Chapter 5: Tiamat
May, 1979
Jack started awake in a cold sweat, choking back a scream. A quick, wild-eyed glance around the room verified his safety. Moonlight filtered in dimly through the blinds, splashing silver across the double bed's quilt, across Beth's sleeping form.
For a moment, he couldn't remember why his heart hammered wildly against his ribs. Then: Just a dream. Thank God. Yet the fear in him still remained, a slow simmer just about to break into a rolling boil and consume him.
Jack dreamed often of his first meeting with Crowley--in these twisted visions, Crowley refused him, taunted him, left him for dead on that godforsaken street to a life without purpose or meaning. Simple insecurity, Jack had decided long ago. But this time had been different. The terror, the shadow, Dracan.
That man is going to my head. He's a rogue Master, no more powerful than I, not some childhood bogeyman to fill me with terror. Yet his hands still shook as he reached for the bedside lamp. A moment's hesitation reminded him that Beth still slept peacefully. The light might disturb her. Shrugging, Jack used his arms to roll onto his side, facing away from her. He breathed "Illuminaris, abraxas," into his cupped hands, intending to feed in only enough of the Art to create a small, dim light.
Instead, a blinding bolt of pain hit between his eyes, making him gasp and lose focus. When his head cleared, he looked sharply around the room, unsurprised at the absence of light.
That crawling fear blossomed into full-scale terror. Something's wrong. Why can't I touch the Art? "Spearca, abraxas." It was foolish to throw an undirected flame into a carpeted room, but Jack was too panicked to care. Nothing happened, save for the same wave of pain behind his closed eyelids.
Beth. Help me. Beth! Somehow, his lips didn't work.
She found him eventually in a somewhat undignified heap on the floor, having rolled off the bed in a fit of agony, clutching his head and sobbing.
-0-
Beth held him, with hands first warm and firm on his shoulders, then brushing his face and hair, until the paramedics arrived. The initial wild sobs that had awoken her had subsided to moans and twitches. The twitches were bad enough to be possible seizures, vibrating erratically through his arms and chest and face.
Beth, after she finished speaking to the 9-1-1 dispatch officer, didn't stop her stream of constant reassurance. "Jack, hang on, Jack. It's going to be okay. I'm here and you're here and we're both all right. Listen to my voice and hang on." Beth knew how to fight terror when illness was involved. She'd done healings at patients' deathbeds, to ease the pain of passing. She'd used her gifts to calm and relax rape and assault victims as they sat shaking in the ER waiting hours for a doctor. Even though she mostly dealt with chronic pain and long-term illness, she'd seen her share of blood, panic, and suffering.
But with Jack, with the man she'd only recently admitted to herself she was far too in love with for her own good, it was so different. She had to work hard to find her center this time, breathing deep to touch the earth and the Art and whatever else would help, breathing out almost visible swirls of Art and energy that sunk into Jack's prone, shaking form. The healing was erratic, not her best, and Beth had to blink back tears of frustration. Come on, Klein, focus. You're a good healer, Jack believes you're a great one. Prove it.
When the paramedics arrived, bursting into the bedroom, they wouldn't let her touch him. As she fretted, they pushed her into a corner of the room, going to work with a ventilator and syringe of epinephrine with a stretcher blocking most of her view of Jack's body. No, no, she thought, panicked. I need to be able to touch him, please, I need to--
"What happened?" one of them asked crispy, drawing Beth's attention back to the newcomers.
Beth shifted uncomfortably. She felt underdressed and ill-prepared in her T-shirt and pajama pants. "I woke up when he fell out of bed. He was like this. He seemed fine when we went to sleep."
"Your husband?"
"Boyfriend." She and Jack had never used that word, but the man had been staying with her for almost a month. Perhaps, Beth reflected ruefully, it was time. Time to meet her parents, time to make her own debut to the mysterious and intimidating Master Crowley. Hell, time to put his picture in her wallet and take him shopping for something other than the out-of-style rumpled suits with which he'd arrived. He had to get better, just so she could do all those things, Beth argued to the cosmos. It wasn't fair that they'd let a precious month slip by without doing those things, not if that month was all they had.
"Any health concerns we should know about?"
"He's paraplegic. His chair's there." Beth nodded to the chair on the other side of the bed.
The man nodded. "We'll bring it. You can meet us at Northwest County--"
"Please," Beth objected, panicking again. "I want to ride in the ambulance." I couldn't bear to not be there if he…
"We're going now. No time to get dressed."
"I don't care. I have friends who can bring me clothes."
The paramedic nodded. "All right. Let's go. Does he have any family to contact?"
Crowley would want to know…but Beth would have to handle that herself. The situation was an odd one, and Beth couldn't rule out some sort of magical attack from Dracan. Dracan did not need to be the one whom the hospital designated as the next of kin. "I'll have to get the numbers."
"Insurance?" As he spoke, the other two men were loading Jack's limp form onto the stretcher and checking the straps.
"In his wallet, here." Beth fished out the worn leather wallet, thankful that Jack lived enough in the modern world to have purchased international health insurance for himself and Crowley.
Beth followed them out of the apartment, blinking at the strident red-and-blue lights that pierced the darkness of the parking lot. It was too late for a crowd, although she was sure more than a few neighbors were peering out through their blinds. With the contrast of light and darkness, the windows were all silvery and opaque.
Beth managed to squeeze his hand as they loaded him, sending him a pulse of warmth and healing energy, but, in spite of her pleas, the paramedics shoved her into a seat at the back, across the bed from Jack, and insisted that she belt herself in. She watched as they assessed heart and breathing rate, the bluish tint of lips and fingernails. She heard the phrase "in shock" as though from a distance.
Lowering her head, she pretended to be overwhelmed with panic, but she had found her center again. Jack would not die. Focusing, she drew deeply from both the earth, from the ground she felt pulsing and rolling beneath the ambulance's wheels, pushing it towards Jack, straining as she never had before for a healing. She could feel herself sinking into the Art, feel it rising to swallow her and burning through her veins instead of blood. It was an unfamiliar sensation, for all her experience with healing, and not a pleasant one, but she choked it down and focused through a sensation that was increasingly close to pain. The five-foot distance between them had never felt so far. Please, Jack, take the healing. Take the energy. Take it in and use it. I know now is not your time.
Just as she'd despaired of doing the impossible, of healing without touch, she heard one paramedic break the effort-laden silence. "Breathing and pulse are up."
"BP?"
"Still low, but up."
Beth could almost feel the connection between herself and Jack now, and the healing flowed as effortlessly as any other healing, energy running like a stream between Jack and Beth. Sighing, Beth felt confident enough to risk opening her eyes.
"Ease him off the ventilator. Breathing looks good now. All right, here we are pulling up to the ER. Miss, please unbuckle and move aside so we can carry him out."
-0-
Jack opened his eyes to glaring white walls and piercing fluorescent light. Wincing he lifted a hand to shield his eyes; as the glare faded he caught sight of the sterile white room around him.
Beth was fast asleep in a chair beside the bed, his wheelchair opposite. She sighed in her sleep, frowning lightly, a wisp of dark hair falling across her face. Jack reached up to brush it aside, wincing with the effort.
"Hmmm? Oh. You're awake." A warm, dry hand brushed at his forehead. "How are you feeling?"
"Decidedly odd. What happened?" His mouth was dry.
"You were having trouble breathing and I couldn't wake you up." Beth shrugged. Strain was evident in her face and the dark circles around her eyes. "The ambulance brought you to the hospital. The doctor says you had some kind of mild aneurysm…they want to do some tests, but you should be fine. At first they were afraid you'd go into arrest, but your breathing got a lot better in the ambulance."
Fine? What happened? I can't remember…oh, God! Dark eyes widened, remembering the horrible moments before his collapse. I can't touch the Art.
"What's wrong? Do you need a nurse?" Beth grabbed his hand as she watched his face drain of color. "Talk to me, Jack."
Hurriedly, Jack cast himself into a meditative state as he did hundreds of times a day, reaching for the Art. It was the easiest of tasks, which he'd managed within two months of apprenticeship, and the Art had never once failed him before. He'd cast minor spells in his sleep.
Now, all that he sensed was the blinding headache that clapped him between the eyes, red starbursts behind closed lids. Jack groaned, pressing his head back against the rock-hard, sterile white pillow. Tears leaked out behind his eyelids. This is still a nightmare. It has to be.
"Nur--"
"No!" Jack rasped. He squeezed her hand hard enough to hurt, though Beth didn't complain. His next words were a broken whisper, "Oh, my God, no. Dracan, how could you? Better to kill me and be done with it."
Except that not even a Master could kill with the Art. But, with the Star, Dracan could do bloody well anything else he wanted.
"Jack, you tell me what's going on right now, or--" Beth's rough voice held the edge of panic. She really did care…and that thought alone brought him back from the edge of insanity.
"The Art," the man choked, "I can't touch the Art. Dracan…I had a dream…him and that damned demon of his…they cut me off from the Art!" Better to be deprived of breathing or heartbeat. The Art was a part of him.
"Jack." Beth's hands were an anchor on his shoulders, squeezing comfortingly, coaxing him away from the precipice. "Look at me. You're fine. The…Art isn't something someone can take away from you. You're just tired, so you can't touch…"
"Dracan can," Jack shouted back at her. "He can do almost anything with that damned Star. All he'd need is something of mine…" Jack remembered, vividly, the iron pentagram, left in his dresser drawer. How many decades had he worn that against his skin, a treasured Master's graduation gift from Crowley? "My God."
"You really think he could have…stolen your powers from you?" Beth regarded him with skepticism, still, but she understood how well someone could know their own Art.
"Not Dracan. That damned…thing he summoned. He did it again! After knowing how dangerous it could be! I have to go--my God, I have to warn Master Crowley--"
"Hey!" Now the hands were firm, pushing down against his shoulders. Jack had developed a great deal of upper body strength in his life, to compensate for his paralysis, but he willingly sank back into the hospital bed, head lolling to the side helplessly. "Look, you're still weak, whether from an aneurysm or from having your Art stolen. You need to rest. How easily will Dracan win if you confront him now?"
She was right, damn her. But, instead of cursing her, Jack took one of those hands in his again, squeezing it like a lifeline. "Everything in my nightmares, Beth…it's come true. I've lost the Art…I'm no Master, not now. I'm the helpless cripple I was when Crowley found me."
"Stop it, Jack." Beth grabbed his face in both of her hands and directed his tear-filled eyes at her face. "You know that you're not helpless. You've got the brains to win this thing. You know that."
Slowly, Jack focused on her words. He had an obligation to fight Dracan, to save Crowley and Marcus and God knew who else and send that demon-thing back from whence it came. It didn't matter if he were injured or crippled or deprived of the Art…he still had the responsibilities of a Master. "Perhaps," he managed in a whisper, chewing over the words, "you could bring me a pen and paper?"
Beth regarded him warily, nodding reluctantly. "Okay."
Jack summoned a strained, tired smile. "I'm not going to do anything…rash. If I can't talk to Crowley in person or speak to him with the Art--" --oh God oh God oh God--Jack suppressed the rising panic again with a surprising flash of white-hot rage at Dracan--"then I will, I suppose, write him a letter." A bitter quirk to his lips now, Jack spread his hands. "What else can I do right now?"
-0-
Agitated, Dracan moved in a swirl of robes around his ankles, pacing the length of the small chamber. Tiamat followed in a gesture of mock-servitude, an amorphous black shape hanging off his heels like a dog. "I did not tell you to do this!"
Was it against your wishes? The thing never spoke aloud to him. Rather, it seemed to inject its thoughts directly into his head. Dracan had found it a sign of his power, at first, but how much of his own thoughts did the being see? How much did it really bow to him?
"Most assuredly!" He forced his lips to relax from their snarl.
You spoke of it.
"Only as a last recourse. I have no love for Jack--" Of course not. But still, with every thought of Jack came the bitter taste of guilt in his mouth. "--but nor do I wish to torment him unnecessarily. As long as he's in America, he was no threat to us."
It had to be, Dracan reasoned, imagination, the thought of what Tiamat had done to Jack. Yes, Dracan had done it, with the Star…but he'd been asleep, dreaming. The damn thing had tricked him. Even the thought of losing the Art sent edgy shudders through Dracan. Without the Art, he'd be worse than crippled--he wouldn't be alive, not by Dracan's definition of the word.
Now he will never be a threat. Tiamat paused, as much as a constantly moving black cloud could be said to pause. Something submissive shuddered through it. You have my deepest apologies, Master Dracan. I act only out of desire to serve you.
And, fighting for control with his fingernails digging into his palms, Dracan forced himself to relax, to believe. "You will not do that again."
I will not. It paused, calculating. You could always give him his power back.
Dracan flinched at the thought. "I'd have to do it in person." Could he face Jack again, after this? Dear God. Crowley, Jack, help me. I've made such terrible mistakes. But he forced his face to an impassive mask. He had no idea how Tiamat would react to doubt, and his control over the being was weak.
You're troubled. It will pass. Tiamat dared to float nearer, draping dark tendrils over Dracan's shoulder. The sensation was odd, a brief icy touch that left him shivering, but brought a warmth and energy flowing through his limbs. He sighed, rolling his neck back into the strange but soothing massage. The man closed his eyes as the being began to whisper, promising greatness if only he'd listen. If only he'd speak. At last, someone listened to him.
He barely managed to stumble to bed, with the black cloud wrapped about him like a shroud, draping itself around him like sheets and pillows. In that caricature of lovers, Master slept, and summoned demon stayed motionless, green eyes burning into the dark.
-0-
Dracan's hand slipped into the pocket of his slacks, finding the smooth, cool surface of the Star within. "I can't put it down," he mused.
Why would you wish to? Tiamat was invisible even to his sense of the Art, having melded into him in the way of daemons. Its strength lay in its ability to detach and exist outside of him. This is your power.
"I won't use it as a crutch." Still, it hurt to pry his fingers from the disc, lay the Star on his bedside table beside his journal. Dracan cocked his head, masking the pain in losing the Star with a smile. "I don't need it, do I? I have you."
We need all the power we can. Crowley is dangerous.
"Crowley is asleep."Dracan forced his fingers to unclench and took a weighing step back from the nightstand. He had to avert his eyes; another look, and he'd step forward and snatch it from the table. He left tense-backed, with the Star's emanated power burning an imprint into his shoulder blades like Tiamat's gaze. He was only going into the bathroom for a shower. He didn't need the bloody Star for that.
Twenty minutes later, when he returned with wet hair and a towel around his waist, his gaze went first to the empty nightstand.
For a moment, with Tiamat stunned and smoldering inside his head, Dracan stared, motionless, at the empty place where the Star had rested. Reaching out with the Art, he sensed only Crowley's uninterrupted sleep. No trace of the Star's unique aura. No hint of anyone else with the Art, or any break in the security shield Jack had placed around the grounds decades ago. In the manor, there was only--
"Marcus!" Dracan shrieked. He could, the rational part of him supposed, have teleported himself to the first floor, but there was a certain physical satisfaction in taking the stairs two at a time, feeding the adrenaline and fury peaking in his system with every thud of his feet against the steps. Besides, with red floating before his eyes, he couldn't calm himself enough for the Art. Tiamat hummed inside his head, oddly content with such a setback.
You will retrieve the Star and kill the thief, Tiamat explained calmly. Dracan hoped, at least, that it was explaining itself. Not ordering.
A fellow Master, one away and harmless in America, was one thing. The servant Dracan found quaking underneath a paint-stained tarp in the kitchen pantry was entirely another. How dare one such as this, ignorant of the Art, a servant, an insect, challenge his authority? Had he not suffered enough--from Jack, Crowley, the British army of his youth, the long line of self-proclaimed "gurus" he'd sought on his quest to master the Art--every one of them demanding his submission?
Now he had the means to make them pay. All of them.
"Please!" When he found Marcus, the man, gray hair and all, was cowering. He was a big man, and the closet was barely large enough to hold him. Terror shone from his eyes. "Calm yourself, Master Dracan, please! Have mercy! I didn't mean to--"
Dracan's raised hand failed to stop the blubbering, so, with a mutter and a thread of Art, he tore the door from its hinges and flung it across the room to crash into the opposite wall. Marcus, his face as white as curds, flinched, and his babbling trailed off.
"Where is it, Marcus?" Dracan asked in a perfectly calm tone.
Marcus began to shudder and cry in earnest, not fooled by Dracan's self-control. "I'm sorry, sir. I can't tell you. I can't get it out again."
Dracan knew the spells to sense lies. He knew Marcus wasn't lying. "Jack," he spat. "Damn that crippled bastard. Leaving him without the Art was too good for him." He used his own physical power this time to plant a firm kick in Marcus' side. The man was twice Dracan's size, but Marcus only flinched, unresisting. "Where is it, Marcus?"
"I-I don't know, sir. I gave it to the daemon. It ran away."
The daemon, to the long line of manor servants, meant Ammanor. Jack's grotesque many-armed pet, who delighted in stealing and hiding shiny things--things he and Jack sometimes didn't find for years even with the Art. Jack found that amusing; Dracan had come close to killing the miserable beast on several occasions. The Star might be anywhere. Snarling, Dracan tried another kick, planting a solid blow on Marcus' head.
"Please, sir," Marcus yelped. "I only did it to protect Master Crowley. And to protect you. You're not yourself, Master Dracan. Master Jack just wanted the Star kept until you were yourself again. Please, let's go talk to Master Crowley, he'll know what to do. Oh, God, what the hell is that?"
The last babbled sentence was panicked and high-pitched. Dracan didn't need to look over his shoulder. He could feel Tiamat detaching from him. The air behind his shoulders felt cold; the spirit had to be overlapping his body somewhat as it filled the hallway behind him.
"Please, Master Dracan!"
"Shut up, Marcus," Dracan interjected calmly. Tiamat swirled past him in tendrils of black smoke that grasped Marcus, lifting and pinning him against the shelves at the back of the closet. His eyes bulged, the tendrils wrapped snake-like around his mouth and throat preventing him from speaking. Those eyes begged.
Something cold and hard nudged his palm. Dracan looked down to find another of Tiamat's tendrils pressing his old British Army survival knife into his hand. Of course, the unnaturally calm part of him reasoned. He wouldn't want to spoil a ritual knife with human blood; that would render it useless, even dangerous, for most ceremonial work. How thoughtful of Tiamat to dig through his closet and find the right tool for the job. Marcus made a choked sound at the sight of the knife.
Do it, Tiamat urged inside his head. But do it slowly. Let me savor this one, Master, please.
"You want to see something amusing?" Dracan inquired, shifting the knife to his left hand. He raised his right hand to Marcus' face, drawing the man's attention back to his eyes. "Ignore my friend, here, Marcus, I've got something much more interesting for you to look at." Tracing a symbol in the air with two fingers, Dracan breathed the words of the spell and felt it take life. He didn't see a thing. But Marcus, unmoving and silenced, began to twitch and gurgle wildly, his eyes impossibly wide in a chalk-white face. Marcus could assuredly see and feel the spiders, thousands of them, crawling all over his skin, into his clothing, pressing into his mouth and eyes.
Dracan paused to savor the moment, then shifted the knife to his right hand again.
-0-
He was expecting Crowley sooner. The old man, Dracan reflected with contempt, was farther gone than he'd thought, to sleep through a display of such raw power. The wait gave Dracan enough time to change into clean clothes, dump his bloodied garb into the hamper, return the knife to his dresser, and retire to the parlor. Tiamat disposed of the blood and the body before melding into him again. What it did with them, Dracan didn't care; for all he knew, Tiamat lived off human blood.
The old man didn't surprise him, either. Dracan heard his footsteps, and the thump of his cane on the hardwood floor, from outside in the hall. His fingers, inside the pocket of his slacks, clenched on where he'd normally keep the Star. Tiamat had not sensed the Star yet; Jack probably had it stowed in some container warded against scrying and destruction.
"What you've done is unforgivable." Crowley, hovering in the doorway, sounded tired, rather than angry. When Dracan stood and turned, that ancient wise face was unbearably weary. "Why, Dracan?"
"All I have done is acted as a Master," Dracan snapped, standing. Suddenly, it was important for Crowley to understand. "A real Master, one not afraid of the Art like yourself and Jack."
Crowley inhaled, studying his face carefully. "I see now. It was worse than I'd expected. You have a rider, Dracan. My God, how could you be so foolish, to call something so powerful and offer it your mind and body of your own free will? You're lost, my son."
"I'm not the one being ridden, Crowley. I'm firmly in control."
"I doubt that."
"I will not argue with you. You're done, faded, old man. Wasted talent. You killed everything alive about you a hundred and fifty years ago and your Art has atrophied as much as the cripple's legs."
"Jack is your brother, Dracan." Crowley sighed. "Your teacher. He was always so much better a teacher than I. I haven't been able to reach him; what have you done to him?"
"I have no interest in this conversation. Where is my Star, old man?"
"I have no idea. Jack had the foresight in this case. Ask him, if you haven't killed him already." Crowley paused, cocking his head. "I feel the power, the evil, in you preparing to strike, Dracan. Kill me if you will; I'll not fight you."
"You know I'm the stronger."
"Without the Star, with that thing in you, perhaps, but that's not the reason. I'll not end my life trying to kill the man I took in as a son. I forged a Brotherhood against the advice of my own visions, and I'll live by that mistake. I have already fulfilled my role in trying to protect the world from the thing you've become."
"Your role--" Dracan paused, reaching out with the Art to test the air. He sensed Crowley, Tiamat, the pair of zombies he'd made on Tiamat's counsel, though, oddly, none of Jack's daemons--then it felt as though his consciousness had slammed against a brick wall. "Good God. What have you done, Crowley?"
"That demon of yours cannot leave the manor. Neither can you, or I, or--while the spell lasts--anyone who enters these grounds. Not until that thing is back in its own dimension. It will ride no one out into the world to prey on the innocent. The wards will see to that."
So, Dracan reflected grimly, Crowley hadn't been late at all. Just busy.
"Decrepit old fool!" Dracan snapped, as Tiamat exploded in rage inside his head.
Kill him. Kill him! Now, kill him now, kill him NOW!
His fingers twitched, beginning a spell, before Dracan caught himself.
Crowley watched him sadly. "It becomes more difficult, with every passing moment, to resist, does it not, Dracan? Soon you will not be able to. Soon there will be nothing left of the Dracan I knew. It is not too late to end this. We can still banish this creature with the proper--"
Tiamat exploded in a swirl of darkness from Dracan, catching the older Master in its grip and slamming him up against the wall hard enough to rattle the shelves beside them. His feet dangled, twitching slightly, a good foot above the floor. The same icy black tendrils closed over Crowley's mouth and throat. Unlike Marcus, though, Crowley never flinched. Those sad, near-black almond eyes never wavered in the gaze fixed calmly on Dracan's.
Kill him, Master, Tiamat begged. Quickly, slowly, it matters not.
"No," Dracan whispered. This was too hard. This was where he drew the line. The man had been a father to him for more than half a century. Then, stronger, "no. We can get him to break the ward, and we'll be free."
He will not do it. We will find another way, a safer way. Kill him.
"I told you no!" Dracan snapped.
Kill him! There was no mistaking that shout. It was an order.
Dracan's body jerked, his hand coming up without conscious volition to slam a fist into Crowley's abdomen. He heard a rib crack, and the old man crumpled in with an agonized groan. Dracan cracked two more hard blows into the man's side, bringing blood to Crowley's lips, before jerking back. "Stop this, Tiamat. Enough. We'll leave him." Listening to Crowley wheeze, Dracan suspected that the injuries themselves might be enough in a man so frail. He wasn't sure what to think about that.
If you do not kill him--
"Enough. I know."
He is so dangerous--
"I know! He is also an injured old man." Crowley was unconscious now, sagging in Tiamat's grip. "Run upstairs and fetch me something of his, something that's been against his skin. I know a way to neutralize him. We'll keep him in the cellar for a while."
Tiamat evidently knew when it had pushed Dracan too far. It obeyed meekly, leaving Dracan alone to watch Crowley's labored, agonized breathing, the man in a crumpled heap on the floor. Dracan didn't feel a damn thing.
He left Tiamat to take care of Crowley. He couldn't watch the old man lose his Art, and Tiamat be damned if that made Dracan weak in its eyes. Instead, he sauntered out to the front gates, and checked the ward. The barrier was real, harder than steel when he tried to walk through the empty air of the open gate.
Dracan shrugged. He'd find a way, he and Tiamat. He was a Master of the Art, and he had time.