Clive Barker - Imajica 02 - The Reconciliator

That future was now. As the hours since Monday's return crept on, and Jude still didn't return, Gentle was reduced to picking his recollections of Roxborough's letter apart, looking for some clue in the purger's words as to what threat might be coming to the doorstep. He even wondered if the man who'd written the letter was numbered among the revenants who by midmoming could be glimpsed in the heat haze. Had Roxborough come back to watch the demise of the street he'd called damnable? If he had—if he listened at the step the way he had in his dream—he was most likely as frustrated as the occupants, wishing they'd get on with the work he hoped would invite calamity.

But however many doubts Gentle harbored concerning Jude, he could not believe she would conspire against t\\e Great Work. If she said it was unsafe she had good reason for so saying, and, though every sinew in Gentle's body raged at inactivity, he refused to go downstairs and bring the stones up into the Meditation Room, for fear their very presence might tempt him into warming the circle. Instead he waited, and waited, and waited, while the heat outside rose and the air in the Meditation Room grew sour with his frustration. As Scopique had said, a working like this required months of preparation, not hours, and now even those hours were being steadily whittled away. How late could he afford to postpone the ceremony before he gave up on Jude and began? Until six? Until nightfall? It was an imponderable.

There were signs of unease outside the house as well as in. Scarcely a minute went by without a new siren being added to the chorus of whoops and wails from every compass point. Several times through the morning, bells began chiming from steeples in the vicinity, their peals neither summons nor celebration but alarm. There were even cries occasionally: shouts and screams from distant streets carried to the open windows on air now hot enough to make the dead sweat.

And then, just after one in the afternoon, Clem came up the stairs, his eyes wide. It was Taylor who spoke, and there was excitement in his voice.

"Somebody's come into the house, Gentle."

"Who?"

"A spirit of some kind, from the Dominions. She's downstairs."

"Is it Jude?"

"No. This is a real power. Can't you smell her? I know you've given up women, but your nose still works, doesn't it?"

He led Gentle out onto the landing. The house lay quiet below. Gentle sensed nothing.

"Where is she?"

Clem looked puzzled. "She was here a moment ago, I swear."

Gentle went to the top of the stairs, but Clem held him back.

"Angels first," he said, but Gentle was already beginning his descent, relieved that the torpor of the last few hours was over and eager to meet this visitor. Perhaps she carried a message from Jude.

The front door stood open. There was a pool of beer glinting on the step, but no sign of Monday.

"Where's the boy?" Gentle asked.

"He's outside, sky watching. He says he saw a flying saucer."

Gentle threw his companion a quizzical look. Clem didn't reply but laid his hand on Gentle's shoulder, his eyes going to the door of the dining room. From inside came the barely audible sound of sobbing.

"Mama," Gentle said, and gave up any caution, hurrying down the rest of the flight with Clem in pursuit.

By the time he reached Celestine's room, the sound of her sobs had already disappeared. Gentle drew a defensive breath, took hold of the handle, and put his shoulder to the door. It wasn't locked but swung open smoothly, delivering him inside. The room was ill-lit, the drooping, mildewed curtains still heavy enough to keep the sun to a few dusty beams. They fell on the empty mattress in the middle of the floor. Its sometime occupant, whom Gentle had not expected to see standing again, was at the other end of the room, her tears subsided to whimpers. She had brought one of the sheets from her bed with her and, seeing her son enter, drew it up to her breastbone. Then she turned her attention back towards the wall she was standing close to and studied it. A pipe had burst somewhere behind the brick, Gentle supposed. He could hear water running freely.

"It's all right. Mama," he said. "Nothing's going to hurt you."

Celestine didn't reply.. She'd raised her left hand in front of her face and was looking at the palm, as if into a mirror.

"It's still here," Clem said.

"Where?" Gentle asked him.

He nodded in the direction of Celestine, and Gentle instantly left his side, opening his arms as he went to offer the haunted air a fresh target.

"Come on," he said. "Wherever you are. Come on."

Halfway between the door and his mother he felt a cool drizzle strike his face, so fine it was invisible. Its touch was not unpleasant. In fact it was refreshing, and he let out an appreciative gasp.

"It's raining in here," he said.

"It's the Goddess," Celestine replied.

She looked up from studying her hand, which Gentle now saw was running with water, as though a spring had appeared in her palm.

"What Goddess?" Gentle asked her.

"Uma Umagammagi," his mother replied.

"Why were you crying, Mama?"

"I thought I was dying. I thought She'd come to take me."

"But She hasn't."

"I'm still here, child."

"Then what does She want?"

Celestine extended her arm to Gentle. "She wants us to make peace," she said. "Join me in the waters, child."

Gentle took hold of his mother's hand, and she drew him towards her, turning her face up to the rain as she did so. The last traces of her tears were being washed away, and a look of ecstasy appeared where there had been grief. Gentle felt it too. His eyes wanted to flicker closed; his body wanted to swoon. But he resisted the rain's blandishments, tempting as they were. If it carried some message for him, he needed to know it quickly and end these delays before they cost the Reconciliation dearly.

"Tell me," he said, as he came to his mother's side, "whether you're here to stay; tell me...."

But the rain made no reply, at least none that he could grasp. Perhaps his mother heard more than he did, however, because there were smiles on her glistening face, and her grip on Gentle's hand became more possessive. She let the sheet she'd held to her bosom drop, so that the rains could stroke her breasts and belly, and Gentle's gaze took full account of her nakedness. The wounds she'd sustained in her struggles with Dowd and Sartori still marked her body, but they only served to prove her perfection, and although he knew the felony here, he couldn't stem his feelings.

She put her free hand up to her face and with thumb and forefingers emptied the shallow pools of her sockets, then once again opened her eyes. They found Gentle too quickly for him to conceal himself, and he felt a shock as their looks met, not just because she read his desire, but because he found the same in her face.

He wrested his hand from hers and backed away, his tongue fumbling with denials. She was far less abashed than he. Her eyes remained fixed on him, and she called him back into the rain with words of invitation so soft they were barely more than sighs. When he continued to retreat, she turned to more specific exhortations.

"The Goddess wants to know you," she said. "She needs to understand your purpose."

"My... Father's... business," Gentle replied, the words as much defense as explanation, shielding him from this seduction with the weight of his purpose.

But the Goddess, if that was what this rain really was, wouldn't be shaken off so easily. He saw a look of distress cross his mother's face as the vapors deserted her to move in pursuit of him. They passed through a spear of sun as they came, and threw out rainbows.

"Don't be afraid of Her," Gentle heard Clem say behind him. "You've got nothing to hide."