A Fire in the Shell: Circle of Nine Trilogy 3 Read online

  About A Fire in the Shell: Circle of Nine Trilogy 3

  Imagine if your darkest dreams had the power to kill . . .

  First came the flies and the bees. Then the wild dog attacks and sightings by locals of terrifying beings. The wail of the Banshee is heard. Erinyes, Pan and the Wild Hunt are on the move. The old ones demand blood . . . the killings begin.

  In CIRCLE OF NINE a coven of witches unleashed chaos by opening a portal to Eronth, a parallel world where magic, prophecy and ancient myths are real. Now the coven return to close the portal. But dark forces are working against them. Is one of their own betraying them?

  Eronth is on the edge of ruin. Its cunning folk have been decimated by witch hunts and are beset by invaders. Behind all this chaos lies the Eom crystal, ever growing in power and now with an offspring of equal evil.

  The faith and strength of Khartyn, Gwyndion, Maya and others are pushed to the limit as they face the horrific culmination of deadly energies. Not all of them will prove equal to the challenge. Heroes will fall by the wayside. Who will make the ultimate sacrifice?

  “Superb, complex and intriguing” ETERNAL NIGHT

  A Fire in the Shell is dedicated to the memory of Brownie Pennicott who departed this world on 22 November 2003. She was a loving, faithful member of our family for nearly twenty years.

  It is the love we give and are given that brings us eternal life.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part One: Waxing Moon

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Part Two: Full Moon

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Part Three: Waning Moon

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty–One

  Chapter Twenty–Two

  Chapter Twenty–Three

  Chapter Twenty–Four

  Chapter Twenty–Five

  Chapter Twenty–Six

  Chapter Twenty–Seven

  The Underworld

  Glossary

  Characters

  About the Author

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  . . . Ere the bat hath flown

  His cloister’d flight, ere to black Hecate’s summons

  The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums

  Hath rung night’s yawning peal, there shall be done

  A deed of dreadful note.

  — MACBETH, ACT 3, SCENE 2,

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  They say death does not come as the end . . . this I do not know. All that I know is when I died, my body felt so rigid, so alone, so still. All that I knew at my last breath was a small, hopeless sound of regret for all I had not yet managed to achieve, for dreams that were never going to bear fruit, and for all the years that had passed so swiftly.

  My beloved family prepared my body with reverence and grief. My wife Aleshia, unfamiliar in her mourning garb, from the angle I was now forced to view her. My eldest sons and their wives, dear girls, who had become like daughters to me over the years. Their children, with faces puckered in recognition of the solemnity of the occasion. The newest arrival, Jael, looked directly at me, and I saw in his baby eyes awareness I was still alive, connected to my body. Be at peace, my beloved, I longed to say. Your father has not gone from you. Look! I stand before you still! But my dead breath made no noise, just a small cold wind that caused the women’s hair to lift upright and the fire torches to flicker briefly.

  I felt a familiar dull pain that my little Rosedark was not present to farewell my dead body. How I missed my beautiful little girl! As always the ache was soothed by the knowledge she was achieving Faia’s highest honour, service to a Crone. Chosen by the gods, the burning shell branded into her forehead. I lay quietly listening to my family sob around me, saying quiet prayers to Rosedark, pleas to the gods, bargains to the dark.

  They say death does not come as the end . . . this I do not know. All that I know is I felt the same fear I had felt at my father’s burial, and his father before him when the burial attendants arrived with their customary silence. Their clothing had not altered over the years, Long robes of grey, black and white, the material smelling faintly of juniper and cypress. Their golden masks gleamed — it had long been whispered in our village that beneath their masks, they were featureless. Like the faithful Hel who guards jealously the door of the Underworld. Finally the principal burial attendant, the one with the head of a dog, entered the room.

  I had dreaded this moment for my entire life, sensing the cold whisper of Hecate’s breath whenever I had been foolish enough to contemplate how blessed I was in my life. To be mortal means you hold onto nothing, for the gods have jealous eyes and the ferryman must be paid.

  They began to prepare my body, under the whispered direction of the dog head attendant, chanting their magic while the odour of frankincense and myrrh drifted through the room. I watched with interest as my brain was removed with an iron hook through my nostrils, and drugs were flushed through my nose to remove parts of the brain that had remained. I marvelled at their skill, their dexterity. Incisions were made along my neck, arms, shoulders, back, lower abdomen, buttocks, scrotum, legs, ankles, and finally between the toes. The contents of my body were lifted out and placed in sacred containers. My husk was then thoroughly washed with wines imbued with magical properties and an infusion of ground spices. The low embalming table now had to be cleaned of my blood and organs, my precious vital fluids. As I lay surrounded by many bowls containing parts of myself I was sprinkled with essential oils and stuffed with a mixture of sawdust, sand and rags. I wondered at the amount of material they used, how they pushed it in and packed it down with long thin sticks. Surely they were making me much fatter than I had been in life? My scrotum was filled to bursting with mud. I was a muscular man, strong despite my years, not this flabby, overstuffed bag on a table. Had death reduced me to this? Or had I never truly seen myself until the day I died?

  Hot resins were dripped into my body and cinnamon liberally sprinkled. My eyes were scraped out with a spatula and onions fixed in their place, yet I continued to see perfectly with my new onion eyes. At times throughout this procedure (I could not be sure how long these details took, whether it was days, months, lifetimes, for I now knew time to be the illusion that it was) the dog head attendant would step up to me and peer intently. I could smell his breath, the scent of frost, of limes, of a newly born baby. The unforgettable smell of death and life intermingled. I could feel his eyes, dark and terrible. He would smile briefly and nod to me, then continue his work. He knew. He knew I lived although my body lay in pieces around me. Even as I thought this, he nodded to himself and glanced briefly at me, his eyes cold and his mouth stretched into a smile revealing jagged canine teeth. His dark eyes seemed to say. No death. All is false. A dream. I wanted to scream, but became too engrossed in watching as the incisions made in my flesh were swiftly sewn up with linen thread.

  My nose was packed with tiny seeds and an animal bone to keep it in place. My nails were hennaed and small pieces of string t
ied around each nail bed. A string was also tied tightly around my penis. Eyebrows and a hairline were drawn on. Then I was massaged with precious essential oils and hot beeswax was painted over my mouth, nostrils and anus. Feathers, shells and eggs were placed around my body. I saw myself lying on a bed of glowing shells. I am dead, I thought in wonder. I have made the transition. I have faced my greatest fear and I no longer draw breath. But even in death, fear lurked, for I wondered what was to come next.

  My family gathered around me again. I could see them crying, holding onto each other. I tried to talk, but I was so weary. I longed to sleep. ‘He looks so peaceful,’ I could hear my eldest son saying, his voice cracking with grief. My wife was bent over my body, sobbing. I could feel her heartbreak and her hot tears dropping onto my skin. From the corners of the room the burial attendants watched impassively. They had witnessed countless similar scenes over time. My wife sobbed words of love to me and I was filled with poignant memories. If I had not been already dead I would have died of anguish of having to leave this woman, the only woman I had known and loved with my body and heart. Both virgins when we had come together, we had lived, struggled, and worked as one person.

  They say death does not come as the end . . . this I do not know. All that I know is when we love and give our hearts and life to family, death is not easy. Not the act of dying, which happens as automatically as taking a breath, not the process that happens to the physical body after our last breath has left our flesh, for we are not the physical body. It is the saying goodbye to the ones who have shared our lives and soul that is the seemingly impossible act. It is those final wrenching farewells I now knew I had feared my entire life. I lay shaking inside as I sensed my family leave the room where my sarcophagus was placed and the burial attendants began to sweep their footprints from the room with small brooms.

  I felt the dog-headed man step forward and place two large coins over my onion eyes. It was at that moment I began to scream. Realisation of my fate had begun to dawn. It was time to pay the ferryman.

  PART ONE

  WAXING MOON

  CHAPTER ONE

  Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking towards me, without hurrying.

  — JEAN COCTEAU

  Phillip awoke with a gasp. The familiar shapes surrounding him seemed as menacing as the nightmare still imprinted in his brain. ‘Jesus!’ He glanced around wildly, half-convinced he was dreaming. Gradually awareness returned; he was in his bedroom at Villefranche-sur-Mer. He half-sobbed, half-laughed out loud. A dream, my God, but it seemed so real. Already it was fading, a confused mass of screeching harpies with claws that threatened to tear him to pieces, owls watching him, terror electrifying his brain at the menace that the birds broadcast with their beady eyes. Johanna. Christ, Johanna had been in the dream. Laughing, taunting him. The doorway was open — they were coming through. He lay still, his heart racing. The alarm clock on his bedside table said 4.20 am. It was early. He turned over onto his side. Another part of his brain told him to get out of bed, there were many preparations to be done. Lucius and Faline were arriving tomorrow afternoon, Leonora had arrived late last night. So late the others had already gone to bed. There was much to be organised.

  He could hear Hank the rooster begin to crow outside. Ten more minutes, he promised himself. Ten more . . . There was a sound like bees buzzing at his windowpane as he slipped into a deeper sleep . . .

  Lucius and Faline sat facing each other, a table between them, as the Eurostar sped towards Paris. Around them was the buzz of different languages. French, English, the drawl of an Australian couple, the loud twang of American teenagers. Lucius had been withdrawn since they had first received the summons from Phillip. He had disappeared in London, vanished into winding alleyways where tiny pubs with signs displaying dragons, bulls and ducks were filled to the brim with office workers. There were few things that Lucius could not handle in life but Phillip was a trigger, releasing the demons that called him to drink. The London pubs tempted him, promising to blot out the past, quench the fear, change history.

  Faline sighed, watching the darkening French countryside flash past. Trees bare of leaves. Neat patchwork paddocks of dark brown and lighter green squares. The occasional flash of a church’s pointed spire. She felt melancholy as she always did at this time of day. Twilight, the dangerous time, the moment it became possible to slip between worlds. She watched a young American girl walking the length of the carriage to go to the toilets and the red occupied sign suddenly flash. Across the aisle, a young boy tapped on his laptop. For most of the journey he had been engrossed in his comics, while his female companions spoke to each other in French too rapidly for her to follow. The apricots are bare now, the world has gone to seed. She strained to hear the words — no, they could not possibly be saying that. They repeated the words, glancing at Faline slyly as if aware of her interest. The apricots are bare now. The world has gone to seed. The boy laughed at them. He glanced at Faline with adult, dull eyes and returned to tapping his computer.

  A man seated opposite Faline glanced at her with sexual interest. He was powerful, his shoes advertised his money. He was lulled into a state of low sexual desire by the speeding train. Next to him, a middle-aged woman picked up his sexual invitation and began preparing herself for the train’s arrival at Paris. Faline watched as she smoothed out a silk scarf from her bag, adjusted it carefully around her neck, applied lipstick and rouge to her face and brushed her hair out. Her skin was beautiful with few wrinkles accentuating her beauty, but her face was hard.

  Earlier, during the brief journey under the Channel, Faline had slipped into the state where every face in their carriage seemed to be no longer real. Actors, a cast of characters assembled with her mind, to perform a scene. Now we all catch the Eurostar to Paris. I will be the American tourist. I will be the mother. I will be the terrified witch. Schoolboy, priest, lover, crone — their destinies were all interwoven for the purpose of this scene. The futility, the emptiness of the speeding train. Life so precious, so valued, which could end in a second. Strangers on a speeding train, the journey terminated too quickly.

  The twilight was darkening rapidly. Announcements broke over the sound system in French and then English. People were beginning to stand up, reaching for travel bags placed in overhead compartments. Soon they would be in Paris.

  Early morning, the broad boulevards were virtually deserted as they made their pilgrimage to Pere Lachaise Cemetery. Rain fell on quiet streets. It was a Saturday morning, and Paris was sleeping late.

  They passed shops where wheelbarrows of crabs and fish were set up in fantastic displays, fruit shops with brightly coloured jewels of fruit and great trays of mushrooms, fromager shops with their appetising smells, patisseries and boulangeries. They paused at a patisserie to purchase white bags of pains au chocolat and fresh baguettes, eating them as they walked along the streets. Faline, who was never very hungry, and had spent most of her life dieting, was always ravenous in Paris.

  Nearly everyone passing them seemed to be walking a little dog on a lead. Dogs were everywhere, it was a city of dogs. In cafes, in grocery stores, in taxis, on buses. They looked at each other with smiles on their faces, their problems momentarily forgotten as a woman strode past, her black poodle resplendent at her side in his leopard printed jumpsuit and dyed blond hair.

  How they both loved Paris, and how easy it was to ignore the odour of piss that wafted everywhere, the black pimps who hung around the metro entrances accosting women with cards as they emerged in the hope of soliciting new faces for their trade, the men urinating in the streets. It was easy to ignore the squalid and the sleazy because Paris wore her veil of greatness with such dignity that she blinded you to all else. The city of artists, of lovers, of inspiration, the city that covered your eyes as she seduced you. She had little pity for the artists, fools and dreamers flocking to her avenues over time; she watched with dispassionate eyes as they beat themselves against her like lost sparr
ows. Some had been raised to greatness, like Chagall, Picasso and Breton. Others would never be known to history, but their lives, hopes and bones were recorded in the mind of Paris. This was one of the things that Faline loved the most about Paris. The impression left behind, the touch of a million artistic souls and feet on the streets, the great fire of creativity that simmered beneath the city and called to visionaries around the globe to come to her, to support her, to walk her streets, to feed her.

  When they eventually passed through the florist’s shop to buy a map of the famous necropolis, a black woman with cropped hair glared at them as they fumbled with the euros. I have seen it all here, her accusing glare said. Freaks who come to see Jim Morrison, left-wing intellectuals to pay homage to Balzac, Colette, Moliere, Oscar Wilde. I have watched artists bringing flowers to Delacroix, Pissarro and Modigliani, singers warming up their tonsils over the grave of cold Piaf. Therefore two witchy-looking people do not interest me at all. There it was in her contemptuous gaze, her large lips curling upwards at their Australian accents as they muttered their ‘Merci Madame’.

  Making faces and laughing like schoolchildren when they were out of her sight, they began a leisurely stroll of the ornate tombs. They both loved cemeteries and had been to many around the world. Pere Lachaise was a firm favourite with its well-kept, seemingly endless rows of graves. There was something about the orderly design of Pere Lachaise that appealed strongly to their senses. Whenever they visited the necropolis they felt soothed, more balanced, able to cope with whatever hectic schedule was thrust upon them at the time.

  It was easy to get lost among the maze of cobbled avenues, even with the map. Beyond the walls the living produced a backdrop of sound, traffic, sirens. Here, among the bare trees with the piles of golden leaves on the cobbled lanes, the silence of death reigned. Stark trees touched the silver white sky and the stone vaults seemed to disappear forever up into the hills.

  The sound of crows filled the air. Faline admired a gravestone with a statue of a grieving woman, her face in her hands. They photographed a large vault where a man appeared from the grave holding a red rose, open crypts with chairs inside them, tombs with beautiful stained glass windows. As in life, there seemed to be imbalance. Some of the graves held only dead flowers, while others were well tended with fresh flowers. The famous and the unknowns rested together. There was little colour in the cemetery’s muted palette. Only the occasional flash of red berries on holly bushes and recent burials adorned with fresh flowers, grief and bright sashes.