The Centaur (21 page)

“I hear you, Nathanael. You do not have to speak through the little one.” Raguel said fretfully.  “My Master comes and goes as he pleases. He does not ask my permission, nor does He feel constrained to tell me his plans. Sometimes He is here and sometimes He is there.”

“When was the last time you saw your master, Raguel?” d’Brouchart asked him.

“A while and bit.”

“An age?”

“Perhaps.”

“In the reckoning of men, how long?”

“Let me consider for a moment.” Raguel pursed his lips and tapped one finger against the side of his nose for several seconds. “Oh, a good round estimate would be four, maybe five thousand years…”

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

“Sophia,” Mark asked, leaned his head back on the sofa and looked up at Sophia.

She stood at the head of the couch talking to Gregory and Bari. Mark still lay on the sofa under several woolen blankets. The strange fellow Nicole had introduced as Mr. Barshak sat on the leather ottoman, feeling of the bones in Mark’s fingers and hand. He seemed to be fascinated with the golden patch on the back of his hand. Mark had tried to speak to him twice, but he simply ignored his patient’s questions. “Sophia!”

Sophia looked down at him as if she had forgotten he was there.

“Oh, Mark! You’re freezing.” She was beside him again, giving orders to Bari for more blankets and to Gregory for hot tea and soup.

“Sophia, please,” Mark tried to interrupt her. “Sophia.”

She continued to chatter about his condition, and how frightened she had been when they had brought him home, and how frantic they had been when they had found him missing, and how upset she was to learn that he had gone out in a storm, and gotten soaked, and so on, and so forth until he finally wrenched his hand free of the stranger and grabbed her wrist as she wiped at his forehead with a bloodied face towel.

“Sophia!” He shouted and finally gained her attention.

“What!” She answered as if slapped.

“I need to talk to you… alone!”

He tried to get up and discovered that someone had removed his wet trousers. He had only his underwear and the blankets.

“Gregory and Bari are gone,” she said. “What is it? What were you doing out there?”

Mark looked at the silvery haired man in the oddly quilted suit, but said nothing. The creature looked to be fair-skinned, blue-eyed and, oddly enough, of Asian descent smiled at him and blinked three times.

“Oh!” Sophia again seemed to have forgotten the man’s presence. “Mr.
Barshak, this is Mark Ramsay, Nicole’s father.”

“I know him by another name. Your Nicole used another name for him.”

“What? Oh, you mean, Daddy. Yes, well, that is a term of endearment actually. He is her father. You aren’t from Scotland are you?”

“Not from Scotland, no, but in Scotland, yes.”

“I see.” Sophia smiled to Mark’s growing chagrin as she turned to face him. “He’s a foreigner. He doesn’t understand English very well, though he has a most pleasant voice. Nicole says that he is a healer.”

“No doubt,” Mark muttered and allowed her to help him sit up. “Sophia… Uhhh, Mr.
Barshak would you mind checking on the tea and soup? I am feeling a bit hungry after all.”

“Of course.” ‘
Barshak’ stood up and looked about, frowning slightly. “Where would I find the
soup
?”

“Through there. Down the hall to your left… that way.” Sophia pointed the way and he walked from the room, looking at everything he passed with curiosity. “The kitchen,” she called after him.

“Sophia,” Mark took her other hand and pulled her back around to face him. “That is not what you think it is.”

“What? Mr.
Barshak? He’s not a healer? What is he? Do you know him?”

“Sophia,
fur God’s sake. Will ye listen t’ me?”

“When did you pick up a brogue, Mark? I swear, Nicole is teaching you awful things. You needn’t speak like that, Mark. Your English is perfect.”

“Wot aboot yurs, lassie? Ye ’ave th’ verra same accent as Dambretti. I’m a Scot, fur pity’s sake. Ye wud expect a Scot t’ speak loike a Scot, wud ye not?” Mark asked her in consternation, and then closed his eyes, sighing in defeat. “You’re right, Sophia. Nicole is teaching me bad things. Now about Mr. Barshank…”

“
Barshak… shak,” she corrected him.

“Mr.
Barshak. I had to make some magick, Sophia,” he began to explain. “I didn’t want you to worry, and so I went alone, down the meadow to a place where I hoped no one would see me. I had to use the black mass to call up the dark powers of Marduk.”

“Marduk!” Sophia leaned back from him.

“Yes! Now listen. I called up some of the powers to help us. You must know I’ve been trying to tell you we are in a great deal of trouble. Today is the sixteenth of October.”

“I know, and
its too damned cold out there for you to be running around in just your trousers in the rain, no less! And furthermore, endangering yourself with this black magick and spells to call on demons. What were you thinking, Mark Andrew Ramsay? Do you want me to have a miscarriage? Do you want to scare me to death? I love you, Mark, but you really must start acting like a grownup now and do what Sophia tells you to do or else you’re going to get both of us hurt. You don’t want to cause us to be hurt, do you, love? Think about it. After all I’ve done for you, you must know that I love you by now or else I would have gone my way and left you to sort it all out on your own. Now that you’re a man…” she tapped the side of his head and smiled at him, “I have to respect you in that regard, but you still have a long way to go before you know everything
you
need to know. It’s a big world out there, Mark and the elves won’t always be around to protect you and show you secret passageways and all that stuff. Don’t you want to be a man and take care of Sophia for a while? You said you would take care of me, remember?” She leaned forward and kissed his nose. “How can you take care of me, if you are upstairs with pneumonia? Remember that little game we used to play? Paper, scissors, rock?”

Mark nodded automatically. He was making no headway at all with her.

“OK. Look. I’ll play with you one more time if you promise not to go out without telling me first. OK? Promise?”

Mark nodded again in disbelief.

“Good. After you eat and we get you upstairs for a bath and some clean, warm clothes, we’ll play and then I’ll teach you some more about the chess game. OK?”

Mark nodded once more and Sophia stood up. She held out her hand to him.

“Come on; just wrap the blanket around you. No one will look. Don’t you want to take a nice hot bath?”

Again he nodded.

“And….” She wrapped her arm around his waist when he stood up. “If you like, Sophia will get in the tub with you. OK? Would you like that?”

This time he nodded more readily. He would like that a great deal. If they were all going to die sometime before midnight, he might as well make the most of the time he had left. Besides, he had done all he could do to avert as much of the coming disaster as possible from the shores of his beloved Scotland, and he had the tender attentions of this sweet girl. What more could the gods ask of him? What more could he ask of the gods?

the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm,

and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

Abaddon returned from his reconnoiter just in time to hear shrieks emanating from the Queen Mother’s chamber. The guards outside the massive, concrete and steel door cringed in terror when her voice echoed down the hall. One of the few remaining personal servants flew bodily through the open door, crashing against the far wall of the dimly lit corridor. The old woman bounced off the wall like a broken rag doll and slid silently onto the floor, unmoving, lifeless.

One of the soldiers saw the general approaching and ran toward him, speaking unintelligibly, throwing himself at Abaddon’s feet, begging for mercy, pleading for his life.

Abaddon picked him up with one hand and held him close.

“What happened?” He growled in the man’s face.

“The Queen, something happened. Horrible. Horrible!” He wailed. “She’ll kill us! We had nothing to do with it. Nothing. Help us, sir! Help us!” The man covered his face with his hands, and Abaddon dropped him.

He approached the door cautiously and peeked around the scarred door facing. The screaming had subsided and she sat on a velvet bench in front of a gold and silver dressing table. A large mirror, now spidered and splintered showed her reflection in thousands of tiny faceted images.

“My Queen, what is the problem? Allow me to take care of it.”

She did not turn, but waved him inside with one hand.

“Close the door,” she snapped, and he obeyed before walking carefully across the room. He stopped behind her and waited.

“What is wrong, my lady? Is it bad news?” He asked when she said no more.

“Your magick!” She moaned and then turned on the bench. She wore a green satin gown, cut very low, exposing her neck, throat and a great deal of breast to him.

He gasped and stepped back. It was worse than he had expected. Her entire neck and most of her chest was brown, withered, decayed and desiccated flesh. The horrid gash across her throat had returned. The hideous wound resulting from the Key of Death ceremony Luke Andrew had performed for Ruth Kadif, releasing her soul from her body. Above the wrinkled flesh, near her jaw line the flesh was perfect. Her face was as lovely as ever, but her eyes were wide with fury, inhuman with hatred and loathing.

“My Queen. I know this is most distressing, but I must beg to ask: did you perform the ritual as I instructed. I warned you the necklace was most powerful? Dangerous,” Abaddon said cautiously and looked about the floor for the necklace she no longer wore. He saw it near the foot of the bed, lying in a heap.

“I did exactly what you said to do, and this is what happened! I should disembowel you and string you up and down the hall, you imbecile!”

Abaddon fell on one knee and held out his hands imploringly.

“My Queen, I beg your forgiveness. It was never my intention to bring harm to your beautiful body! I am sure we can learn the cause of it and repair the damage. Whatever has been done can be undone, I assure you. Allow me to assist you.” He bowed his head exposing his neck to her. “I swear on my life, most gracious lady, I will return you to your former beauty or throw myself into the fires of Arauch.”

He waited, eyes closed, expecting the worst.

“Of course, Abaddon. You may help your queen.”

He let out a long sigh of relief and stood up. Trying not to look at the hideous monstrosity in front of him, he moved to the bar and poured himself a glass of whiskey.

“Now you must tell me everything. Do not leave out the smallest detail. It is most likely some tiny thing. Something seemingly insignificant, yet necessary to render the necklace a servant. Try to calm yourself now. Everything will be just fine. It pains my heart to see you in such needless distress.”

Huber snorted impatiently and then sat back on the bench, leaning against the table. She began to relate every word she had spoken, every gesture and hand signal, every movement she had made. At length, Abaddon stood up straighter and slammed his glass on the bar.

“That’s it. You say you made the sign of the inverted pentagram with your right hand? Like so?” He held out his right hand and drew an invoking pentagram in the air.

“Yes, yes. Exactly.” She perked up.

“Then that is where you went wrong. The revoking pentagram is done with the right hand. Revoking. Right. Invoking. Left.”

“Ahhh. Then you can reverse the damage?” She ran one hand over the disgusting, putrefying flesh that had
one been soft and supple, invitingly smooth and tan.

“I may be able to reverse a goodly portion, but…” he walked forward and leaned down to look closely at the deep, red gash completely encircling her neck. He wondered how her head remained in place. “This gash is not the result of the mistake. This incision was made by the necklace, itself. I have seen it before. I may not be able to close it completely, my queen.”

Huber grabbed a bottle of perfume shaped like a crystal swan and flung it across the room.

“Abaddon!” She shrieked at him and grabbed both sides of her head when he backed away from her in alarm. “I can barely keep my head sitting atop this wretched stump. You had best do something or else I’ll discard this puny form and take on my former glory, and that, I assure you, would not be conducive to our plans for the evening.” The Queen Mother pursed her red lips and raised one eyebrow. “At least, it will be none too pleasant for you, my love.”

“Shhhhh, my lovely Queen. I understand. I understand,” he said and took her hand in spite of his loathing and kissed the back of it as passionately as he could. “Think of my poor heart! I was looking forward to a night of eternal bliss with you, my life, my love. Can you not hear how my heart breaks at seeing you in distress? This is no great horror as you might imagine. I would keep you as you are, but not if it displeases you. Before we take pleasure in your bed, I will have you refreshed and laughing.”