The Wiccan Diaries (13 page)

“If you leave me, I will die. I will seriously die,” I said.
I just managed to get it out before he kissed me some more.

I didn’t know where I was. It felt like we were entwined. By
blood and by purposes.

My own surging heart I took for granted, thudded now, with
an intensity I had never experienced before. It was like someone else was in
control of my desires. I had no say. Who was driving the ship?

Standing on tiptoes, I put my arms around his neck, and felt
his hands slide naturally to my waist. We were like that for ten minutes
straight. I felt his mouth explore my own.

Eventually––though I could not tell you
how––gravity, like time itself, seemed to have no bearing. We were
lost in one another, simply, completely. I didn’t know where I began and he
ended. And it was only getting more intense. I knew that there were rules, to
this type of game. Even some rather funny maxims.

About cows. And free milk.

I couldn’t remember them.

“We need to
stop
,”
he said.

I did something with my tongue that put an end to that
conversation. I could feel the animal within him. “Never stop,” I said. He
groaned, mightily.

He withdrew, and turned his back on me. At the parting of
his lips, I lunged halfway towards him.

“I shouldn’t have lost control like that,” he continued,
angst-ridden.

I took secret pleasure at how he moved with familiarity
through my apartment. The sheer canopy of the four-poster exposed the lavender
color of my bedding, which was the color of his eyes.

I had lit the interlacing iron roses, topped with scented
candles. He was silent for a while.

The atmosphere was moody, electric. The gentle flames
flickered from the breeze through the open French doors. “Like us,” he said.

I nodded, licking the taste of him off my mouth. First from
my top lip, then the bottom.

“We are like the iron roses,” he said, still turned from my
beseeching stare.

I thought it was too beautiful an analogy to endure.

And with that, a particularly strong draft extinguished one
of the candle flames.

“We are like the iron roses. One cannot wither without the
other dying as well.”

With his fingers he snuffed the final flame and it was
unnaturally night. I looked for him, but he had gone.

Lennox

Stupid! Selfish!
I
berated myself.
Idiot! Are you
trying
to get her
killed
?
The Spanish Steps were overrun with fashionistas, haute couture celebudrones.
It was the Alta Moda Fashion Show. Every day in the summer something new was
going on. The onlookers watched dispassionately as impossibly spindly-legged
women in ridiculous getups paraded in front of them. I thought they had nothing
on the girl whose apartment I had just left. Dallace, my cousin, for all
intents and purposes, had written to me, in hastily worded scribbles, from
Venice, “Do not eat her.” I had given him play-by-plays up till now, along with
assurances I would not
if
I could help
it; but this was just for me. No doubt he was enjoying my predicament with the
rest of the Venice Coven, all of whom loved me. And I them.

Even Camille had something to say about it. She was
Dallace’s wife. They met in the Roaring Twenties, back when she had a
heartbeat––the first thing she lost when she became immortal.

“A girl’s place is a statement,” she said. “A girl
showing
you her place is an even bigger
one.”

Understatement. Rather than moving in and changing her
surroundings, Halsey had changed
to
her surroundings. I had no basis for comparison, of course, between pre-Rome
Rookmaaker and who she was now; only the feeling that she belonged.

It was I who did not.

Dallace wanted me to come back to Venice. I think he thought
I might go off again, relapse, go off alternate blood fuels. “It’s murder.
Killing her is murder,” he said.

But not killing her was murdering
me
.

When I said she and I were like the iron roses, she nodded;
even blind I could feel her body move. So attuned was I to her. If only she knew
what I meant by that. I raced home, through the crowd.

It was like... a complex thought... I couldn’t get it out of
my mind. Before I knew it, it had taken root. The more I thought about it, the
deeper it got. If I
fooled
... with
her, she would become iron...
like me
...
A vampire! Cold and invincible!

And if I didn’t, I would just end up killing her. And to
snuff her flame would be to snuff my own. I knew I could never consciously harm
her. The stalker that crowed within me, so sure-footed, had slipped.

We will turn her
,
he said; but he no longer had any power. I had thorns.

She might prick herself upon them. And then she would bloom,
crimson and inviting, and I would turn her to my Dark Rose, a creature of the
night.

She was fragile as a candle flame, and burned as sweetly as
the lavender I smelled between snuffs of her skin scent. She was not made to
last, and she was my light; in a dark eternity that
would
be once she no longer existed, she was my fatal inamorata.

There was no clear path.

I cannot help my
nature. That I have fangs is a just impediment. I will conceal my fangs, and
the lust I have for her blood. But not to harm her. Not, as in a trap, to
masquerade as what I am not. Am I not a human, if I choose to be?
She made
that seem possible, somehow.

I will try to be what
she
needs, if it breaks me
, I
decided.
Because, otherwise, it’s over.
My life. Everything.

Living in a world without her was no longer an option.

Chapter 11 – Halsey

I brought the
Codex
to the festival; it felt sort of sacrilegious to do so, but once I got there, I
realized it was more than just a religious festival. I had been reading up on
everything Rome and Italy.

For instance, there was this big celebration, Carnival, that
happened in Rome and also Venice; people wore masks and partied the night away.
Brazil did something similar. And even in the States, they had Mardi Gras.

Festa de’ Noantri was much more pious. It involved carrying
a Madonna around to various churches, followed by a procession of the
devout––which in Rome was quite a few.

There were also lights, games, music, and fireworks. Ballard
said it would go on for weeks.

The way he described it, I thought I might need a mask.
“Just come,” he said.

When I got there, Lia decided to stop being annoying, and
actually acknowledged me warmly. “Don’t be fooled,” said Ballard. He was
wearing a pair of loose-fitting dark grey shorts and a finely woven, light blue
shirt, that showed off his muscles. He was deeply tanned. “She still wants to
know what we’re doing, but she’s changing tack. Don’t let her lull you into
giving something away.”

“I wish there
were
something to give away,” I said. I brought out the
Codex
. He and I had both been taking turns with it; anytime we made
a new discovery we e-mailed the other. It seemed like all I was doing these
days was driving back and forth between my apartment and the motorcycle shop in
Trastevere.

We were parked between two stalls, sitting on a pair of
crates. I could smell roast porchetta turning in a spit, it drew crowds. There
was still some time before night.

There was still one thing that was bothering me, however.
How to word it?

I could see Ballard concentrating on the
Codex
; he was looking at a page full of
symbols, saying, “It’s some kind of clue,” looking for where we could turn to
next; it had been slow going and our leads were nil, when I asked him what
Succo del Gatto meant. He had a long neck in his hand. I could hear the gold
foil crinkle.

“What do you mean?” he said, which was a very curious response.

“Seeing as how,
together
,
we probably buy up half the Succo del Gattos
produced
in Rome,” I said, letting the words trail off. Was there
something to all this?

I remembered the taxicab I hailed when I got here. “The
driver had a whole ice chest full of them; it was actually pretty weird,” I
said, watching as his brow furrowed. Was it something in the
Codex
? He continued to ignore me.

“The reason I mention it––I’ve been here a
couple of weeks now, and the only time I ever see them is when I’m hanging around
with you.”

I mentioned the vending machine down the hall, in my
apartment. “And zip. It’s like they’re only
here
,
in Trastevere.”

He definitely didn’t meet my eye.

“I bet, whoever that guy was, he probably lives around
here,” I said. “Otherwise, where did he get all the Succo del Gatti?”

“‘Cat Juice.’”

“Pardon?”

“Succo del Gatto,” said Ballard, “it means ‘Cat Juice.’ It’s
like the caryatids you see.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that.

“I forget. I keep thinking you live around here,” said
Ballard. He spoke deliberately. “Rome is old and it has a lot of sculptures.”

“Obviously,” I said, nodding my head.

“If you’ve seen all the cats?” he said. I nodded for him to
continue. “Well, some of the stone carvings in the architecture show off the
family
felidae
: cats. In fact, I
don’t know if you saw, but above a portion of the Wall surrounding
us––” he meant the Aurelian Wall, and I had noticed
“––there is a shield with a lion. The lion is very big here and
also Venice.”

“How come?” I asked.

He just shrugged. “I think it has something to do with
royalty or something. I don’t know.
Look.”
He pointed to the
Codex
.

I stopped him. “The thing is,” I said, “you, your
family
, run, like, a motorcycle shop,
right?”

“What’s your point?” he said.

“Just that I notice you all ride Ducatis.”

“It’s Ducatisti, plural,” said Ballard. “Why does it matter
if we run a motorcycle shop or not?”

“I saw Lia’s jacket,” I said.

He closed the book.

“Go on.”

“It’s just that, I saw what was
written
on her jacket.
Is
,
if you get me? It’s the same thing that’s on Gaven’s, Paolo’s, all of theirs.”

“Except for mine,” he said.

“No, you don’t have one,” I said. He didn’t; Ballard didn’t
have one of the leather jackets I saw them all wear that had the patches on
them.

“And?” he said.

I chewed my bottom lip, wondering how to proceed. He helped
me.

“You’re wondering what it means; what they have written on
the backs of their jackets,” he said.

“Actually,” I said; I chewed my lip some more. I had already
bothered to translate it.

He saw and understood.

“If Ducatisti is the plural of Ducati,” I said, “and Succo
(‘juice’)
del
(‘of the’)
Gatto
(‘cat’)
means ‘Juice of the Cat,’ then
gatto
means
cat
; which
means
,” I said... hating how it pained him, “that if I swap the
o
for an
i
, I should get the plural of cat. Which is
gatti
. Or
‘cats,’
right?”
He nodded, glumly.

Lia walked by and gave us the beady eye. “Don’t say it,”
said Ballard.

“‘I Gatti,’”
I
said, reading the back of her open jacket, “‘the Cats.’”

He groaned deplorably.

“But that isn’t what’s bothering me,” I said. If I was going
to do this, I may as well do it completely, thoroughly. “What’s
bothering
me is how you can be so
calm
––”

“Halls,” he said.

“Discussing all of this.
Magic
;
I mean, it’s a lot to take in. Yet you handle it so calmly. It’s almost
like––”

“Don’t.
Please,”
he said.

“Like you’ve heard it before. Like you
believe
it.”

“Don’t you!?”
he
said. He got to his feet; the book fell. He caught it with his amazing
reflexes.

“I bet, if I were to ask you to win me a prize, you could do
it
every
time,” I said.

The stalls were full of trick games: ring tosses, knock down
the bottles, shoot the bull’s-eyes.

“Just because I’m good at stuff,” he said.

“Don’t walk away from me,” I said. I got up and came over to
him. The fireworks were getting ready to start. They let off a few to get
everyone’s attention. It was quite a sight: the bangs and the streaks; some
flew up so high they created a mushroom cloud of stars. Nobody could hear us;
we were totally alone.

“I’m not completely stupid. I’ve been reading that book,” I
said. “The
things
it talks about. Bad
choice of words. All I’m saying is, I really hope you’ll learn to trust me,
because I really want to be your friend. If you’re, you know...”

“I’m
not
,” he
said.

“Because I’ve been sitting here trying to think how your
uncle Risky may have heard about it all. He wasn’t..., was he? Because,
otherwise, how would he know about my mom and dad?
Ballard?”

He looked away. “Please don’t ignore me,” I said. I was
pushing him to his limits, I knew that. I didn’t care.

I saw his hand grip the book; the tendons stood out against
the flesh. “Don’t be upset,” I prodded.

“You don’t
get
it,
Halls.”

“I want to. Help me to understand, Ballard.”

When I next saw his eyes, they were anguished; his hair was
in his eyes and they were hurting. My protective instincts took over, but he
held me back. “I’ll tell you. I’ll
tell
you,” he said.

Satisfied that I was going to get what I wanted, I listened.

“It’s like this,” he said, and then let out an exasperated
breath. I didn’t know why that bothered me so much, but it did. Before I could
think about it, he continued.

“I feel like one of those lesser known works, you know the
type? There is Moses or whoever, decked out, and behold the blurry schlubs with
no arms and legs. The afterthoughts, surrounding him.”

What did this mean? I knew there was a Michelangelo
Moses
that Michelangelo sculpted. The
fact that Ballard said blurry schlubs, had me laughing, though.

“He did the Ten Commandments, right?”

“What?”

“Moses,” I said.

Maybe it was my old headmistress trying to get me
psychoanalyzed, but I couldn’t help deconstructing everything Ballard said.
Moses was a leader and he brought the law. He was Moses. Bold words.

What Ballard was talking about was not having any arms and
legs. Like in a nightmare where someone ran but couldn’t move. Or their teeth
fell out. I was sure this all meant something. The only question was what?

“Why do you feel this way? Is it all of
them
?” I said. I did a perfunctory thing with my arms. I would let
him choose who or what I meant by that. What
them
had Ballard in such evil spirits?

“It’s like that race. They hold it every year. Do you know
why
?” he said.

Then I remembered: “Hey! They let you in it!” Was it Gaven?
Was he jealous of Gaven? “Why?” I asked.

He smiled at my train of thought bouncing off the tracks.
“You would think they would let me join, wouldn’t you?” he said. “But no. It’s
Bal’s just a kid, or some other crap. I tell you, I’ve had it.
Risky
didn’t think I was too young!” He
stuck his finger in the air. “Check this out,” he said. He opened the book to a
spot. “It’s
dog-eared
.”

I looked what he was pointing at. It was open to that page
full of symbols. He pointed.

“This is the Greek symbol for
change
,” he said. He traced the triangle with his finger. “It’s
called
delta
. I did a little digging
on the computer, and it has a lot of uses today. Architectural plans mostly.”

He was pointing to a triangle.

“Whenever the architect makes changes he numbers them and
puts in the delta symbol for change. But look.”

I
saw
. Not the way
Becks did, but I did
see
.

“The delta’s within a circle,” said Ballard. “It’s like,
wasn’t that double pentacle symbol thing within a
circle
.”

“The glyphs,” I said. The magic symbols that had circled the
pentacle. The pentacle had been repeated, so that there were two pentacles. One
inside the next.

“First of all,” said Ballard. “It’s a
circle
. You realize what this means?”

“No.”

He smiled enigmatically. “I admit, I’m reaching, but this is
a magic book, which, by the way, you also seem to be okay with.”

“From a school of magic here,” I said, pointing at myself,
and cocking my head. “Why is the circle such a big deal?”

“Because,” said Ballard. “Circle. Magic.”

“A magic circle,” I said. “So what, exactly?”

“That’s where you do incantations from. Sorry.
Workings.”

“Okay.”

He pointed, our earlier confrontation forgotten. “So if this
is a triangle and is
change
,” said
Ballard, indicating the delta symbol, “then, this, a circle, is
theta
.”

“What is theta?” I said. Though I immediately thought about
fraternities.

“It’s Greek. My parents are in Greece, so no duh, I don’t
know why I didn’t recognize this earlier.”

“It’s a big book,” I said, gesturing for him to continue.

“Theta is part of the Greek alphabet; it’s the eighth
letter. It also happens to be the ninth number. Number nine.” He drew a big
number 9 in the air. “Obviously, I tried to go looking for what a delta and a
theta symbol, combined, meant. But you can’t enter in a triangle inside a
circle and search for it on Yahoo.
However.”
And I sensed that he was getting to his point. “When I entered the words delta
and
theta, I got all kinds of
interesting things.”