Harvest of Changelings Read online

  Stone had no comment on the more serious acts of vandalism reported in Clemmons State Forest and Umstead State Park. Park rangers found evidence of large bonfires... Stone did say NCSU campus police prevented a bonfire in the Brick Yard....

  II

  Lammas-Lug hn as a d Thursday and Friday, August 1 - 2 Saturday, August 3 - Monday, August 26, 1991

  Thomas

  IT WAS THE FESTIVAL OF THE HARVEST, AND THOMAS was to be the harvester.

  He stood by the priestess, the cauldron bubbling in front of them, fire licking the black iron, their eyes reflecting the flames, their naked bodies shining with sweat. It was almost as if the priestess had no eyes—only a yellow burning. Between the priestess and Thomas and the cauldron was the altar, a wide, flat cairn of stones, covered with a black cloth. Spread-eagled and blindfolded on the altar was a naked young man. On the young man’s chest was a pentagram, with points at his throat, to the left and right of his nipples and to the left and right of his navel. The pentagram had been drawn in thin, red lines. Thomas and the priestess each held an athame, the blades of the white-handled knives even whiter in the firelight. The auras of all present—the priestess, Thomas, the young man, and the coven silently surrounding them—glowed and crackled, a net of multicolored light weaving itself in and out of their bodies.

  The hot August night air also crackled and sparked, as the auras shifted, dissolved, reformed. It was as if everyone was inside an electrical storm that was low and close to the ground. Thomas looked up at the sudden light in the night sky: they were inside, or rather beneath, an electrical storm. The light in the sky echoed the light on the ground; and every time the auric lights moved, Thomas felt them pass through his flesh. His body vibrated; the hardness in his groin ached. He flicked the fingers of his free hand: lightning sparked.

  Thomas had never felt so alive or so strong. And more strength and more power were coming. The priestess nodded at him and the coven, and in answer, the drumming began, accompanied by the oscillating tune of the singing bowl.

  “To harvest life, to consume, to drink life,” Thomas began and felt the coven, as one organism, take a step closer to him, the priestess, the cauldron, the altar, and the young man.

  Ancient Ones, Feared Ones,

  Princes of Darkness, Shadow Lords,

  I am ready.

  I am ready to harvest this beating heart,

  To feel the unquenchable fire,

  To give the living blood to the night.

  To you, Great Ones, Dark Ones,

  Belong this heart, the fire in this flesh ...

  Thomas stepped to the altar, the priestess one step behind. The circle took a step closer. Thomas held up his athame, letting the moonlight and firelight bathe the shining blade, as the coven hummed in time with the drums and the singing bowls. The auras now were like great snakes of red light, twisting, turning, passing in and out of all the bodies. The young man’s flesh was suffused with the darker red light of his glowing blood. Thomas lowered his arms and then, carefully, carefully, applying only enough pressure to break the skin, re-traced the pentagram on the man’s chest. Bright red oozed behind the blade. The man groaned.

  Make us one flesh in the shadows.

  Make us one mind in the darkness.

  Make us one spirit in the night.

  Let us never forget

  The festival of the Horned One, the Goddess,

  Let us welcome those who come, who bring the Change.

  Open the way, open our eyes.

  Set free the endless fire.

  I take life to fill my life,

  All our lives.

  Fill me, fill us.

  Hear us, Dark Lords.

  Answer us, in the wind.

  Answer us, in the fire.

  Answer us, in the darkness.

  Answer us, in the warm blood ...

  Thomas looked around him. After this, there would be no return, no going back, no restoration of the Thomas John Ruggles, bank data entry clerk, night NCSU graduate student in computer science and business, son of Jack Ruggles, twenty-four-year-old man whom no one gave a second glance to. To go back would be a long, long journey. This would make that journey forever impossible, and seal Thomas into what he was becoming, what he had become: witch, practitioner of the Left-Hand Path, necromancer, servant of the Princes of Darkness. The priestess looked at him, her eyes now two fires burning in black pools. He could feel the multiple eyes of the coven on his skin. Thomas shuddered and then, in one deep stroke, cut through the young man’s aura, his flesh, his bone, down to his heart. For a brief moment, Thomas could see the man’s heart still beating.

  “Now,” the priestess said, and cut the man’s throat.

  Thomas grabbed the heart with both hands, felt the young man’s strength, the priestess’s strength, the coven’s strength pouring into him, and then tore the heart out and lifted it, dripping.

  “The harvest!” Thomas cried.

  “The harvest,” the priestess said, and dipping her own athame into the young man’s warm blood as if it were an inkwell, drew pentagrams on Thomas: in the center of his forehead, both cheeks, the hollows of his neck, over his heart, his stomach, his groin, his thighs, and feet. Each time the priestess dipped her knife into the man’s chest for more blood, his red aura followed the blade up and out, like long streamers. When she was done, a web of red light enveloped Thomas and the young man.

  “All, partake of the harvest,” Thomas said, shuddering as the red streamers poured out from the young man and into his own body, oozing through his skin wherever the priestess had marked him.

  He tore one bite out of the heart and then gave it to the priestess. She took the next bite and then threw the heart into the coven’s grasping hands.

  Malachi, Ben, and Jack

  “Dad? Dad? I don’t feel too good. I’m leaking light.”

  Ben rolled over and sat up. Squinting from the sudden brightness, he reached out his left hand and turned on the lamp by his bed. According to the clock, it was just past midnight, August 2.

  “Malachi?” Ben asked. “What? What did you say? What’s the matter, son?”

  His son stood just inside Ben’s bedroom, leaning on the wall by the light switch. The boy was pale and weak; there were dark circles under his eyes. Malachi held his stomach, light leaking out between his fingers. Blobs of light oozed from his ears and his nose. Thin strings of light leaked from a cut on Malachi’s forehead. Glowing, marble-sized tears ran down his face. The light-tears bounced when they hit the floor and rolled away, leaving faintly glowing trails behind them. Tears littered the floor around Malachi’s feet. Bigger globs, from the boy’s nose and ears fell too, dropping like pebbles and stones on the floor. The light-strings, tiny, tiny snakes.

  “Dad. Make it stop. Please make it stop. It hurts. Ohhhh, I’m going to be sick.” Malachi ran from the room, scattering the light-balls every which way. The ones he stepped on broke into smaller balls that skidded across the floor, out in the hall, under the bed.

  Ben jumped out of bed, jerked on his gym shorts and T-shirt, and ran after Malachi, stopping first to try and scoop up the little balls of light littering the hallway. Maybe I can push them back inside, get him to swallow them, I mean, aren’t they supposed to be inside him? But the little balls wouldn’t stay in his hands. Most he just couldn’t hold: they slipped and oozed between his fingers. Others exploded on his touch into even smaller balls, a few more just winked out. Swearing, Ben gave up and ran into the bathroom. The boy was on the floor, hugging the toilet.

  “Dad, the vomit’s glowing, too.”

  “Jesus, son, you’re burning up,” Ben said, as he wiped Malachi’s face with a wet washcloth. “Here, rinse your mouth out with some water.” Ben handed Malachi a cup and then glanced at the washcloth before wetting it again. Malachi’s sweat had left glowing streaks on the cloth.

  Malachi threw up again, gagging. Then he fell to the floor, as if hugging the toilet took too much energy. Ben wiped Malachi�
��s face again and then pressed the cloth on the boy’s hot, wet forehead.

  “Just lie still for a minute; don’t move, okay? Don’t move,” Ben whispered, trying to fight down the fear that was rising up and filling his throat. What do I do? What in God’s name do I do? This isn’t some twenty-four-hour stomach flu; he’s fairy-sick. What do I do?

  “That cloth feels good, Dad,” Malachi said so softly Ben could barely hear him. “But, my stomach—it feels all hot and funny—ohhh—”

  Ben held Malachi as the boy threw up a third time. Little came out, but what did glowed. Then, things started to move. The toilet paper roll started spinning as if pushed by impatient, invisible hands. The paper spilled out on the floor, piling up in great droopy loops. The toothpaste tube shot out from the sink and landed in the tub with a thud. A bar of soap started drifting through the air, followed by a towel and a washcloth. A toothbrush shot straight up and broke against the ceiling. Ben realized that the electric lights in the bathroom weren’t on, and that all the light was coming from Malachi or the toilet. The room was filled with light, a light that moved as if it were a liquid in the air, bouncing off the ceiling, the wall, the floor, in and around Ben’s body, Malachi’s body, a body that was transparent, like a human lantern. Ben could see his son’s heart beating, the veins and arteries coursing with blood, his lungs, rising, falling.

  “Oh, my God, what is going on? What in the hell is happening to my son?” Ben said, still whispering, staring around the room.

  Then the wind started, moving as the light moved—no, the wind was the light, the light was the wind. At first, Ben felt a slight breeze, soft, yet insistent on his face, his chest. He could see the light pushing against his skin, dividing and separating around his body. There were little tornadoes, tiny vortexes, scattered about the floor, whirling out into the hall.

  “Dad, I can’t make it stop; I don’t know how. Make it stop, Dad, please make it stop.”

  Malachi began shaking. Ben picked up his son—would this new transparent body break like glass? No, he felt flesh, even though he couldn’t see it. As quickly as he could, Ben got the boy in the tub. Then he turned on the cold water, then the shower. Ben held Malachi’s head and kept washing his face as the water beat against both of them, until finally the shaking stopped and the soap and the washcloth had dropped to the floor.

  “Mal, how do you feel, buddy? You don’t feel quite so hot—a little warm? How’s your stomach?” As quickly as it had come, the transparency was gone. But the wind-light kept moving, spinning off the little tornadoes. Ben had to shout.

  Malachi just groaned.

  “Let’s go lie down. Maybe you can sleep it off. Here, let’s get these wet things off. Yeah, there. Can you dry yourself? Okay, I’ll do it. All right, son.” Ben wrapped the towel around the boy, picked him up (He’s so light. When did he lose weight? God, is all this going to kill him?), and stepped out into the hall, dodging the tornadoes, which danced around his feet like mad tops. As Ben made his way through the tornadoes, they began to slow down, spinning slower and slower.

  The light began oozing again after Ben had gotten Malachi more or less dry and into bed. Ben could, with his hand on Malachi’s forehead, feel the heat rising again—and he could see it, a faint, red glow just below the surface of his son’s skin. Bigger globs of light came out of the boy’s ears, eyes, and nose. The globs coalesced into spheres the size of baseballs and started bouncing around the room, hitting the wall, the curtain, the ceiling, Ben, the furniture.

  And at the peripheries of his son’s body, Ben could see a faint edging of clearness, as if the color of Malachi’s flesh had been slightly erased.

  The hallway filled with little tornadoes again.

  Ben put Malachi back in the tub, turned on the shower, and called Jack.

  “Hilda, I know it’s the middle of the night, but please wake up Jack. It’s an emergency. No, no, no, don’t call the rescue squad. I can’t explain now, but I need Jack. I know it’s three o’clock in the morning. Tell him Malachi’s sick. No, no—don’t call the rescue squad,” Ben pleaded. He couldn’t see his knuckles gripping the receiver, but he was sure if he could they would be white. He felt if he kept squeezing the receiver would snap in half.

  “Ben? Whassmatter Malachi?”

  “He’s fairy-sick.”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  Ben hung up the phone and put his head down on the kitchen counter. He wondered what questions Hilda was asking. He had wanted to tell her about Malachi but Jack had said to wait, let her get used to being married and get to know Ben and Malachi better. He’ll have to tell her something now. You don’t get phone calls at three in the morning for nothing.

  Realizing he was dripping and soaking wet, Ben peeled off his wet clothes and was putting on a bathrobe when Jack knocked at the front door.

  “What’s wrong with Mal? What happened?” Jack said as he came in. He was barefoot and had on only a bathrobe. Jack’s hair stood up all over his head in his usual little horns.

  “He’s in the bathroom—he’s burning up—I think the water helps. He’s throwing up light, bleeding light—his body turned transparent, turned back, there are little tornadoes—never mind, let me just show you.”

  Light poured out of the bathroom, an intangible flood. Inside, balls of light bounced off walls, the floor, the ceiling. When a ball hit a counter or the shower water, they exploded into tiny stars that dissolved like snowflakes as they hit the floor. Camera-like flashes erupted, bloomed, and died. Snakes of light writhed and twisted in the air, looping themselves around each man’s arms and legs, and slithering across their chests. The tornadoes whirled madly in the hall and out into the dining room, the kitchen, the living room, picking up dust, scraps of paper, paper clips, lost coins.

  Ben had sat Malachi down in the shower this time, propped up with old pillows. The water was up to the boy’s middle. The light leaking from his nose and eyes rolled down Malachi’s chest into the water. Now there were two toothbrushes, a drinking cup, and the toothpaste on the ceiling.

  “It just started, oh, I don’t know, half-an-hour, forty-five minutes ago. He came into my bedroom and said he felt sick and that he was leaking light. Then he threw up, and this poltergeist stuff started. He got a little better and I put him in his bed and it started all over again. I don’t know what else to do, Jack. The water helps, but he can’t stay in the tub forever. What am I going to do? What in God’s name am I going to do?”

  Jack spoke slowly, shaking his head. “I don’t know—maybe—do you have anything from Faerie? Didn’t you say Valeria left a charm, like a crib mobile—maybe it has magic to protect him?”

  “The star. I’ll be back—here, keep washing his face.” Ben ran to his bedroom, trying to remember where he had hidden the star. He dumped out his sock drawer, his shirts, underwear. No star. In the closet? No, his trunk, where he kept all his sweaters—and there, in the bottom, was a lumpy leather pouch. Ben pulled the drawstrings and dumped out the silver-grey twelve-pointed star Valeria had left swinging over Malachi’s crib. It felt heavy and cool in his hand.

  Clinching his fist around the talisman, Ben ran back to the bathroom, dodging tornadoes, shoving through a tangle of light-snakes and kicking aside light balls the size of soccer balls on the floor. Jack looked up and then stepped back, knotting the washcloth in his hands. Very gently Ben slid the star’s silver chain over Malachi’s head. For a moment, nothing changed. The star lay flat on Malachi’s wet chest. Then, one by one, each of the star’s twelve points started to glow and shine, as if the silver were polished metal and not wood. Ben could have sworn he heard a faint humming-Jack? No, it was the star. Then the entire star shone and the humming grew louder and louder. The toothbrushes fell to the floor. Then, the drinking cup and the toothpaste. The light balls stopped bouncing and then, in ones, then twos, then threes and fours, started winking out. The snakes faded, like smoke. The tornadoes stopped whirling as if they had suddenly lost power, and winked out
. At last the humming stopped and it was quiet, except for the sound of the shower. Malachi was solid, his body was opaque.

  Ben turned off the water and touched Malachi’s forehead and cheeks with the back of his hand. “He’s not hot anymore. It worked, Jack,” he whispered

  “Let’s get him out of the water,” Jack whispered in return. “Towels out here in the hall closet?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ben picked Malachi up and wrapped the boy in the thick towels Jack handed him. He feels so light, so light. Too light. He carried Malachi across the hall and sat down in a rocking chair by the boy’s bed. Jack sat down on the bed, yawning as he held his head with his hands.

  “You know, Ben,” Jack said, looking up as Ben slowly rocked, “Malachi’s ears are pointed now. Valeria’s were, weren’t they?”

  Ben nodded as he rocked his son back and forth.

  “Have you told him everything?”

  Ben got up from the rocker and laid Malachi in bed. He pulled the sheet over the boy and smoothed his son’s hair. Fairy-knots, Ben thought.

  “Yeah, I have. You know, he doesn’t have to tell me when he’s been flying. There’s something extra in his eyes, they shine. Just like his mother. But knowing hasn’t, won’t, stop him from getting sick like this. And Jack, I think I’ve started seeing them again.”

  “Them?”

  “C’mon in the living room. I don’t want to wake him up,” Ben said.

  “Them?” Jack repeated when they were both sitting on the living room couch. The front door was open. A faint breeze came through the screen; the lawn was half in shadow and half in moonlight. “The Fomorii. Just out of the corners of my eyes stuff. Like a sudden shadow. I look and there’s nothing there. I’m at the reference desk and I look up and see someone across the room with red eyes. I blink and they’re gone. I smell that hot, wet smell. I feel how I felt when I woke up the night they first tried to kill Valeria. If they aren’t back, they are on their way.”