A flame spurted upward from the darkness and the massed bodies behind the altar, and the man rose up against the sudden light, swinging one of the thick iron candelabra, knocking Charlotte and the cultists aside and then lunging to grab the woman with the knife as the blade came down—
The black snakes within shook present Nora and pitched her to the floor of the tiny room. Mother! No! Nora’s body was locked rigid, but her mind was wild with fragments of memory. That was her mother about to stab her through the heart. Her father—no! No, he wasn’t, it was “Uncle Theo” …
Selene slammed down on the power button, but for a moment the images, like ghosts, remained.
You cannot hold me—why waste your strength? Bow, little Nora, and I will be merciful.
Then the CRT darkened, the scene shrinking and vanishing into a small white dot even as Selene spun and dropped to the floor to grab onto Nora’s thrashing body. But the instant the sound died, Nora went limp, stunned by the sudden, violent reversals of control. Her hold on Damastes loosened. The shadows inside her ripped apart and thrashed against each other.
Damastes’s voice thundered in Nora’s head and echoed from her mouth. You cannot bind me, witch. Blind me, silence me awhile—it matters not. I will be free! And I will gorge on your screams while I tear you apart!
Selene pushed her face next to Nora’s and crooned, “Think of the shadow, the cycle. Drive him down, wall him up in the endless dark. Your power is his prison, his prison is your power.”
Empty prattling! This vessel is mine!
“Fuck you, demon,” Nora muttered, slamming the lid back down on Damastes, putting him back into that cell in the prison of her flesh. It wouldn’t hold forever, but it would keep long enough for her to get back on her feet and make the next move. She lay against the dirty linoleum floor, panting. “I’ve got him, Selene. I’m okay.”
Selene stared into Nora’s eyes a moment, searching for a sign of Damastes, perhaps. Selene sat back on her heels, apparently satisfied, but she was holding tight to her own knife. “Is he—?”
“Back in his box for now. Still in the dark.” Nora pulled herself up. “That—my mother … was going to sacrifice me.”
“Hmm … I suspected the ritual used on you was different from those practiced more recently.”
“Yeah, none of the kids—none of the recent victims were related to any of the names on the list. Not like me. Holy crap … those were my parents!”
“Yes.” Selene looked puzzled by Nora’s outburst.
“No. I don’t mean back then—though all that’s disgusting and freaky, too. The dead woman in O’Hagan’s apartment was my mother! And he—‘Uncle Theo,’ Matt O’Hagan—Christ! They were never even married … yet another fucking lie. He was my father! They were alive all this time! Did he really try to save me? How? Why didn’t the cult find me sooner? Why are my memories so … fucked-up?”
Clutching her head in pain and confusion, Nora collapsed into a rickety chair. She remembered the cemetery, but now she knew it had been empty, shrouded in night, as O’Hagan—her father, damn it!—had spirited her away from the crumbling old chapel where the ritual had taken place. There had been no funeral, no mourners. Only the ruin of the ritual and their escape into a cleaner darkness.
Her father had defied the cult—why? For love? That was some twisted kind of affection. He’d muttered into her ear as he’d carried her away. All the words he’d said—that her parents were dead, the assurances that she would be taken care of—those hadn’t been comforting words. They were her personal catechism in the Church of Indigo:
Who are you? Indigo. Where do you come from? Humanity’s darkest shadows. What became of your parents? Murdered by a mugger. How did you become as you are? Shaped by adversity, trained by monks in high Tibetan mountains, tempered in righteous anger.
Strands in the tapestry of lies. More false memories, woven from bits of horrible truth. To keep her safe. But there were still holes in her past where memory stopped short and only blackness held sway.
Somehow, O’Hagan must have stayed with the cult to keep her safe. To keep her mother safe, as well? Had he realized that letting a murder god loose upon the world could only lead to ultimate destruction? That Nora was the gateway that must never be used or replicated? She shuddered and felt the shadows within roll in her chest, almost like chuckling.
Selene sat down beside Nora again and took her hands, forcing the younger woman to turn toward her. “We have little time. If O’Hagan and his victim were who you say, it casts new light on the ritual that was used on you and what the Phonoi must be planning—”
“You mean what Rafe Bogdani is planning,” Nora spat. “He talked about taking the power for himself, that the original ritual was screwed up and that pissed him off. That old ritual’s got to be some kind of clue.”
Nora frowned at the floor as wild thoughts fell into place in her head. “My parents … the missing Edwards kids … Rafe’s going to re-create the original ritual as he thinks it should have gone. That requires the sacrifice of a child—or children—by their own parents! My parents are dead, Charlotte’s dead, but Graham’s not. Rafe—” She had to stop and swallow down bile. “Whatever he had O’Hagan do to my mother must have been a way to salvage or extend the original ritual.”
Nora closed her eyes and tried to remember what her—what the corpse had looked like, how it had been mutilated. If she thought of it as just a body, the roiling nausea and horror were a little easier to stand. Think! What damage had the body sustained? Ripped open from sternum to groin, a bloody red cavity, going black and brown as the blood coagulated, rippling with the movement of maggots—
Nora clapped her hand over her mouth and breathed through her nose. She caught a whiff of old paper and dust that clung to her hand from moving boxes and cleaning off the editing machine. Ordinary, decent odors of files, work, dull, dry fact. Thank God.
Nora got hold of herself. “Did you get a better look? Have you any idea what he did to her?”
“I couldn’t really say. There were symbols on her flesh and organs missing, but in that pesthole … It wasn’t anything I’ve ever seen before.”
“Damn it. That’s no help. Whatever Rafe had planned, O’Hagan—my father—killed himself to stop it.” It hadn’t been terror at the end … no. That was a relief. “They were hiding in plain sight.”
Selene made a sour face. “No. He was her guard.”
Nora scowled at her. “What?”
“Didn’t you notice? There were drugs in the room—strong antipsychotics, opiates, depressants, and others. She was kept medicated. Given what we’ve seen on that tape, I wouldn’t doubt she was dangerously insane. Whatever Rafe Bogdani had demanded of O’Hagan, it was a way to control you—their daughter.”
“Well, it’s not fucking working.”