46
Practitioner knows that the Work is ready: when his Focus
is absolute. When the Will of his community is behind him.
When the Tool is in his hand and his hand is in the Tool.
When the Place is understood, and arranged, and reached.
When the stars are aligned, and he can feel the quiver as
Time's mechanism prepares to strike.
Testimony, IV: 8
DO YOU SUPPOSE THEY'LL WAIT UNTIL MIDNIGHT?”
I asked, after what seemed a long time.
“Testimony refers to it as the ‘witching hour.’
“Can he actually believe that human sacrifice looses powers'?” I wondered.
“Russell, you are the expert in religion, I merely pursue crime.”
“This is neither. It's madness.”
“Yes. But madness has method.”
We were gambling a life-possibly a child's life-on the demands of that method. That the man-the men?-in the abandoned hotel would place ritual above the practical. That a man-or men-who would dismiss as unimportant the fact that an eclipse did not actually touch the chosen site, would nonetheless preserve the details of the act as if it did. That an ordinary midnight would take precedence over the actual hour of fullest eclipse.
“One of us should go back to the hotel,” I told Holmes.
“They will be on guard there; here, they will be preoccupied.” The decisive words were belied by the tightness in his voice, but I did not argue, because he was right.
We huddled together, a terrible weight over our heads, and our doubts grew along with the cold.
“I have my pick-locks,” I said forty minutes later. “If we let ourselves in the front door-”
His body rather than words cut me off, as he went from tense to taut. I stared in the direction of the hotel, seeing nothing.
“Did you-” I began.
He hissed me to silence, and a moment later, I saw it too: a brief play of light defining the corner of the building, there and gone again.
Several minutes passed before it came back, but when it did, the light was steady and general, not the darting beam of a torch. Good: A lamp made it less likely they would spot us.
With a single movement, Holmes and I drew our revolvers from our pockets and held them to our chests beneath the concealing wool. The approaching group was at first a confusion of legs, dancing in and out of the light; then it resolved itself into two men.
They paused at the encircling ditch-works, and we heard voices, but not the words. When they moved again, it was around the Stones, following the raised earthen mound in a clockwise direction. We watched, shifting to keep well back from their side of the altar stone: One man, wearing dark trousers, held the lamp, and moved slightly to the fore; the other was dressed in corduroy trousers. They marched in a circle, and when they were back where they had started, walked down the earthen bridge towards us.
Snatches of conversation reached our ears:
“-really don't think she's at all (something).” Damian's voice.
“-won't be long.”
“(something something) morning to see a doctor.”
“Yolanda asked (something).”
Then they either cleared an obstruction or turned towards us, because Damian's voice came loud and clear, and high like Holmes' when he is angry or on edge. “You know, Hayden, I've never played the pompous husband role and told Yolanda that she couldn't participate in your church, but this really has taken the cake. It's two weeks now-I've a one-man show I should be working on, Estelle has a cold, and here we are out in the middle of a piss- freezing night because Yolanda has a bee in her bonnet. I think she must have gone mad, truly I-”
As his voice came clearer, I realised that he sounded more than a little drunk. By contrast, when Brothers- Hayden-interrupted, his voice, which I had last heard at the walled house, was calm, soothing, and reasonable.
“I know, Damian, I know. Your wife is a passionate woman, and when she gets her mind set on a thing, nothing will turn her.”
“But wha' does she imagine, having me follow around in her wake for two weeks and then… follow around after her and then get up on a rock in the middle of the night… up on a rock to pray… oops.”
His last sound was accompanied by a jerk of the approaching lamp-light; around the stones I saw that Brothers was now supporting him, and I breathed in Holmes' ear, “That's drugs, not drink.”
I felt him nod.
The two men came to a halt at the edge of the stone, their shoes at arm's reach from where we crouched. Light danced and receded as Brothers put the lamp on top of the stone, then took a step back.
“Get up on top, Damian,” he said.
“It's bloody cold. Juss say your prayers and less go.”
If Brothers had maintained his reasonable attitude, he might well have cajoled Damian into obedience, but the effort of control was too much, and his voice went tight and hard. “Get up, Damian,” he ordered the younger man and took another step back. “Now.”
“What the bloody hell-?” Damian staggered a couple of steps before he caught himself, leaving Brothers on a direct line between us and him. It was too dangerous to risk our guns; the night was too silent to permit our movement.
“Sorry old man,” Brothers said. “I don't wish to use this on you, but it's important, really it is. I just need you to get up on the rock, now.”
Damian faced him for several seconds, swaying, then answered. “Oh, very well,” he grumbled, sounding eerily like his father.
He wove his way to the stone: It took him three tries to get his body onto it. His boots swung free for a moment, then his legs followed him up. For the first time we now had a clear view of Brothers, while we remained hidden in shadow. However, neither Holmes nor I doubted that the gun in his hand rested steady on Damian.
Holmes' hand was on my arm, gripping hard, warning me against premature movement. We had both stopped breathing as we waited for Brothers to put away the gun and take out his Tool, the sacrificial knife that had “moved” his hand too many times.
“That's good, Damian. Yolanda would be happy.”
His response was a wordless mutter, trailing off to nothing.
“Can you stretch out on your back?” Brothers asked, drawing again on the voice of reason. “Damian? Stretch out, please. Damian!”
We heard the sound of clothing against stone, but no words.
Still, Brothers was cautious. When he approached, he kept the gun on Damian until he was standing at the edge of the stone. Holmes' hand stayed steady on me, although he too had to be doubting himself, asking if Brothers wouldn't choose the sure way over the ritual purity of the knife. We hunched like wound springs, eyes fastened on the coat-tails that would move when Brothers put away his gun and reached for his knife-One forgot that Damian Adler was a soldier. I know I did, and certainly Brothers had. But beneath the sedative, hidden under the persona of a long-haired Bohemian painter, waited a soldier's instinct for survival. That Damian Adler now acted, using the only weapon available to him: the lamp.
Our first warning was a simultaneous shout and gunshot, followed in an instant by a crisp sound of breaking glass. A stream of fire poured itself down the supporting stones and across the ground.
Holmes launched himself through the edge of the flames at Brothers' legs, but the blanket he threw back
