The Wiccan Diaries

Chapter 13 – Halsey




It was outside the city, in a little dump off the A1, Italy’s Motorway of the Sun. I think Ballard and I had suicidal tendencies. The citizens of Rome were getting jumpstarts on their summer vacations, when we both nearly died multiple times in close calls navigating the speeding traffic on our motor scooters, along the freeway.

In fact, I had the strangest sensation that we were being followed. A couple of times I saw two large dim headlights in my rearview mirror; they would fall back and reappear. I put them out of my mind. If anyone dangerous were following us, Ballard would feel it. He would feel them.

No matter how many times I tried to comprehend that, it still felt inexplicable.

We were dressed for our skullduggery (I, in a long-sleeved, black-and-white striped T-shirt, with nylon leggings; Ballard in a suit he must have picked up from his dry cleaners, in a time machine that went back to the sixties), ready for whatever Club Change was prepared to throw at us.

We were perfect. We looked like nothing so much as two esoteric devotees of Whatever. I had the diary and my Codex in a purse that finished off my ensemble.

Trust Ballard to put things into nutshells. “What a dump,” he said.

I had grown used to the city, in my small time there: to the Spanish tiles, and the crumbling plaster; to the ivy that hung thick on the ancient iron gates; to the fountains, spewing potable water, sculpted by masters; and to the high-end shops catering to every designer whim a girl could have (which reminded me, I still needed to shop), that in my few weeks away, it seemed like I had forgotten the world outside Rome.


Well, here it was again.

Club Change was hidden away in an old industrial complex that looked as though it had not been in operation for at least twenty years. Huge abandoned warehouses were boarded up. Outside of them, sat many uncoupled semi-trailers, whose prime movers were absent.

I saw quite a few eyes staring out at me, from the backs of them.

Refuse such as cardboard and other bits of paraphernalia littered the gutters as the area had been taken over by a contingent of homeless people. It was very dangerous. Thankfully, I had Ballard with me.

We were not alone on the streets, however. People were gathering, headed toward the light.

Ahead, I saw an unnatural glow. It was almost midnight, and Club Change was set to begin. I saw figures moving through the gloom, headed towards the club.

The lamps, that should have been bright, were dead. And over the whole area, was a patina of filth. Our scooters glided past it all, immune. Ballard slowed.

I pulled beside him––“It feels like All Saints’ and All Souls’,” he said, and made a sound, like a ghost at Halloween. “Woo-ooh-ooh.”

I smiled because he was so right; it felt like we were going up the path to the place no one was supposed to go, to go ring the doorbell, and say, “Trick or treat.” There was no telling what was going to happen.

It was nippy and I had goosebumps from the long drive. A line of cars and scooters, and their drivers, were in front and back of us. People crossed in front of our headlamps, making strange shadows as their figures swept by, all of us going in the same direction.

It was a black cube, three stories tall, when we finally got there. Velvet ropes lined the entrance, where there was a blood-red carpet, and valets to park the Mercedes and BMWs I saw.

Everyone was dressed spectacularly; even the people that showed up on foot.

The prerequisite for getting past the front entrance seemed to be dressing in black. Black was the predominant color; I was one of the few wearing anything but black.

Through the tinted glass, I could see strobe lights, in bright, violent green, pulsing above the crowd of moving bodies. That was floors one and two. Floor number three was opaque: you could not see through the all-black glass. I wondered why not.

Below, it looked like they had a laser beam and splitter. Some kind of light show was going on. Together with the strobe lights, it did funny things to my head.

There was also the beat of loud music. Electroluminescent wire spelled out the name of the club. Ballard and I parked our scooters. We were not in Trastevere, so I made sure to secure the helmet and take my keys with me.

Likewise Ballard, who was suddenly nervous. “I hope you’re not expecting to dance,” he said.

“I thought all Italianos know how to shake their booties,” I said, grabbing my purse. “C’mon.”

He followed behind me, as I led the way. “You do know that Italian and Spanish are two separate languages, right?”

I liked it when he chattered. It meant he was nervous.

“Does everyone not look a little weird to you?” he said.

It was his favorite word.

“We’re all a little weird,” I said, magnanimously.

We found a spot in the back of the line. People continued to pour in. It was hard not to see what he was talking about.

It reminded me of a time I went to a rave with Becca. We had climbed down the pipes and disappeared into the woods surrounding St. Martley’s. Mistress Genevieve punished us for a month afterward, but it had been worth it.

What happened was there had been some drug usage––but neither one of us was into that. What happened was it had been raided. And Mistress Genevieve had had to come pick us up from the police station. It was a sight, seeing her there.

Anyway, Becca and I had been talking to this guy (before the trouble started). I never knew his name. He just gave us a rundown of the ravers. It was one of the most interesting, pretty speeches I ever heard.

“You have your zombies. And over there, the children of the night. They only come out to feed. If they try and give you a party favor, run. The Goths. You have the candies and the perks, the Black Metal, the fetishists.”

He continued to enumerate them:

“Rivet-heads, non-rivet-heads, Cybers, Grungers, and, of course, your wannabes.”

That was pretty much Becks and me.

“Plus a whole lot more.”

But that was what this was like.

Over the glow sticks and rave pants and all of that was this electric energy of anticipation; everywhere were conversations whispering like lit fuses. “Let’s go already!” shouted one American teenager. A girl no older than I was.

Still, how did so many people know about this place? And why weren’t there any cops present? There should be, shouldn’t there?

I pointed this out to Ballard, who just shrugged. Somebody tapped my shoulder. “Need to know,” they said. “And you don’t.” I got a little chill.

It looked like they were letting the VIPs in first. I suddenly worried that it would be packed to capacity before we ever got there.

But before I knew it, we were in. I saw Ballard tip the door guy. He was an astonishing mix of naive and shrewd, Ballard. I would’ve missed that one. It got us through, no questions asked.

“What are we supposed to do, now?” he said, being naive guy again. I shrugged. I didn’t know either.

I had to shout over the loud noises. “We should probably start with figuring out what this place is, exactly!”

Ballard nodded.

Everywhere were couples.

Awkward. There was no worse feeling than being around a bunch of people dancing, and I wasn’t one of them. People continued to crowd in.

I saw a flight of chrome stairs leading to the first floor. “We gotta go to the second floor,” I told Ballard.

He rolled his eyes. I pointed it out with my hand palm down, as was customary in Italy. Italians must have done that because they were always pointing to something beautiful––so the gesture had a bit of an appraisal to it. In any event, he got the gist.

We slipped through the humping and gyrating bodies and made it to the second floor––and it was subtly different than the first. In my diary I would have written, See, you can go to the first floor––and stop there. Or you can go to the second floor, and see what’s up. The few go to the third floor.

But I could see no way to get to it. “I don’t get it,” I said. “If Romans don’t point––” I jabbed my finger at Ballard, “what’s with the hand of the Colossus? Never mind,” I said, when I could see that he didn’t get it, either. He was too preoccupied.

He was trying to figure out how to be one of the few. “How do you take the road less traveled, if you can’t find the road?” he asked.

The answer came to me all at once. “If everyone could find the road, it wouldn’t be worth taking. It must be hidden,” I said. Maybe I was taking it right now.

Ballard got out the flyer. He unfolded it. “Do we just wait?” he said. I perused it with him. “I think we just wait,” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Look!” he said. He pointed with his palm down.

I could see what he was appraising. The light show had changed. The splitter was making the laser beam make strange shapes. “Weird,” he said. Then, “cool!”

A ball of light exploded, scattered, reconstituted.

Before we knew it, triangles began to form in the sky; from the second level, it was like they were right in our faces, endlessly repeating, one inside the next.




Then the lights that had scattered at the initial, big explosion, gathered at the edges of the light show, and built themselves into a giant circle that enclosed the triangle, and behold, there was a flame in the center––the flame of the light; and I Saw.

My head felt dizzy, seeing the images spin....

“Ballard. I think I need to sit down. Ballard?”

But Ballard wasn’t looking at the light show. He was looking somewhere else.

“Ballard?” I said. I turned to see what had gotten his attention. An elevator opened out of the wall. It must lead to the third floor, I realized. A procession of robed figures was departing from it. With their deep hoods it was impossible to tell who they were.

“Don’t drink anything they give you, Ballard,” I said. He nodded. Suddenly, it felt as though we had stumbled upon a cult.

* * *

We were being herded down to the ground floor. Surrounding the three robed figures was their staff of bodyguards. At the same time, someone gave the order to lock us in. The music had cut out. Over the speakers, a voice was saying, “If you’re not in by the time the doors close, then you’ll just have to wait until next time. Thank you so much.”

A nervous twitter went up.

I saw the speaker before I went down the chrome steps. He was holding a gold-tipped microphone. Everywhere there were excited noises. I didn’t know what was going on. The bodyguards took their places at the bottom of the stairs, huge arms folded across their too-tight muscle shirts, effectively cutting anyone off from getting past them. It was their bosses I concentrated on, now. I felt Ballard reach for my hand; he took it, forcefully.

The guy with the microphone handled the preamble.

“Welcome,” he said, “to Club Change.”

Huge cheer.

“And to the first night of the rest of your lives!”

“Actually every night is the first night of the rest of our lives,” I said.

“Halls, something is wrong here,” said Ballard.

“How come? Wait... you’re not getting one of your feelings again, are you?”

He told me not to draw attention to myself

The doors were locking. More guards stood over them.

Ballard steered me back into the throng.

“We’re here, tonight...” said the voice over the microphone––

But whatever he said after that I couldn’t hear. The sea of figures raised their arms and danced around, drowning him with their cheers. Suddenly, the three robed figures stood forward, and removed their hoods. There was a gasp as the audience saw them for the first time.

Ballard said, “You know that bad feeling I have?”

“Shh. I want to listen.” I was just as enthralled as the rest of them.

When I looked at them all, however, it became apparent I was not. The sight of the faces of the robed figures had done something to the audience. It was like they were transfixed, focused on the eyes of the three faces.

A murmur was going through the crowd. Something was happening. People in front of me were passing something back.

“Take one!” said the speaker over the microphone.

Ballard shook his head. “Don’t,” he said. I grabbed one and looked at what everyone was holding. Chew tablets.

Couples were feeding them to each other, letting them melt on their tongues. Everyone focused again, high overhead.

“Good,” said the speaker.

He signaled and the lights went out.

Laser beams began cutting through the air. Everyone went “Ooh,” “Ahh.”

As the voice spoke, images formed. It was like going to the planetarium. The soundtrack was terrifying. “Long, long ago: there was War.”

Figures clashed, drums beat. We saw figures dancing through the air. They had evil, pointed faces, triangles for bodies. Their shields were circles.

An army of the undead was rising from the earth. The laser beams went up close on a hand. It poked from the earth, then twisted into a cruel claw, its flesh falling off––and it climbed from the earth.

“It was called the First War,” said the voice, “and it was fought by the Beginners.”

I felt Ballard poke me in the ribs.

“What?” I said.

“We need to find a way out of here.”

“I want to listen to this,” I said.

He groaned.

“In the beginning, there was darkness, and things were neither better nor worse. Then light chased away the darkness and it hid where darker things dwelt,” said the voice. “Scared, it came back to the light, but the light was too powerful for darkness. It obliterated the night.

“But, behold!

“Before night died, it brought with it, Evil.”

I saw an army rise up and defeat Light. The sun bounced off Evil’s shields. The triangle of one vicious warrior, left its neck, and flew before us. It righted itself, and stood like a pyramid in the sky. The delta symbol.

The speaker was talking again.

“It was the strongest shape, delta. The pharaohs themselves built with it.”

The bits of the exploded figure, that hovered in the background, offered up “...The shield,” said the speaker. “And its center. The circumpunct.”

Ballard wasn’t poking me anymore.

The delta and the theta had formed––and I knew what the symbol meant, finally. I waited, to see if I was right.



“Original Evil needed a shield from the sun, otherwise it would perish. So it constructed it out of the theta symbol to mock Light. Instead of light and the sun, theta became synonymous with Death.

“The light, you see, had provoked the night,” said the speaker. “In response, Night sent its darkest emissaries. Warriors. They were not so invincible Light could not offer up its own warriors, to fight them back––which was all of us.

“But here is where Light had either a mistake or a stroke of genius. Instead of creating warriors as powerful as itself, Light made them weak, to tempt Evil, and so be tempted in return.

“The warriors of Light could be changed, you see.

“Their blood mixed with the blood of Evil, and so weakened Evil for all time.

“The warriors that had seemed so unstoppable, were not any longer. The sun that had bounced off their shields, now struck them down. They were forbidden to wander under the sun.

“But Light no longer held dominion. The day, that was long, was halved, into Darkness and Light. And that is how Darkness was reborn into the world.”

“So neither side won?” someone asked. The crowd listened, in awe.

“The first war was ended,” said the speaker. “But Light could not be happy about that. It had never encountered anything that could stop it. Neither had the Night.

“They were at loggerheads, you see.

“Light said, ‘I sent you humans, and you turned them.’

“Dark said, ‘I sent you my best warriors, and you tricked them.’

“Then Darkness had an idea, because it thought that it could win.

“‘If I agree not to interfere,” it said, “and you agree not to interfere, then we agree not to interfere.’

“And Light said, ‘They will settle it for themselves.’

“So they agreed to withdraw from the field of combat, together.

“But Dark, though the sun could weaken him, knew that it was only a matter of time. After all, thought Dark, what could humans do?

“Dark’s Army, though weakened, was still the master of change. They alone could transform, both themselves and Light’s insignificant forces. What could Light do in return?

“It was only a matter of time.


I Gatti started their engines.

Despite their size and physical prowess, The Cats were hopelessly outnumbered. We weren’t even sure if this was all of the zombies, or if there were more of them in reserve.

As if in answer, came the sounds of hundreds and hundreds of new zombies to fill out their ranks. They were shuffling up behind us. I turned in my seat, and felt the pit of my stomach drop out.

It looked like a thousand of them.

Gaven was shouting. I Gatti was spread too thin. They started drawing in, forming a circle around our car. We were hemmed in. Trapped, between one Army across the bridge, and another that had somehow outmaneuvered us.

The zombies had walked us right into a trap.