Bradley, Marion Zimmer - Shadowgate 04 (37 page)

 
          
Colin
waited, but Jonathan was obviously finished talking.

 
          
"That's
all you have to say?" Colin said, striving to keep the incredulous-ness
out of his voice. "'Something went wrong?"

 
          
"Kate's
dead," Jonathan repeated, as if the thought kept suddenly occurring to
him. "And Thorne's . . ." There was an almost unbearable hesitation.
"Thorne's gone."

 
          
"Gone
where?" Run away? Colin couldn't believe it. He could believe that Thorne
might have killed Katherine Jourdemayne with malice aforethought sooner than
that he had fled the scene of even the worst mishap in fear. Thorne was utterly
fearless, and fiercely loyal. He would never abandon his followers. Never.

 
          
"Gone."
Incredibly, there was a note of amusement in Jonathan's voice. "Just . . .
gone, Colin, and no one will ever find him." His voice broke, and he
struggled for self-control. "And Kate's dead. Oh, God, we were trying a
new mix; Thorne said it would keep her 'there.' But she must have taken too
much. He was always on her about that. . . ."

 
          
He
put his hand over his face, and his next words were muffled. "And now the
cops're looking for a scapegoat. And it's going to be us. And it doesn't
matter. Because he's gone."

 
          
"Gone."
That was the word all of them had used, Irene and Caroline, and ' Jonathan.
Gone.
Not dead, not fleeing. Just . . . gone.

 
          
"Where
did he go?" Colin demanded. "Jonathan, if you know, you have to tell
me. Thorne needs a lawyer
—
protection
—
"

 
          
Protection
from the police.
Colin could not now even remember the moment in which that
last innocence had died and he'd come to understand that even the guiltless
were punished in this brave new
America
.

 
          
This
time Jonathan laughed. "Oh, Colin, you don't get it, do you?
Thorne
never left the
Temple
."
He slumped into one of the
kitchen chairs and leaned on , the table, resting his head on his folded arms.
"They will never find him."

 
          
The
sentence had the finality of an epitaph. And despite Colin's pleas, Jonathan
would say nothing else.

 
          
It
was another hour before Colin managed to see Lieutenant Hodge. He'd gained
permission for a couple of the women to go upstairs
—
under police escort
—
and bring down things for
the infants and children, and Caroline and Irene had moved into the kitchen,
producing fresh coffee and a scratch breakfast for everyone. Caroline
Jourdemayne was thoroughly respectable
—
a spinster librarian
—
and she used that
respectability like a weapon, forcing the officers to acknowledge her.

 
          
But
the situation was still tense. No one had been arrested yet, but that could
happen at any moment. And Pilgrim and two other children were missing, no one
knew where.

 
          
"Dr.
MacLaren. I'm Lieutenant Hodge."

           
Lieutenant Hodge was a few years
younger than Colin, but already comfortably entrenched in middle age. He was
fair and balding, as so many natives of this area of the country were, and he
wore a rumpled trenchcoat over a grey suit.

 
          
"Lieutenant,"
Colin said.

 
          
"Deputy
Lockridge thinks you're pretty groovy," Hodge said. "But what I want
to know is, what are you doing here?"

 
          
He
was, Colin reflected, getting pretty tired of answering that question.

 
          
"I'm
a friend of Caroline Jourdemayne," he said again. "She called me and
asked me to come. I came. I don't want to intrude on your show,
Lieutenant," he added, "but I may be able to help. I have a certain
amount of experience in this area, as Lieutenant Becket and a number of other
people can tell you."

 
          
"Do
tell," Lieutenant Hodge rasped, sounding irritable and tired. "And
suppose you tell me what your 'experience' tells you."

 
          
It
was a setup question, since all Colin had seen was the dining room. He hadn't
gone into the
Temple
or even seriously
questioned any of the members of Thorne's Circle other than Jonathan.

 
          
"Well,
first of all," Colin said, "these people aren't Satanists. As far as
I know, they aren't worshiping any deity at all, least of all the Christian
Devil. Blackburn's Temple
—
where, I gather, Katherine Jourdemayne died, probably of an
accidental drug overdose
—
is a place where Blackburn and his followers practiced
ritual magic, which is, at its simplest, a collection of consciousness-altering
techniques derived from experimental psychology. This being the case, I
wouldn't expect to see any animal sacrifices or blood offerings
—
as are typical
oivoudoun,
for example. And I'd be very surprised to see any Christian iconography at
all, let alone any desecration of the Cross or the Host."

 
          
If
Hodge didn't stare at him in slack-jawed amazement, he did at least regard
Colin with something closer to respect.

 
          
"Well,
aren't you the little expert? Why don't you and me take a little walk?"
Hodge flicked on his flashlight and indicated the door. "Frank, me and the
Professor are going for a walk
—
keep
Cheshire
off my back, would
you?"

 
          
Lieutenant
Hodge led Colin through the shadowy halls of Shadow's Gate, stopping outside a
room that was garishly lit with battery lamps. The double doors had been ripped
from the hinges, and even the metal of the hinges was pulled and distorted.

 
          
"That
wasn't us," Hodge said, noting the direction of Colin's gaze. "The
doors were like this when we arrived. They're in here." Hodge stepped
through the doorway.

 
          
Following
him, Colin could see the doors lying just inside the doorway, as though
whatever force had ripped them free had let them fall almost immediately.

 
          
The
room was round, thirty feet in diameter and almost twice that in height. Heaven
only knew what this room had originally been. The ceiling had been painted
—
long before Thorne had owned
the place
—
with the signs of the Zodiac, gold against blue. Below its
dome there was a band of stained-glass windows, some of them open. Watermarks
stained the walls below. Around the edge of the black-and-white marble floor,
gigantic papier-mache figures of the Egyptian gods alternated with banners in
red, black, white, and grey
—
at least they had, before some force had flung the statues
about the room as if they were ninepins and ripped the banners from the walls.

 
          
Colin
stared around himself, searching for familiar landmarks of the Inner Tradition
in vain. There was no Table of Hermes. The edge of the circle had been marked
by candles, but whatever force had ripped the doors off their hinges had dashed
the candles against the walls as well. Colin could see six from where he stood,
and thought there must be more.

 
          
This
was like no
Temple
, Light or Dark, that he had
ever seen. The four banners were not hung at the cardinal points, nor were they
of the cardinal colors, nor were the Four Tools or the Four Elements
represented anywhere. These banners had the figures of animals: the red banner
had the figure of a white horse, the black banner had a red stag, and so on.

 
          
Nor
was the double-cube altar present, though there was a low couch in the center
of the floor, directly beneath the apex of the dome. The couch was covered with
animal furs and pine boughs, now in disarray. Their green scent warred with the
heavy bitter scent of frankincense and another odor Colin couldn't quite place.

 
          
What
had these children been doing? What sort of magick had Thorne been working here
—
and what had he summoned?
Colin felt no sense of presence here in Thorne's
Temple
, but without Claire he couldn't
be sure. If only he had some idea of what they'd been doing. . . .

 
          
A
cold sense of failure settled heavily over him. He should have made it his
business to know. Who was he sent to protect, if not innocents such as these?
He'd been distracted by the more obvious threat of the
Thule
cult reborn. Only now, when
it was too late, did he realize that there had been a more subtle, less
glamorous battle to fight
—
one well within his power. But his pride had blinded him,
dismissing what Thorne did as childish mummery, without content.

 
          
And
so it had come to this.

 
          
"Dear
Lord." Colin sighed. "Forgive me, all of you. . . ." Arrogance
was the shadow-self of competence; though the easy mastery he had once
possessed had faded with the fires of youth, the hubris had remained.

 
          
Never
again.

 
          
Never
again would he turn away from a battle because it was too small, too
insignificant, the adversary too harmless. Never again would he set conditions
to his participation in the fight. He had thought that Thorne's maverick
magick did not matter, and he had been wrong.

 
          
Everything
mattered. Each moment of inattention brought the Shadow closer. Each tiny
compromise, irrelevant in itself, diminished the Light.

 
          
Colin
set those painful thoughts aside for later contemplation. He was here now. He
must do what he could for the living.

 
          
There
were two swords lying on the floor, as though they had been carelessly tossed
aside. He walked over to them, looking down.

           
"Don't touch those," Hodge
said sharply. "We still have to dust for fingerprints."

 
          
"Good
luck," Colin said absently. The only fingerprints Hodge was likely to find
were those of the children here in the house, and that would hardly be of help
to him. Neither of these blades had been used to kill.

 
          
Both
swords were custom-forged ritual blades, their steel etched with runes. The
black-hilted sword had silver furnishings and a spherical moonstone pommel;
the white hilt had a gold haft and quillons, with a carnelian cube for the
pommel weight. Colin straightened up, looking around.

 
          
"Did
you find a book?" he asked.

 
          
"A
book?" Hodge said suspiciously. "What kind of a book?"

 
          
"This
would be ..." Colin closed his eyes and thought, trying to put his
description in words they'd understand. "A handwritten book, possibly
fairly large, but elaborately bound in any case." The design of Thorne’s
Temple
told him that much about
the magician's style: flamboyant, as Thorne himself had been. "It would
contain a number of diagrams. It might not be in English."

 
          
Every
magician Colin had ever known kept a magickal workbook, and if he could find
Thorne's, it might give him a clue to what had happened here.

 
          
"Sid!
You seen a book here?" Hodge barked.

 
          
One
of the crime-scene technicians straightened up; he had been photographing one
of the fallen statues. "This whole place is full of books, Leo," he
said disgustedly. "They got a whole library full."