The Gathering Dark Read online

  With a flourish of his hand, the old man sketched a symbol in the air. Like the neon in the windows, the symbol took form, began to glow, and to flow like mercury.

  “Now you see him,” the magician said, and the sound of angry bees that buzzed beneath his voice increased.

  A flick of his wrist, and the symbol hanging in the air flowed toward Octavian. With a single motion, he sidestepped the burning energy, duster flapping as he moved. His fingers steepled together, both hands shot out and he captured that energy between his palms.

  He gave the magician a hard look, then crushed its glow between his hands. With a pop, it was snuffed out. The stench of brimstone rose from his fingers.

  The magician gaped at him a moment, and it was almost comical. Then terror swept the old man’s features, his face etched with it.

  “I’m still here,” Octavian told him. “Now, bring them back.”

  The buzzing grew louder and the old man’s face began to change, to grow ugly. “Fuck off, mage. So you’ve got your own little parlor tricks. You don’t have the power to challenge me. They’re mine now. All of them. And more where they came from.”

  A sad smile blossomed on the face of Peter Octavian. He glanced at the fascinated crowd. “Pay attention,” he said. “Now you see him . . .”

  All that time, his hands had been held before him as if in prayer. Now he opened them, fingers contorted in a gesture of ancient power. A flash of bright blue light burst from his hands.

  The old man was gone.

  In his place was a hideous creature whose flesh seemed hard as rock, edges sharp as diamonds, skin so red it was almost black. Jagged ridges ran in two identical strips up its face and across its leathery skull. Its belly was enormous as though it were grotesquely pregnant.

  Screams drowned out the music.

  People ran.

  “Now you see him,” Octavian repeated softly.

  Blue light arced from his hands again and this time he seemed to dance with it, a series of steps and hand motions that were almost balletic. He spun around, the energy trailing off his fingers in ribbons.

  With it, he sliced open the creature’s vast stomach.

  A wet, hollow sound echoed in the room and the demon screamed. For a moment its innards seemed endless, an entire world contained in the recesses of its gut. Then, one by one, five people spilled out, covered in a rancid sort of afterbirth. They choked and wept, and one of them vomited, but they were alive.

  What remained of the demon burst into flames, but it was already dead.

  Someone shouted for a fire extinguisher.

  Octavian turned and strode toward the door. The place was silent now, save for the music. The patrons of The Voodoo Lounge had gathered round in horror and awe, but now, as he headed for the door, they parted to let him pass. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the topless woman again. Suddenly uncomfortable with her nakedness, she covered her breasts with her arms and looked at the floor.

  Afraid of him.

  It was the thing he hated most, for people to be afraid of him. He would not be able to come in here anymore.

  Bradenton and Agamemnon met him at the door.

  “Peter, that was . . . holy shit, man, that was amazing.”

  Octavian ignored him. Instead, he glanced regretfully at Agamemnon, of whom he was quite fond.

  “You won’t see me here again.” Agamemnon nodded silently. The mage turned up his collar and stepped out into the icy, driving rain.

  1

  A light spring breeze whispered down off the mountains and gently swayed the hand-carved chimes that hung outside the propped-open door of Sweet Somethings. The music the wind drew from those crafty wooden flutes was far subtler than what might have come from any of the metals often used to forge such elegant creations. It lingered in the air and suggested to the mind images of faraway places, of hot afternoons in some remote village in southeast Asia, of pipe music played by Pan or Pip.

  Or, at least, that was what the chimes suggested to Keomany Shaw, the woman who had hung them there in the first place.

  This early in the morning it was almost too cold to have the door of her confectionary shoppe wide open, but Keomany did not mind the goosebumps that rose on her arms or the chill that crept tendril fingers up beneath her sweater and light cotton jersey. As a fresh breeze blew through the shoppe, she gave a delicious shiver and a smile teased the edges of her mouth.

  She stood in the middle of the shoppe with a clump of paper toweling in one hand and a bottle of Windex in the other. Showcases filled with homemade fudge and hand-dipped chocolates gleamed. Displays of penny candies and jellybeans were tidied—errant mixtures repaired before closing the night before and steel scoops ready in each plastic dispenser. Candles and chimes and the little gift items she carried were free of dust, as were the shelves upon which they sat.

  The air was laden with the deep, rich aroma of chocolate, a fragrance almost as delicious to her as that of the earth itself on a fine spring day. A day like this one.

  May Day.

  Keomany did a little pirouette, as if the wooden chimes outside the open door were her musical accompaniment, and then flushed slightly as she glanced out through the display window to be sure she had not been seen. A twinkle in her eye, she went out to the sidewalk to clean the front window and the glass door. When she stepped outside Sweet Somethings, though, Keomany could not help but pause and glance around her.

  How could I ever have left here? she thought.

  The village of Wickham was nestled snugly among the mountains of northern Vermont, just over an hour south of the Canadian border and even farther from the nearest thing that could legitimately be considered a city. After high school Keomany had returned to Wickham as infrequently as possible, despite her parents’ pleas, and after college she had managed to ensconce herself in the publicity department of Phoenix Records for three full years without setting foot on Currier Street. The little half-English, half-Cambodian girl might have drawn strange looks and whispers in northern New England, but New York City had barely noticed her.

  For the longest time Keomany had thought she wanted it that way. Yet what a revelation to discover that it made her feel lost, without identity.

  She stood now on the curb of Currier Street and her gaze slid along the storefronts—the ski shops and mom-and-pops and restaurants, The Lionheart Pub, Harrison’s Video, The Bookmark Café, and the Currier Street Theater—and she felt more at home than she had felt since becoming a teenager. In the six months since she had moved back to Wickham, Keomany had felt this way more and more each day. Sweet Somethings was her place. Wickham was her town.

  Her old life had somehow become her new life. It was a revelation. Though there were still cell phones in evidence and the whole town was wired for the Net, and in spite of the tourists that spilled into town for the skiing in the winter and for the kayaking and hiking in the summer, for the most part, Wickham still felt the way she imagined it had when her grandparents had been children here.

  Her gaze went to the mountains then and for a long moment Keomany could not look away. The first of May, and the world was in bloom. Every breeze was redolent with the rich scents of the green coming back to the trees and the fields, the blossoming of flowers, and the heavy, pungent smell of coffee beans roasting at the Bookmark three doors down.

  “Mmm,” she whispered to herself. “Hazelnut.”

  Might have to get myself a cup, she thought. And then she took one last deep breath, inhaling coffee and vanilla from the café and lilacs in bloom somewhere near.

  At last, Keomany turned to work. She sprayed Windex on the broad plate glass window, sunlight refracting microscopic rainbows in every drop, glistening in the instant before she wiped it all away. She began to whistle but stopped when she realized how her own music clashed with that of the chimes above her, the wind’s melody.

  It was just after nine o’clock and Keomany worked in silence save for the chimes and the rumble of cars passin
g by on Currier Street and the hellos from friends and acquaintances—and this time of year that was most of the town—who happened by. The store did not officially open until ten but when Walt Bissette came by for a pound of peanut butter fudge and then Jacqui Lester stopped in to sneak a few diet-breaking caramel cluster turtles, Keomany did not turn them away.

  After the place was clean to her satisfaction, Keomany arranged a bunch of fresh lilies she had bought in a vase on the front counter by the register and then sat and read from a romantic fantasy novel that had pulled her in the night before. When the mountain breeze carried Paul Leroux into the store at half past ten, she barely noticed.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he offered.

  Keomany glanced up at Paul, then at the clock, and then her gaze settled once more upon the young man she had impulsively made her assistant manager.

  “Paul,” she said, nothing else but his name, but it carried all her feelings on his tardiness, how she had come to expect it, how she indulged him most of the time, how it was becoming tiresome.

  “I know,” he said, blue eyes so earnest. He pushed his fingers through his straw blond hair, which fell too long over his forehead in something approximating style . . . or what might have approximated style somewhere other than northern Vermont.

  “Keomany, seriously, I know. I’m gonna buy a new alarm clock this afternoon. Swear to God. As soon as Jillian comes in, I’m gonna run over to Franklin’s and buy one.”

  She stared at him a long moment, trying desperately to be stern, though it was hard to be angry with Paul. He was a good kid and a hard worker, smart and charming and as gentle a soul as she’d ever met. The kid had graduated from the regional high school the year before and managed to convince just about everyone, himself included, that he was just taking a couple of semesters off before starting college. But Paul wasn’t going to college next year. Keomany had known that the day he had applied for the job. He didn’t have the fire in his eyes that it took to leave Wickham. It was sad in a way; if he never left, he might never really be able to appreciate the town.

  Meanwhile, though, despite his frequent lateness he was an otherwise responsible and reliable assistant manager who seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the shoppe and who was well loved by the clientele.

  Keomany closed her book and set it on top of the counter. “This can’t happen while I’m away, Paul. Even if there are no customers this early in the morning, the sign says we open at ten. That means we open at ten. It’s only two mornings you have to actually be here on time.”

  “I know,” he said with a sheepish smile. “I promise.” He actually held his hand up as though he were taking some kind of oath, and Keomany chuckled softly and shook her head.

  “All right, Boy Scout. At ease.”

  Paul laughed and unzipped his light jacket as he strode deeper into the store. He hung it up in back, and by the time he returned, Keomany had gathered up her book and her car keys. She snuck a nonpareil out of the display case—always a good idea to sample her own wares as long as she didn’t get fat doing it—and moved around to the other side of the register.

  “You’re in a rush to get out of here,” Paul said.

  The taste of chocolate on her tongue, Keomany licked her lips and nodded. “Just looking forward to a couple of days off. I’ve never been to a Bealtienne festival up here but it’s so beautiful this time of year that I can’t wait.”

  “Yeah, what’s up with that, anyway?” Paul asked, his curiosity apparently genuine. “It’s like a wiccan thing or something?”

  “Or something,” Keomany replied, jangling her keys. “It’s a Druidic celebration of the earth at the peak of its fertility. Maybe if you’re good, I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”

  “Yes, O Earth Goddess.”

  “Bet your ass.”

  He smiled, this handsome kid who was only five or six years younger than she was and in the space of an eyeblink she had considered and discarded the idea of sleeping with him sometime. Whatever the age difference, there were so many ways in which Paul was really just a kid.

  Keomany was about to go out the door when she turned and shot Paul one last admonishing glance. “Oh, and if you’re going to be seducing Jillian while I’m gone, please don’t do it during work hours.”

  The kid actually blushed. Jillian was a year younger than him, still a high school senior, and Paul had been sweet-talking her since Keomany had hired her. Whether it had gone further than that, she had no idea.

  “Hey,” Paul protested.

  “Call ’em like I see ’em,” she said, and then she was out the door and the music of the wooden wind chimes followed her all the way across the street to where her car was parked. As she pulled out, Keomany saw Paul standing in the open door of her shoppe, the hand-painted sign for Sweet Somethings just above his head swaying slightly in the breeze. She waved but by then Jane and Ed Herron, an older couple who were regulars, were walking up toward the shoppe and Paul’s attention was on them.

  Keomany gave the place one last glance and then turned her attention to the road and the trip ahead of her. The steering wheel clutched in one hand, she reached down and clicked on the radio, coming in just a few lines into a blues-rock tune that the local pop station had taken to playing every hour or so in the last few days. She still had no idea what it was called or who sang it, but the woman’s raspy voice reminded her of Joan Osborne, and maybe a little bit of Sheryl Crow.

  For a moment she was tempted to change the channel, but as it always did, the song cut a groove down inside her, and despite how often she heard it, Keomany left it on.

  As she drove south out of Wickham, she glanced around at her hometown. The village was small enough that she at least recognized more than half the people she saw on the sidewalk or driving past. Many she knew by name. She actually slowed down to wave and call hello to Annie Mulvehill, with whom she’d gone to high school, and who was now a police officer in town. Probably the first female ever to have the job in Wickham.

  Keomany’s apartment was behind her, on the northern end of town, just far enough away from her parents, who still lived in the house over on Little Tree Lane where she had grown up. As she drove by the turnoff that would have taken her there, she felt a twinge of guilt that she had not been able to go by and see them the night before as she’d promised. But she’d make it up to them when she returned.

  A frown creased her forehead. Despite the sunshine and the blue sky and the inescapable rhythm on the radio, a chill shuddered through her and Keomany actually slowed the car to glance back at the turnoff. Something made her want to go there now, made her worry about her parents. It was foolish, of course. She’d called them on the phone that morning and they were fine.

  Relax, she told herself as she eased her foot back down on the accelerator. Whatever earth magick she had dabbled in since college, she had never had a premonition before and doubted she was starting to have them now. But there were goosebumps on her arms and a cold feeling still at the base of her neck. So just the same, premonition or not, she would give her folks another call just as soon as she reached Brattleboro. It was only a couple of hours. Not a lot was going to happen in that time.

  Still, some of the good feeling of the day had gone out of her now and Keomany was no longer smiling as she passed the fire station that marked the town line.

  On the radio the song ended and she was surprised when the deejay’s voice cut in.

  ‘That was Nikki Wydra with ‘Shock My World.’ And we’ll have more of the hits of today coming up on WXTC, right after this.”

  Keomany laughed out loud and glanced down at the radio. “No shit!” she said, as though it might actually respond. She shook her head and turned her attention back to the road.

  “No shit,” she said again.

  It had been a long time since she had heard the name Nikki Wydra. Somehow, though, she had always known that one day she would hear it on the radio.

  Her unease now quickly fo
rgotten, Keomany left Wickham behind, dwindling to a dark point of nothingness in her rearview mirror.

  “Oh my God, I’m gonna puke.”

  Nikki Wydra sat on the edge of a metal folding chair with her head in her hands, her breath coming in quick, short gasps. Her face was flushed, she could feel the heat in her cheeks, and her eyes were wide with a kind of panic she hadn’t felt since playing Dorothy in the seventh-grade production of The Wizard of Oz at the Haley Middle School.

  “You’re not gonna puke.”

  That comforting voice, and the equally comforting hand that gently rubbed her back between her shoulder blades, belonged to Kyle Shotsky, the drummer with her band. Though she could not see his face, not with the way she was bent over, breathing fast and trying not to throw up, Nikki still took some solace in Kyle’s presence. She knew that face intimately, the warm brown eyes and perfect hair, the small dimple on his chin. He reminded her of Billy Campbell, the actor who had played the dad on Once and Again years ago. Most people didn’t even remember that show, but Nikki wasn’t going to forget Billy Campbell.

  The fact that Kyle looked a lot like Billy Campbell probably had a lot to do with why she had slept with him in the first place. Though she liked to tell herself it had nothing to do with why she’d hired him to play with her band.

  Nikki’s breathing had slowed. Her stomach hurt, but suddenly she did not feel quite as nauseous.

  “You’re not gonna puke,” Kyle told her again, his firm hand gripping her shoulder now.

  “Maybe you’re right,” she replied, amused by the surprise in her own voice. Nikki glanced up at him, saw the concern there and that all-encompassing warmth. “Thanks.”

  His strong fingers caressed her face. “Hey. It’s what I’m here for.”

  “No. You’re here to play the fucking drums. Just like I’m supposed to be here to sing.”

  Frustrated, Nikki carefully stood up and began to slowly pace the length of the green room at El Dorado. The room was little more than a converted storage area with a couple of small tables, a shitty little old TV set, a bunch of folding chairs, and a curtain in case someone wanted to get changed without the other members of the band seeing them. There was a ratty sofa against the far wall but it stank like cat and was stained with what might have been coffee in the best-case scenario, and blood in the worst.