It was an old electric chair, and the purpose of the thick cable suddenly made sense.
What were the odds of me holding still when they flipped the switch and threw a lot of juice into the chair? Not only would I be quaking and baking, but every heaving twitch of my chest would impale me more and more on the spikes of the Maiden.
My own fear was going to get me killed. And, before I thought about it more than that, I tried to redirect my active mind into a meditative state. Om vajrapani hum. One of the bodhisattvas of Mahayana Buddhism was Vajrapani, the angelic Buddha aspect who represented focused action. Om vajrapani hum. Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth.
I felt my chest relax. Some of the pressure from the spikes eased, and I could focus on the area beyond the electric chair and its sadistic breastplate.
The room was long and white, a coat of industrial paint on the walls and ceiling. A trio of floor lamps made round pools on the ceiling, the ambient scatter reflecting off the white walls. Directly in front of me was a tall object covered with a dark red velvet cloth.
On my left was another chair much like mine though without the added chest plate. Kat was strapped to the seat. I tried to see behind me, tried to fully comprehend the size of the room, but when I turned my head too far, my chest naturally rose. Kat and I weren't alone; the Chorus felt soul vibrations in the room, but I couldn't place them without letting the Chorus out. It didn't seem like a good idea to start exploring when I was so precariously poised.
"Ah, Mr. Markham." Bernard wandered into my field of vision, coming around from my right. "You've come back."
Closer now than in the shipping container, I got a good look at him. He was well-groomed, wearing a white silk shirt with loose cuffs, expensive shoes, and sharply creased wool pants. His dark hair was cut close to his head in an unassuming style favored by the recent fashion dictates of glam rock stars and the eternal vigilance of Cistercian monks and penitent ascetics. His neat beard subconsciously aped the shorn point of his widow's peak-as above, so below-making his face look like a long spear blade. He had a pair of platinum rings on his right hand-index and ring finger-and on his left wrist was a diamond-studded watch with a revealed mechanism and the inset cutout of a Maltese Cross. He really did look like a European precious metals broker. The Vacheron Constantin watch helped.
"Thanks for inviting me." My voice was full of dust.
"In our earlier discussion, you said your interest lay in seeing how someone interprets the Word and the world." Bernard waited a half second for me to correct him. "I wanted to share my vision with you. I wanted to show you what is possible."
The flicker of his eyes drew my attention to the draped object. It was taller than Bernard, and the red drapery was depressed in the middle and raised at three points along its outer edge. The edge was traced with fine gold needlepoint, an undulating line of arcane symbols too intricate to read from across the room. The base looked to be about four feet wide. I caught myself trying to catalogue and identity the object against my mental inventory of antiquities, but the covering confounded my professional assessment.
"Do I really have to be strapped down for this?" I asked. "Does she?"
Kat stared at the object, the muscles in her throat working. She didn't know either, but she appeared to have an idea.
Julian, wearing a nimbus of translucent fire, stepped up to the back of her chair and placed his hands on her head. Kat jerked away from his touch and he laughed softly. "We want your undivided attention," he said.
The halo of flames about his head was an etheric shadow of his activated Will. A friend to fire, he had the Idea of flame already formed-an active security measure should Kat or I attempt to liberate ourselves. Before we could summon our own fire, he would burn us both.
"All right, so we're a receptive audience," I said. "Do we have to make cooing noises when you show off your toys or is this open to discussion?"
"By all means," Bernard said as he walked over to the shroud and grasped the cloth. "I'm curious as to your opinion." He pulled the fabric off.
Three statues reached toward a central ring, a wide band of polished silver covered with a crawl of arcane script. The statues-each one standing about four feet tall-had the ibis head of the Egyptian god Thoth and androgynous bodies, nothing but smooth stone at their groins. In the center of the silver circle was an articulated sphere made from joined pieces of glass. The sphere reflected none of the light in the room; instead, each plate seemed to exude darkness, shards of black that killed the ambient glitter.
Lightbreaker.
The three figures stood upon a single platform, a sturdy base of hammered bronze. Their lower legs and knees were made of bronze as well, the joints whorled like conch shells. They had no feet, seeming to rise out of the bronze plate. Above the knee, they became brass, extending up to the curved shape of their torsos. Shoulders and arms were like the silver of the ring which they held, and their throats and skulls were made of gold. Their faces and long beaks were black stone. Onyx or obsidian. They had no eyes, no mouths, no features other than the perfect arc of their beaks.
A triptych of hieroglyphic characters was inscribed on their chests. The writing on the silver band looked vaguely familiar, as if it might be related to the pictograms of the Egyptians, but I couldn't recall where I had seen it before.
All in all, an interesting art piece, but nothing that was going to force academe into a flurry of dodgy speculation. I thought it might fetch mid six figures in a quiet sale-maybe a million in a live auction. The style of the figures was definitely Hellenistic-even the orientation of the legs reflected the Kore stance-but due to the strange glyphs and unusual number of the figures-three Thoth figures was an unheard of grouping-dating the piece was out of the question.
The mirrored sphere, though, made all the difference. It floated inside the ring with no visible means of support.
XVIII
That's it?" I shrugged, hiding my curiosity beneath a layer of Bohemian disinterest. "You've got me strapped down beneath this medieval Maidenform brassiere just to show me a vaguely Egyptian-looking knockoff of Nebuchadnezzar's statue?"
I heard wordless noises like hyenas chattering behind me-more Hollow Men, out of my line of sight. A thin smile crept across Kat's face. Bernard seemed vaguely disappointed. "Your insouciance is tiring, Mr. Markham."
"It's a reaction to being shot with a Taser," I replied. "Makes me giddy in all the wrong ways."
"Just show him," Julian said. "He's not going to be amenable to conversation until he sees a demonstration."
Bernard shook his head. "That's an untenable option."
"Not on him," Julian said. He tapped a finger against the frame of Kat's chair.
"What?" Kat struggled in her chair, trying to look behind her, straining to see what Julian was doing. I tensed my wrists, and the metal buckles on the thick leather straps rattled.
Julian held my focus as he reached his long index finger toward the top of Kat's head. His nimbus darkened, flickering into an orange and red crown.
"You bastard," Kat hissed, pulling at the straps around her wrists. The Chorus twitched in my head as they felt her gather energy. "Let me go."
Julian pressed his finger into her hair and smoke licked up from the smoldering follicles. "Now why would I want to do that?"
She jerked forward in the chair, trying to evade his burning digit. A tiny orange triangle of fire persisted on her head, eagerly devouring her hair. Julian slapped her head, extinguishing the small flame, and then threaded his fingers in her hair, pulling her against the chair. "Listen," he growled into her ear. "We appreciate what you have done for us. Our Anointed are grateful. But your services are no longer required. There is no place for you here anymore."