“He’d spent a few days of the previous month with Marcus. They were never exactly close friends but then Marcus has no friends, though for some reason Wolfgang was one person Marcus could put up with, one person who didn’t irritate him. It is Marcus who has irritated Wolfgang, offended Wolfgang, as he offends all people eventually, by killing someone Wolfgang loved. Wolfgang’s friend Toro, it seems, irritated Marcus in the extreme and Marcus killed him. Toro was jealous of their friendship, Marcus dismissive, then angry, and then violent. Toro sounds like a fool and Wolfgang admitted as much but he says, ‘Marcus knew that. He could have let him go, let him live, but he has this power thing and no patience. None. I mean, not even for a second before the whole animal thing takes over. He can control it but he chooses not to. He killed Toro. Ripped him apart. I found them. Marcus covered in blood. Covered in Toro.’
“Wolfgang went on to say, ‘Marcus should have killed me. I could see he was thinking about it. He washed himself and chunks of Toro fell off him, off his shoulder; a piece was stuck on his arm. He washed in the lake and dressed and walked up to me and I’m sure he was thinking of killing me—not eating me, not that—but just killing me, cold-blooded, with a bolt of lightning or whatever he chose. But he didn’t. I think that’s all about his power too. He takes life, he doesn’t take it. He can do what he likes.’
“Marcus had said to him, ‘I know you don’t believe me, Wolfgang, but part of me is sorry about Toro: the part of me that loves you. I know you hate me for killing him. I think you should go. Don’t come back.’
“Wolfgang’s response was: ‘I left. That was a month ago.’
“He was quiet. A tear ran down his cheek and I thought it was because of Toro but it was because of what he was about to tell me. Because he was about to betray Marcus.
“He told me where Marcus was living. He said, ‘He’ll have moved on but it shows you the sort of place he likes. Always places like that. That is where he feels comfortable. That is where he can make a safe place to live.’
“And I have to say I’m surprised. Marcus has no home. He lives mostly like an animal. In a den. A den made of sticks. Partly underground. A small clearing near a lake. He spends long periods as an animal. He hunts and eats as an animal. Wolfgang says, ‘Sometimes it’s as if he’s losing his humanity.’
“Wolfgang asked him about the infamous vision that his son would kill him. Marcus said, ‘Yes, Wolfie, I believe it. I’ve avoided Nathan all my life. Best put it off for as long as possible, don’t you think? The inevitable. Or do I get it over with?’
“Wolfgang thought Marcus was so lonely, so sad, that part of him, the human part, wanted to get it over with but ironically the animal in him was the part that wanted to live. Marcus told him, ‘As an eagle I know nothing. I feel nothing but flying and living. Imagine that . . . wonderful . . . forever.’
“Wolfgang told me that Marcus meets others only rarely, to keep aware of what’s happening within the different witch communities and to hear any news of his son. That is his only real interest in the human world now—Nathan. For the rest, I think he’d gladly leave it all behind. Marcus washes, pampers himself, and dresses smartly for the few occasions he meets others. There’s still a lot of vanity left in him: he still likes to look in the mirror and the human side comes back. But when he’s in the woods he’s wild.
“Wolfgang said, ‘Wild is an interesting word. We imagine wild to be untamed and out of control but, of course, nature isn’t like that; nature is controlled, ordered, extremely disciplined by all its elements. Animals in herds have leaders and followers; there are disputes but still there is an organization. And animals hunt in certain ways, at certain times and for certain kinds of prey—it is terribly predictable. Marcus is like that—know his ways and you’ll find him. And, if you have his son, eventually he’ll come to you.’”
Gabriel looks back a few pages in the book. “This was dated just a year ago. Mercury must have thought she’d won the lottery when you came looking for her.”
The Cut
The day wears on and I’m still sitting on the floor of the library, watching the others reading through the diaries. Van finds a reference to Pilot visiting Mercury at the bunker and then leaving to go to Basle.
“Basle is a historic meeting place,” Van says. “It sounds like one of the cuts comes out there.”
“I was thinking about Pilot,” I say. “If I have access to Pilot’s memories about Mercury then I must have a memory of going through the cut. But I can’t find anything. Even the images of her building dams are getting fainter.”
Van looks over to me. “The memories will fade if you don’t access them. Alas, we didn’t realize that the cuts would be important. Before, you were focusing on the outside and a place name.”
That’s when Nesbitt shouts, “Bingo!”
He’s at the other end of the library, looking through scrolls of maps. He walks over to the central table, carrying one, a big grin on his face.
“Of course,” Van says as she looks at it. “Mercury made a map of her cuts.”
I get up to look. At least I can read maps.
It looks similar to the map I made of the bunker. Nesbitt points to a small, fine blue line in one of the rooms. “Each blue line is a cut and each one is numbered. There are eleven. The key says this one goes to Germany.” He points to others. “These go to Spain. New York. Algeria. This one is ‘Switzerland: closed.’”
Van lights a cigarette and says, “So. We need a couple of volunteers to check out one of the cuts.”
Gabriel and I look at each other and grin.