Waking the Moon (48 page)

It was too much to hope that she’d be able to hold out against it. Within minutes she was moving too, and if she’d worried about being recognized she soon forgot—hers was just another shining face, another pair of arms and legs flickering in the blinding strobe lights. She let the river of light flow across her closed eyelids, a spectral wash of purple and black. When she opened her eyes a moment later she saw a strange tableau against the far wall, frozen in the brilliant glare of the strobes.

It was Virgie and Lyla and several other women and young men. They stood together, not moving, not even engaging in the incessant nervous gestures of drinking and mopping sweat that, as far as Annie could see, was the closest anyone here came to actually standing still.

This
crowd was standing still. They were utterly motionless, and they were staring at Annie. In the center of the little group was one figure that really stood out—quite literally, since he or she was head and shoulders taller than the rest. Annie slowed her dancing to a sort of halfhearted swaying, staring boldly at the others, daring them to keep looking at her.

They did. Virgie and Lyla stood by the figure in the middle, their faces stern and watchful. The others formed a half circle around them. Most of the women were young, their bodies taut and muscular as Lyla’s; though one was much older, with greying hair pulled into a coil on the nape of her neck. Boys and girls alike, they all had tattoos. Like a brand, grinning crescents on cheeks and shoulders and swelling biceps.

Hah!
real
Moonies,
thought Annie. She tried to keep her gaze fearless and disdainful, tried to keep moving. But those watchful eyes made her shudder. Like the multiple eyes of some patient spider, the way they just kept staring, like they had all the time in the world to wait for her to tire and weaken. And the frenzied crowd roiling about her only made it worse—she could scream and thrash all she wanted out here, and they’d only think she was having a good time. And for sure nobody was going to call the cops.

She glanced around uneasily, looking for Helen. Probably went out onto the beach to cool off. Annie turned back to her motionless sentries.

They hadn’t stirred. They were still in their silent half circle, staring. It was the one in the center that made Annie’s blood freeze. Tall, almost seven feet tall, with broad naked shoulders rippling with muscle. Yet it had breasts, too, small swelling breasts each tipped with a dark nipple. It had a narrow waist and hips, shadowed so that Annie couldn’t tell what it wore, or even if it was a girl or a guy. It had no body hair at all that she could see; nothing except for a pair of breasts more suited to a thirteen-year-old girl, and beautiful long auburn hair. A wingless watchful angel struck down from its pediment. A fallen seraphim.

A black angel.

Annie swallowed.
So what the fucking hell is she
—
or he, or
it—
doing here, and why is it watching
me?

As if in answer to her thoughts, the tall figure looked away. Lyla and the others turned as well, as though they were all bound to it by invisible cords. Before they could look back and see her, Annie darted to where a bank of speakers rose above the dance floor.

“Whoa, Nellie.” She caught her breath and leaned backward, until she was hidden between the speakers. From there she could watch them without being seen; from here they looked like just another group of partygoers.

So maybe that’s all it is,
she thought, a little desperately.
Just some of Angie’s girls from Brown, and their friend the Incredible Miss Hulk.

Then, in the darkness, someone begin to sing.

All that is holy is thine

All that is meat

All that flowers and gives birth

All that is fecund.

Darkness is thine

The stealth of the hunter

That strikes in the field …

A frail, quavering, voice—an old man’s, or a woman’s?—impossible to tell; but hearing it Annie shivered.

All that rots in the earth

All that is lovely

All that decays

Is thine, Devourer!

Is thine, Great Sow.

Haïyo! Othiym!

Othiym Lunarsa

The song flowed through Annie and she trembled.

All that is beauty,

All that is bone

Is thine, Ravaging Mother

All You have loved

All that is best

Is thine, O Beautiful One.

Haïyo! Othiym!

Othiym Lunarsa

As abruptly as it had begun, the song died away. Annie stood motionless with dread—it had
done
something to her, devil-music, she had been turned to ice or stone! Then across the room a screen door banged open. A gust of sharp salt-smelling wind raked her face. She sneezed, clapped a hand over her mouth, and shrank against the speakers. The spell was broken; she could move.

And so could the black angel.

Annie gasped. It really
was
as though a statue had come alive, some beautiful malefic creature, half-gargoyle and half-gigantic child. From here she could watch it striding through the crowd, pulses of crimson and white marbling its bare arms and chest. Now and then it paused, one foot poised above the floor, its great head swaying back and forth like a mastiff’s. Annie was too far to see all that clearly, and she was certainly too far away to hear, but she had a horrible certainty that it was
sniffing
for something.

Once it stopped, and slowly turned. Annie almost fainted—it was staring right at her, it
saw
her where she crouched in the shadows. The tip of its tongue flicked between its lips, a tongue white and fat as a mealworm; but abruptly it looked away again, as though it had scented bigger prey, and strode off.

Behind it, Lyla and Virgie and the rest trailed in alert silence. Annie let her breath out, shuddering. Whatever it was hunting, it wasn’t her—yet. She dared another peek out onto the dance floor.

Obviously it was going to take more than a murderous seven-foot androgyne to get the attention of this crowd: no one gave it a second glance. Hell, no one gave it a
first
glance. Its black eyes stared fixedly at something just out of Annie’s range of vision, and as she watched she could see how the attention of its followers was turned as well.

It was staring at a boy. Like Annie he was by himself.

Just a stupid kid!
Annie thought in a sort of bitter panic. Probably taking a few days off from his family vacationing down at Wellfleet or Chatham or Rock Harbor. Tanned and muscular, his short dark hair given ruddy highlights by the sun. He wore a pair of baggy tie-dyed shorts and a pair of sunglasses hanging from a cord against his chest. And he was wasted—that was obvious, he was laughing and talking to himself, his eyes shining, sweat glistening on his cheeks and brow. A little psychedelic fun in the shade, that was all; another harmless mindfuck.

All that is beauty,

All that is bone …

“Hey.” Annie’s mouth was so dry it hurt to whisper. “Hey, wait—
no
—”

She wanted to yell, to throw herself across the floor,
anything
to warn him. But fear flowed through her like a drug, so deadening it was a relief not to move. She could only watch as the silent angel crossed the floor, until it loomed above him.

Still the boy was oblivious. He kept talking to himself and giggling; now and then he’d feint and punch out at the air, then fall back laughing. The black angel’s harriers sauntered toward him.

Darkness is thine

The stealth of the hunter

That strikes in the field

The joy of the archer

Who brings thee his kill

All this is thine

Othiym Lunarsa …

Suddenly the boy stiffened. He stared at the floor, for the first time noticed the shadow there. He raised his head.

The angel was gazing down at him with unblinking onyx eyes. The boy stared back, his smile gone now, his fists hanging loosely at his sides. Annie could hear the throbbing roar of music as Virgie and the others circled the boy.

His eyes widened, his mouth parted, and he tried to move, but someone grabbed him. Lyla; Annie recognized her little body and the dark crescent upon her cheek. When he tried to cry out, Lyla wrenched his arms back, whispering a warning into his ear.

Above them the tall figure smiled. Something huge and shadowy billowed behind it, a deeper darkness that furled and unfurled like great black wings. The dance music faded, until there was nothing but a persistent thudding backbeat, like waves against the shore. The sound grew louder. The dull percussive thud became words, a string of names that rolled across Annie’s mind in an endless tide.

Othiym, Anat, Innana.

Hail Artemis, Britomartis,

Ishtar, Astarte, Ashtorath,

Bellona, More, Kali,

Durga, Khon-Ma, Kore.

Othiym Lunarsa, Othiym haïyo!

Like the slow soothing blood of poppies the words seeped into her, and as the music had faded, so now did the boathouse, dissolving into a colorless mist. Another room held her. A claustral space, dimly lit by smoking tapers and thick with the smells of flesh and wine. She was lying on her back on a wide stone table. A few feet away, someone else lay as well, sleeping soundly. Dream-logic told her that this was an altar; but it was unlike any church or cathedral Annie had ever been in. And, dazed as she was, she knew this wasn’t a dream. Sweet smoke filled her nostrils, the scents of coriander seed and heated amber, sandalwood and oranges; and why was that so familiar? The fumes clouded her thoughts and she yawned. She wanted only to sleep, like her companion upon the altar—sleep and forget.

You are the secret mouth of the world

You are the word not uttered

Othiym Lunarsa, haïyo!

But sleep wouldn’t come. This was all was too strange, and part of her wouldn’t stop trying to make sense of it—had she been slipped a drug back at the boathouse? But this was more like a movie than an hallucination, albeit a movie with myriad smells and the acute discomfort of lying on a cold stone slab. Flowers were everywhere: orange lilies, cyclamen, purple morning glories already fading to grey. Tiny golden bees crawled over them, and gathered thickly upon the lip of a rhyton smeared with honey, sipped at a shallow salver of wine and one of soured milk.

Annie grimaced and tried to move, discovered that she was bound with cords—strands of vines and dried grasses that smelled sweet but were surprisingly strong. Several bees crawled toward her, drawn, it seemed, by her struggle. Annie stiffened, then sighed with relief as the insects stopped, too drunk on honey and fermented milk to go on.

She tilted her head to get a better look at the other figure on the altar. A boy, she thought at first—he was slight and curly-headed, his mouth open as though he were asleep. But then she noted that his fair hair was tinged with grey, and the torso beneath the hempen ropes was slack and pale—the skin white and translucent as ice, blue-tinged and with a faint damp sheen.

Annie whimpered. Dizziness swept over her: this was all wrong, she didn’t belong here, and neither did that man, whoever he was. Whoever he had
been.
She tried to struggle but the ropes were too tight. She could hear faint voices somewhere just out of sight, the pad of bare feet upon stone floors. And there was that sweet smoke …

Don’t breathe, try not to breathe!

She exhaled, with all her strength raised one elbow and rammed it against the stone.

She gasped. Her vision wavered; the pain curdled into nausea and a blade of fire jabbing through her arm.

Now!
she thought. Because with the pain came a split second of clarity. She recognized the figure beside her on the altar.

Hasel Bright.

“No!”
Annie shouted, but her voice was lost among the others singing.

All You have loved

All that is best

Is thine, O Beautiful One.

They emerged from the shadows, nine priestesses forming a half circle before the raised stone table. Behind them three male acolytes carried rhytons shaped like the heads of bulls. The women were tall, breasts exposed above long shirred skirts that swept to their ankles. The skirts were striped black and gold, bold and surprisingly modern in such an archaic-seeming place. They might have been wasps given women’s form, moving in a slow measured dance. In their arms they carried a boy, a boy with very white teeth and tanned skin and sun-streaked hair.

Annie stared, entranced. They were so close that she could smell the boy’s sweat, coconut oil, and the faint chloroform odor of XTC. When the priestesses raised their arms she could see silver crescents gleaming between their breasts. She could hear the papery rustling of their skirts, their low voices—

Strabloe hathaneatidas druei tanaous kolabreusomena

Kirkotokous athroize te mani Grogopa Gnathoi ruseis itoa

Each word with its echo of threat and fear—

Gather your immortal sons, ready them for your wild dance

Harrow Circe’s children beneath the binding Moon

Bare to them your dreadful face, inviolable

 Goddess, your clashing teeth

The male acolytes approached the altar, gathered Hasel’s limp form, and bore it away. Annie fought the panic boiling up inside her, but for the moment it seemed she was forgotten. The priestesses came forward, and gently placed the boy upon the altar. He lay upon his side, naked, his mouth stained from the libation. They had painted his lips and eyes with ocher, and drawn a half-moon upon his smooth chest. Against his honey-colored skin strands of ivy gleamed. He looked like a child at rest, eyes closed, his mouth in a sweet half smile; a child dreaming of his Mother. And his Mother came.

Without a sound she approached the altar, passing through the ranks of chanting women. Taller than any of them, and naked, her bronzy hair unbound and flowing past her shoulders, her lovely face calm, unsmiling. Between her bare breasts the lunula shone. Her priestesses fell silent as she stepped between them.