The Awakening (32 page)

Morwenna looked distressed. “That's just the point—I'm receiving the most mixed vibes myself—from Finn.”

“Morwenna, you're my cousin, and I love you. But I love Finn, too. So if you want to cast around unfounded suspicions, don't do it with me!”

“All right, all right, sorry . . . it's just that—”

“Don't!”

“No, what I've been getting at in a roundabout way is that you both need to start looking into past history. I mean, let's face it, your lives—your dreams, at least—have been ridiculously weird. All right, here it is—”

“No! I don't want to hear anything ridiculous.”

“You have to. Because I think that Finn just might be a demon.”

“A demon!”

“Right. You've really got to read some of the old things I've come across. If—”

“Morwenna, I've got to go.” Megan stood angrily, staring down at her.

“No, wait.”

Megan leaned upon the desk, staring hard at her cousin. “My husband is not a demon!”

“Megan, please—”

Furious, Megan turned. She didn't note the way that Joseph, Jamie, Sara, and even the new girl, watched her as she left.

The restaurant was fairly full, but out on the terrace, there was seating available. And there was a corner, secluded from the other tables by palms that must have been carefully tended by the owners throughout the winter months. The hostess had been bringing them to another table, but the mere suggestion from Lucian that the secluded seating would be better had brought about the change.

They all ordered coffee to drink. Finn didn't give a damn about what he ate, but Lucian and Jade studied the menu, and it wasn't until after they'd ordered and their coffee and water had been served that they both gave their full attention to Finn and the matter at hand.

With both of them staring at him, he suddenly felt ridiculous. “I . . . well, I hope you two were really coming here, because I probably shouldn't have called you. Anything I have to say is going to sound really ridiculous.”

“Oh, we like the ridiculous,” Jade said, glancing at her husband. “What's been going on, what made you call?”

He shrugged. “As I said on the phone, dreams. I would imagine that Freud could explain it all away easily enough. Except that . . . well, it seems that Megan and I are both having them, and if I understand my wife correctly, they are frighteningly similar.”

“What's happening in the dreams?” Lucian asked.

Finn hesitated again. “I'm either hurting or killing my wife.”

“Ah,” Jade murmured.

“Ah?” Finn repeated.

“The dreams started when you came here?” Lucian said.

Finn nodded.

“But nothing—
nothing
—unusual happened to either of you before then?” Lucian asked.

“No,” Finn said honestly, then he frowned, and paused. “I—actually, yes.”

“What?” Jade said.

“I'm afraid to even say this, because . . . well, you'll understand in a minute. Megan and I had been separated. Misunderstandings—normal misunderstandings, nothing to do with dreams—and I drove up to Maine to talk to her. I'd been driving really hard and I wound up stopping in Boston . . . and I wasn't drunk or anything, but I must have passed out in a pub. I woke up on the street, being prodded by a cop. I've never done anything like that before in my life. It was as if I just lost the time, and any memory of having gotten from the pub and down the street. I chalked that up to being exhausted and road weary. But, I guess you could say it was bizarre.” He hesitated. “I hate to mention it, because that was the same weekend that young woman was murdered in Boston.”

“Ah,” Lucian murmured this time.

“Hey, don't ‘ah' me there. I know myself. I never saw that girl, much less murdered her.”

“We're not suggesting that you might have done so,” Jade said gently. “But it's interesting. Go on.”

Finn lifted his hands, feeling flushed, wondering what in hell had made him mention the entire Boston episode.

“Nothing, really. Just dreams. And then . . .”

“Then?” Lucian said. “Go on. What was the ‘then' that made you call us?”

“Bac-Dal,” Finn said flatly.

“Bac-Dal,” Jade murmured.

“Well, you've heard of the ‘demon,' of course,” Finn said, “since you have a chapter devoted to him in your book.”

“Yes. But my book didn't make you call,” Jade said.

Finn shook his head. “My wife's cousin is a witch. A Wiccan. She was all excited and said that I had to go to a bookstore and read this old text about a man named Cabal Thorne who came here, not long after the witch hysteria, and intended to bring Bac-Dal to life. No one wanted to cry ‘witch' or ‘Satanist' because so many innocent people had just suffered. So, apparently, I guess, people here got together and murdered Cabal Thorne and buried him in unhallowed ground somewhere without the local authorities knowing about it. Or maybe they knew about it, and sanctioned it. According to his own writings, he murdered a young woman. He had gained so much power that he just walked into her home, took her with her parents' leave, and then murdered her. For the blood that he needed, I imagine. Or the sacrifice, or whatever.”

“Well, what do you think?” Lucian said, looking at Jade.

She shrugged, and turned her attention to Finn. “I'd like to find out more about this Cabal Thorne. Can you take us to the bookstore or wherever it was that you learned about him?”

“Sure.”

Their meals arrived. Lucian and Jade had opted for the special of the day, fresh Maine lobster.

He'd had the scrod. Ridiculous, but it's what Megan would have ordered.

“Tell us more about the people you've met here,” Lucian urged him.

“About the people here . . . well, as you can imagine, there are many. As I said, my wife's cousin is a Wiccan. Morwenna and her husband, Joseph, own a witchcraft store, and of their employees, I've come to know a girl named Sara—who tried to convince me that I was the most evil being in the world, and now thinks she's helping me anyway, for some reason. There's also a young man at the shop named Jamie, who seems to be all right. My wife has a distant relative living here, too—Aunt Martha. She's the epitome of the stereotypical New Englander, sound sense, logic, all that. Megan is staying with her, out at her place. That's the family. The Wiccan and her place, and her total opposite. Aunt Martha seems to think that they're all commercial, cashing in on Salem's reputation. I'm trying to think of anyone with whom I've spent time. Huntington House is managed—along with Susanna McCarthy—by a fellow named Fallon. I caught him cooking up Halloween herbs in the kitchen last night. Says he was making spells for protection, but he scared the daylights out of a couple of the kids in the place the night before. I don't know . . . I fell for his story. Could have been wrong, he is definitely a weird man. Susanna cooks, supervises staff such as the day maids, and takes the reservations. She's a dour old sort—amazing that they keep people coming back all the time with those two in charge. Who else . . .? A guy named Sam Tartan hired us for the hotel, and he's got a body guard. Guy's name is—believe it or not—Adam Spade. Let's see . . . ah. My wife has an old friend here. Mike Smith. He runs the new museum, down-to-earth type. No-nonsense guy. I should like him. I don't. The girl running the ticket booth for him is Gayle Sawyer, and she's a strange little thing, looks Ivy League by day, and Goth by night. There's a cop who really helped us out one night when a guy got drunk and frisky at the bar—Theo Martin. And he has a brother, Eddie—the guy with the bookshop where Sara brought me to read about Cabal Thorne. They're identical twins, by the way. Let's see . . . there's old Andy Markham. He's the one with whom it all started, I think. When we first arrived, we went to one of his ‘storytelling' sessions. That night, Megan woke up screaming. Then Fallon came to the door, apparently certain that I was beating her. The thing is . . . it's like the dreams never stop. And . . . you'll see tonight. There's also this fog . . . okay, so it's New England. There's often fog. But this is one strange fog.”

“What about Huntington House?” Lucian asked.

“I told you about Fallon and Susanna.”

“What about the other guests?”

“Well, unless they're hiding people in the basement, I only know about two other couples, Brad and Mary—mid to late thirties, they're the ones with the children, Joshua and Ellie. The other couple are in their late twenties, maybe early thirties. John and Sally. She's very pretty, and they've both been pleasant. I think all of them heard Megan screaming that night, but they seem to believe she really did have a nightmare.” He hesitated, then shrugged. “Because Megan's family lived in this area for generations, rumor spreads fast. Before we split up, we had a fight. In truth, Megan hit me with a loaf of bread. By the time the story traveled around, I was a wife beater, and the bread was a bottle of wine, or some such thing like that. I'm not sure who talked, but you know, maybe Aunt Martha, maybe Morwenna or Joseph . . . anyway, by the time we actually checked into Huntington House, I think we both had a reputation, in old Mr. Fallon's eyes, anyway.”

“Rumors will spread,” Jade said, moving spinach around on her plate.

“And actually, there are so many people here now,” Lucian said with a shrug, “you've probably talked to dozens that you don't even remember. But let's go back. When we met with you in New Orleans, you'd been married, you'd split up—and you'd made that trip to Maine, via Boston, to find your wife?”

“Right.” Finn said, staring at him. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

“I don't know,” Lucian said. “Maybe.” He hesitated a minute. “You had no connection to this area, though, before you came here then—or through here—at that time?”

“No,” Finn said, shaking his head. “I'd never been in Salem. I know that. Not even as a child, or an infant. Wait—I might have been in Salem. I drove to Maine from Louisiana, coming through the Boston area, and I stopped somewhere soon after for lunch. But as to a connection? If you can call ordering a hamburger a connection, I might have one.”

“But you and Megan had been married a while, right?”

He nodded. “Yes. So . . . ?”

“And everyone knew that you were married, right?”

“Everyone? Well, everyone who knew us knew that we were married. We didn't hide it, or anything. So? I'm not sure that anyone else would care about our marital situation. Is that important in any way?”

“Again, I don't really know,” Lucian said. “More coffee anyone? Dessert? Because, if not, I'd really like to get to that bookshop.”

 

 

Morwenna was in the basement, standing by the altar.

Candles burned.

Head bowed, she stood in deep reflection.

She stared at the flames, burning around her, narrowing her eyes, letting the light filter, and then diffuse.

She lowered her head.

There was a change . . .

She felt it. And, of course, it meant that they would have to make changes as well.

Tonight...

Irritated with Morwenna and far more uneasy than she wanted to allow, Megan idly wandered through the streets, smiling at the kids at the play stations, enjoying their costumes.

She wished that Aunt Martha had made it back to the house that morning, but after whiling around for a few hours with nothing to do, Megan had called for a cab and come into town.

And now . . .

She wondered where Finn was. In town somewhere. Maybe meeting up with the reviewer and her husband. She wished that she were with them. They'd been a nice couple, and the woman, Jade, had certainly done good things for her and Finn.

The day was cool, but not cold. She bought a large mocha from one of the coffee bars and wandered toward the common. She was sitting on a park bench when she saw Darren, throwing a Frisbee for Lizzie. As the dog caught the Frisbee, Darren laughed, and moved toward someone, calling out. Megan frowned, shielding her eyes from the sun, curious to see if she knew the person with Darren. She thought she heard a woman's voice, rising, saying his name. More curious, and glad to give thought to something other than her own strange dilemma, she looked around the area surrounding Darren's position, intrigued that he might have a girlfriend. But the woman with the voice she had heard was nowhere to be seen, not through the different clusters of people in the common. Megan couldn't see anything at all except for the family group that was greeting one another warmly almost directly in front of her bench.

But a moment later, Darren was out in the grass, throwing the Frisbee again. He saw Megan, and waved. A few seconds later, he and Lizzie came running toward her.

“Hey!”

“Hey, Darren, how are you?” Lizzie, knowing she was wanted and loved, got a little carried away and crawled up halfway on the bench, halfway on Megan. Laughing, Megan hugged the dog.

“Lizzie! Down, girl!” Darren said with dismay.

“She's fine, don't worry, I love her,” Megan said. She scratched Lizzie's ears and looked at Darren. “Where's your friend?”

“My friend?”

“I thought I saw you with a young woman,” Megan said.

Darren stared at her, and slowly shook his head. “No. You must have been mistaken.”

“Oh, sorry. I guess so.”

He laughed. “I wish. No girlfriend at the moment.”

“Well, you're young, you know. Your entire life is ahead of you.”

“Right. Like you're old.”

She laughed. “I have a few years on you!”

“Not that many.” He grinned, joining her on the bench. “But then, alas, you're married anyway, right? You're still married, huh? Or really married, I should say.”

“Yes, I'm really married, and still married. Why?” Megan said.

“Oh, I just saw your husband earlier.”

“He does go places without me,” Megan said dryly.

“He was with a couple.”

“Ah, yes.” She still wondered why he hadn't wanted her to be with them from the start. “They're . . . friends. From back home.”

“I see,” he said, staring at her. He didn't see. “How come you're not with them?” He asked pointedly.

She was irritated by the question and tempted to tell him it was none of his business. But she knew that her own mood might have been better, and there was no need to offend Darren. “I . . . needed to run into Morwenna's this morning,” she said. She forced a casual smile. “I'll catch up with them later.”

He nodded, staring past her. “Hey, look, there's Mr. Smith.”

She turned to see that Mike Smith, a brown bag in hand, was heading onto the common. Since it was a pleasant day, he had probably opted for a lunch hour outdoors.

“You two know each other?”

“Of course. Students do frequent museums, you know,” he said, grinning. “And it can be a fairly small place, you know.” He turned and called out, “Hey, Mr. Smith!”

Mike had been preoccupied with his thoughts, apparently, but his head jerked up when Darren hailed him. He smiled, coming in their direction.

“Hey, I went in to see the new exhibit the other day,” Darren said. “It's great.”

“Thanks. I worked hard on it.” He smiled down at Megan. “Hey, Megan. I don't know, but this seems strange, seeing you alone in the park.”

“Oh, well . . . I was just . . . sitting. It's really a beautiful day.”

“Yeah, I guess I thought the same.”

“It's a beautiful day, for the end of October,” Darren said. “But I think I've worn Lizzie out. Or she's worn me out. I'm going to get going. Hey—see you tonight, Megan.”

“Thanks—it's been really nice for you to come every night. Especially since students tend to be on a budget.”

“Hey, I got a free CD,” he said grinning, then saluting, he walked off.

“Nice kid,” Mike said.

“Yes, he seems to be.”

“Smart as a whip, too.”

“That's good to hear.”

Mike nodded, watching after Darren. “He's going into architecture. Hope he stays around here after he graduates. You should see some of the horrors they come up with for new buildings in the area.” He stared at his brown bag, then at her, smiling slowly. “Have you still got some time? Or are you supposed to be meeting your husband somewhere?”

“I have some time. Why?”

“Well, I've lost my appetite for canned tuna and wilting lettuce. Thought maybe I could talk you into having some lunch with me.”

She hesitated. If Finn found her, he might be furious.

But Finn was off with the couple from New Orleans. And she hadn't been invited. And she was out here, sitting alone, because she'd actually gotten into an argument with Morwenna—defending Finn.

“Sure. Lunch sounds great.”

“We're on, then!” Mike said, pleased. With a flourish, he tossed his brown bag into a garbage bin. He caught her hand, bringing her to her feet.

“I know a great little place,” he told her.

Eddie seemed exceptionally pleased to meet Jade and Lucian; he had a number of Jade's books, Finn quickly discovered; and in a matter of minutes, Eddie managed to discover that Lucian was fluent in many archaic languages as well. In fact, Eddie seemed incredibly impressed.

They all wound up in the back of the store with Eddie pouring through old tomes, finding just the ones he wanted himself, and scratching his head and thinking each time Jade or Lucian asked a question.

“Here's one that I keep under glass at all times . . . I barely touch the pages. It's handwritten, Old Norse, written by a Viking explorer who went down through Finland, Poland, into Russia, and into the Near East,” Eddie said, coming in with a volume that was obviously an incredible collector's piece, the binding thick leather with etched writing on the cover. “I've had a few of the pages translated, but not many. The book is far too delicate. I don't think it will do us any good, unless someone can read Old Norse, but with your interest in the books, I thought you'd at least like to see it.”

“My God, it must be worth a fortune,” Finn said. “Eddie, perhaps you shouldn't even take it out from underneath the glass.”

“I read Old Norse,” Lucian said. “Eddie, I will be extremely careful.”

“You read Old Norse?” Finn said skeptically.

“Yes.” Lucian stared at him with a shrug. “I've spent a number of years studying languages.”

“He's moved around a lot,” Jade explained.

“Ah.”

Lucian poured over the text, looking through pages, his fingers light against the nearly transparent paper.

“The explorer's name was Erikson, I know that much,” Eddie said, taking a chair near Lucian where he sat at the back desk. “That's one of the first really excellent pieces I ever acquired. An old man here was going out of business while I was in college. I helped him sort out his stuff for sale and disposal, and he allowed me one piece for the help. This is the one I chose.”

Lucian glanced up at him. “You could probably retire and move to an island on this one book alone,” Lucian told him.

“I could, yes. Except that I love these books, and I love my store, and I don't need to retire,” Eddie told them with a grimace.

Lucian nodded and gave his attention back to the text. “Erikson talks about coming to a village where the people kept an altar and on the full moon each month, offered up one of the village maidens. They were instructed by what Erikson calls a black priest, and they were promised peace and prosperity within the village, as long as they obeyed the commands. When Erikson and his men arrived and ransacked the village, they were warned by the black priest that they would all die, since his leader was determined on stealing the young woman intended for the next sacrifice. Erikson and one other man left the village to explore another valley. When they returned, their leader, and the forty-odd men who had been in their number, were dead, throats slit, tied upside down to poles, drained of blood and life. One of the ancient village women convinced them that they must escape, saying that Bac-Dal had come.” Lucian looked up at Jade. “Had you come across this story in any of your reading on the demon?” he asked.

“Demons aren't real,” Finn reminded them quietly.

Lucian looked at Eddie. “You really do need to put this back now. What I'd like to see is anything at all that you might have about this man Cabal Thorne, and what supposedly happened here in the very early seventeen hundreds.”

“Will do,” Eddie told him, excitedly on the hunt. He picked up his Old Norse tome as if he were handling a premature infant, tenderly, and with reverence. “You're sure you're done with this?” he asked Lucian.

Lucian nodded. “Thank you,” he said gravely. “It was a privilege to read.”

“Wow. And you can read it,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “I know some languages, but Old Norse . . . wow. All right, let me see, everything I can find on Cabal Thorne.”

“Maybe you should start by showing them the book you showed me the other day. The one Sara read from.”

“The one written by Cabal himself. Yes, you should see that. It's an incredible piece,” Eddie said, and went to get the book.

Finn looked at Jade. “You wrote a book—with a section on demons. Apparently, there are plenty of people who do believe that they are real.”

“Yes,” Jade said, glancing at her husband.

Finn leaned forward “All right, I believe that people cause the evil in the world. Because of their beliefs. Here, in Salem, no one was practicing witchcraft. Jealousy and envy and whatever other factors caused whatever happened. The girls went into convulsions and fits—brought on by tales and stories, and who knows? Bacteria in the wheat. The point is, there was no witchcraft, but that didn't mean that people weren't tortured, or that they didn't die. Obviously, Cabal Thorne was a nut case who believed in demons, and committed murder, believing he could bring a demon to life. Surely, a rational man would have known that stories about demons were like stories about Roman gods and goddesses, or mermaids, and the like.”

They both looked at him without replying.

“Men do evil,” he said softly. “A man killed that girl in Boston. I think that there are powers, all right. Maybe someone has been drugging our drinks. Maybe the power of suggestion is greater than we're willing to accept. Supposedly, hypnotism can do amazing things—convince people that they don't want to smoke, and that they're going to eat less.”

Lucian eased back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “You definitely believe that something is going on. You called us, remember?”

“Here!” Eddie said, coming back into the room with Cabal Thorne's handwritten tome. “I've actually only read some of it. The language is often archaic, and the handwriting has such flourishes that it's often difficult to decipher what he was trying to say. Exactly. Of course, from the start, and certainly modern day, it's incredibly important to remember that there's a huge difference in being a Wiccan or a Satanist.”

“Absolutely,” Jade murmured softly as Lucian accepted the book.

Eddie stood over his shoulder. “There's a slip of paper on the page that Sara read the other day, the one that got Morwenna going.”

Lucian went to the page, read silently for several seconds, and then aloud. “‘Of all that is needed, these three are of the greatest and utmost importance—the blood of the sacrifice, the blood of the anointed, the hair of the anointed.' ”

“What do you think he means by anointed?” Jade asked.

“I'm not sure,” Lucian murmured.

“Blood of the sacrifice sounds easy enough,” Eddie mused. “The slaughtered lamb—or, in Cabal Thorne's case, the blood of his victims.”