The Etsey Series 1: The Seventh Veil (16 page)

In Timothy’s mind, he heard the children laugh and saw them part before the man as he came forward, his face now only a breath away from the light. Timothy reached for him, his heart so full it pounded against the back of his throat.

“Come to me,”
Timothy said.

The anachi stood. The ghost cried out and ran to it, disappearing in a burst of candle flame. In the distance he heard the witch cry, heard Jonathan shout, but not even his friend could move him now. Timothy climbed onto the bed, taking the witch’s dummy in his arms, no longer twigs and flowers but flesh, white flesh, white hands that glowed with light as they closed around him, drawing him against white clothes that smelled of the sun, pulling him toward a mouth—

He saw the beloved’s face—

The beloved smiled at him—

Timothy cried out and reached up, trying to pull him down, trying to take him in a kiss. “
Quiera
,” he whispered, his heart breaking, the flood rushing down his body. The beloved embraced him back, pulled him close against the fire.

But it was not a mouth he kissed. It was the gritty grind of bone that touched his lips, and when Timothy opened his eyes, he did not see the beloved of the Goddess but a skeleton with empty eyes grinning back at him. He cried and fell forward, the fire from the candle burning his skin. He fell from the bed with the anachi still in his arms, and he hit the floor, cracking his head on the stone.

Bleary with pain, he lifted his head and looked back at the bed. He saw him again, the man in white, Charles Perry but not Charles Perry.
More. He was more
. The man smiled, his blue eyes brighter than eyes should be, his body stronger than Timothy remembered, his clothes bright and shining. He waved, his face turning sad as he lifted his hand and blew Timothy a kiss. His eyes were wet with tears, though he did not stop smiling.

Timothy tried to speak, but his mouth was full of earth. He tried to reach for him, but his hand would not move, and he felt himself slip away into the cold, silent dark.

Chapter Five

shi

female

The female is the first gender created by the Goddess.

The female is the cradle of the earth. She is the living womb, the carrier of all life.

The female is the sign of strength and of the fortress.

It had happened like this.

Charles had been unconscious on the pallet bed before the hearth at Madeline’s cottage, and he had been dreaming. For the first time in a long time, however, he wasn’t dreaming of blood and gore and death. He dreamed he sat on the mantel above the hearth in Madeline’s cottage, his feet dangling over the edge as he watched himself lying there, sleeping. That was all. He was just watching himself sleep, and it was actually quite restful and soothing. But then as usual someone showed up and wrecked everything. It was just that Charles hadn’t expected that someone to be himself.

Another
one of himself.

He frowned at the Charles sitting beside him, disconcerted but not much. There were already two of him. Why should a third matter? Except this new Charles was…odd. He looked good, for one. He looked healthy. He had no fashion sense at all, though. He wore nothing but white.

The White Charles leaned forward on his elbows and studied the sleeping Charles below.

“I didn’t realize I’d let myself go so far,” he said a little sadly. “I’ve forgotten what that felt like already.” He sighed and turned to Charles, smiling. “I’ve been looking forward to this one. If I recall, it had a lot of
whoosh
to it.”

Charles scooted closer to the edge of his perch. “Who are you?”

The White Charles looked offended. “I’m you, of course. Us, rather.” He climbed to his feet and stood on the mantel, extending a hand to Charles. His head started to go through the ceiling, and then the ceiling simply rose to accommodate him. “Up you go. We have an appointment to keep.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” Charles turned back to the scene below. “I like this dream.”

The White Charles ignored him, fixing his attention on Emily Elliott as she busied herself about the room. “Probably best to wait until she’s gone.”

“Who
are
you?” Charles demanded again.

“Told you already,” the White Charles said. “Ah—there, she’s gone. Ready?”

“No,” Charles said. But the White Charles only raised his hands, murmured something under his breath, and just like that, they were gone.

Charles tried to grab the mantel, but he only screamed, a muffled, garbled sound as the magic pulled him away. He gasped as he felt his sleeping body merge with whatever one he was in now. Charles looked around, saw that he was soaring through vast, empty space, and he yelped.

“It’s all right,” the White Charles said gently. “This is the Void. You’ll come here again. Don’t be afraid of it. It will be all right.” But he looked haggard as he said this, and sorrow filled his countenance. “Come,” he said, much of his joy gone. “He is waiting. He is calling.”

“
Who
is calling?” Charles demanded, but the scene was already shifting again.

They were in the tower room at the abbey. He stood in the middle of the air, and Jonathan was in the bed, convulsing and groaning. Charles saw the demon slithering like a snake inside his brother, and Charles cried out as it reached for Madeline.

He fell, and for a minute everything was jumbled and odd. When the world righted again, he looked down, and his breath caught in his throat.
Him
. The Catalian, Jonathan’s equerry—
him
! He was in Charles’s arms. Charles’s heart swelled for a moment—and then Timothy was falling out of his arms again, landing face-first on the floor. Charles cried out and leaped after him.

There was a
whoosh
, like a spark igniting on oil. Charles turned back toward the noise, covering his eyes at the burst of light that rose up in a circle around the bed, rising like a curtain from the ceiling to the floor. He tried to sit up and reach for it, but his head felt strange. Something smelled awful, and it was making him dizzy. He saw himself again, the white him, peering out through the shimmering curtain of magic. The White Charles winked and waved at Charles on the floor, but his expression softened as he looked at the unconscious Catalian beside him. He blew a kiss, whether to Charles or the Catalian, Charles couldn’t tell. Then the White Charles disappeared.

Charles stared at the place where the other version of him had vanished. Then the dizziness overtook him, and he fell back in a heap, using Jonathan’s handsome equerry’s chest as a pillow as he slipped, once more, into the dream.

The wraiths circled him, but this time they did not reach for him. They blinked at one another, and they whispered.

After a while, Charles sat up inside the dream, looking past them into the heart of the forest. Something had changed. He couldn’t tell what it was, but something had changed. He rose and weaved through the wraiths, who made no move to stop him.
She is here
. The thought made him ache, and he moved faster. He saw a shadow moving in the trees, and he began to run, his heart pounding, his breath catching as he saw the hem of her skirt, the curl of her hair against her shoulder—

He reached for her—

Something slammed against the back of his head, and he stumbled. The dream shook, then started to shatter, but he fought for it, using the tricks Smith had forced him to learn to keep it in place. He would not lose her, not now, not when she was so close! He reached again.

His head slammed harder, and the dream broke into shards, too many for him to catch. Charles cried out at the loss, but the shout turned quickly to a gurgle as something sharp and insistent pressed against his throat.

“What have you done?”

Charles blinked, watching the last of the forest die away. For a moment, he thought he saw her face looking longingly at him through the veil. Then the knife pressed tighter, cutting Charles as he gasped, and a very different face filled his vision. This one was not part of the dream.

It was the Catalian. He was furious.

“Wait!” Charles cried, holding his hands up in surrender.
“Wait—”

The Catalian didn’t wait, and Charles watched stars explode before his eyes as his head slammed against the wall again.

Charles groaned and fell forward against the Catalian’s chest. Strong, angry hands gripped Charles’s shoulders before pushing him back, pinning him to the wall; a hard, insistent knee prodded uncomfortably into his thigh. The Catalian’s face was inches before Charles’s own.

“What have you done?” His fingers tightened dangerously against Charles’s collarbone, pinching the tendons there until Charles opened his mouth on a silent scream. The Catalian didn’t relent, only pinched harder until Charles’s eyes glazed with the pain.
“What have you done to him?”

Charles tried to shake his head, but the effort only increased his agony. “N-n-n—” He gasped and tried to sink to the floor, away from those hands. His eyes rolled upward, tears streaming involuntarily from their corners. He couldn’t talk, he couldn’t move, he could barely breathe…

The pressure lessened, but only slightly. “Speak,” the Catalian demanded.

“Nothing!” Charles was panting now. He tried to push away, but he was still dizzy from hitting the wall so many times, and he ended up doing little more than curling his fingers in the buttons of the other man’s shirt in some sort of unintended bedroom parody.

The Catalian leaned in close, his hands threatening to tighten again. “You were in that vision. The ghost ran to you. How did you get here? Where did you come from?
What did you do
?”

Charles blinked at him, watching twin images of the Catalian swim before him. “Ghost?” He cried out and tried to lean forward when the Catalian glared, clearly ready to bash his head again. “Stop!
Stop
! You stupid git—
I didn’t do anything
!”

“I saw you!” the Catalian shouted. “You made everything stop! You made the skull dance! I saw you!
You tricked me
!”

“I would
never
make a skull dance!” Charles shot back, shivering at the very thought.

He gagged as the Catalian caught him by the collar of his shirt and hauled him up from the floor so that his feet dangled in midair. “It was you,” he hissed. “I saw you, smirking, winking, dressed in white—”

“Ah!” Charles flailed, his realization giving him new strength. “Not me!
That one
! That’s not me. It’s…” He deflated, not knowing how to explain it. “Well, he says he’s me, but he’s not! He’s a bastard! He gives bastards a bad name! He hauled me in here, I don’t know how, shoved me back in that dream, but it wasn’t her, it was
you
—”

An explosion on the other side of the room cut him off. Charles closed his eyes against it, bracing for the force of the blast, but he softened when the Catalian fell against him. Acrid smoke was billowing across the room toward them, but all Charles could smell was the spicy scent of dark hair. His nose burrowed into it before he could stop himself, and his fingers, still pressed against the Catalian’s chest, slid upward until they hit skin.

He’s going to kill you, a voice of reason warned him. He never put that knife away. If he catches you groping him, he’ll slit your throat.

A good way to die, then, Charles decided, taking in a deep draught of the man’s scent.

But the Catalian didn’t kill him. He didn’t move at all. If anything, he leaned closer into Charles’s hands. Charles remembered what Smith had said in the inn yard.
Pleasure slave.

He’d just assumed—He hadn’t thought—

For men? The Catalian was a pleasure slave
for men?

The man in question brushed his nose against Charles’s cheek. Charles shivered and lightly nuzzled back.

“Your name,” Charles whispered, trying not to break whatever spell had passed between them. “Please—I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Timothy.” A hand on Charles’s hip; there was a knife in it, but the blade only rested against Charles’s thigh. It was oddly erotic. “Call me Timothy.”

Another explosion rocked the room; this one had heat, and though it knocked Timothy even closer to Charles, it knocked sense into Charles as well. “I swear to you, I don’t know how I got here or what’s happening,” he said, “but we can’t stay here. Magic is ugly when it starts to explode. Trust me on this one.”

The Catalian was tense again, and he looked back over his shoulder at the wall of magic that separated them from the bed. “Jonathan,” he whispered.

The agony in his tone made Charles want to sigh. It wasn’t fair that Johnny should get the girls
and
the boys. “We can’t do anything from this side,” he said, keeping his jealousy to himself. “It’s not going to let us in. It may very well kill us if we stay. Look—you’re upset. I am too. You want to know what’s going on? I can’t help you much, but I know a little. I’ll tell you what I know, and you can tell me what you know, and maybe, between the two of us, we can make this make sense.” He gestured to the door. “We can go down to the study. Make a fire. I know where my father hid the brandy. It can’t be any worse now than it was ten years ago.”

“There is no coal,” Timothy said. He was still looking at the magic wall.

“There is if you know where to look.” Charles resisted the urge to tug at the Catalian’s arm. “Please—we can’t do anything here. Madeline’s in there, yes? There’s no one better. We’ll only be in her way. You should have seen her on the moor. She was like the Goddess herself, she was so powerful. She’ll help him. You wait and see.”

Charles didn’t know what he’d said to make the Catalian’s head swing around so hard to him, but he didn’t care. He held his breath as the dark eyes narrowed on him, and he watched carefully for that knife out of the corner of his eye. “Please,” Charles whispered. “Please—please, just come. I’ll tell you everything I know. I swear.”

Timothy blinked, then smiled. It was a dangerous sort of smile, but it made Charles shiver all the same. The Catalian sheathed his knife and turned away, then walked back across the room to a satchel, which he picked up and hauled over his shoulder. He was still smiling as he came back to Charles.