Heartland

souls. The Watchers let him. Even if Philippe hadn't known the others were plotting against him, he should have Seen Bernard's plan. How could he have been so aware of the little details but have missed the big picture?'

'He pushed you there, and because you were there, only fifty thousand died.' He raised his shoulders and wouldn't meet my gaze. 'It could have been worse.'

'But that's no comfort,' I said. 'It's still too many.'

'I know.' His voice was almost a whisper.

Cristobel's glass eye was weeping, and Lafoutain was looking down at his hands. Only Philippe was still looking at me. He didn't look away. Burn it all down.

I shook my head and when I looked away, my gaze fell on Marielle, tied to the bed. She was staring at me too, her expression filled with as much focused anger as her father's.

He was still there in my head, even though Nicols had gagged him. Part of him was still welded to my being. Part of me still knew why the Key of Thoth had been built. Why it had been activated. Because Philippe had failed. Because he had become too proud to accept that he was too old to lead them anymore. Too infirm. He had held on too long, and paid the price of that hubris.

'And what was I supposed to have done? Finish the job for you? Tear everything down because you failed. Was that it? I was supposed to wipe the slate clean? Kill all your friends because they betrayed you too. Was it all that petty?

'And you,' I said to Marielle, my voice rising now. 'What about your role? You used all of us. You preyed upon Antoine's jealousy. Upon Husserl's greed. Upon my naivete. You used me, so that your fucking boyfriend could have it all. You threw me away.'

I surged toward the bed as if I was going to throw myself on her, and Nicols forced himself between us. I raged against him for a minute, which was like throwing myself at a giant redwood, hoping to knock it down with the force of my frustration. When I ran out of steam, I realized there was another voice in the room, a whisper of sound that ran without pause, without breath.

Laughter.

I looked around for the source and realized the shadows on the wall weren't thrown there by the figures in the room.

'Samael,' I hissed.

The black streams flowed together into a coherent shape, and the laughter from many throats became a single voice. 'Still so bright, my pretty one. Still so eager to believe me. Are you ready for my help? Are you willing to accept my love?'

'Never,' I said. 'Never again.'

He laughed once more, and more than anything else, I wanted to never hear that sound again.

'Don't listen to him,' Nicols said. 'That's all it takes. Just stop listening.'

I pushed against Nicols slightly, more to make him give me some space than to try to shove past him. 'Then who should I listen to, John?'

His eyes were bright, shining with a wet light that reminded me of the Grail. 'I can't tell you, Michael.'

'Because I'm not supposed to listen to you either, is that right?'

He nodded, and when I brushed against him again, he broke into smoke. Wisps of white light that streaked around me, that moved through me. He was both gone and everywhere. All at the same time.

On the wall, the shadow of Samael was frozen, a smear of black ink that begged for interpretation. A demonic Rorschach blot, waiting to be given shape and definition by an unknowing witness.

The woman on the bed wasn't Marielle any longer. She was younger, her face unblemished and unlined as if she had never felt any lasting pain. The wooden gag was gone from her mouth, and as she stared-unblinkingly-at me, her lips began to move. Her voice was so low and her words so quick, I couldn't follow what she was saying.

I wasn't sure I wanted to hear what she had to say anyway.

The three priests approached, and before I could pull away from them, they circled me. Cristobel took my shortened arm in his hands and pressed the rosary-wrapped stump against his lips. Philippe stood behind me, his hands resting on my shoulders so that his fingers touched in the hollow of my throat. Lafoutain took my other hand and placed it over his heart.

Listen, the Chorus said.

'No.' I struggled in their grip. 'I'm done listening. Not to you. Not to your proxies. I'm done. Let me go.'

Be still, the Chorus echoed.

'Tranquilla tuum animum,' he said, and I looked over my shoulder at the chair in which I had been sitting. Just like the picture in the Grail chapel: one hand across his knee, palm open, fingers pointing at the ground; the other raised toward the dark ceiling, a tiny sliver of frozen light laid against his stiff fingers.

'Omne imaginum meae cordis sunt.'

Everything is an echo, the Chorus said, the whisper of their voices overlapping the magician's. But their voices trailed his by a split second. Echoing. Everything is an echo of my heart.

Philippe's hand tightened about my throat, directing my attention back to the bed. I let him guide me, and the flash of light from behind me wiped the black stain off the wall over the bed. The light went through me too, through the woman on the bed as well. Through all of us.

Phantoms. Every last one of us.

The light took my anger with it, and my pain and fear. All the shadows in my heart fled, and all that was left was the placid stillness of an untroubled pond.

Hildegard's lips moved again, and her words-in a language I didn't understand-fell upon me like a gentle rain falls upon water. Tiny drops that barely left any trace on the surface. They fell into the water, and vanished.

You can't see a raindrop as it falls, and you can't find it after it hits a pool of water. The only part of a raindrop's existence that you can participate in is the moment it hits the water. Even then you don't see it, you only see the reaction of the water to its impact. The raindrop, for all you know, may not have existed at all. But something went from above, down to below, and when it passed across the threshold between the two spaces, you were witness to its transformation.

It's a cycle. Water flows down to the sea, evaporates into the sky, becomes a rain shower, falls back to the ground, and runs down to the sea again. The only part of the cycle that we can perceive is the echo of its passage.

I fell, John. Antoine threw me down an elevator shaft.

I know, my son.

What is left? I've been betrayed by everyone I ever loved.

Not everyone. I have never forsaken you.

XXXII

I hurt all over, a persistent reminder from my abused flesh that I was still attached to it. Hermes Trismegistus, in his discussions with his son, liked to remind him of the nature and purpose of the flesh. The flesh is the anchor of the soul; it is the stone, water, earth, and fire that give the spirit shape. As long as you could feel something, you were still bound into this world.

The pain in my side. The wound from the Spear. It wasn't fatal. Not yet, at least, and the Chorus had-during my visionary blackout-staunched the flow of blood. This I could feel, and gradually, I remembered the way the world was.

On my back, resting at an angle on an uneven surface, I tried not to twitch as my spirit filled my flesh once more. The vision faded, falling away from me much like my spirit had risen free of the flesh at Nicols' suggestion. As above, so below: all things move in concert.

While my nerve endings all lined up to tell me how much pain I had recently suffered, I tried to recall the