Changer (Athanor) (28 page)

“How’re you enjoying the stuff I gave you?”  Sven asks, picking his way around a heap of fried-chicken cartons and going to the sink to rinse a mug.

Tommy’s expression is beatific.  “Cool.  Really hot.  Makes me feel great.  Even laid off it for two days and didn’t crave it.  And I passed a drug test like nobody’s biz.”

“Great.”  Sven takes the tea-bag Tommy hands him and drops it into his newly washed mug.  “Have you told Lil about it?”

“Naw.  She asked where I got the T-bird.  I told her from a fan at the recording studio.  She didn’t ask anything else.”

“That’s nice.”

“I thought so.”  

Uncharacteristically, Tommy fidgets.  Sven lets him stew, wanting the musician to be the one to ask.  He sips his cup of tea and toys with a lucite sculpture of a saxophone.

“Hey, uh…”

Sven looks at the musician, apparently incurious, though his nerves are singing crossroads.  “Yes?”

“Do you…  Do you have any more of that stuff you gave me?  I’m almost out and…  I don’t
need
it.  I mean I put it by for two whole days, man, but I kinda
like
it, if y’know what I mean.”

“Of course I do,” Sven says.  “I might have some more.”

“I have money.”

“I’m certain you do.  Why would I want your money?”

“What do you want?” Tommy’s leonine features are petulant, like a child who expects to be told to clean his room before he can have a cookie.  Given the state of the rooms Sven can see, it must be a long time between cookies for Tommy Thunderburst.

“What do I
want
?” Sven feigns hurt.  “I just want you to live up to your potential without chemical meltdown.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely.”

Sven reaches into his vest pocket and pulls out a packet containing, with conservative use, another ten days’ supply.  He doubts whether Tommy, having convinced himself the stuff is free from negative side effects, will bother to ration his use.

“Here you are, Tommy,” he says, handing over the packet.  “That’s all I have right now.  I should have more by the twenty-first.  Are you going to be at Arthur’s?”

“The Review,” Tommy says, looking up from the pale blue packet with visible effort.  “Yeah.  I’m going with Lil.”

“I’ll be there, too,” Sven says.  “If you need more, speak to me there, but remember, be discreet.  Lil won’t understand.”

“Right.”  Tommy sets the packet down on the piano.  “Where are you staying, man?”

“Here and there,” Sven answers.  “I have a room at Arthur’s for during the Review.  You can’t miss me.”

“But what if I need…”  Tommy swallows hard and starts again.  “What if I have something for you?  I thought you might want a copy of my new CD.”

“Keep it for then,” Sven says.  “I don’t have a player with me now, so I couldn’t enjoy it.”

Tommy nods.  After a few more minutes of sporadic conversation, a conversation in which the packet of blue powder is a silent participant, Sven takes his leave.  

He’s whistling as he heads down the walk toward his car, seeing in his mind’s eye slender fingers ripping open a cellophane envelope and spilling just a little pale blue powder onto the varnished black of the piano.

From the Irish lace curtained front window of her town house, Lil Prima watches the red-haired man strut down the walk and (ignoring the signs requesting otherwise) across the grass.  He has changed his appearance considerably (although he keeps that flaming red hair) but she knows him: Loki, Loge, Set, Fire-born, Fire’s Friend, Troublemaker, Trickster.

The directory provided by Arthur and his organizers notes that Loki is calling himself Sven Trout now, a name fraught with ill portents to her way of seeing things, but then, Loki whistling is ill portent enough.

Ill for whom, though?  That is the question she wants answered as she turns from the window.  Perhaps it is merely for Tommy.  She knows that Tommy has a new drug, a blue powder that he either sniffs or packs close to his gums.  She knows, too, that the amethyst thunderbird he wears so faithfully is a potent charm against intoxication.  For now, she has not interfered with his use of either.  

Vine-wreathed deity out of the north, Dionysus has been associated with intoxication even longer than with music.  Music now substitutes for chemical stimulants, but the substitution has not made him immune to the lure of the external high.  Lil doesn’t try to keep Tommy from either music or dope; she simply moderates his indulgence in the latter until he has exhausted what music can bring to him.  A fall from the heights is so much more dramatic than a stumble into a ditch.

So does Sven merely desire Tommy’s addiction, or is there some larger plot under way?

She hasn’t forgotten the Changer’s unexpected visit or the uncompromising fury in his yellow eyes as he asked his terse questions.  Had he remained convinced that she was responsible for those coyotes’ deaths, she would have died that day.  She does not doubt this, just as she does not doubt that she would have severely hurt the Changer before breathing her last.

And on whose side would Vera have fought?  Would her sense of justice place her on the side of the wronged Changer or on the side of the Accord’s ruling that any conflicts between their kind must take place in secrecy lest the battles of the few reveal the existence of the many?

Biting into one Cupid’s bow lip, Lilith spits her own blood into a shallow basin of polished Nambé-ware, then adds warm water and scented oil.  The metal—pewter sheened with a touch of silver brightness—reflects back the pink of the mixture.

Lilith is old, older than Arthur, whom she views as a useful latecomer, older than most of the human-form kind.  She publicly claims to be Adam’s first wife, a claim she likes as it sets so many on edge.  Odd how, having made mythology themselves, they are still captives to its power.

Blood, oil, and water have separated into distinct levels.  Chanting softly in an extinct language, she sweeps an elegantly manicured hand over the basin and gazes green-eyed into the reflective surface.

The scrying ritual is usually reliable.  She has employed it to keep track of Tommy, jealous rage feeding immortal bitterness as she voyeuristically participates in his amours.  He has never loved her.  She is not certain if she loves him, but she knows that she desires him.  His self-destructive nature is counterpart to her destructiveness.  He is a willing victim who would sacrifice himself if no one else was present to lift the knife.

As maenad, lover, goddess, and, lately, manager, she has wielded that knife, taking part in his self-destruction, feeling a frisson each time, as if at the lowest point their souls might merge and each provide what the other is lacking.

That union has never happened.  Time after time she has drawn him back just as he was dying, nursed and guarded him in a fashion that she had once believed was foreign to her nature.  When he is strong once more, then begins his spiral downward and the quest for completion at the borderlands of death.

Today, however, she does not try to see what Tommy is doing.  The answer she seeks is what connects three things: the death of a family of coyotes, an ancient shapeshifter, and herself.  She has her suspicions, but certainty is always preferable.

The oil in the basin vibrates, concentric rings forming in the center and rippling outward.  Then the blood separates from the water and pools atop the oil.  When it spreads thin, the image it makes is of Sven Trout, his hair the same color as the blood, driving south on I-25.  Two faces are faintly sketched behind him: a drowned man and a woman with hair the color of ice.

The entire image fractures as Lil seeks to bring these dim faces into focus.  Blood drops steam into a noisome vapor, and the oil burns.  Someone has a protective spell in place and does not care who is injured by its operation.

Quickly, Lil pulls back from the flames.  She has a partial answer.  Sven Trout and two others she did not recognize tried to frame her for the death of the Changer’s family.

What to do with that knowledge?  

Arthur would certainly be able to use it, but, no matter how grateful she is to him for leading the Changer into caution, she does not think that he deserves the information for nothing.  In any case, who is to say that she would not approve of what Sven is planning?

Clearly he has some use for Tommy.  That is as obvious as the amethyst pendant the musician wears about his neck.  That Sven considers Lil a possible impediment to his plans seems equally possible, but, since the attempt to set the Changer on Lil, no harm has come to her.  Therefore, Sven may simply have viewed Lil as disposable.

Rinsing out her scrying bowl, Lilith smiles.  Sven has a use for Tommy.  That purpose might drive the musician to new highs or new lows, either of which might provide the transformation of spirit she has been awaiting these past several millennia.

For now she will watch and wait.  It could be that in using Tommy, Sven will be of service to her and, if not?  Well, she hasn’t survived to her current age without learning a few tricks, tricks that should be sufficient to extinguish even
that
fiery trickster.

Clad in baggy shorts and a tee shirt printed with a palm tree, the Changer sprawls in sleep on a Mickey Mouse towel spread out on the sand of a private beach on the coast of Florida.

Lovern sits beside him in a low-slung beach chair.  He is dressed in what from a distance would appear to be an ivory-colored beach caftan.  It is actually a mage’s robe hand-embroidered with signs and sigils of power in thread only slightly darker than the fabric itself.

The two athanor had arrived in Florida the night before and had driven to this place, a beachfront estate owned (through intermediaries) by Arthur.  Long hours within metal planes and cars had given Lovern the equivalent of a magical migraine.  A shower, a good meal (fresh fish caught by the Changer), and a long nap have restored him.  For the last several hours, he has occupied himself with reviewing the spells and inspecting the amulets that he will use to descend into Duppy Jonah’s realm.

Although Lovern would never admit it aloud, he is annoyed by the shapeshifter’s nonchalance.  Certainly, the Changer is
old
, but doesn’t he fear anything?  If Lovern had survived from the dawn of life, he would do everything in his power to cling to continued existence.  The Changer, though, seems to act with animal caution, but no particular…

Lovern sighs.  He begins chanting a mantra he had learned in Tibet.  Envy toward an ally is a foolish thing and, no matter why, for now the Changer is an ally.

When he has composed his soul, Lovern loudly clears his throat.  He has already learned that waking the Changer by touching him is not wise.

“Yes?”  The Changer makes the transition from sleeping to waking as a cat might, fully alert, with no lingering grogginess.

“I’m ready to depart at your convenience.”

“Are there any sandwiches left?”

“A couple, turkey and provolone, I think.”  Lovern grins as the Changer digs into the cooler.  “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to eat heavily before going swimming?”

The Changer laughs at the joke.  “I’ll want the extra energy for the shift.  How are you traveling?”

Lovern shrugs.  “Human-form.  I have magics for such.”

“Cumbersome, but I guess you know best.”  Finishing the sandwiches and draining a bottle of water, the Changer starts removing his clothing.  “I thought I’d go as a bottle-nosed dolphin.  They’re not unheard of in these waters, and I like them.  Do you know dolphin song?”

“Some,” Lovern says proudly.  “I studied it in Haiti.”

“Good.”  The Changer shakes the sand from his shorts and shirt, folds them and his towel, and stuffs the lot into the now empty cooler.  “Do we need to put this in the house?”

“Not a bad idea.”  

Lovern considers commenting that strolling around nude might not be precisely polite—Arthur
does
have caretakers who drop in from time to time—but he dismisses the idea.  There would be a lot more trouble if anyone sees the two of them descending into the sea and not emerging.  The spell he plans to ensure against that should cover the other contingency as well.