Ray walked alone through the woods.
He was dreaming; that he knew. It was the same dream every time, and yet despite knowing it, he couldn’t wake up, and he had long since given up trying. The nightmare had its own logic, its own rules. He was its captive until it was finished with him.
Ahead of him, in the clearing, was the gnarled, sharp rock formation the Blackwater locals called the Hand, each finger casting long shadows from a fire burning within it. In the center of the grasping stone circle, as always, bound and naked on a stone slab and illuminated by the flames, was Ellen.
Every time he saw her his heart broke all over again.
Behind her, in a deep red robe that hung to the dirt, stood Lily. She held up an obsidian knife that flashed in the firelight and her bright red lips curved in a smile. “So happy to see you again, Ray,” she said, grasping the haft of the blade in both hands and raising it above Ellen’s bare flesh. “But we really should stop meeting like this.”
“Ray?” Ellen cried. “Ray, is that you?”
He tried to call out, but his mouth was frozen, the words stuck in his throat.
Lily laughed, a shrill witch-screech that cut into his guts. “He’s a little too late, my dear Ellen,” she said. She winked. “He’s always too late. Aren’t you, my love?”
“Ray?” Ellen’s voice slurred. “Where are you?” Her eyelids opened, but her eyes were glassy and sightless.
“Shh,” Lily whispered. “This will only hurt a little bit.”
Ray tried to run toward them but felt a chain bite into his neck. Always the chain holding him back. Nothing ever changed. He knew what she would say next.
“You never learn, do you?” she said.
Please, no, not this time, not again.
“See you soon,” Lily said. She muttered something guttural beneath her breath then brought the knife higher. “Goodnight, Ellen. I’m sorry to say your prince has failed you again.”
The blade came down. As he heard Ellen’s anguished cry, the flames exploded, searing his vision.
And then he was somewhere else, lying on his back in a dark, tiny hut. The fire here came from a tiny woodstove, the smoke curling through branches and leaves hanging from the low ceiling. An old woman with a cloudy eye leaned over him. Sabina, the curandera. Her breath smelled like spoiled milk. And even though he was dreaming, he felt the dark, potent surge of the hallucinogenic mushrooms she had fed him, sparks of energy from his bones to the ends of his nerve cells. He tasted blood—the blood of a dove from the potion she had forced down his throat. To take away the poison eating away at his soul. Poison against poison.
She laughed. Quietly at first, then in hissing bursts. Her rotten breath made him gag. And then he felt the pain, like fire, in his hand. Despite knowing what was coming, when he held up his hand and saw the missing ring finger, and the torn, bloody nub where it used to be, he began to scream.
Sabina held up his amputated finger. Wiggled it like a worm.
Again, fire filled his vision.
“Ray.” Ellen again. Calling to him from darkness. “Ray, please help me. She’s going to kill me. Can you hear me? She has William, too. I’m afraid for him. Please, you need to come now. Ray? Ray?”
“Ray.”
A woman stood above him. Pretty, with an angular face and black hair piled high on her head. She was wearing the standard Brotherhood white unisex pants and shirt. It took him a moment to realize where he was. Not in Blackwater, not in Guatemala, not in any of the dozens of places he’d stayed while on the run.
“Ray, are you feeling okay?”
He had fallen asleep in a lounge chair in the gardens of Eleusis while watching a group of children splashing in the main pool. It was late afternoon, and the shadows of the trees were lengthening, but it was still hot, and he’d been dropping in and out of a lethargic, sweaty slumber before the nightmare overtook him.
“Yeah,” he said. He was still trembling.
The woman eyed him curiously. “I’m Claire. One of the Council.” She had a British accent.
Ray held out his hand. She shook it firmly. “Nice to meet you, Claire.”
Her gaze burned into him. “Bad dream?”
He sat up and ran his fingers through his hair. “Was I mumbling or something?”
“No. You just seemed…disturbed.”
He waved his hand. “Nothing major.”
She didn’t buy it. “Well, I’m sorry to wake you. But Jeremy would like to see you. In the Grove.” She held out her hand. “Come on. I’ll take you.”
Claire led him to the Grove, Jeremy’s circular office at the center of Eleusis. All things revolved around Jeremy, including the literal layout of the compound. Ray still wasn’t used to the deceptive ambience of the place, how it looked like an exclusive spa resort above the ground, full of frolicking children, elaborate gardens, and couples doing yoga, but concealed a network of tunnels and rooms beneath the surface. In fact, most of Eleusis was underground, though he’d only seen a fraction of it. It was a brilliantly engineered ruse, hidden from satellite photos, disguised as a playground for the perpetually vacationing elites, while the Brotherhood did its real work below—the plotting, secret meetings, psychic training, and coordination of its covert operations around the globe.
The man who greeted him, dressed all in white, was one of the tylers, the nonspeaking “mystical muscle” as Mantu called them, who always surrounded Jeremy. Claire smiled at Ray, nodded politely to the tyler, and left them.
The tyler opened the door and directed Ray inside. Jeremy’s office was enormous and more garden than workspace, full of spiky-leafed trees, ferns, grasses, and vines. A fountain gurgled from somewhere within the greenery. The ceiling was an enormous glass dome, so clear it seemed that there was no roof at all. Statues stood around the room, ancient Greek and Roman and Egyptian, and Ray was pretty sure they weren’t reproductions.
Jeremy stepped from behind a circular desk arrayed with computer monitors. He was thin but muscled, his long hair tied behind his head and a bushy beard hanging to his chest. “Have a seat.” He pointed to two chairs beneath a statue of Mercury. “Thank you for coming, Ray.”
Ray nodded. Not like I had much choice.
“It’s been, what…four months?”
“Almost five,” Ray said.
“Ah, yes. I hear your studies are going well. What do you think of the program so far?”
Ray sat silent for a moment. “I’m doing it because there’s not much else for me to do here, honestly.”
“But the meditations are going well, yes? Sister Diana says you’re a natural.”
He didn’t feel like a natural, but he had been enjoying the meditations. It was strange stuff, full of words and concepts he didn’t understand. You don’t need to understand it, Sister Diana had told him. Just do it and eventually it will all make sense. He ran his fingers along the smooth marble of Mercury’s winged sandal. “They’re keeping me busy, I suppose. But you know my concerns.”
Jeremy nodded. “Yes. Of course. You’ve made that quite clear. I can assure you we are doing everything in our power to find the two of them.”
“I hope so,” Ray said. He wanted to dislike Jeremy, but it wasn’t easy. He was weird, like most of the brothers he had met, but he seemed honest. “I appreciate your hospitality. But I’m not here for a vacation. Or a meditation retreat.”
Jeremy sighed. “I know, Ray. But while you are here, while we’re looking for them, you can help us and we can help you. As Sister Diana has explained, your abilities are uncontrolled. What we call feral. The program I’ve created for you—the meditations and the physical exercises and studies—can help you channel and use those inner gifts for your benefit. There are a number of ways you can collaborate in the Great Work we do here at Eleusis. In particular, if you would just accompany me and the other members of the Council—”
“No,” Ray said. “I’ve told you I don’t want any part of that.”
Jeremy clasped his hands as if in prayer and closed his eyes. “You are gifted, Ray. With very rare and important abilities. Even though the circumstance of their awakening was unpleasant, to refuse those gifts would be a terrible waste.”
“I told you—”
Jeremy ignored him. “You came into contact with some extraordinary beings. As a child in Blackwater and then again as an adult when you returned. And with the witch Sabina, you broke through to another level. Few have experienced such direct, unfiltered contact.”
Ray held up his maimed hand. He still sometimes felt the ghost of its missing ring finger. “Yeah. And look what it did to me.”
Jeremy nodded. “I understand your reticence—”
“Reticence? I’m done with it. All of it. No more spirits, aliens, witches, none of that shit. I’ve suffered enough.”
Jeremy pursed his lips. Breathed deeply. “I do understand, Ray. And the last thing I want to do is force you if your heart isn’t in it. But we need you as much as you need us. Your perspective as one whom we call a traveler is critical for the success of our work.” His eyes narrowed. “One day at the excavation site is all I ask of you. You show up, you give us your read on the artifact and its energies, and you’re done. That’s my promise.”
Ray shook his head. “No. I’m not doing it. Sorry, Jeremy. Call it my intuition, call it common sense. Taking the chance of something like that getting in my head again…taking me over…Just, no. Every time I get talked into doing something I don’t want to do I get fucked.”
“That’s not going to happen this time. There’s been no indication the artifact is malevolent, first of all. We’re just having a hard time getting a read on it, and your particular talent would be especially useful.”
“I don’t think so—”
“The process will be strictly controlled. All you need to do is let us know your impressions when you are in its presence. How it feels, or any thoughts or images that come to mind.”
Ray stood. “I told you no.” He turned. A tyler had stepped through the doorway and was staring at him without expression. “So let’s move on. What about Mantu? You said I could see him.”
Jeremy stood and motioned to the tyler. “Of course. He is your friend, and a good man, despite the way he broke his obligations to our order. You can see him, but he is still under detention until judgment is passed.”
Ray nodded. Mantu had broken a dozen or more of the Order’s rules to help him on his journey from West Virginia to the jungles of Central America. He was currently imprisoned and no one could tell Ray when he would be tried.
“The tyler will take you. It’s in the facility beneath Complex E.” Jeremy reached out and held Ray’s shoulders. “But please, I want to make something very clear to you. If you help us to study the object—just one visit, as I promised—it may very well help us to find Ellen and William more quickly.”
“How so?”
“As you are well aware, things outside of Eleusis…in the world at large…are in a state of terrible chaos.”
He had stopped paying attention to news from the outside world. It was all too grim, with suitcase nukes exploding in the U.S., Russia, Europe, and the Middle East, followed by martial law, civil unrest, and rumors of emerging pandemics. He’d never liked apocalyptic movies, and now that reality had turned into one he was content to live in the comforting, if illusory, haven of Eleusis. At least until he could find Ellen and William.
“We’ve lost an enormous number of brothers and allies, as you might imagine. Our enemies were smarter than us, unfortunately, and more numerous than we had suspected. In a purge that took place within three days, most of our highly placed operatives were murdered. Cut down mercilessly. And while our brothers were being slaughtered our systems were hacked. All of our communications—phone, Internet, satellite—are crippled or inoperative. So we need to increasingly rely on our networks in the Inner Realms.”
“The remote viewers. Sure.” Sister Diana had told him the Brotherhood’s psychic spies were often more reliable than their agents in the field.
“That’s one part of the operation, yes. But we utilize other means of contact. There are nonphysical entities that provide us with useful information, though communication is difficult. One can’t just call them on a phone. Such contacts require an enormous amount of personal energy to establish even the most rudimentary channels. However, one can boost that energetic connection by plugging into powerful objects or sacred places.”
Now Jeremy’s request was starting to make sense. “And this thing you’ve found—this artifact—”
“It can be used like a battery, to put it very simply. An astonishingly powerful battery. I’ve never encountered anything quite like it, in fact. We have been slowly tapping its energy to expand access to our contacts in the Inner Realms.”
Ray ran his hands through his hair. “So you hook yourselves up to this thing, and it allows you to call your buddies in other dimensions. So they can spy for you.”
Jeremy smiled. “You’re getting it.”
“And that might help locate Ellen and William.”
“And Lily,” Jeremy said. “That’s where our goals coincide, Ray. If we find and eliminate her, we have a chance of winning this endgame. And if she holds Ellen and William, as I believe she does, finding her means finding them, too. We both win.” His eyes brightened. “This is bigger than all of us, Ray. She is the orchestrator of the terrible nightmare. She is the black queen on the chessboard, and we are down to our last few pawns. If we don’t find her, and kill her, I don’t know how long any of us will last.”
After the enormity of Jeremy’s words set in, Ray laughed under his breath. “Do you realize how ridiculous this sounds? All of it?”
Jeremy nodded. “To the uninitiated, yes. But you know what’s happening outside of our little haven. And it won’t be long before she finds us.”
Ray nodded. “Yes.”
“So will you consider helping us?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I want to talk to Mantu first.”
Jeremy combed his fingers through his beard. “I’ll arrange for you to visit him. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you.” He waved to the nearby tyler. “But first, go have something to eat and rest up. Claire will come for you at sundown.”
The Telesterion dominated the landscape at Eleusis. It was modeled on a classical Greek temple; round, marble-domed, surrounded by pillars and a grove of flowering trees. A solitary path led to it, wide enough for Ray and Claire to walk side by side. Ray’s legs trembled as they moved through the shadows of the trees. He had no idea why he was so uneasy, but a cold, creeping dread worked its way up his spine as they neared the open door.
“Can you tell me why we’re here? Did they move Mantu?” he asked.
“No,” Claire said, half-smiling. “After you.”
He stepped into the darkness.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, and then his breath caught in his throat. Jeremy approached from the shadows holding a burning torch, with the other seven members of the Council at his side, all in floor-length white robes.
“Welcome, candidate,” Jeremy said.
Ray held out his hand. “Wait a minute. Hold on. What the hell is this?”
Jeremy smiled. “As in the times of our fathers and mothers, when yet the earth was young, those who were called to the Mysteries were brought before the Elect, to enter the womb of the Great Mother and stand before judgment.”
Ray turned to Claire. Her eyes said it all: Don’t resist. You have no choice. Behind him the door closed. Two tylers stood guarding it, longswords held upright in front of them. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Sister, lead him to the Chamber of Preparation.”
Claire took Ray’s arm. “This way,” she whispered.
The tylers followed them into a small room. “Take your clothes off,” Claire said. “Underwear and socks, too. Leave them on the bench, then put this on.” She handed him a robe and turned her head.
Ray took the robe from her hands. He shivered. The room was cold and damp, like the inside of a tomb. “Fuck this. Seriously, fuck all this. I don’t want to be part of your cult.”
“Step outside when you are ready.” Claire left the room and closed the door.
Ray glared at the blank faces of the tylers. “Stop looking at me like that.” Neither of them blinked. He cursed as he pulled his shirt over his head.
He was led in a procession through a long, tight passage with Jeremy and Claire close behind him. The hallway was completely dark, and in the flickering light of the tylers’ torches, Ray saw paintings on the walls. Humans with animal heads, monstrous creatures, and strange hieroglyphics. This was too much like the night in Blackwater when he’d been dragged in chains by Lily and Crawford’s robed cultists through the woods. Driven like a dog to the hideous, grasping stone hand where Micah, his throat slashed, had died in a pool of blood while Ellen lay naked and bound on the central altar. Where the thing that came down from the skies—demonic and alien—had stepped inside his body like it was trying on a suit.
“Almost there,” Claire whispered as they descended a steep flight of stone stairs.
A cold breeze came from below. In the thin robe he might as well have been naked. Down they went. More steps, deeper into the earth. The stone walls ended abruptly, replaced by rough-hewn rock. And then a door opened, its hinges squeaking, and the Council members in front of him fanned out. Claire took his arm gently and led him into a cavern.
Jeremy stood beside what looked like a throne carved into the rock. In front of it was a table or altar made of polished black stone. A ceramic goblet sat atop it. The room smelled of rich, earthy incense.
The tylers took their places in front of the door.
Jeremy handed his torch to the woman next to him and raised his hands. “Brothers and sisters, we gather to welcome the initiate, Ray Simon, into the Great Hall of the Mysteries. If found worthy, he shall be admitted to this most ancient and holy order.” The torch flame wavered in his eyes. “Brother tylers, secure the temple against all Cowans, eavesdroppers, and the profane.”
The tylers snapped to attention, then nodded to Claire.
“The temple is well guarded,” Claire stated flatly.
“All give the sign of the Opener,” Jeremy said. The Council members crossed their arms across their chests, extended them as if welcoming a hug, then brought their hands together as if praying.
“Hekas, hekas, este bebeloi!” Jeremy shouted. “All unwelcome spirits flee before me! Depart, all ye profane!”
“Depart!” the Council echoed.
Jeremy held his hands above the assembly. “Brothers and sisters, join me in the invocation.”
They all chanted together in a language Ray didn’t recognize.
Jeremy lifted the cup from the black altar and held it high in front of him. “The lustral waters of the earth, blood of rock and stone.” He held the cup out to Ray. “Drink, candidate of the Mysteries, for of water thou art made.”
Ray stared.
“Drink it,” Claire whispered.
God damn this. The last time someone had made him drink against his will had been in Sabina’s wretched hut—and that nauseating mixture of blood and hallucinogenic plants had taken him to a terrifying place he never wanted to visit again. Just thinking about it made his missing finger ache and gorge rise in his throat. He could throw the whole goddamned cup in Jeremy’s face. But what good would it do? They’d just hold him down and pour the stuff into him. It was best to get this charade over with as quickly as possible. He took the cup. Drank a sip.
“More,” Jeremy said.
It was water, thankfully. Plain and cold. He took a bigger sip, then a swallow.
Jeremy took the cup back and held it high above his head. “As the physical water transformeth into the blood of the man, so may the spiritual water become the blood of the true initiate.”
“Konx Om Pax,” the assembly echoed. Jeremy whispered an inaudible prayer then extended the cup again.
“Drink, candidate.”
Ray took it to his lips and sipped. Jeremy’s eyes followed him.
It wasn’t water. It was wine. He sipped again. Unmistakably red wine.
Jeremy’s eyes were on fire. Was this some kind of magic trick?
Jeremy took the cup back and placed it on the altar. “Ray Simon, child of the earth, son of darkness, seed of light, now thou must enter the womb of the Great Mother in order to be born anew.” He held his hand, fingers outstretched. “Take off your robe.”
Ray glared. “Seriously?”
“Do it,” Claire said.
He pulled the flimsy robe over his head. His face reddened. This was cheap.
Jeremy took the robe and handed it to Claire. “Now, candidate, return to the belly of the Great Mother.” He gestured toward the carved stone throne.
Ray stepped toward the throne. The seat was curved, almost bowl shaped. He sat, his flesh prickling against the cold stone. He covered his nakedness the best he could, humiliated.
Jeremy held his hands aloft as if in a benediction. “In the long night before existence, in the formless chaos and darkness of unbeing, the Great Void gives birth to the seed of the becoming soul.”
“In darkness, we are nothing,” they chanted. “From darkness, we are born.”
“Seek the light,” Jeremy said, and quickly turned away. The two tylers stepped to his side, their swords drawn and pointing at Ray.
Ray gasped. “Wait. What—what the fuck?”
First Jeremy, then Claire, and then one by one the Council members exited. The tylers backed away last, and slammed the door as Ray hurled himself against it.
He pounded the door and cursed until he was hoarse.
He was alone, underground, in utter darkness.
In the absolute absence of light time ceases to exist. At first, he tried to remain stoic. It’s just part of their initiation, he told himself. Each of the Council members, and probably all of the adults at Eleusis, had gone through this initiation. They’d been locked in this pitch-black cave, too, and they were all very much alive. This was like stupid college hazing, only without the beer bongs and puking, and all he needed to do was sit it out. Practice some of the meditations and work on staying calm. They’d be back in an hour or two. It would be cruel to leave him here for longer than that.
Seek the light was the last thing Jeremy said. Thinking maybe it was part of the game, he left the throne and crawled across the floor. His hands found the cup on the altar. It smelled of wine, though there was only a trace of liquid at the bottom. He licked his finger. A cheap magic trick, water into wine; he would have expected better from the Brotherhood.
The lack of spatial cues turned the room into a gaping, endless void. Sounds magnified: blood swishing rhythmically in his ears, his breath echoing loudly in the emptiness. But soon there were other sounds, too. Someone whispering. A conversation of whispers. Slitherings, squeakings, and clicks. Now his eyes and ears were hallucinating. Little balls of light zipped around the room and patterns coalesced and danced in the air.
He remembered reading about people in sensory deprivation tanks—how they started hallucinating. The lack of stimulus made your brain crave pictures, sounds, colors, so it responded by making stuff up.
He tasted the wine on his breath then had to force himself not to retch. So it was this again? Drugged with weird psychedelics, like when Lily and Crawford dosed him in Blackwater with their pharmaceutical cocktail, and Sabina with her paloma blood mixed with dirt and mushrooms and God knew what else? He instinctively tucked his maimed hand under his right arm.
Then he felt the snake.
He swatted at his leg. Nothing there. But it had felt just like a snake brushing against his calf.
He crawled back in what he hoped was the direction of the throne. Something else slithered against his other leg. Christ! They let snakes into the room. His head banged against the rock altar. So the throne had to be…there? Or maybe over there?
His hand touched something and it moved. He screamed. Backed away. If he ever saw Jeremy again he was going to drive his fist into his face. Repeatedly. He scrambled and then found himself against the wall of the cave. Shit. He stood, holding his hands out in front of him, waving in the empty air. If he moved directly away from the wall he should reach the center, right?
Finally he felt the throne. Crawled into it, lifting his feet from the floor. He was definitely drugged. Flashes, tracings of lines like the veins in a leaf, curlicues of light. He closed his eyes but it made no difference—the visions didn’t stop.
“Goddammit, Jeremy, let me out of here!” he screamed. His voice reverberated in the stone chamber.
Calm down. Breathe. He pulled himself into a fetal position, wrapping his arms around his legs and burying his face against his knees.
Then he heard the whisperings again. Queer voices in a language that made no sense.
It’s just the drugs. Just a hallucination. Or maybe sounds pumped through hidden speakers. He pressed his palms tightly against his ears until all he could hear was his heartbeat. If the point of this was to drive him insane, it was working.
More snakes. All over him now, entwining around his legs, his arms, his neck. He slapped and pulled and grabbed. Nothing. They weren’t real, but somehow they were real enough that he couldn’t stop grasping for them.
And then he remembered something Sister Diana had taught him. “Banish the demons of the mind,” she’d said, “with the pentagram and the Command to Depart.” She’d shown Ray how to trace the five-pointed star, starting and finishing at the lower left point. It had seemed silly at the time, but he’d been forced to practice it, over and over, until the instructor had smiled and told him he’d gotten it right.
One of the serpents hissed in his ear and he screamed.
He traced the pentagram. He was supposed to visualize it, glowing white, which he had never really been able to do, but in this impenetrable darkness he could almost see the star hanging in the blackness like neon. “Depart, phantoms of the mind!” he shouted as he finished the glowing star at the point of its origination.
And then it stopped, as if his tormenters never existed. His skin itched furiously, but the snakes were gone. Damn. Why hadn’t he thought of that hours ago? He realized he’d been hyperventilating, his heart beating dangerously fast. What else had she taught him? It came back instantly—the Breath of the Unborn. “Bring the mind to the state of the fetus. In the primal darkness before birth, where consciousness only exists as an unwatered seed in the black soil of the Great Mother.”
In the stone throne, his legs pulled against his chest, Ray truly felt like a fetus. He closed his lips, pressed his tongue against the dry roof of his mouth, and inhaled slowly through his nose. Counting—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven…
It was working.
Held his breath for seven beats. Exhaled—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven…
Time slowed. Or it stretched. He was sinking into blackness, his breathing almost imperceptible. The Void, Sister Diana had called it, the self that had existed before life began. An emptiness, a quietness, outside of time. He felt himself sinking as he simultaneously grew and expanded until there was nothing left of himself. Ray was no more. Thoughts, feelings, words, fear—all gone. It was as if he no longer existed.
“Initiate.”
A real voice, a woman’s voice. It yanked him out of the Void so quickly he felt nauseated. “Who is it?” he asked. A vague form stood before him. The shape of a woman, but little more than wavering, luminous smoke. “Who are you?” he asked.
The shape moved toward him. Slowly, drifting, like a cloud pushed by a slight breeze. He thought he could see a face in it, but it was blurry and indistinct, like an out-of-focus old-time photograph. He closed his eyes tightly. Another hallucination, like the snakes. But she was there again when he opened them, more solid now. A woman made out of little dustlike motes of light.
“The time approaches,” she said. The voice was somehow inside his head but crystal clear. “Our power is fading, and the Unknowable Ones will once again walk in your world. The gates are opening.”
She was strangely beautiful, whatever she was.
“Trust that we will be with you,” she said. And behind her, for just a moment, Ray saw dozens of wispy beings. Male and female, arrayed around the cavern, all staring intently upon him. Just as quickly they faded. “But yours is a lonely path, with much pain and sorrow and uncertainty ahead.” She opened her arms wider and a scene appeared, like a fuzzy TV picture, only in three dimensions and so real he startled.
The scenes washed over him like successive waves.
Ellen, in a small, bare room, holding another woman in her arms, both of them weeping. And then William, lying atop a bunk bed, eyes rolled back in his head as if dreaming. But then he sits up, opens his eyes, and stares directly at Ray.
Please come soon, he says. She’s going to kill us.
“William,” Ray whispered. But the boy was gone.
The feminine presence moved closer. “Traveler among the worlds, take heed: The great will fall, the innocent will be called into death, and things that have not tasted the light of the sun will crawl forth from the darkness to bring despair and destruction.” Her form brightened, and Ray shielded his eyes with his maimed hand. The hair on his head and his arms was standing straight up, as if she were made of electricity. Her hand stretched out toward his face.
“Do not despair, for we leave you with a gift.” Her finger touched him between his eyes. An explosion of burning light filled his head, along with the sound of a thousand gongs. Images flashed so quickly he couldn’t make sense of them—snowy mountains, a circle of children, blood-splattered walls, buildings exploding and people on fire, a starry sky swarming with multicolored lights. Ellen’s face above him, upside down, cradling his head, tears dropping from her eyes onto his face.
“Tell no one,” the entity whispered. “These signs are for you alone.”
And then she was gone.
The light from the opened door was like knives in his eyes. Ray shielded his face. How long had it been? He’d been lost in sleep, dreaming about William and Ellen. They were somewhere on a beach, far away, as if none of this nightmare had ever happened.
“Welcome, brother.” It was Jeremy. “Thou hast persevered through the dark night. Come forth from the abyss, from the silence of the primal sleep into thy soul’s birthright: the golden light of the new day.”
Claire stepped forward with a robe. She took Ray’s hand and helped him to his feet. It hurt to stand. Claire kissed him lightly on his forehead and one of the tylers helped him into the robe. Its warmth was heavenly, and the fabric was soft and delicate. Tears ran from Ray’s eyes. Jeremy stepped forward with a cup of water. “Drink, brother,” he said.
Ray’s throat was bone dry. But when he swallowed it was the best water he’d ever tasted. He took the cup and drank deeply.
“Blessed is the water of life,” Jeremy said.
“So mote it be,” the others answered. And then they led Ray, weeping and stumbling, up the stairs.