already: the nature of the disease itself. The way in
which it is transmitted, through biting, and the way it invades and takes over
the body of the victim, altering significantly everything from the structure of
the blood, to the metabolism––almost nonexistent––to
the neuroinvasion and rewiring of the electrical pathways to the brain. It’s
like it
transforms
the individual it
works upon. It’s not unlike siring.

Lennox.

* * *

I sealed the letter with a piece of wax using Occam’s own
stationary and made it out to Massimo in Prague. It was 2:30 in the morning.
The motorcyclists were still racing around, out in the streets. What bothered
me was that now that I thought about it, I had smelled them on her. I wondered
if she would like me if she knew how possessive I could be?

I took out a new piece of thick cream-colored stationary and
dipped my nib into the inkwell.

To my family
, I
wrote. I scratched it out.

* * *

Dal,

It’s me.

I need to see you.

It’s important.

Lennox.

* * *

This I folded neatly. I took the signet out of the drawer. I
pressed it firmly into the malleable red wax, and addressed the letter to
Venice, Italy. I left the place and deposited them in a red slot in a wall, and
went to the vendor who sold me newspapers he got delivered early. I bought one.
I spent the rest of the night alone on the Temple of Saturn.

There was still nothing.

“Rome is silent for now,” wrote Emmanuela Skarborough. “A
short intermezzo before
Peter
acts
again. As surely he must.”

It would be quite some time before I thought of this serial
killer again. When I got home, I sealed myself in my room, whereupon I slept
like the dead.

Halsey

Weeks went by and I was in two worlds. The days I spent at
Ballard’s uncle’s motorcycle shop where Ballard and I worked on decrypting
The Magus Codex
. It was a puzzle locked
in mystery sealed in shadow. “I don’t know,” was a refrain I often heard from
my cohort in the occult. “Does any of this actually
work
?” he asked. We learned, for instance, that there were three
levels of magical study, and that I had not achieved any of
them––not even close. They were neophyte, adept, and then, finally,
fledged. Each had signposts along the way and transition periods; each was
celebrated with events, ceremonies, etc. It was like coming of age, or getting
your driver’s license. I realized there was a whole lot more to this magic
thing than I had ever realized before.

The sisters of St. Martley’s went on about selflessness and
circumspection. All of which taught us nothing about actually
using
our powers. And what powers!

Spells, incantations––there were such things as
familiars, charms, wards, shields; there was a whole philosophy of Magic.
Magical ingredients. There were things you could do, and things you could not
do. And there were things that, it suggested, you should never do. But all of
that didn’t matter, because as the
Codex
said, “The true secrets of the craft are reserved for those few brought in by
their excellence alone. Until such time as one is initiated, one
shall
not craft.”

Cockblocked.

Here was something that I couldn’t just read out of a book.
I had to be initiated. Somebody had actually to vouch for me.

Becks was her usual charming self.

“I told you so,” “Why didn’t you just hold on?” were some of
the things that she said, via e-mail. I was thinking of dumping her as my
bestie. But then I realized she was my last link to St. Martley’s, to
everything, really.

It was graduation day at St. Martley’s. The Last Class. The
Last Class was when you finally
“Saw.”

Becks said the word reverentially. Apparently everyone I
went to school with now had a new pair of eyes. “Graduating changed me. I think
I’m ready to face tomorrow’s challenges head-on,” she wrote. “I can’t explain
it.”

It was “So worthwhile, staying,” and “obviously the sensible
thing to do. Your choice was also valid,” she wrote. But it was obvious from
her tone of voice that she thought otherwise. I had some soul-searching to do.
I knew it.

She gave my e-mail address to Chloe, a fifth-year Senior,
who wrote, condescendingly: “After high school, everyone finds their place.
Don’t you think? The cream rises, etc.”

I liked the et cetera.

It was the same borrowed vernacular. I had heard it infinite
times before. “The dregs––they find their way to the bottom.”

Was she saying I was a dreg?

But that was how it was at St. Martley’s. You couldn’t see
your enemies for the friends.

I replied with something cutting, and then deleted it. When
someone insults me, I respond with a million silent comebacks.

Becca was threatening to visit.

“You should definitely come out,” I said. I bit my lip.

She probed, regarding the reason I had ‘come out,’ as I put
it. I had never included her, she said, into the secret, hidden reasons I had
dropped everything, dropped her.

“I just needed this,” I said. It was true. I had; I
did
. “You’re
still
my friend.”

When she asked me to expand upon my answer, I never
responded back.

She said, “You don’t have to say, if you don’t want to.”

I took her up on that offer.

What
could
I say?

The police never bothered to respond back to me. They were
fully prepared to brush my attack under the carpet. I, however, was not. There
was nothing they could do, they said, when I called them. I was picking up
Italian.

Now I could say things like, “I like that,” and “That tastes
good.”

Ballard was working overtime a lot, trying to pay for
repairs to his motorcycle. In consequence, I had a lot of spare time on my
hands. It felt unusual; I enjoyed it. I decided not to waste it, however, and
began to dig, in earnest, through the
Codex
.
About all I knew was that it was so secret it wasn’t even supposed to exist.
And it was massively long.

I went down to a café that I had found where a lot of other
people liked to frequent; a hideaway from all the hustle and bustle of Rome, it
afforded excellent opportunities for people watching. From there I drank
innumerable different beverages from their teas to sambuca and of course the
delicious cappuccinos, which were my favorite. I had been neglecting eating
healthy well-balanced meals. They served the most delicious dish of roast
peppers, marinated artichokes, olives, tomatoes, mushrooms, oven-fresh bread. I
was loading up on carbohydrates with all the pasta that I was eating. The days
while hotter, were growing shorter, which meant I had longer to spend on
my––well,
with
my
favorite obsession these days: Lennox himself.

He came and went at odd hours, always seeming to arrive
sight unseen upon my balcony, before knocking gently, at which point I would
allow him to come inside. Neither one of us had worked up the courage to define
what exactly it was we were doing together. For his part, he said he just
missed an American accent.

I hated the way my voice sounded. I was not infrequently the
victim of accusations of trying to affect British airs at St. Martley’s.

He came. That was all I cared about. I had no will in the
matter. But what was he waiting for? Some more obvious invitation. He had not
even tried to kiss me yet. I berated my journal for hours coming up with
theories, all of which left me as unfulfilled as he had.

I had reason to believe he cared for me. After all, he saved
my life. I was determined for our relationship to take the next step. If he
wouldn’t initiate things, I would.
Tonight.

I got butterflies in my stomach, suddenly. We didn’t go out.
Not ever. We had not had very meaningful conversations yet. I didn’t suspect
him of idiocy. The problem was I had feelings for a non-talker. He just mostly
stared at me. Then I would freak out. It was also hard to breathe around him.

Lunch today consisted of vegetarian risotto and a glass of
wine.

It looked delicious. I opened the
Codex
to where I had left off and read a very esoteric passage on
the god and goddess Wicca and the duality of the sexes. Something about the yen
and yang. I didn’t know.

“While traditional Wicca takes its cues from elements of the
Craft, leading some researchers to believe early Wiccans somehow managed to get
their hands on at least a few partial leaves of the
Codex
, its subsequent development has proven unsystematic and
ineffectual.” Like our relationship. “Wiccans have managed to
conjure––but not all of them. The majority report interest in the
subject only as a social lubricant.

“Those who know the
Codex
,
meanwhile––”
me
“––are assured of success.”
Yay
me.
“It is the
true
demonography.”

Someone had scrawled in a minute hand, lengthwise across the
page, “Wiccans may have only scraps to go on, but from what I’ve read, they are
the essential scraps.” It turned up along the outer margin, the scrawl, then
ran upside down over the top, left to right, so that I had to turn the book to
read it. “Take for example the Lover’s Sarcophagus, as it compares to the God
and Goddess, and the theory of the Super Bitch.
FF.”

Frobenius Foucart.

It had to be.

I turned to the frontispiece. There in his chicken scratch
was the name
Foucart
. Below that, my
father’s. And below that, hers, my mother’s. On an inspiration, I took a pen
out of my bag and signed in neat lettering, HALSEY ROOKMAAKER. It felt like I
had two family heirlooms now: the locket and the book.

Mistress Genevieve always said my mother and father were a powerful
witch and wizard. She would not elaborate. No amount of social lubrication
worked with her, including flattery. She was immune to everything. About the
only thing I knew she enjoyed was bossing me around.

Becca...
saw
...

What did
that
mean?

I felt futility. I felt a waste. I felt my decisions like
irreversible mistakes; each would end up costing me. I felt terribly alone. If
I could perhaps find Foucart... Better: find the school.

There must be, mustn’t there? A school? For magic? For
honing witches and wizards here in Rome?

My copy of the
Codex
offered no evidence, except the three written names. Foucart must have passed
it to my father, who passed it to my mother. Maybe that was how they had met!

“Rabble-rousing around...”

I turned to look.

“They had to have been racing around
all
night...”

It was a groggy-looking English couple, sitting next to me,
commiserating, no doubt, on their lack of a peaceful night’s sleep.

“Isn’t this place supposed to be ancient? What are these
kids up to that the city doesn’t institute a crackdown against street racing?
Don’t they have work to do? School?”

“Now, hon...”

“I say we go on to Morocco. At least if
they
howl, it will be from the tops of minarets, not racing around
underneath our hotel window.”

He tried to console her to no avail.

“And have you heard about the
murders
? I tell you, this place is going to the dogs!”

On the contrary. From what little I had seen, it appeared
they had a cat infestation, instead.

They were simply everywhere: half-wild house cats roamed the
Eternal City, skulking around corners, running across the tops of walls. Black
ones, grey ones, calicos; Siamese, white, tabby, hairy, hairless. They were all
over the place. When the sun went down, they
yowled
. You heard them everywhere: hissing, fighting, making love.
Or else they hunted. Alone or in packs.

People seemed to treat them with great respect. The house
cat was the mascot of Rome.

A mosquito, fat and happy, landed on my arm, and sucked the
blood. When its small body intercepted my open fist, it exploded with a fierce
joy, emptying its guts upon the summit of my wound. “That’s what you get,” I
told the little wet spot.

There was an e-mail from Ballard, when I got home. I didn’t
have a phone, and he was stranded for the remainder of the summer, unless he
decided to take the metro (“Which, I never do,” he wrote). It was inviting me
to something called Festa de’ Noantri, a festival of sorts, in Trastevere. “Who
knows,” he said, “this may be your one and only hot Roman summer. You don’t
want to spend it hovering above Tourist Central. Here is a chance for authentic
Rome.” I accepted the invitation for tomorrow night, gratefully.

I had learned something distressing. My waiter, at the café,
passed on the unfortunate news that due to the rising heat index in late July,
Roman citizens, including coffee shop owners and their staff, tended to leave
the city in droves, in August. I listened on, perplexed. “You mean they just
leave?” I had never heard of such a thing.

He assured me it was true. They all went on extended leaves
of absence, taking with them their families to the seaside.

Amazing.

I finished my cappuccino, glad that I still had two weeks
left to enjoy easily available, good food.

I bathed and got ready. I had purchased a blow dryer so I
could dry my hair. By the time I finished, he was standing there. “Hello,” he
said.

I marveled at him and then gave myself an inward shake to
basically wake the H up and stop messing around. “How do you
do
that?” I asked, not a little put out
by his finesse, especially since I was relatively unathletic, and I was
beginning to think maybe we were too different.

“Do what?” asked Lennox.

“Par for the course,” I said. “Sneak up on
me––fly up to my window; move around without my hearing you? And
other unexplained behaviors.”

“Unexplained behaviors?”

“Okay. You really need to stop doing that. Unexplained
behaviors: coming and going, disappearing before I can even get to you, you
never talk about anything, and you
stare.”

“I stare.”

“You stare.” I felt myself breathing heavily.
Go, if you want. I don’t care. We’re doing
this.

“You stare, too,” he said. He had smiles. I saw a new one:
The Devastator. Side effects included making me lose my balance.

Something in his eyes. He needed a warning label. Now he
asked
me
a question.

“How do
you
do
that
?”

“Do what?” I asked.

He helped me up from the floor. My hair was all in my face.
I felt his radical touch. It was like my nerve endings didn’t end where they
were supposed to, anymore. Touching him was like touching possibilities: They
went on forever.

I gaped at him. “Say that again. I didn’t hear it.”

He sighed. “You need to pay more attention... Halsey.”

Squeeeeeeee.

“What did you say?” I gasped breathlessly.

He was still holding on to me. I felt his hands, warm and
tender, upon my arms. Neither one of us considered breaking the connection. If
anything, he squeezed me tighter. I turned to mush.

“I said––”

The purpose of our mouths was not in words. His lips
pressing to mine, stole my secret essence. We kissed there on the balcony.

“You are the most––”

It was like breathing and dying, simultaneously. I felt the
warm heart of his embrace and offered up the only thing I had in return.

Our tongues met.

“And I know I shouldn’t,” he was saying.