Ritual Reality
11 Serve and Protect
Friday, 9 May 1969
There was nothing wrong with her doing this, Judith told herself. I love him. Well, I think I do. Even if I didn’t, finals are over and I’d do it anyway. Probably. She wasn’t completely convinced, but he certainly wasn’t going to argue about it. And she knew The Huntress wasn’t above using sex to raise power. Their climax together on Oester was evidence of that. And frankly she’d enjoyed it. That was refreshing.
She applied her lipstick and looked at herself critically. Frosty pink lips. Blue eye shadow. Black liner and lash extensions. A little highlight on her cheeks. She wondered absently what she’d think of this fashion in thirty years. She wore a patent leather miniskirt and platform shoes. They wouldn’t bring her completely up to his height, but he wouldn’t have to bend over so far to kiss her. And he was going to kiss her. Oh yes.
The amount of traffic in and out of the dorm on the last day of school made it easy for Wayne to come to her room and knock on the door. Judith adjusted her tube top to make sure her flat stomach and navel were showing and that it only covered high enough to hide the essentials. She’d embarrassed herself when she went into Block’s Department Store and asked for a boob tube. Well, that’s what they called them in London. Instead, she’d been directed to televisions. She opened the door and stood back.
“Holy shit! God! You are gorgeous!” Wayne said when he could finally get words out of his mouth. My God! He’s actually salivating.
“Thank you, lover. You look pretty hot yourself.” He was wearing a new pair of khaki shorts and a white tennis shirt with an alligator embroidered over his heart. She glanced at his feet to see that he was wearing sandals. That was a relief. She couldn’t have gone out if he was in socks and shoes. His fashion sense wasn’t always great.
Wayne crossed the room and pulled her to him, pressing his lips to hers as he hugged her. She let her lips soften and soon welcomed his tongue into her mouth. They parted, panting.
“I don’t know who taught you to kiss, but I want to thank her.”
“Special tutorial in high school,” Wayne smirked. “Best grade I ever got.”
“You have to tell me about that sometime,” she said. They kissed again. Eventually they had to come up for air. “Are we going out? We could just stay here.”
“I did promise you a hot dog basket and a schooner at Lum’s. Glenn and Gail are waiting for us in the car, so maybe we should join them. Otherwise I’d have to go out and explain to them that I can’t keep my hands off you.”
“Are you having trouble with that?” she asked coyly. He let his hands slide down from her bare shoulders across her breasts.
“Oh yeah.”
“The sooner we go, the sooner we can get back.”
Wayne’s right hand had been trapped between Judith’s bare thighs all the way back to the dorm from the restaurant. Really high up between her thighs. It had been trapped there when he turned to kiss her, gliding up her leg from her knee until she clamped her legs closed just as he touched her damp panties. There it stayed as they continued to kiss until Glenn had turned off the car and opened the door.
“There’s no desk clerk on duty tonight,” Glenn said. “Therefore there is no reason to stay in the car to make out.”
“My room, lover,” Judith whispered.
Wayne followed her straight to the women’s wing. He noticed that Gail had opted to head to the men’s wing with Glenn. Well, he’d follow Judith anywhere right now. Anywhere she wanted to go, he was hers.
She barely got her key out of the lock so the door could swing closed behind them when they were back in a clutch. This time she didn’t stop his hands, no matter where they roamed. He found out quickly how easily a tube top could be adjusted. They were still standing inside the doorway when he had bare breasts cupped in both hands and Judith was moaning into his mouth. She pulled his tennis shirt off over his head and pressed her bosom to his chest.
“Oh, Judith. You feel so fucking good.”
“Baby, I am going to feel so good fucking.”
“I don’t want to just fuck you. I mean, hell yes, I want to fuck you. But I want to make love to you. I want to hold you in my arms and never let you go,” he whispered.
Hold me, hold me
Never let me go until you’ve told me, told me
What I want to know and then just hold me, hold me
Make me tell you I'm in love with you.
Judith sang to him as they began dancing together in her room. She sang the whole song as they swayed around the room, her beautiful contralto voice softly ruffling the few hairs he had on his chest. When she sang, “Kiss me. Kiss me,” he did. Somewhere in the process he found the zipper to her skirt and she stepped out of it when it fell to the floor. “Now you,” she whispered. He thought a moment.
I don't remember what day it was
I didn't notice what time it was
All I know is that I fell in love with you
And if all my dreams come true
I'll be spending time with you.
He sang. His voice was pitched lower than the singer from Spiral Starecase, but it still fit the song. “I love you more today than yesterday…” That was as far as he got. His shorts fell to the floor and he stepped out of them, still holding Judith. She looked at him and picked up the next song.
Children behave
That's what they say when we’re together
And watch how you play
They don't understand.
It was campy, but they were spinning in a circle in each other’s arms and Judith’s platform shoes came off just as she sang, “I think we’re alone now…” Wayne kicked his sandals off and they had only the layer of his jockeys and her black hip-hugger panties between them. They’d begun to sweat, but there was something about letting the music take them wherever they wanted that kept them spinning in each other’s arms. Judith pulled the tube top the rest of the way off so they were skin-to-skin. Her breasts slid against his sweaty chest.
When you hold me
In your arms so tight,
You let me know,
Everything’s alright…
Wayne sang. They touched Judith’s bed and sank down on it. Sometimes singing, sometimes kissing, whispering lyrics as they lay down together. When Wayne sang “I’m hooked on a feeling…” he hooked his thumbs into Judith’s waistband and dragged her panties down off her feet. He knelt before her.
“Make love to me, baby. Everything is ready.”
“I’ve always wanted to do this,” he said as he lowered his mouth to her pussy. He didn’t know exactly what to expect, though he had learned the rudiments of where her clit was. The taste was sweet and he knew he’d crave this all his life. When he found her bud, he teased it, licked it, pressed it, sucked it until she was writhing on the bed.
“Oh God! Wayne, I wanted to wait for you, but I can’t. You’re doing such wonderful things to me. Oh baby!” Judith climaxed and pulled Wayne up by his ears before he could bring her off again. “In me. In me, baby. Oh Wayne, make love to me.”
Wayne found the slippery channel and sank into her depths. So warm, so smooth, so right.
“Goddess, be with me. Powers of the East, come to me. Powers of the South, come to me. Powers of the West, come to me. Powers of the North, come to me. Blessed be. The circle is complete,” Judith chanted softly as Wayne plowed into her again and again. It didn’t disturb him that she was chanting these things. Somehow, they seemed right—natural.
“So mote it be,” he answered her chant.
As they neared the peak their attention was drawn away momentarily.
“Look, Judith. Look at what we’ve done. It’s beautiful!” Lights bounced around the room, ricocheting off the walls and ceiling. Multiple colors. “We’re doing this, darling. You and me. It’s so beautiful.”
“Yes!” Judith called as she exploded into the lights. Wayne was with her this time and the glow stabilized around them as they settled.
“You see it. You know,” he said softly.
“Yes. I am The Swordmaster.”
“I am The Unbound.” Judith shivered beneath him and he embraced her more fully as she came again. Judith put her hand against his chest and touched the pentacles—her pentacles, but now completely his—with her index finger.
“How did you know what to do? Has she done it with you?”
“I don’t know who ‘she’ is. I think I dreamed it. I get confused sometimes and then there’s a moment when the dream comes true and I see it all clearly.”
“It’s okay. I’m not going to share you with anyone as a lover, but ritual and the raising of power is different.”
“Is that what this is? Just raising power? I don’t even know what that means. Or maybe I do, but I can’t think of it.”
“This was so much more than raising power, love. So much more than a dream. But the power is there, too. You can feel it, can’t you?”
“Yes, but all I want to feel is you.”
“I want you to be safe and protected. This is just for us. Then we can just make love all night long.”
Judith closed her eyes and touched the pentacles again. Wayne felt a warmth wash over him. His eyes drifted closed as he was enclosed in the celestial feeling. When he opened them, Judith spoke again. “Whenever I touch your pentacles, you will remember all we have done to prepare you. But when you leave my presence, that part will be like a dream. It will become clear whenever you have need of it. You are more than my apprentice. You are my lover.” She touched the medallion and Wayne felt her flow into him. He hardened in her again and they began a dance that would last all night.
Wednesday, 21 May 1969
Rebecca Allen sat in her office watching the academic building across the parking lot from her window. It was late. Rehearsal had been cancelled because of yet another break-in. She watched the police leave at last and the lights in the building go out. On the steps of the building, she could see two figures pause to talk as a security guard locked the doors behind them. It was an animated discussion. Though she could not see clearly in the lamplight, she knew the participants would be Wayne Hamel and Jim Richards.
She reached into the credenza behind her and pulled out the hat she had kept there since finding it last fall. It didn’t make sense. She could at least understand The Swordmaster’s motive for breaking into the library in October. But why the rash of theatre break-ins?
The subject had been discussed at faculty meetings twice. The prevailing opinion was that theatre students were long-haired hippy freaks. Hippies used drugs, so the break-ins must be drug related since no theatre equipment was stolen. It was no secret that Rebecca’s participation in the theatre’s England tour was about the only thing that kept cancellation of the trip from coming to a vote.
The problem she faced now was the distinct possibility that The Swordmaster might be sabotaging the tour to keep Rebecca from completing her task in England. It seemed so ridiculous; so petty. But the thought kept nagging at Rebecca.
From her talks with Wayne over the past couple of weeks, she knew that he was still very much attached to Judith. In fact, enthralled might be a good word. But Judith seemed to pay little if any attention to Wayne whenever Rebecca was around. And she was developing enough concern for the boy that she was irritated to find him being toyed with by Judith. It just didn’t make sense.
Rebecca moved decisively from the chair in her office, stuffed the hat in her satchel, picked up her walking stick and left. She hated to do this, but she had to be certain. Her power was adequate to do a reading on the building, of that she was certain. She would use the hat as a talisman to determine if Judith was the culprit. If she was, it was not a matter for the police.
Her master key led her swiftly through the academic building and into the library proper. She was thankful for influential friends as high as the president emeritus of the college who saw to it that her key was always current and that no one asked why she needed it. She opened the door of the rare books room and keyed in the numerical sequence that aborted the alarm. The light blinked green.
She did not like this room—never had. It had been refurbished four years previously and an elaborate alarm system had been installed. The shelves and boxes that once stood here were changed to air-tight vaults for the preservation of rare texts and manuscripts. But this was the room in which The Blade first attacked her husband and the encounter still reverberated in Rebecca’s ears as she opened the high door to the roof.
Over the years, this had become her private sanctuary. No one came up here. She had discovered, soon after her initiation into Coven Carles, that there was an intersection of ley lines beneath the building. The junction, while not as powerful as those found in many of the holy shrines, was still strong enough to give a sense of stability and balance to her rituals. She had a better view of the sky and stars than she could get amid the city lights below. Here she celebrated each of the sabbats when she was unable to join her brothers and sisters in England. Just three weeks ago, she’d lain on the roof, delighted to see her lights joining others celebrating Beltane and had wondered if one of the lights had been the joining of Wayne and Judith. She was surprised to find herself aroused by the thought.
In the center of her circle she placed the hat. She invoked the guardians of the watchtowers as she had been taught years before, naming each cardinal quarter and inviting it to attend her ritual. She felt a charge of electricity as she visualized the white light that would surround her workings as it flared into existence. This was how power was meant to feel—pure, fresh, cleansing. Perhaps she had been wrong to deny its use for so long. Half-remembered words attributed to Aleister Crowley crept into her consciousness. “The difference between white magic and black magic is that white magic is poetry and black magic works.” Was that what she was so afraid of?
She stood on the north side of the hat and stretched her walking stick out over it. In ritual use, it was her wand, Pele, that Doc Heinrich had helped her cut fifteen years ago—the first step toward her eventual initiation. She began humming as she so often did when she worked, letting breaths become notes and notes become words as she put together a chant of divination to determine whether it was Judith who kept breaking into the theatre beneath her. Rebecca was convinced that it was someone with power that kept them from being discovered.
She had barely begun her chant when she sensed a presence nearby. With the half-aware reflex of a person who had lived much of her life ready for attack, Rebecca spun away from the center of the circle as a knife materialized in the air. It hit and stuck straight up through the crown of the hat. Instinctively, Rebecca willed her wards to greater strength and crouched, her own knife coming readily to hand. She listened, straining her ears for the least sound breaking the silence.
The circle flared white all around her, but there was no other movement.
Rebecca dropped her wards and slipped into shadow. Her knife stayed ready in her right hand and her staff was clutched firmly in her left. She was quite able to defend herself, but needed to find the assailant first. If it was The Swordmaster, perhaps she was not quite so able to defend herself. The young woman had earned her title. But Rebecca had once defeated The Blade. She would take her chances against this new opponent. She moved carefully around the walls of the library stacks that jutted above the roof level at which she worked, keeping her ears cocked for a sound from above. A full circle of the area brought her back to her sanctuary and she faced the only other structure that jutted above the roof at this height—the fly space and fire windows of the stage. She could see no shadows moving; could hear no sounds.
Determined to flush out her attacker, Rebecca sprang out and rushed across the thirty feet from the wall at her back to the theatre windows and then spun to look back. She saw only the slight movement of the door to the rare books room closing. She ran to it and pulled at the handle. It was locked tightly. The doorstop she had used to prop it open lay nearby. Her way off the roof was blocked.
“Damn!” she hurled at the closed door. She spun to face the knife in the crown of the hat. She was furious. It had no handle and was dull, scarcely the shape of a knife, not the finished product. Yet that shape was familiar. She had seen Creüs before—done battle with its caretaker—had seen the knife descending toward her breast.
This replica was perfectly placed in the crown. It had not been meant to hit her. It had landed exactly where the thrower intended. In fact, as she remembered, it materialized directly over the hat inside her wards. Was it a sign? Rebecca’s power was not that of the wind. When her power first rose in her those years ago, it had been the power of fire.
She stretched out her wand toward the blade, flexing her right hand with remembered pain and remembered power as she did. The end of her wand touched the knife.
Burn.
The word was on the tip of her tongue but unspoken as she remembered ritual fire that had burned out of control. The charred handle of the knife she now carried and the red color of her staff were constant reminders of that night. Burn.
Saturday, 8 August 1955
It was only a few days after Lughnasad when she came into her room in Edinburgh to find the sacrificial tableau. There was no question in her mind regarding who was responsible. The Blade, keeper of the First Face of Coven Carles, had his own agenda and had violated her private space. But in his act, he had provided two new tools. Her walking stick, given to her by Doc, would become her wand. The knife that The Blade had left impaling it would be her Athamé.
“May you find pleasure in my act, oh most high ones. May you see a tool of good sanctify and purify a tool of evil and turn it to your service. I name this wand Pele! Firerod, flaming beauty, angel of fire, purifier of the unclean. Brigit, goddess of fire, to you be this rod sanctified.”
Rebecca, now fully the witch Sadb, raised her hands to the East and began slowly turning clockwise, gathering into her more power as she commanded the blessings of the powers of all the elements on her wand. She stumbled a little as she came back to the East and saw the sacrificial tableau again. She could feel a crackling surge of power all around her and faltered beneath the influence of the assault on her senses. She was filled with strength and power that she was not sure she could control. Her eyes focused on the mock sacrifice, the stiletto still protruding from her sanctified wand. Rage overcame her doubt as she glared at the scene.
“How dare you!” she screamed. “I will not be intimidated by you. You will be pure. You will be free!”
Sadb raised a hand to point at the dagger without touching it. She could feel the force gathering behind her for what she intended. She spun, gathering the powers of the elementals together again and felt another surge in her hands.
So, this is power, she thought as she drifted once again around the circle with arms outstretched, collecting more strength as she passed each point. This is what Phaethon felt when Helios handed him the reins of the Sun Chariot and told him to drive the horses of dawn. No wonder Zeus struck him down. Such power could destroy the earth. And I am the focus of the cone of power. It lives in me. I can do whatever I will.
She focused her eyes on the stiletto and on her wand. She stretched out her hands and began to chant.
“I name thee Elhin. Wind master, air spirit, Athamé. May the fires of Brigit purify you. May Pele rise in the volcanic forge to burn away the dross of your making. May you be lifted ever and only in the service of the goddess. May that hand which wielded you feel and know the force of this power.”
I bind this spell by three times three;
As I do speak, so mote it be.
“Burn!” Smoke rose from the staff as it darkened and flamed. All around the knife, the fire danced from her wand, licking up the blade of the knife.
The four winds whipped a cyclone around her. It fanned the flames rising from her wand. The fire had a life of its own, running the length of the wand and licking up the blade. The red candle melted to a mere puddle, the flames hanging like some overripe fruit about to fall. And fall it did, dripping flames back onto the dresser, burning some invisible fuel on the surface. Then they reached deeper into the finish and into the charring wood.
Sadb realized with a sudden fright that she was no longer in control of the fire. She burst into tears at the knowledge of what she must do even before the searing physical pain of the hot knife penetrated the nerves of her hands. She jerked it out of the burning wood and raised it above her head, screaming in agony. Then she drove downward with all her might, burying the knife again, this time into the floorboards. With that act, all her barriers dropped and she released the warding powers that had ensured her privacy.
Wednesday, 21 May 1969
Burn. The word did not pass her lips. She placed her staff back on the gravel roof and felt the flood of energy drain from her as she was grounded. That was the power she had sworn never to use again. The power that destroyed, that had destroyed everything she loved. She might die in an attack, but she would not attack herself.
What she needed now was a way off the roof. She packed her belongings and headed toward the fire windows.
It was midnight and Wayne was pissed as hell. Rehearsal had been cancelled. Instead he spent four hours leading administration officials, police, a private detective, and two dogs through the scene shop, props closet, and costume wardrobes on a drug hunt. They were convinced now that drugs were hidden on the premises somewhere. Four break-ins in a year. Unbelievable.
And Jim was turning on him. After the hunt, he had made it perfectly clear that Wayne’s future as technical supervisor for the theatre was also in jeopardy, as was the trip to England. It was a real mess. Wayne couldn’t see past his nose for the fury that burned in him.
Back in his room, after seething and swearing for a good hour, he turned at last to the little shrine on his top shelf. A pine box with his uncle’s journals in it. A knife wrapped in black silk and burlap. A black robe. The incense burner that had been there was missing, an acute reminder of the last time he experimented with what was written in the book. Well, this time would be no experiment, he determined, as he reached for the box and robe. His uncle had written of a means of protecting a building from break-in that he had used during the war. It was a complex spell and when his uncle had done it, he was inside the building. Wayne would have to try to do it from outside. It should work, he thought. He’d just have to think it through inside out. Somehow, that made sense to him in his angered state.
He’d never thought that a bulky black robe might be good for sneaking across campus without being seen, but when he donned it, he felt absorbed into the midnight shadows. They were easy to find and he slipped from one to another without a chance of being seen. Had he found any other way to spend his anger, he would have thought what he was doing was terribly funny.
“Berserk student dons black sheet and does hocus pocus dance around school building,” Wayne mentally read the newspaper headlines. “Boy burned at stake for practicing witchcraft,” the next one read. What in the name of all the powers are you trying to do? Go to a movie.
The thoughts were kept just below the surface as Wayne traced a circle around the entire building with the point of the knife just touching the ground as he walked backward. It took nearly five minutes to completely circle the building the first time. He kept going when he passed his starting point, chanting the words he had learned from his uncle’s Book of Shadows. A breeze caught up with him as he went. By the third circuit he could feel a regular wind following him.
His third circuit was nearly complete when a figure dropped out of a window above him, hit him in the shoulder and sent him sprawling. It knocked the wind out of Wayne and he was slow getting up. He could just see the figure disappear across the parking lot when he got to his feet.
“Damn you!” he said beneath his breath, not daring to shout into the silent night air. “I’ll get you. I will get you for this.” His anger renewed, he finished the last ten feet of the circle, jabbed the knife angrily into the ground and said, “I’ll blow you to hell when I get you.”
The sudden wind nearly knocked Wayne off his feet. He thought first of the tornado just a few weeks before and then of his uncle’s words afterward. “Oh shit,” he whispered. But the wind did not increase and away from the building it scarcely seemed to move at all. But when he reached for the knife where it stuck from the ground, he could feel the constant wind, blowing the same direction that he had traced the circle. He knew that something was working right.
Rebecca was fighting a wind as she struggled to get down from the roof of the building. The fire windows over the theatre had recently been inspected, locked, and the loose window she had once used replaced. Well it was only three stories, she reminded herself as she tested the guy-wire of the school’s radio station sending tower. On one side of the building, the wire was anchored into the ground some sixty feet away from the building. The angle should break her fall enough to not get seriously injured if she could brake her descent. But this was not her idea of fun.
She folded the hat in half, placed it across the wire and then placed her staff across the hat. Taking hold of both ends, she launched herself out and away from the edge of the building, sliding at peak speed down the cable. As her feet touched the ground she crumpled and rolled, continuing the forward motion from her descent. She lay there gasping for air, inventorying her body to see that everything was intact. It was, much to her relief. She gathered her belongings from the ground and struggled home. She had not learned what she wanted to learn, but she had certainly found more questions.
“You wouldn’t have believed it, Chameleon,” he said. “I cast the spell and it worked. I pushed toward the door of the building and I couldn’t make it. The farther in I pushed, the hard the wind was to push against. Three feet away you can barely feel the air move. A foot away and you are being blown back and away.”
“And how long is this spell supposed to last, Unbound?”
“It will last until I lift it, I suppose. Is there a magic half-life? Does it get weaker in the daylight? Shit! People have to get into the building in the morning. They won’t understand. I thought I did it all right. I’d better get over there and dismiss it.”
“Don’t panic, sweetheart. You did good. You just need to be there before the first person arrives in the morning. Let’s see, sunrise is at six-thirty. If you are there to release the spell at six o’clock, you should be fine. What shall we do till then?” she teased.
“Uh… are we going to have sex again?”
“I’m not your lover, apprentice. For me, sex was simply a way to open you up to the fullness of your power. We might do that again, but not tonight,” she said.
“I feel powerful, but I don’t feel complete, yet. I don’t know what to do.”
“Well, one thing is the gathering of your tools. You’ve been given a knife and pentacles. They are powerful and you are working way advanced spells with nothing else. But I have a little gift for you, too.”
“You’ve been very generous to me already, Chameleon. I don’t need a gift from you.”
“That’s why it is such fun to give you something. Finish your coffee. I mean drain it completely this time.”
Wayne drank the coffee, bracing himself for grounds in the bottom of the cup. There were none and when he looked into the cup he saw a star painted on the bottom. He looked more closely and discovered a pattern of stars and astrological symbols all around the bottom of the cup.
“This isn’t a Donut World cup,” he mused.
“No. This is your cup. It’s the same shape as a Donut World cup, but it is customized for you. I think the cup is a special symbol for you. It’s usually filled with either very fresh water, like from a running stream, or salt water from the ocean. For you, though, you will always have power flowing through you when you drink coffee from your cup.”
“That seems so silly, Chameleon.”
“So does speaking the words of a spell aloud when you are alone. But that’s the only way it works. Magic isn’t about the unusual, but rather about the common being recognized as magical. We use magic every day and never think a thing about it. We utter spells, prayers, oaths. It’s when we are reminded about it that it becomes special. Now when you drink your coffee, you will be reminded of the power in your cup. And now that you have three tools, your power will grow again.”
“It would if I could ever remember it. I didn’t think about it at all tonight until I was in my room, swearing and taking out my frustrations beating my pillow. Then, all of a sudden, I saw my robe and Athamé, and I knew what I had to do. Until they became my focus, it was all like a dream.”
“Relish the dreams, Unbound. In them you will learn the secrets.”
Comments
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
