The Wiccan Diaries (14 page)

I just realized that the fireworks were still going; it was
nighttime and Ballard’s eyes would light up with jets of light. We were standing
like two people lost in conversation.

“The circle sign used to mean death,” he said. “It was like
a warning. ‘Be careful. If you go down here, you could die.’ They used a theta
to denote that. And in Egypt, if you put a dot in the center of the circle––”

“Oh my god,” I said; I had just realized that there was one.

He nodded, his finger tapping the center of the image.

“That stands for the sun,” he said.

“So it’s a sun inside of
change
,”
I said.

“Precisely,” he said.

“And it means
death
.”

He nodded.

* * *

Lia was tapping her foot. That was the first indication that
we were not alone. The second was the square had emptied; the vendors were
locking up their stalls for the night. Ballard and I had spent our time looking
for the meaning of the symbol in the magic book. Whoever had drawn it seemed to
take for granted his or her reader would automatically know what it meant. What
we needed was a key to unlocking the
Codex
(“Like a Rosetta stone, even if it’s just a person with firsthand knowledge,” I
said. “This Foucart person, for instance. You see all the scrawls and
scratchings-out? The book is covered in annotations. Here’s one.” I read: “‘Whoever
that bastard priest was, his transcription from the Glagolitic leaves much to
be desired.’” Ballard did um face.) Lia really was tapping away. “I’m going to
figure it out,” she said. She honed in on the magic book. I closed it. “Suit
yourself,” she said; but she seemed to look like she relished the challenge. I
was almost tempted to ask for her help, but I had promised Ballard I wouldn’t.
I was beginning to realize just how much he liked to do things for himself.
Ballard would probably never ask for directions, much less something so
impossible as help. But Lia was standing there.

“We get it. We notice you,” said Ballard, irritated, and
then laughed. She soured immediately.

“I just wanted to let you know that we are leaving,
if
you care to tag along?” she said.

My eyes lit up.
Lia.
Inviting us somewhere?

“I’m in,” I said. Ballard just shook his head.

“You see,
Bal Lard
?”
She pronounced both syllables, driving him crazy. “You’ll have to teach him to
be more
risky
,” she said to me. “He
doesn’t do anything without first thinking it through and drawing maps and
such. He has a game plan for everything. Including––well...”

“Piss off.”

I thought differently. It would be fun to hang with a member
of the female species. Lia’s eyes were alight with mischievous pleasure. She
put her arm around me; I was suddenly being steered toward our bikes. Well, her
big, thrashing super hog, and my, well...

The Risky jibe had not escaped me.

“Don’t worry,” Lia said. “When it comes to my brother, you
have to know how to get him to do what
you
want.” She turned around: “Ballard! Mush!” she shouted.

“He follows you like a puppy dog,” she said.

“It really isn’t like that,” I said.

“Can you follow me?”

Interesting question
,
I thought. “I guess,” I said.

“Good,” she said spritely, swinging her leg, in her black
leather pants, over her fire-red racing bike. My mount was less stellar. I
started up my Vespa and put on my riding helmet. “Where to?” I asked.

Her visored helmet turned to me; I imagined it would have
been winking, if I could have seen her face. She revved her engine: not loud,
just a growling, keeping things in reserve.

I looked behind me. Ballard was trotting to keep pace. He
waved his hand, like Go, just go, and I did, I went, sure he knew where we were
headed. Lia rode fast.

It was all I could do to keep up.

Her red taillight hypnotized me. It was like one of those
overexposed pictures of downtown traffic, except I had to concentrate on the
walls flying past us.

She looked behind, occasionally, making sure I was with her,
then decelerated. I pulled adjacent.

She looked to me like a preying mantis, visored as she was;
then her wrist flicked. The front end of her motorcycle rose above my head; she
shot forward, popping a wheelie.

I had never seen a girl do anything like that before. I
didn’t think I could have arrived with any
less
fanfare. She dropped the nose and hit the brakes, directly into a crowd of
guys, all of whom cheered. Then I pulled up.

I watched Lia
bask
.
I couldn’t tell if it was bitchiness, or she couldn’t help herself. Her drug
was their adulation. I watched them worship her. Every guy there was into her.
I hung my head with my feet down. She took her helmet off like a shampoo
commercial; her satin black hair cascading down her back absolutely perfectly.
Should I just leave?

It felt like she rode on my plainness to make herself look
better. It sucked.

She didn’t even look back. She just went in with the guys.
It was like I had been forgotten or something. I could hear Ballard’s voice in
my head, telling me I told you so.

I looked back for him. He was trotting into sight.

That
was
fast.

He stopped, just before he got to me, like he was listening
to something; like something disturbed him. “Weird,” he said, and then walked
up and held my handlebars while I put the kickstand down. We were in front of
what looked like a bar.

Uh-oh.
I didn’t
think I was old enough to drink. Lia must’ve been twenty-one. No wonder she
bossed Ballard around so much. I took off my helmet.

“Why does it feel like you just got socked in the gut? Oh
right. Lia,” said Ballard. “You just got
Lia’d
.”

It was an expression?

“Does she do that often?” I asked, trying and not managing
to keep the hurt out of my voice.

“Just for her
special
friends,” said Ballard, sardonically, putting the word in quotes. I had never
felt closer to him.

“I should introduce her to my friend Becca,” I said. “They
could bitch it out for bitch of the year. Bitch of the Century. Super Bitch!” I
apologized. “Sorry. She can be...”

“Thoughtless
is, I
think, the word you are looking for. Come on.”

“I can’t go in there,” I said; it looked like he was going
to make me go anyway. “You don’t understand. It might get violent.” I did a
series of fist punches. “See?” I said.

He laughed again. He had a little hitch in it that was
adorkable.
I got Lia’d.
Maybe that
was like a rite of passage or something.

“Or something,” he said. “You can just leave your helmet on
the handlebar. You don’t even need to take the key.”

“What d’you mean?”

He looked, I thought, significantly, when he said, “No
one––
no one
would be fool
enough to come around here, who doesn’t belong.”

“Right. Six Nine Guys.”

“Pardon?”

“I have this thing. All Lia’s––” dismissive wave
“––well, they’re like super tall, right?”

“Six Nine Guys. I like that,” he laughed.

“I guess this is like their hangout or something?”

“Or something,” he said again.

Adorkable. Definitely
adorkable.

Music swelled from the open doors. We walked past the fifty
or so high-priced motorcycles all shining in a row. Had Ballard worked on all
of them?

“It’s her idea of keeping me out of trouble. Which may
explain that little stunt just now.”

“Then, by that rationale, she thinks
I’m
trouble,” I said.

He did sorry face.

“She’s really pissing me off!” I said.

A sign over the door said, Watch your back. I didn’t need to
be told. I felt Lia’s dagger in my spine. What the H? “What is this place,
anyway?” I was irritated, pissy.

He pointed to a crude engraving in the stonework. I was
getting pretty used to secret symbols everywhere. If you were going to Rome,
you had to. It was probably the history of persecution and religious fervor; if
anyone stood for anything, it had to be in secret. I wanted to know what
they
stood for, because right now I
didn’t have a fair opinion of them.
I
Gatti.

Ballard explained. “It’s called a heptagram...” he said. I
ran my finger across it. “Your basic seven-sided star.”

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“Search me,” he said. “Come on.”

I followed after him into the club––for a club
it was.

It didn’t take an outsider necessarily to feel that way.
Being popular could be a lonely place. In a strange way, it prepared me for
being
un
popular. Even when I was
in
, at St. Martley’s, I knew it wasn’t
because of who I was.

The sign over the bar said LA LUNA BLU, in neon blue lights.

I got the sense that Ballard and I were unwelcome.

Maybe that was Lia’s point. Though what I had done to
deserve her ire was beyond me. I looked for her at the bar. She was leaning
against it, talking to the bartender, who cleaned a glass out with a rag. Her
eyes were made up to look dark. I could see them through the mirror behind the
bar. When they looked at me, they had none of their previous warmth. It was
almost like she
hated
me.

“How...? What...?” I said, practically to myself.

It was then that I noticed every other eye was staring at me
as well. This level of hostility was unknown to me. I didn’t know what I had
done to deserve it. Ballard seemed completely immune.

“Is this typical?” I asked of him.

Lia smiled: it was sly and calculating and I didn’t like it.
The rest of the Riders and their dates, were drinking the Succo del Gatti, or
else playing pool, or feeding coins into the jukebox. But, of course, that was
before Ballard and I had entered into
The
Blue Moon
.

It was a rough looking joint. I remembered how my guidebook
had said Romans detested public displays of drunkenness. Maybe Lia’s false
façade had finally cracked. Like I was seeing her for the first time or
something. Why did she dislike me so much? That wasn’t even strong enough a
word. I was going to get my answer.

Reflexively, I grabbed Ballard, who still seemed ambivalent
to the amount of
stares
that we were
getting, and dragged him over to Lia. But before we could get there, he was
steering me toward Gaven. Lia looked away but I kept my eyes on her. She was
going to get a beat down in my jour––diary tonight.

The rest of the little gang went back to what they were
doing. Part of me was shaking my head. I wanted to rip her face off.
Two-faced something-or-other.

Gaven, of course, was the six nine-yish of all the Six Nine
Guys; and therefore, their leader.

The biggest and
dumbest is the biggest and dumbest
, I thought in a bad mood.

But it was hard to be upset when I was in his presence. He
had this way about him, of making you feel calm, content, at peace. One.
Too bad his girlfriend needed to chill.

He was playing darts, when we got to him.

Next, the inexplicable happened.

Two members of his posse practically jumped us. They put
their arms out like we couldn’t pass. Ballard, still holding my arm, said, “I
need to speak to him.” I put up only token resistance. Ballard’s hand was
rough, calloused, but also warm, safe; I would probably have bruises tomorrow.
I think he thought I might actually attack his sister. It would go something
like this:

Halsey to Lia:
“Bitch.”

Lia to Halsey: “Bring
it.”

“It’s been brought!” I
slap her face off. Pow wow.

The scenario played through my mind as we waited. Gaven
whispered to his men. It looked like hard work. He motioned.

“Gee,” I said, not bothering to keep my voice down. I
couldn’t help it. Lia had upset me really a lot. Ballard finally let me go. He
whispered something into Gaven’s ear.

Gaven looked at me stonily. Ordinarily, it would have been
the last straw. But then he got this look of concern on his face. “Are you
sure?” he said.

Ballard nodded.

“Halsey, I need you and Ballard to stay at the bar,” he
said. “It’s the safest place.” Then he whistled loudly, using two of his
fingers. The bar got quiet immediately. Ballard was dragging me over to the
bar, but I found my footing, and shook him off.

“What? Is there something
out
there?” I said, when he wouldn’t let me go. “Something’s
out there
?” My tone got all different.
“What is it?”

“Never mind, just come on,” he said.

What did Ballard know about Somethings Out There?

Gaven, meanwhile, seemed to be rounding up the troops. They
listened deferentially to him, Lia among them. She was zipping up her jacket.
Serious business. I lost her in the press of bodies, heading for the door.

“What’s going on?” I whispered. “Ballard?”

But he was gritting his teeth. “Like I’m not old enough,” he
said. “I’ll show ’em.”

He grabbed two Succo del Gatti from underneath the bar,
popping them open, barehanded.

“Wouldn’t even know about it, if it weren’t for me.”

“Know about what?” I said.

“It’s nothing.”

“You’re doing it again,” I said.

“What?”

“Keeping secrets. Not letting me in on things.”

“You want to know? I got a
feeling
. All right? Sounds weird, I know,” he said. I heard the
engines kick into life. “In case you missed it, Lia threw that little jab at me
about Risky.”

“I didn’t miss it, Ballard... I just thought, I shouldn’t
bring it up, if maybe you had.”

I smiled. He did not.

“I miss absolutely nothing. Ever. I’m perfect in every way,”
he said. And then did the Ballard laugh.

“So what if you like to make plans and stuff. You’re helping
me, aren’t you?” I said. “I wouldn’t be half as far, if, well, you know, you
hadn’t been helping me.”

“Yeah, but what have we done? What have we found out?
Nothing,” he said. “Last night I got all up in Lia’s business. I told her I
wasn’t some kid anymore and she should stop trying to treat me like I’m her
little brother, or something. I’m
fifteen
,”
he said like it was the oldest thing in the world. “‘I’m old enough; I want
in,’ I told her, trying to make her tell me what she and them got up to. It’s a
little bit more than just having a fancy for macho penis implants on wheels. ‘I
know you’re up to something,’ I said, parroting her favorite line. ‘Tell me, is
all.’”