Lightbreaker

Bernard's theurgic mirror had a greater purpose than just storage. The ibis-hounds were takwin, artificial creatures made by the device, but they weren't the sole function of the device. The spirit creatures harvested souls for a purpose, a purpose which Doug had been denied.

The Chorus rippled and snarled under my skin, rampant chimerae resplendent with fiery halos, in response to the discovery of this knowledge within Doug's fading history. Settle it, they growled. In their teeth, they held the conduit threads, those open pathways feeding Doug. Channels straight into the magickal cores of the other sorcerers. Open fucking doorways. I could barely hold them in check.

'Gentlemen,' I Whispered to the assembled host of Hollow Men, my voice an unavoidable serpentine hiss in their ears. 'Doug is gone. His rank was worthless, and I have broken him.'

I stepped away from the blood-spattered corpse, my hands held casually at my sides. 'I have no quarrel with any of you. But, should you wish to take umbrage at my departure from this Arena, now is the time.' I gave the soul threads a slight tug. Several of the Hollow Men jerked at my touch. 'See through me if you can. See through me and know that I will do to you what I did to him. Know that I walk out of here. Now.'

The Chorus poured themselves down one of the threads, fiery lions burning through the mystic wire. They ignited the organs of the Hollow Man on the other end. Setting fire to his heart, his liver, his lungs, his stomach-all of it, burning with phosphorescent heat. A tongue of flame shot out of his mouth as he screamed, setting his hood on fire.

The others reacted, equal parts panic and incantations. The fire spread; first one, then another soul igniting when touched by the incandescent spark of my Will. The blaze became a conflagration, a pyre of burning flesh and hot metal. The chamber burst finally, unable to hold the light and heat any longer.

Mahapralaya.

This is the way the world ends.

XXI

THE FOURTH WORK

'. .ye must understand also that this Multiplicity is itself Unity, and without it Unity could not be. And this is a hard saying against Reason; ye shall comprehend, when, rising above Reason, which is but a manipulation of the Mind, ye come to pure Knowledge by direct perception of the Truth.'

— Aleister Crowley, Liber CL: De Lege Libellum

From a window seat at Denny's, I watched the firefighters contain the warehouse blaze. Julian's building was an unassuming four-story brick structure with plain windows evenly spaced about the facade. A series of loading docks ran off the southern side, with tall doors of corrugated metal large enough to accommodate easy loading of shipping containers.

I had found the one used for my prison on the first floor. One of the fleeing Hollow Men had thought he would be safe inside.

SFD had three engines on-site, and snakes of white hose were strewn about the red trucks. Lines of steaming water soaked the old bricks of the warehouse, playing a game of tag with the red and orange flame in the shattered windows. Yellow-suited figures ran along the raised concrete dock like ants trying to salvage their queen from the inferno inside.

'Looks like a good-sized fire.' The waitress had a double order of sausage and cheese omelets, toast, and home fries. She put the plates down, one of them at the place setting across from me as if someone else was going to join me. I didn't bother to correct her assumption. I was going to wolf down the first plate in short order. The second one wasn't going to have time to cool. 'Ketchup?' she asked.

I shook my head, and with a final glance toward the fire, she wandered off. I focused on the omelet in front of me. While I was filled with etheric energy, taken from the Hollow Men, it wasn't the same as real food. The material body needs material fuel-one of the inescapable rules of the Universe-and it had been four days since I had eaten. The waffle at Minnie's, early Wednesday morning.

The newspaper in the rack outside the restaurant said it was Saturday. The fire had cut through the morning fog blanketing the industrial district south of downtown Seattle, an early morning glow that must have confused drivers on I-5 as if the sun was rising in the west instead of the east. A single fire engine had responded initially but, after a rapid assessment, the on-site commander had called for backup. The fire was in the walls and floors.

The Arena had been in a subbasement, several floors below the ground. The conflagration had started there, with the immolation of the first Hollow Man. There were those who had just watched-Witnesses, not participants- and I had let them go. The others, the eight who had given Doug magickal aid, they had been my prey.

Four died in the subbasement; one in the eastern stairwell; one hid in the shipping container, and I had closed the door a moment before I set off Julian's ward; one tried to fight back, thinking he could ambush me on the second floor; and the last one tried to fly away. Filled with energy stolen from the others, I had given him a boost. He turned into ash, a black smear across the damp rooftop.

You have to fill the void.

It had been easy. A bright burning fury encapsulating a decade of pent-up helplessness. Years of fear. All focused through a need for vengeance, to take from them what they had taken from Kat.

The void in my soul. I poured energy into it because that was the way I reacted to a Universe that made me afraid. Its nihilistic enormity. What were we in this vast emptiness? I killed, not because of the Qliphotic taint, but because it was the only way I knew how to be a Creator.

'Nice of you to order me something.'

Nicols sat down across from me. He turned over the nearby coffee cup and placed it near the edge of the table where the waitress would spot it. 'There any ketchup?' he asked, unrolling the silverware from the paper napkin.

'I'm sure she can bring some,' I said.

He did a good job of appearing to be noncommittal in looking at me, but I knew there were physical differences from the last time he had seen me. Unlike other scars, I had no desire to keep marks from the last few days. I had wiped away the pattern of burn marks on my chest, fixed the torn ligament in my knee and regrown my burned hair. The body is mutable if the Will is strong. The braid of Reija's hair was a stark white band about my throat. I had also acquired clothing before leaving the warehouse, replacing my blood-stained pants with a nondescript blue track suit I had found in a locker. Nicols noticed the reverse haircut, surely, just as he noticed how rested I looked compared to him.

The jeans and hooded sweatshirt augmented his exhaustion, failing to disguise the slump of his shoulders and the unhealthy tinge of his skin. The disheveled arrangement of his hair suggested he had been sleeping in his car. Smoking there too. His clothes reeked of musty tobacco.

He looked out the window at the fire, not unaware of the view afforded this table. 'You're very shiny,' he said. 'I Saw you from the street.' I heard his emphasis. In my absence, he had come to believe in his Sight.

And I was very shiny. Filled with the light of the Hollow Men, I knew I'd be hard not to spot from the street. I wasn't ready to flush all that energy; it was a ready reservoir of useful power. The increased visibility was a trade-off I could live with in the short term. Besides, all the wrong sort of people already knew I was here.

'You happen to be in the neighborhood or do you have a fetish for fire?' I asked, nodding toward the excitement down the block.

'Very funny. Thanks for hanging around at the hotel. I appreciate the concern for my well-being. It was just a