Cat Magic (50 page)

There were fifteen men divided into three groups of five each. The lead group Eddie called the Suppression Team. Their job was to pin down any opposition on the way in. The second group was the Fire Team. Three of them carried gasoline in five-gallon sprayers. The other two were responsible for the timed fuses. The last group was the Support Team, and Simon was part of this. Their mission was to remain a few hundred yards behind the others, providing cover and diversions—if necessary drawing fire.

Even though the sun was just down and the moon rising, the forest was so dark that Eddie from time to time had to flicker his flashlight ahead. Simon, running along among his men, was not surprised to find himself afraid. They all were. Somehow the fear made the Lord’s work seem even more important.

There came a soft word from ahead. The road had been found. The group gathered itself together.

Simon was cold, and confused about directions. Fortunately Eddie Martin and the others were good at this son of thing. They knew exactly what they were doing.

“Okay, everybody gather round.” There was warmth in the little group huddling around Eddie. “We have to move fast. We could be under surveillance even now.”

Silently, feverishly, Simon said a prayer: “Lord, let thy will be done.” He said it again and again and again as they moved along. The witches were human beings, he couldn’t forget that. He touched the hand.

“Suppression Team, front and center.” There was shuffling movement among the shadowy forms.

“Lemme set my watch. Okay, you’ve got two minutes lead, then the Fire Team will follow. Take off!”

They hurried away, their footsteps muffled by the leaves that littered the road. A flicker of light from time to time marked their progress. “Damn that Faulkner,” Eddie murmured, “he can’t stay away from his light!” Soon his watch peeped. “All right, Fire Team, let’s go.” As they trotted into the dark, Bob Krueger set his own watch. He was deputy leader of the Support Team. Simon was content to let him do the commanding. Give him a pulpit and Simon could convince turnips to dance, but he was no good at military maneuvers. Back in 1962 he had failed his induction physical for reasons the draft board had refused to disclose, even to him.

The next thing Simon knew they were marching up a slight incline. The smell of the woods was almost overpowering. The presence of the witches in Maywell had sensitized Simon to the devil’s ways, and this woods was definitely infested with demonic force.

They went farther and farther, deeper and deeper into the forest. Simon could sense the unseen things crowding about them, it was all he could do not to take a shotgun from one of the men and start blasting away.

As they reached the top of the rise they had been climbing, the blackness ahead began to change, then to tighten. They were coming to the end of the woods.

“What the hell is that?”

“Quiet!”

“Something’s moving.”

Simon couldn’t tell who was talking, but he could hear the slow dragging shuffle. It was emerging from the forest, parallel with them. “Oh, God.”

“Be quiet.”

A light snaked out.

There was nothing there. The light moved left, right, left again. Then Simon saw it—a stone statuette of a broad-shouldered man no more than three feet tall, a powerful little man with a furious, grimacing face.

“It’s some kind of a charm. Pass it by.”

They kept on walking. Simon looked back once only. He might have seen the shadow of the thing moving slowly up the road.

“Okay, halt,” Krueger said. They had come into a pasture. Now all that separated them from the house was a few hundred yards of field.

The moon was riding the treetops. It cast its pale light upon the scene below: empty, disused fields crossed by the road. And on that road two clumps of dark figures, spaced a few hundred yards apart, going forward at a steady pace.

“Okay, guys, it’s our turn. Move out.”

The Support Team started off. Simon felt the moonlight on the back of his neck like a living finger. The darkness had been hard, but this was harder. “O Lord,” he prayed, “thy rod and thy staff—”

Far in the distance crows began to call Their voices shattered the silence, echoing up and down the valley. Simon actually ducked. He remembered those damned birds, and somebody should have thought of them before. During that nude ride the other night they had saved the witches with their fierce pecking attacks.

Their noise grew more intense as the Support Team reached the house. The crows were swooping and flapping frantically in the front yard, but they didn’t attack. When Simon stepped up onto the porch, he sensed the charged presence of the house.

In among the gracious columns he could see that the front door was gaping. From the shadows within there came a powerful odor of gasoline.

After the initiation the group retired to the barn. Carpets had been laid on the floor and a fire built in the central fireplace. The room was warm, tenderly lit by the flames. Incense scented the air. One of the members of the Vine Coven played the panpipes, the long, sweet notes swelling in the quiet. The Christian delegations were gone. After the ceremony their cars had moved slowly off across the farm.

For the sake of the witches’ safety Amanda would have preferred them to stay, but they could not be allowed to witness this.

Amanda had never known that there could be such intimacy among a large group of people. They were deeply in love with one another, all of them. It was upon this foundation that their society rested. How anybody could find such gentleness threatening was beyond Amanda’s comprehension. And yet she herself would once have been shocked at the spectacle before her.

Even though it was an act shared among many people, it was as intensely private as a wedding night.

Robin lay beside Amanda, his hand resting on her thigh, his eyes closed. She turned on her side and regarded him.

“Are you asleep?”

“Hardly.”

“Robin. I’m so happy.”

He kissed her cheek. “You belong to us now.”

“I feel that.”

“There was dissension about you once, when you first came here. A couple of covens even thought about leaving the Covenstead.”

“What kind of dissension?”

“Over you being an outsider.”

“I’m not an outsider.”

He smiled at her, leaned over, and began kissing her.

She could see a vague, colorful haze around most of the people here. Where the lights of the couples touched there played deep blue of heartrending beauty. She remembered that color: it was the same as the sky of the Land of Summer. Love, she now understood, was so connected to death that the two were like an old married couple, serenely embracing.

Amanda gazed at Robin, enjoying the wonder of him. “You raised the cone of power. Without you I couldn’t have found my way back.”

“Vine Coven did it.”

“Each did it, and all. If you’re a witch, everything you do is magic. The craft of the wise is the art of expressing the true relationship between humanity and the earth.”

“Which is?”

“I can’t explain magic any more than a Japanese monk can explain Zen. Every human being is a hologram of the whole species. Each contains all. That’s the basis of magic. And earth is not an inert ball of rock. It is aware, it thinks, it knows we’re here. That’s magic, too.”

“Why do I find that thought chilling?”

“The earth will give back exactly what it gets.” She was silent a moment. “Humanity is supposed to function as a single being, the brain of the planet. Instead we are all scattered, each going his own selfish way. The earth gets selfishness, it will return selfishness of its own. You have to feel the world as a whole, mankind as a whole. Let illusion drop away. Differences, ideologies, fears, all disappear. Hate evaporates with the rest of illusion. Only love remains.” His expression was blank. “Don’t you sense it?

The love, the compassion?”

“I can hardly imagine what your perceptions must be.”

A disquiet came upon her. How could such a simple thing be so opaque to him? But what about her, a week ago? She had to bring what she had learned into the world. But not now. There was work yet to do. Brother Pierce and his followers would come once deep night had fallen, she felt sure of it.

And yet, in her mind’s eye she saw him moving through the woods, saw him approaching the house in darkness… as if he was already there.

It was not long after eight, though. She must be projecting images from later tonight. Surely they weren’t already here, when it was still gloaming. Soon the sheriff would come and the danger would be over.

Even so, she heard the hissing fire that still lingered above the Covenstead. The thought of it made her dig her fingernails into her palms. If all was well, why did danger still point its finger?

Robin was aware of none of this. She returned his smile, all the while feeling the most acute loneliness.

She and she alone understood enough to protect this place. She was very uneasy.

Outside there was a dull boom, followed at once by a low, steady roar. Amanda started, then raised her head. “No, be quiet. It’s only a jet.”

She saw fire.

Somebody started humming. Others took it up, and soon the whole room was filled with a gentle, human music. It was the sound of over a hundred people all married together.

For a little while it seemed as if the marriage was even bigger than the Covenstead, that it extended forever outward, covering the whole earth and including everything—air, rocks, plants, all matter living and otherwise, and all people whose hearts could join.

When the hum died away, the roar did not. It had gotten louder and was now punctuated by deep crackling sounds.

Amanda’s throat almost closed, her breath came in a long gasp. Everybody in die room knew at once what it was. Somewhere on the estate there was a great fire.

People jumped up in their fright and rushed naked for the door. A mistake, and Amanda acted instantly.

“Stop! All of you!” They froze, turned, their faces tormented by their feelings. “We get our clothes on first. We do not panic.”

“I think it’s the house,” Robin said as he rumbled with his jeans.

Amanda got jeans and sweatshirt on, and jammed her feet into her boots. She was among the first through the door.

Red, flickering reflections covered Stone Mountain. From the direction of the main house there arose a tower of sparks. Smoke was billowing up into the sky. “Connie!”

As she ran, Amanda felt a fool. Why had she not heeded the warning of her own mind, then her own ears? She had been seduced by the moment. She raced frantically across the hummocks, her legs pumping. “Connie!”

Flames were literally bursting out of every downstairs window, snatching and licking at the bricks. The upstairs windows glowed.

Smoke shot from the chimneys. Sparks climbed in whorls and eddies up the sky.

She had never before realized how long the distance was between the house and the village. She ran and ran and yet seemed never to get any closer. Her wind began to come hard and her legs to ache.

At last she reached the edge of the herb garden. The tang of smoke was heavy on die air. Wood and something else.

Gasoline.

“You’re killing her, you’re killing her!”

Connie’s crows were flying round and round the house, screaming horribly whenever they went through the flames. When they saw Amanda, they came and fluttered and shrieked about her head. She rushed straight to the kitchen door.

A blistering wave of heat slammed her back. The kitchen was blazing. Beyond it was a sea of flames.

She couldn’t get in that way. “Connie!”

She ran around to the front.

Flames had climbed the columns of the portico. The front door itself was gone. She could see inside, to the black profiles of the hall furniture. As she watched, a chunk of ceiling collapsed into the hall and was lost in sparks.

She backed away, shielding her face. Robin came rushing up, followed by half a dozen others. Three of them went to hook up garden hoses.

The crows were throwing themselves against the window of Connie’s bedroom. “She’s in there, Robin!”

His arm came around her waist.

She broke away. “I’m not going to let her burn!”

“There’s no way—”

If only she had asked the sheriff to come at eight instead of nine. A thousand if-onlys, and the hell with them all. She was going to do her best. Others were trying to save what they could from the library. One group was looking for a ladder in the toolshed. They dared not try to get the one in the basement.

Amanda began climbing a gutter. The bricks behind it were hot to the touch. Smoke was coming out around some of them.

The wall was bulging, ready to collapse, and the gutter was loose. Amanda climbed anyway, hand over hand, her feet barely able to keep her from slipping back down.

“Amanda, stop! It’s too dangerous.”

Struggling with the shaky gutter, she continued up. Beside her the downstairs window belched flames.

She could smell her own hair beginning to burn. A few feet farther up, the crows were hurling themselves again and again against a window. She felt something cold running down her back, saw water steaming on the bricks around her. They were trying to protect her with the garden hoses.

What a fool she had been not to have gotten things organized before! Wasting time with rituals and pleasures.

She was now parallel with the window. The crows flew madly about in a stink of burning feathers. She reached out and tried to get her fingers under the edge of the window frame. No luck, it was too tight.

She climbed a little farther. Water played around her, making things dangerously slick. But the others weren’t thinking of that. They were afraid she would burn.

How could anybody believe that other human beings could deserve a horror such as this? She hammered with her one free hand on the glass. “Connie! Connie!”

Slowly, unwillingly, the glass began to give way. Again and again Amanda slapped at it. Finally lines of fracture started to cross its surface.

The gutter made a scraping sound. Amanda felt it sway outward, away from the wall. “It’s falling,” Robin bellowed. “You’ve got to come down!”