Waking the Moon

What the hell is going on?

But Angelica had noticed nothing. Her huge emerald eyes were fixed on Magda. She opened her hands and held them palms upward as she recited in a low voice, “‘I have made you a lioness among women, and given you leave to kill any at your pleasure.’”

“What?” demanded Magda. “What did you say?”

Angelica dropped her hands. “From your book.” She looked confused. “I mean, I think that’s where it’s from. I’m sorry—was it, was I—did I remember it wrong?”

Magda drew her clenched fists to her breast.

“No,” she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. Who is this girl? “It’s—it’s not from my book. It’s from the Mysteries of Eleusis—I mentioned them in there, but I never quoted that verse. I never quoted it anywhere.”

“Oh. Eleusis. The corn thing.” Angelica gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I must have read it somewhere else, then.”

Her voice trailed off and Angelica suddenly looked away. Magda followed her gaze.

On the other side of the reception room there was a stir, as people turned and craned their necks, to watch someone arguing with a gentleman by the front door. Magda heard tittering, a single raucous shout. Several students cheered drunkenly. Magda stood on tiptoe, trying to see over the crowd.

In the smoke-filled entrance to Garvey Hall stood a tall unsteady figure, wearing what appeared to be white robes—no, a sheet—no, two sheets, and one of them patterned with lurid purple daisies—draped around his torso and across his head like a hood. As she stared the figure straightened and pulled a small white rectangle from somewhere within his makeshift toga. Magda recognized the same heavy embossed card that had been issued as invitation to every Molyneux reception she had ever attended. With a flourish the sheet-clad figure presented it to the man at the door. The guard peered at it suspiciously, then waved the newcomer through. The boy walked into the main room with his head bowed, face still hidden by white and purple folds. Whistles and catcalls filled the air.

“Check it out!”

“Hey, Ah—lee—VER!

“Ah—lee—VER!” chanted a group by the bar. “Ah—lee— VER!”

The boy in the toga drew himself up. He gave one shoulder an exaggerated shake, like a stripper shedding her costume, and threw his head back. A flurry of long ebony hair fell around his shoulders. Angelica gasped.

“Friend of yours?” asked Magda.

Angelica nodded, covering her mouth and then exploding into laughter. “I—I can’t believe it—”

“Very nice,” Magda remarked.

It was a clumsy effort at drag, but credible. Just a raw gash of lipstick and two streaks of rouge and some kind of bright blue eye shadow. But even this crude effort could not hide how good-looking he was—indeed, the makeup gave him an eerie, almost otherworldly, prettiness, as off-putting in its way as Angelica’s beauty. He walked with great dignity through the cheering students who gathered around him. No mincing or prancing, no sheepish grin. He looked like the biblical harlot from some early Cecil B. de Mille epic, and while a few of the older guests were scowling, most laughed, or at least pretended to.

“Who is he, Angelica? Do you—”

Magda abruptly shut up. The girl’s lips were parted, her eyes glowing. Whoever this boy was, Angelica was staring at him the way everyone had been gazing at her all evening. Magda touched the lunula at her throat and bit her lip.

Of course. This was the other one, the boy she’d glimpsed last night. Oliver, the naphaim had named him; and now across the parquet floors snaked a conga line led by a half-dozen drunken boys in evening dress, yelping, “Ah—lee—VER! Ah— lee—VER!”

“He’s—very good-looking,” said Magda. But Angelica only smiled, a look of perfect seigniory, and continued to stare.

And that was when Magda saw the pattern, the secret behind the Sign. That beautiful boy, this beautiful prescient girl; all of Angelica’s pure fiery will turned onto nothing but him. The oldest story in the book, that was all it came down to. Nothing more.

Magda turned. As quickly as they had gathered to lionize him, Oliver’s admirers had fallen away. Now he stood by himself, holding the crumpled sheet to his chest in a surprisingly delicate manner. He was gazing abstractedly at the ceiling, where the Venetian glass chandelier swayed slightly. Oliver moved with it, arm raised. His eyes were closed and he was singing to himself. He appeared to be stoned out of his mind.

“…so I better go now. It was wonderful meeting you.”

With an apologetic smile, Angelica started to walk toward Oliver. Magda watched her go. From a hidden recess, the string quartet began to play an austere arrangement of “Pavane pour une enfant defunte.” In spite of herself Magda felt her eyes well with tears.

Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire.

Sudden fury lanced her. All of her hopes for the Sign, all the divided energies of the Benandanti and her Mistress—and they came down to this, some adolescent passion! She stared at Angelica and thought of all that golden energy, just waiting to be released in a dorm room with some horny zonked-out kid. It was insane! Almost without thinking, Magda darted forward and grabbed the girl by the shoulder.

“Angelica! Wait—”

Angelica stopped, taken aback.

“Angelica—I—I just wanted to—”

That was when Magda saw them: Balthazar Warnick and his young stooge Francis. Even from here she could see Warnick’s sapphire eyes glittering, his fixed smile as he nodded to a passing colleague. Then he turned, and his gaze locked with hers. In an instant she realized what her recklessness had cost her.

They knew.

Magda could tell by Balthazar’s eyes, and by something else: an abrupt though subtle shift in the air, as though a window had been opened to let a freezing wind vent through the smoke and laughter. The names of the two innocents were no longer a secret. The Benandanti had learned of her betrayal.

“Angelica! Wait—” Magda put every ounce of her will into the command. The girl gazed at her, puzzled. Around Magda’s neck the lunula burned like a heated coil.

“Tell—tell me your name again,” she ordered. Angelica frowned. “Please! Tell me your name.”

Angelica glanced over her shoulder, looking for the boy in the makeshift toga; but beneath the chandelier the floor was empty. She turned back to Magda. “Angelica di Rienzi.”

“Angelica—”

The lunula was a white-hot collar about Magda’s throat. She could scarcely breathe, scarcely find the energy to speak. The air buzzed with static electricity; she felt a burst of nausea as before her everything spun into a sudden tumultuous brilliance, jagged rays of white and crimson distorting her view: a terrifying prismatic radiance that did not illuminate but disturbed the outlines of everything about her. Light and color pulsed and throbbed and even seemed to produce a sound, an anguished shriek like a razor drawn across a whetstone. A few yards away, two shimmering forms moved through the luminous maelstorm.

“That’s right. Angelica di Rienzi,” the girl said softly.

Magda summoned all her strength. “Angelica di Rienzi.” She could hear Francis’s heavy tread. Quickly Magda reached for a stray curl upon the girl’s forehead, plucked a single bronze strand and snatched her hand back.

“Angelica Di Rienzi: In hoc signo vinces. Othiym, haiyo!” She opened her fingers: the hair flickered into a wisp of flame and white ash. “I would like you to have this, Angelica.”