"There," Nicols said. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
I looked back at the body sitting in the chair. "It looks pretty bad."
"Well, you were never easy on it. That's for sure. Time heals; chicks dig scars. That sort of bullshit."
"I had to be brave, John."
"I know, Michael. We all have to find our own way."
He led my spirit over to the bed, moving one of the screens aside, and as we stood at its foot, the bound woman visibly relaxed. There was blood on her face, in her hair, and on the mattress beneath her. There were old marks on her legs-this wasn't the first time she had been bound. A stick had been forced in her mouth, tied in place with strips of cloth around her head. Her hair, much longer than I had ever seen it, was in a wild disarray about her face.
It wasn't the woman from the painting. It wasn't Hildegard. It was Marielle.
The three priests looked up, their heads moving in such unison that it seemed like they were all working off the same marionette string. Cristobel. Philippe. Lafoutain. My three wise men. All looking very somber and stoic.
Their mouths were all stitched shut.
Nicols shrugged as I looked to him for an explanation. "You shouldn't listen to them. You know how they are. Schemers. The whole lot of them. I'll be glad when they're gone."
"Are they crowding you, John?" I found the idea funny, even in these circumstances.
"No," he said. "But you're still fragile. You still don't trust yourself. You'll listen to them because you think you need that reassurance."
"And I should listen to you instead?"
He waved a finger at me. "I hear sarcasm. That's good."
"Is this a pep talk, John?" I glanced around the tiny room. "Is all of this an elaborate excuse to cheer me up?"
He snorted. "You remember my last pep talk?"
I did. He had held a gun to his head and threatened to shoot himself if I hadn't shown him that I could care about someone other than myself. It hadn't been a hollow gesture. He would have done it. The fact that I was instrumental in driving him to the brink of suicide hadn't been lost on me, either.
"What am I supposed to do, John?" I sighed. "I couldn't stop Bernard. He wiped out more than fifty thousand souls. The Watchers let him. Even if Philippe hadn't known the others were plotting against him, he should have Seen Bernard's plan. How could he have been so aware of the little details but have missed the big picture?"
"He pushed you there, and because you were there, only fifty thousand died." He raised his shoulders and wouldn't meet my gaze. "It could have been worse."
"But that's no comfort," I said. "It's still too many."
"I know." His voice was almost a whisper.
Cristobel's glass eye was weeping, and Lafoutain was looking down at his hands. Only Philippe was still looking at me. He didn't look away. Burn it all down.
I shook my head and when I looked away, my gaze fell on Marielle, tied to the bed. She was staring at me too, her expression filled with as much focused anger as her father's.
He was still there in my head, even though Nicols had gagged him. Part of him was still welded to my being. Part of me still knew why the Key of Thoth had been built. Why it had been activated. Because Philippe had failed. Because he had become too proud to accept that he was too old to lead them anymore. Too infirm. He had held on too long, and paid the price of that hubris.
"And what was I supposed to have done? Finish the job for you? Tear everything down because you failed. Was that it? I was supposed to wipe the slate clean? Kill all your friends because they betrayed you too. Was it all that petty?
"And you," I said to Marielle, my voice rising now. "What about your role? You used all of us. You preyed upon Antoine's jealousy. Upon Husserl's greed. Upon my naivete. You used me, so that your fucking boyfriend could have it all. You threw me away."
I surged toward the bed as if I was going to throw myself on her, and Nicols forced himself between us. I raged against him for a minute, which was like throwing myself at a giant redwood, hoping to knock it down with the force of my frustration. When I ran out of steam, I realized there was another voice in the room, a whisper of sound that ran without pause, without breath.
Laughter.
I looked around for the source and realized the shadows on the wall weren't thrown there by the figures in the room.
"Samael," I hissed.
The black streams flowed together into a coherent shape, and the laughter from many throats became a single voice. "Still so bright, my pretty one. Still so eager to believe me. Are you ready for my help? Are you willing to accept my love?"
"Never," I said. "Never again."
He laughed once more, and more than anything else, I wanted to never hear that sound again.
"Don't listen to him," Nicols said. "That's all it takes. Just stop listening."
I pushed against Nicols slightly, more to make him give me some space than to try to shove past him. "Then who should I listen to, John?"
His eyes were bright, shining with a wet light that reminded me of the Grail. "I can't tell you, Michael."
"Because I'm not supposed to listen to you either, is that right?"
He nodded, and when I brushed against him again, he broke into smoke. Wisps of white light that streaked around me, that moved through me. He was both gone and everywhere. All at the same time.
On the wall, the shadow of Samael was frozen, a smear of black ink that begged for interpretation. A demonic Rorschach blot, waiting to be given shape and definition by an unknowing witness.
The woman on the bed wasn't Marielle any longer. She was younger, her face unblemished and unlined as if she had never felt any lasting pain. The wooden gag was gone from her mouth, and as she stared-unblinkingly-at me, her lips began to move. Her voice was so low and her words so quick, I couldn't follow what she was saying.
I wasn't sure I wanted to hear what she had to say anyway.
The three priests approached, and before I could pull away from them, they circled me. Cristobel took my shortened arm in his hands and pressed the rosary-wrapped stump against his lips. Philippe stood behind me, his hands resting on my shoulders so that his fingers touched in the hollow of my throat. Lafoutain took my other hand and placed it over his heart.
Listen, the Chorus said.
"No." I struggled in their grip. "I'm done listening. Not to you. Not to your proxies. I'm done. Let me go."
Be still, the Chorus echoed.
"Tranquilla tuum animum," he said, and I looked over my shoulder at the chair in which I had been sitting. Just like the picture in the Grail chapeclass="underline" one hand across his knee, palm open, fingers pointing at the ground; the other raised toward the dark ceiling, a tiny sliver of frozen light laid against his stiff fingers.
"Omne imaginum meae cordis sunt."
Everything is an echo, the Chorus said, the whisper of their voices overlapping the magician's. But their voices trailed his by a split second. Echoing. Everything is an echo of my heart.
Philippe's hand tightened about my throat, directing my attention back to the bed. I let him guide me, and the flash of light from behind me wiped the black stain off the wall over the bed. The light went through me too, through the woman on the bed as well. Through all of us.
Phantoms. Every last one of us.
The light took my anger with it, and my pain and fear. All the shadows in my heart fled, and all that was left was the placid stillness of an untroubled pond.