The Lucifer Messiah (24 page)

“I thought I'd lost you, again,” she said.

Tears were welling up in her eyes. Vince felt them. They were warm and wet on his dirty shirt.

“I know. You'll never have to worry about that, not anymore. You know I always loved you, through everything. All that I ever wanted was to be with you,” he said.

For the first time in a long time, longer than she could recall at the moment, Vince actually seemed sincere. Without smelling of liquor, to boot.

“I never stopped loving you. Promise me you'll never leave me this time,” she said, nestling deeper into the folds of his coat, against the hard edges of his chest.

A lump stuck in his throat. He was a long moment in thought before answering, almost long enough for Maggie to notice.

“I promise. But we have to go soon,” he finally said.

“How soon?”

“As quickly as you can pack. We can't waste any time.”

She lifted her head. She kissed him. They hadn't done that in ages.

“I won't spare a minute,” she said.

T
HOUGH IT WOULD HAVE SEEMED LIKELY, FOR THE
myriad shapes and forms taken by his race, there had never before been a Lycaon recorded on the ancient rolls of Nestor. Not until the Morrigan herself suggested the feral name for the pitiable child-thing she had found wandering along the forested edges of Ghent, in 1814.

It had been the autumn of that year, and the dark queen had been in the Belgian city for nothing more than curiosity's sake. Fortunate for the shaggy young boy, but a stroke of luck for the Keeper as well, as it turned out.

In the guise of a European gentleman, she'd come to observe the mingling “big-wigs” from both sides of the English-speaking Atlantic. Men who had, by that date, only just recently discarded the powdered coiffures that had given rise to such a nickname. The Morrigan had rather lamented that fact, disdainful in general of burgeoning nineteenth-century sensibilities, including the growing distaste for such wonderfully decadent styles as she had worn in her own youth.

Perhaps it was for reasons of that sort that she had
quickly found the negotiations between Britain and her filial realm rather more boring than expected. Thus had she wandered out of the city proper, venturing among the nearby woodlands. There she had stumbled upon a disheveled, growling child, scavenging for food and mumbling in Flemish through pointed teeth.

The boy, she later learned, had been turned loose by his kin like diseased livestock, run out of his village, and cursed as a devil for the peculiar changes that had overcome his pubescent body. That he had not been put to the fire, or impaled by the stake were the boy's only fortunes. Luck of his own making, on four legs he had proven far swifter than the two-legged villagers who had tried to slaughter him. Fodder for one more superstitious European werewolf story, drawn from the tragedy of one more misunderstood dissident of her persecuted race.

At first, it may have been pity that had moved the Keeper to kneel beside the half-molted waif. Sympathy for one of her own kind, in need of her aid. But that was not why the Morrigan had kept the wolf-child close for all the many decades since. In Lycaon the Keeper had found a man-beast of a sort unseen in centuries, a protector for the Protector.

Under the queen's tutelage did the youngster then walk, passing through many forms, every one a powerful incarnation. Unlike his peers, never certain of what form the next year's molting season might bring, the boy Lycaon sprang forth from the cocoon every year strong, never as a child or an elderly person like so many others of his ilk.
But while it had been that raw power which had initially snared the Morrigan's attention, it had been the events of one dark night that had cemented the Phantom Queen's undying trust.

Winter 1827.

The ranks of Nestor's Children had gathered amid the Ottoman splendor of Istanbul, the Morrigan indulging her yen for harem girls and the life of a sultan prince. The grand fete had been marred, however. A plot from within, a scheme hatched by her trusted aide, the erudite Ovid.

It had been the third, and ultimately final, attempt to assassinate her.

The conspiracy would have done her in, had it not been for the loyalty of a single man. The beast Lycaon, by then a fully-grown adult, and a fearsome canine to behold.

When the conspirators had come, they had come prepared. They had not initially struck the Keeper herself, instead trapping her deep within the palace, rising from the harem shadows to attack her renowned guards, Scylla and Charybdis.

Once those two most feared of her protectors had been occupied, and the queen had been cut off from her white-robed Maenad servants, the assassins had turned to the Morrigan. Lycaon alone had remained with her in those moments when the others of her cadre had turned. So it was that in the halls of a dead Turkish king he fought the usurpers to a bloody end. He had nearly perished that night himself, nearly given his life for the being who had once saved his own. For that, he earned the Keeper's
undying trust, at her side in a hundred different incarnations through all the many years that followed.

Finally, he had even come to supplant both Scylla and Charybdis, in the wake of their disgrace in the cold Russian winter of 1918.

Now, his time had dawned once again, and Lycaon had sought the refuge of a quiet, shadowy corner of the main warehouse on Pier 33. While the beating of drums, the shouts of revelers and the scents of pungent opium had wafted around him, he had rested.

Rested for all of a single day, and most of the following. Behind a veil of slime and hardened ooze, secreted from his pores like gallons of sticky sweat, his shape had altered. His skin had shriveled, his human face had fallen away, and his true form had begun to emerge.

Then, as night fell again over the shivering city on the Hudson, Lycaon the beast was reborn.

With hands that were more like paws now, he cut through the translucent cocoon that held him suspended against a cobwebbed nook in the wall. He thrust his fore-limbs forward and backward, up and down, left and right until the shell cracked and fell away. Lycaon came forth in all his savage splendor.

Something like steam, though utterly foul-smelling and tinged with a yellow glint, huffed from his nostrils. Drops of the urine-like liquid clung to his wet, black nose and dripped from the end of his slender snout and whiskers.

His gray fur was speckled black beneath his eyes and at the edges of his pointed canine ears. Atop his head it grew
long like his human hair had, and it fell upon his shoulders, merging with his bushy mane.

A long, fat tail wagged lazily behind as he stood half-erect on his hindquarters. His arms were nearly human, though lined with tufts of fur.

What had not changed were his eyes. The fearsome glare of Indian Joe remained within those dark pupils. Coming forward, he was greeted by a silent figure in a pristine white robe. It was one of the Keeper's personal attendants, the faceless Maenads who stood by the Morrigan's side at all times.

“Lycaon. Are you rested?” the messenger inquired, her features hidden completely beneath a broad mantle.

“I am, thank you,” the wolf-thing growled. His fangs were drooling into the sticky, wet fur of his snout. The Maenad did not seem to mind.

“The master has sent word. Scylla remains missing,” the servant continued.

Lycaon was still getting his footing, stretching his legs and reacquainting himself with some of the more bestial foibles of his natural form. He had almost grown too used to looking human, acting human. It was going to feel nice to let some of his less-domesticated inclinations run amuck for a while.

“Have we attempted a search?” he questioned.

The mere fact that the Maenad was before him suggested that they had not, and Lycaon felt his heart begin to race with the thought of the hunt. Nothing spurred the desires of a wolf like the thrill of the chase.

And he was hungry too.

“Our human agents have set about the task, but to no avail. There is only one place that we have not been able to check. The Morrigan said that you would know where.”

Lycaon snarled as he shook off the last remains of his cocoon, brushing some of the heartier patches of hardened slime from his fur.

“Is it night?”

The messenger nodded, her entire hood moving as she did so.

“Then I will see to it at once,” he answered.

A
RACHNE SAT SILENT, ALMOST TRANCE-LIKE.
S
HE
could feel her heart rate slowing. Her skin had become coarse. Every time she ran her hands through her lovely blond hair, clumps of it came loose.

Across the room there rested the body of the one called Rat, partially covered over by the dusty canvas sheet. It did not move, except on the very rare occasions when something seemed to be attempting to poke out from under it. But those episodes usually lasted only a moment or two.

Arachne kept her gaze fixed upon it, as the hours passed slowly, one upon the other, ever so quietly. She knew it would be her turn soon.

She watched the largely still cocoon; she fought hard against it. She regulated her breathing, and made every effort to stay awake. Anything that could maintain her consciousness could help forestall the inevitable. Singing songs out loud, reciting Byron or Shelley, counting the number of water-damaged beige ceiling tiles, and then the number of undamaged ones, and then the number of ones that were only half-stained.

“Just a little longer,” she told herself. If she could only hold out until Scylla emerged, she would have fulfilled her promise to Charybdis, and kept safe the one person her mentor cared about more than anything in the world.

“Just a little longer.”

Inside the shell, the legendary hunter-killer slumbered for a second day. What had once been a translucent outer husk had clouded during that time, and turned nearly brown in color. Whatever waited within could no longer be seen from outside. Arachne knew what that meant. The molting cycle was almost done.

It was when the layer of gray dust that had settled over the sheet fluttered and shook off that Arachne knew the time had finally come. Scylla was stirring.

It hurt to walk across the room, as though her legs had fallen asleep and would not wake, but she forced herself to endure it. At last, she came to rest on the edge of the bed, directly in front of the cocoon. Tearing the sheet away, she could see that the hard surface of it had already begun to fracture.

Arachne reached into the largest crack, and she pried open a wide break in the outer shell. Underneath, there was a face, but it was not the scraggly visage of the man called Rat. Instead, peering with eyes that were opal-black and sparkling, there stared the face of a beautiful young woman.

She was conscious, but swathed in ooze and muck that radiated a slightly yellowish glow.

“It is an honor to make your acquaintance, great
Scylla,” Arachne began. “Allow me to introduce myself.”

“Arachne,” Scylla whispered before the other could say it herself. The spider-named girl seemed startled.

“You know my name?”

“Charybdis told me,” Scylla answered, groggy from her brief hibernation. “We expected you might come into play here, eventually. You are Argus's chief protector, are you not?”

Arachne leaned back, content to allow Scylla to work her way out of the chrysalis. She was so tired. Her extremities tingled with the pointed touch of a thousand pins and needles. She needed to rest.

“I am honored that my reputation precedes me, especially to one as ancient and powerful as you,” she replied.

Scylla coughed up some greenish phlegm and cleared her throat. It smelled like rotten meat, which was perfectly normal.

“You are a rare specimen. I'm anxious to see your true form, I've heard it's quite breathtaking,” she said.

“Soon,” Arachne continued. Scylla pushed out from the inside of her shell. “Did Charybdis tell you that I have modeled myself on your example for years? I have always wanted to meet you. I'm only sorry it happened under these conditions.”

“She mentioned that,” the bronze-skinned woman replied, slowly working her torso free of the dry husk—with the use of six fully formed arms.

“Only a mention?” Arachne seemed genuinely disappointed, but also too exhausted to make much more than
a trifle complaint.

Scylla did not notice. Despite her efforts, she was finding that her lower limbs had become entangled with the dried slime. It was known to happen on occasions when one put off the change too long and fell into the slumber without proper preparation. As Arachne seemed to drift away, sprawled out and exhausted across the bed, Scylla tried to stretch her legs.

They did not come loose. She cursed a very ancient god.

Frustrated, but having not yet lost her patience, she flexed her multiple upper limbs and attempted to force herself out. It appeared that Arachne had become momentarily self-absorbed, having settled into a comfortable position. She didn't even seem to realize Scylla was in a predicament.

“For all my life, since entering my name on the rolls, I have heard the tales of your deeds. How you and Charybdis served for centuries as the twin guardians of the Morrigan. Scylla to her left. Charybdis to her right. Deadly to any who dared defy the Keeper.”

“Those days are long gone,” Scylla said, with a wince.

“Always I thought that one day I will be as great a warrior as she,” Arachne continued, almost as though she were talking only to herself. “But the times of old are long passed away. There are no more empires to rule, and no more primitives to worship us as goddesses.”

“They are long gone,” Scylla agreed.

Arachne turned from her dreamy state then, and she finally saw Scylla twisting at the waist like a hula dancer, furiously trying to shed the lower half of her cocoon.

“Oh, how foolish of me. My apologies,” she said.