Coal to Diamonds (13 page)

“Cole!” Cammy hurried toward him, arms outstretched to embrace his friend. But the dancer stopped a foot away, dropped his arms, and looked at Cole like Cole’s body was covered in venomous insects.

“Can’t bring yourself to touch me?” Cole sneered, crossing his arms. “What the hell are you two doing here?”

“Undo it,” Bobby said. Under his left arm he held a shoebox, and Cole knew what was inside.

“What? Why?”

“Cole, please,” Cammy said. He closed the distance between them and patted Cole’s elbow.

“But why? Why do you care what happens to him?”

“We care about you,” Bobby said. “We want you back.”

“Ha! Since when?”

“Since the night you sent us away,” Cam answered.

“Cam watched you almost constantly, Cole,” Bobby said. “In mirrors, on the backs of spoons, in windows, in the bath water. Us not being able to have you hurt, but we could bear it. The idea of you not being you, though, of Cole Riley, our Cole, ceasing to exist, was more than we could abide. So please undo it. If you go through with this curse, there’ll be no coming back. No more Cole.”

“If I don’t go through with it, I’m Thorn’s forever.”

“You’ve made him too weak to hold you. Leave him weak, but don’t kill him,” Bobby argued.

For a second Cole felt compelled to go to them, gather them in his arms, hold on, and never let go. He wanted to breathe the perfume of Bobby’s damp skin, bury his fingers in Cam’s abundant, wheat-gold hair. It seemed, as it had so many years before, that if they stood together, each connected to the other, no harm could touch them. But tragedy had visited Bobby and Cam, and Cole had been the catalyst. If he did as they asked, what would befall them the next time they left Cole behind, as they inevitably would?

“Go away,” he told them.

“No,” Bobby answered, planting his feet in a wide stance and lifting his square chin. “Not without you.”

“Go,” Cole repeated. “I don’t need you anymore.”

“We need you!” Cam pleaded. “We’re not leaving.”

“Then I will.” In his bare feet, Cole descended the wooden steps into the yard and stepped on to the little gravel path that led around the side of the house and to the street beyond. He would walk away from everything the little town represented: his rejection and misery, the glorious days when the three of them had been one, his remorse, his dependence on his lovers, and Thorn. He felt free. He needed nothing: not food or water or shoes. Thorn had asked what he planned to do, and Cole couldn’t believe how brightly the answer burned, drawing him like a night insect to a candle. Until he found a place where he felt he belonged, he would wander, alone with his magic. He’d just let it spill from him as he went, transforming the world in any way it would.

When he reached the front of the house, Cole saw Thorn standing on the wraparound porch, supporting his entire body on his elbows by the intricate gingerbread railing. Looking at Thorn, Cole felt an echo of longing for his dark master; wistfulness for the fire of his black eyes, the sharpness of his body, the agony and ecstasy of his touch. For long minutes the two men stared at each other, and then Thorn smiled. A triumphant laugh, too robust to emanate from his shriveled form, rolled from his wilted lips.

By then Bobby and Cam had joined the other two men. Both glared at Thorn with disgust, and then Cam’s eyes widened. “I see what you’re doing!” he yelled up at Thorn. Snapping the leather cord that held it, he wrenched his wand from his neck and brandished it in the direction of the porch. Without lowering his arm, watching Thorn in his peripheral vision, he turned to Cole. “This is what he wants, Cole. You’re doing exactly what he hoped you’d do. This is how he’ll destroy you.”

“He wants to die?” Cole scoffed. “Bullshit.”

“He’ll take you with him.” Then, as if someone had whispered in his ear, Cam asked, “Power in sacrifice?”

“I’m not destroyed,” Cole said, raising his voice in annoyance. “I’m powerful and perfect. You’re just jealous. For the first time I’m the successful one. I’m in the spotlight, not either of you. You can’t stand that I won’t be waiting in some dump if you get bored with your brilliant lives and want to do some slumming!”

Thorn cackled. Cam sputtered, lost for words, tears pouring down his cheeks. Calmly, Bobby said, “Whether you see it or not, Cole Riley is almost completely gone. I’m not giving him up without a fight. I love him.”

“Don’t do me any favors. Why would I want to be Cole Riley? Cole Riley, who nobody ever wanted? Whose own mother threw him away? Who never accomplished anything? Cole Riley who scared and disgusted you? Don’t try to deny it, Bobby! I was the one who—” But he couldn’t bring himself to reveal what he’d accidentally set in motion, even at this final moment of identity.

Taking Cole’s hands, his voice strong even through his tears, Cam said, “Cole our friend. Cole who taught us magic. Cole our fire and air. Our lover. Try to remember, baby. When we were boys together. How it felt, everything so amazing and new.”

“Get off me, Cameron!” Why be an insurance salesman in a backwater when he could be a magician, the archetypal sorcerer-god of all the world’s mythology? He could rove the earth, doing as he liked, far above the judgment of man.

But they’d had a tree house, and Cammy’s eyes were so green—

“The world needs Chaos,” Thorn said, all of the wheezing vanquished from his breath. “It needs a servant of discord. Most never see him, few believe he exists. But he must be, like the moon and the sun. Seasons and time.” He skipped down the stairs as if he’d never been ill and wrenched the shoebox from Bobby’s arm, where the younger man had been cradling it like a football. Tossing the cardboard lid into the peony bush, he grasped the oozing, crumbling thing inside and held it high, like a proud father displaying his newborn son. Filthy wax dripped down his arm. Chunks, where pieces of debris had fallen as the wax holding them melted, pitted the surface. “Finish it!” Thorn yelled. “Kill me! Become me! Claim your god-form!”

A chill zephyr circled Thorn, making his black robe and black hair flap, making him look like the legendary creature he was. If any of the residents of the quiet neighborhood noticed the bizarre commotion taking place in the street, they neither spoke against it nor left their houses to observe. Even the sun retreated, and the sky darkened with sheets of clouds.

Intoxicated by the idea of ascending to this height to which he’d never dared aspire, Cole said, “Yes,” hissing the “s” like water poured on a flame. The black fire enveloped him, the updraft making his long hair point straight toward the sky. It poured from his mouth, nose, and eye sockets, incinerating leaves on branches twelve feet above his head, melting the asphalt beneath his feet, turning his clothing to powder, and cremating Cole Riley’s memories, regrets, aspirations, fears, and loves. Forged by the obsidian tongues of power, he transformed from man to idea, distillation, symbol. Naked, shining so that his countenance was unbearable to behold, the very image of the primordial personification he was becoming, he lifted his hand and pointed toward the transfigured heart of the wax doll.

Cam, probably the only person able to perceive what was taking place, screamed and seized Cole’s wrist, struggling to point his burning hand toward anything other than the monstrosity oozing in Thorn’s grasp. His skin and hair burned, stinking, but he managed to force Cole’s arm a few inches to the left. When a jet of flame flew from Cole’s fingers, it struck the window of the round room on the second floor, shattering the glass. The pillows on the floor within caught quickly. Soon fire, red-orange earthly fire, licked upward toward Thorn’s slate roof.

Infuriated, Cole threw Cam to the street, where he landed hard on his hip and elbow. His sweater had been burned away almost to the shoulders, and blisters covered his slender arms. “How dare you touch me?” Cole said, driving his heel into Cammy’s ribs, making the other man choke.

A fist solid as a tree branch struck Cole’s right cheek. He reeled and shook off the dizziness. He’d kill these people, the tall man and the blond who was shielding his head with his arms, and then he’d finish Thorn and rise to his destiny. Exterminating them would be easy. He compacted a ball of blue-black energy into a grapefruit-sized mass in his palms. First he’d do away with the one whimpering at his feet, reduce his body to a curled cinder like those found under the ashes of Vesuvius in Pompeii. Coolly he raised his hand.

Just as Cole prepared to strike, the man on the ground looked up at him. From clefts in a sheet of gold fringe, the most magnificent eyes peered out, shiny from crying. It was as if Cole had pushed aside a birch branch thick with yellow leaves and discovered a forest pool, jade-green and gilded with dancing light. His hand dropped a few inches. The fire ball flickered.

“Cammy?”

“Do you see what you’re doing?” Bobby asked. “I know this isn’t you. Come back to us, Cole.”

“Cole?” How did he know that name? It didn’t matter. There was work to be done, inspiration to become. The bigger man could die first; it didn’t make much difference. The sphere pulsed brightly, the deep indigo of a moonless night. These distractions had to be dealt with. Again Cole lifted his arm.

A slender piece of wood was thrust into his face. A red line ran diagonally down the center, the crimson color bleeding into the grain of the oak, giving it the facade of veins and arteries. Runes decorated the sides, and braided copper wire, studded with glass beads, bits of shell, bone, and pieces of polished rock held the split fibers together at the center, where the cleft was deepest. Gingerly, Cole touched the point with the tip of his finger. The second his flesh made contact with the wood, a series of images assailed him, like someone changing the channels of a television very rapidly. But the television encompassed his whole being, his universe, what he saw both outside and within his mind.

A pebble skidded across a chalk circle edged with Angelic script, and a blond boy clapped his hand over his mouth, eyes wide with terrified delight. A young man, shirtless, with a basketball wedged between his elbow and ribs, stood backlit by a late-day sun, offering a hand and a smile to a boy on the ground. Hands, deep bronze, honey gold, and soft pink joined around an altar of seashells, roses, champagne, and white candles that sat on a plank floor. A raven-haired youth with a crooked nose smeared lotion on himself with trembling hands. Oak leaves rustled, black against a cobalt sky. Lightning struck.

“They’re its memories,” Cam said softly. “The tree’s.”

“Bobby! Cammy!” Cole gagged, realizing what he’d almost done. Dropping to his knees, he clutched his gut and retched, bringing up a mouthful of bitter froth. How many days had it been since he’d eaten anything? “Get it out of me!” Cole screamed again and again. “Get it out!” Inch-long fingernails, dark with soot, clawed at his chest above his heart and at his belly, drawing blood and gouging away slivers of flesh. Gore ran down his torso. “I’m Cole! Cole!”

It took all of Bobby’s considerable strength to prevent Cole from injuring himself any further. Though the other man sustained deep scratches from Cole’s serrated claws, he held his friend’s wrists immobile until Cole calmed down. Despite what he’d done, they rubbed his shoulders and lifted him back to his feet. Bobby pressed Cole’s wand into his hand, making him feel whole, himself, as if he stored his soul within it. “How? How did you mend it?”

Each of them held up his left hand, displaying slices across the palms that had healed to ribbons of satiny pink.

“We had to give it something of ours,” Bobby explained.

The wood shared more of its reminiscences, and Cole saw them, frustrated, trying to suture together the tool, consulting books to no avail. Next he saw them in their robes at the breakfast table, heard them asking one another what Cole would say needed to be done. Then they stood, candle-lit, naked, entranced, facing each other with the wand shards held vertically. Bobby raised the blade. Fingers wove together. Palms pressed close, joining the fragments. Blood trickled down.

Overcome, Cole sobbed. No one had ever done anything so profound for him before. They’d bled for him. Once again his legs gave out, and he collapsed on the scorched road, heaving. Bobby crouched beside him, wrapped his large hands around Cole’s triceps, hoisting him up, and said, “Tears later, baby,” as he pointed toward Thorn.

Cole walked over to stand before his master, who now looked just as he had when they’d met at the library. The dark energy swirled around Cole, stored in readiness if it came to a fight. He held out his hand, saying, “I’m afraid you’ll have to find somebody else. I can break that curse now, with my wand returned, and with Cam to douse the fire and Bobby to smother it. Do you need me to do it?”

Thorn shook his head. Much to Cole’s surprise, he looked neither angry nor violent, only bemused, and perhaps disappointed. “Go back to your woods, little hedge witch,” he said, cupping Cole’s chin, and then leaning in to kiss him. His lips lingered so long that Cole feared he might weep at the loss of the man. At last he pulled away. After regarding his apprentice a few seconds more, he placed the lump of wax, now cool, into Cole’s arms, as gently as if it were a newly birthed child. “Remember me now and then,” he said.

So much of Cole longed to seize Thorn’s face, kiss him viciously, hook his nails into his flesh, and implore him not to go that he had to turn away before his avowals spilled unbidden from his mouth. Behind him Bobby and Cam held one another’s waists, burned and wounded, but emanating quiet strength. To the right, fire spread through the upper level of Thorn’s magnificent old house. Black smoke billowed out of the windows, and part of the roof, above the study, had already caved in. Sirens could be heard in the distance.

Long fingers, tips satin cool, wrapped Cole’s cheek and turned his face. “You thought of me as your captor, Cole,” Thorn said. “I hope one day you’ll see that I only sought to free you from the restrictions of good and evil. From all of your bonds.” He tipped his head toward the two men hugging in the street.

Cole shook his head. “I’m happy in them,” he told Thorn.