Darkyn - Private Demon Part 19

Jema made a point of arriving home in time for dinner, so that she could talk to her mother about the crate of artifacts she had taken from the museum. It seemed out of character for her to be working on some secret project; her mother had always been very proud and public about the museum and James Shaw's work. Jema was also curious about the legend Meryl had mentioned.

"I didn't know you were still actively researching, Mother," she said after the maid served Meryl and Daniel dessert and brought Jema's herbal tea. "Is this something new?"

"It's nothing. I'm only attempting to finish something your father was working on just before he died," Meryl said.

"Why? I mean, it's been thirty years. I don't think there's any rush."

"Who said I've been hurrying?" Her mother stabbed a piece of fruit from her dish of trifle. "I organized his papers on Athos many years ago, so that they might one day be published in recognition of his work. Unfortunately he never finished the dig, and his findings were incomplete, so I decided to finish the work for him."

"This legend is related to the Athos dig." Jema noticed her mother's agitation-her hands were trembling-and frowned. "If this is upsetting you, we don't have to talk about it."

"Did anyone watch the forecast?" Daniel asked. "I was wondering which way that blizzard out west is moving."

"West, I think," Jema said. "It's over Iowa."

"Please, G.o.d, not another riveting dissection of the atmospheric conditions." Meryl sighed and set down her fork.

"If you must know, Jema, your father went to Greece to find a ceremonial object called the Homage of Athos."

"The Homage." A spasm of nausea made Jema swallow quickly.

"Yes. The peasants who lived near the Athos mountain in Greece apparently climbed it every year to present this homage to the G.o.ds. No one has any idea of what it was, precisely, but James said it was of great importance to the local population. We found a building that may have been the temple they built around it at the base of Athos. That was the first dig your father conducted there."

"Homage." Jema turned the word over in her head. "Could it have been a burned offering or a libation ceremony of some sort?" Both had been popular in ancient polytheist sacrificial rituals.

"James thought it could be an object with a map that showed the old pathways around the mountain, and the location of certain caves. The locals used the caves as natural temples." She moved her shoulders. "There is no description of the homage anywhere, except by name or unspecific reference, so that was purely speculation on his part."

The Homage of Athos. It sounded tantalizingly familiar. It also made Jema's stomach curl, or perhaps she'd eaten too much starch for dinner. Rice never did sit well on her stomach at night. "I think I've read about it somewhere, but I can't remember in what."

"It's in a few of the scholarly texts on early Greek mythology," Meryl said. "Some of the more contemporary texts refer to it as the 'Image of Athos.' "

"That would explain Father's map angle."

"Whether it was homage or an image, it was lost eight thousand years ago." The lines around her mother's mouth deepened. "Your father believed the people of Athos sealed it away in a ritual cave so no one could take advantage of it.

The scroll refers to the hiding place only as 'the Well of Life.' "

"A cave that's also a well." Jema raised her eyebrows as she took a sip of tea. "Generally it's either one or the other, not both."

"I know how preposterous it sounds. I tried to persuade your father to abandon the dig, many times. I never liked it." Meryl's gaze grew shuttered. "He wouldn't listen to me. It was the one time I couldn't persuade him to reason. He was obsessed with finding it." With a little more coaxing from Jema, Meryl related the details of the legend.

"That's just the Prometheus story, with a few of the particulars changed," Jema said after her mother finished. "You do know that."

"That was exactly what I told your father. But he had an Egyptian scroll that substantiated the legend, and some obscure pa.s.sages from Hesiod he was convinced indicated otherwise. He wouldn't listen to me. That's why he's dead."

Her hand tugged at the lace collar of her blouse. "I knew it would end badly. I knew it the moment I saw that cave that something terrible would happen to anyone who went in it. I simply never thought it would be..." She trailed off. "I almost died there. That was the cave that collapsed on me and broke my back."

"This Well of Life," Jema said, trying to change the subject, "was it only a hiding place, or did it have a part in the legend?"

"Hesiod referred to it as the source of immortality. James's theory was that the one chosen by the G.o.ds after the homage was presented would be led to the Well of Life and permitted to drink. The water was supposed to heal all wounds, cure all ills, and bestow immortality." Meryl made a bitter sound. "The Greeks' eternal fountain of youth."

"You don't have to go to Athos for that," Daniel said, his tone jovial. "Lourdes is much closer."

"James went back." Meryl's voice hardened. "He brought me and Jema to the States as soon as he could bribe the Greek doctors to release us. He left me here with a broken back and a newborn, and went straight to Athos, and got himself killed on that mountain."

Jema couldn't quite believe that her father had put so much faith in an ancient legend. By all accounts, James Shaw had been a very pragmatic man, focused on uncovering and preserving tangible proof of past civilizations. This sort of thing sounded more like a plot for an Indiana Jones movie.

"Is there anything I can do to help with the project, Mother?" Jema asked.

"I'm nearly finished with it," Meryl told her.

"Whatever your father thought, I'm sure that the homage is only a legend," Daniel said gently. "There is no miracle water that can cure us, or keep us from dying."

"Who wants to live forever anyway?" Jema said, trying to sound lighthearted. "The taxes alone would be outrageous. The Social Security people would get very cranky."

"I wouldn't mind," Daniel joked. "I could end up with the world's best tee shot. I'd make Tiger Woods look like Wrong-Way Jones."

Meryl refused to be cheered, and pushed her dessert aside. "Take me upstairs now, Daniel. I'm tired." She wheeled out of the room before either of them could speak.

Daniel put his napkin on the table as he rose to follow her. "Night, Jem."

Her mother's depression tagged after Jema for the rest of the evening, until she gave in and went upstairs herself.

After she took her evening injection, she changed into a nightgown and settled in with a volume of Mark Twain.

The Connecticut Yankee couldn't hold Jema's attention, however, not with the new worry over her mother. Why was Meryl trying to finish her father's work, and why did she need to take things from the museum to do that? It didn't make sense. The Athos artifacts had already been checked and dated; there weren't any that Jema could remember as even particularly remarkable.

Frustrated with having more questions than answers, she put away the book, turned out the light, and tried to sleep.

Sleep didn't want to have anything to do with Jema at first. Just as she thought she might toss and turn for the rest of the night, the scent of gardenias filled her head, and she drifted off.

The round-roofed white building was three stories tall, surrounded by rolling green gra.s.s and enclosed with channels of simple post-and-rail fencing. Jema dropped down in front of it, all floaty and nice, Glinda the Good Witch minus the Lollipop Guild. She couldn't see inside the structure, as there were only a couple of small windows near the roof eaves. She knew it was a barn even before she smelled the hay, manure, and animals.

Wherever she was, it wasn't Connecticut, or King Arthur's court.

The sun had sunk below the horizon, but threw out enough rays for Jema to get her bearings. There were no other buildings, just endless rolling green pastureland, the barn, and the big double doors handing wide open. The night closed around her, slowly but insistently urging her toward the open doors. A bored cop supervising a fender bender would have done it the same way. Let's go, keep moving, lady; c'mon, c'mon, nuthin' to see here...

"Cows." She could hear them chewing. "Why am I dreaming about cows?"

Maybe it was her way of dealing with being lactose intolerant.

She didn't walk through the door quickly, but crept in like a thief. Her caution seemed silly once she was inside, as it was nothing more than a barn: trampled straw speckled with bits of soil, manure, and feed covering a packed dirt floor. Some well-used tack and equipment hung from post pegs; a pitchfork was stuck in a pile of clean hay. Ten stanchions for milk cows, a couple of horse stalls, and a stock pen, all empty.

No cows. What was making that chewing sound?

Bemused, Jema took off her robe and hung it on an empty peg before she moved toward the center of the barn. It was so obviously a dream, and yet it felt real-as if this farm actually existed somewhere.

But I've never been to a farm, or walked inside a barn.

The light s.h.i.+fted, and she saw that she wasn't alone anymore. At the far end of the barn, a blond woman sat on a three-legged stool next to a fat black-and-white Holstein, her arms moving rhythmically. Jema could smell milk and hear squirts of liquid hitting the tin.

She glanced inside the empty stalls before she started toward the woman. "I beg your pardon. Can you tell me where I am?"

The cow ignored her and kept chewing its cud, but the woman's arms stopped moving and she turned her head to peek at Jema. The woman's chunky golden braids, rosy cheeks, and bright blue eyes were milkmaid pretty.

"Guten abend, fraulein." She smiled, showing even, white teeth, and then went back to work.

Jema waited for her golden-eyed demon to appear. He didn't. The milkmaid continued to work, and the cow kept chewing. "I'm sorry, I don't speak German, but I need help. I'm looking for a man."

The milkmaid pulled a tin pail out from under the cow and got up from her stool. "Wie bitte?" She looked down at Jema's nightgown, and her smile wavered.

"What is this place?" Behind the cow was another open door, but Jema couldn't see what was beyond it. "Why am I here?"

The milkmaid smiled again.

Jema looked all around her. The dream made no sense. The milkmaid was simply a German woman, the cow was just a cow, and the stuff in the pail was... milk. A little foamy around the edges, and definitely not pasteurized, but certainly not acid or nitroglycerin.

Am I really this boring?

She looked up at a nest in the rafters. A swallow poked its head out, wasn't impressed, and went back to sleep. The German woman stood there smiling, the cow stood there chewing, and the milk in the pail stayed milk.

Jema tried to communicate again. "You don't speak any English?"

The other woman made the pained little face that was the universal polite subst.i.tute for Obviously not, genius.

Taking that Spanish cla.s.s in high school didn't seem so bright now, Jema thought as she pa.s.sed the woman to go around the cow.

The pail dropped and milk splashed out and went everywhere. "Gefahr!" She threw out her plump arms. "Warten Sie hier!"

Jema threw her hands up, but the milkmaid didn't strike her. They stood there another couple of seconds, Jema waiting, the milkmaid with her arms thrown wide and her expression one of horror and fear.

"You"-Jema pointed to the milk maid-"don't want me"-she pointed to her own chest and shook her head-"to go in there"-she walked two of her fingers toward the door behind the cow-"right?"

The milkmaid nodded so hard that the ends of her braids bounced off her generously filled work ap.r.o.n.

"I'm sorry, but I think that's the point." Jema went around the cow, stepped through the door into the darkness, and felt something squish under her shoes. The smell of raw meat filled her nostrils and turned her stomach. "h.e.l.lo?" Her voice made torches flare to life above her head. The flames illuminated fresh beef carca.s.ses suspended by huge steel hooks on thick, crude chains. Innards and pools of blood covered ten big stone tables; blood and piles of raw fat flooded what looked like river weeds laid out on the floor. The stench enhanced the atmosphere.

The place wasn't just plain disgusting, Jema decided. It was fancy disgusting. It was disgusting with a wine waiter and no prices on the menu.

To one side was a cramped pen with nine dirty, skinny, miserable-looking cows in it. They didn't make a sound, and their eyes were sunk into their skulls so far they looked like black holes. The one closest to the gate had a withered bag with scabby, dried-up teats dangling so low they dragged on the manure-stained, trampled straw of the pen.

"You should not have come here," a deep, familiar voice said.

The quick, sharp breath Jema took in was so cold it numbed her teeth. "Any particular reason why?"

The cows shuffled-around in the pen, carca.s.ses started to sway, and the floor rumbled. No sign of her golden-eyed demon, however.

"I'm going to remember this," Jema warned him, turning around and peering into the shadows. "Better be nice to me so I don't hate you in the morning."

Jema's demon jumped down from the rafters and landed to stand in front of her. He wore a white tunic with an enormous red X across the chest, and carried a sword with a five-foot-long blade.

This was a much bigger, meaner version of the demon who had been haunting her dreams, one who evidently didn't care if she was impressed by his personal hygiene. He was filthy, his hair a matted, tangled mane, his eyes hostile slits. Drying blood spatters covered his arms, hands, and chest, and yet he still smelled of gardenias.

"What happened to you?" Without thinking, she reached for him, but he took a step back. "What's the matter?

You're not afraid of me."

"Non." He leaned the sword against one of the butchering tables, took off the tunic, and tossed it next to a mound of organs. "Allez-vous-en."

French. She didn't remember him being French. "What does that mean?"

"Go away."

"If you come with me, I will." Jema wasn't sure how to leave this place. "Can you take me somewhere else?

Netherfield?"

"Netherfield exists only in a book. This is real." The gauntlets he wore came off and landed on top of the fur with a m.u.f.fled thump. His hands looked terribly raw, as if he'd pounded the sense out of someone. "You have a life, Jema.

Why do you spend it reading love stories and only dreaming of better?"

"I don't know. There was nothing good on TV?" It was a pathetic joke, and so cold in this place that she could see her own breath as she spoke.

The demon removed the chain mail he had worn under the white tunic, which had been tied and strapped onto him in an archaic fas.h.i.+on. Beneath it he wore a loose-woven tunic and baggy trousers that hadn't been sewn together very well.

"If you need to change, I can wait outside." She gestured toward a glistening brain and some eyeb.a.l.l.s with the ganglia still attached. "Happily."

"You come naked." Once he'd stripped to the waist, he walked toward her. "Naked to my charnel house."

Jema glanced down, indignant as soon as she saw she still had on clothes. "I did not-"

He clamped his hands on her waist and lifted her until her feet left the floor. "Naked as you are defenseless. I could do anything to you in your dreams, little cat, and no one could stop me." He brought her up to his eye level. "Is that what you wanted?"

She was in trouble. She would have tried the Purpose-Driven Life approach, but she was the only person in the country who hadn't read the d.a.m.n book. "Is that what you want?"

He dropped her onto one of the tables. Jema's backside hit the stone edge, and something soft and wet splattered all over her back. She looked down and thought a replay of the morning at Wendy's was plausible.

"I don't like this, um, enamel house very much." She wanted to go back to another place, one where he did other, nicer things to her. "Do you?"

"No." He came to her, and braced his arms on either side of her, uncaring of what his hands squashed. "I never did.

Even when I swore I would stay to defend the last man. Never did I enjoy what I had to do. Do you believe me?"

She blocked out their revolting surroundings and remembered how good it had felt to kiss him, to have his hands on her. His eyes burned with golden flame, and he spoke with his lips peeled back from his teeth, but she could feel something else.

He wants me to hit him. He wants me to fight him and hate him. To be disgusted by him. The way I behaved in the dream at the tavern.

"Why are you doing this?" she demanded, gripping b.l.o.o.d.y stone so she wouldn't slide off.