“So?”
“So I studied moon phases, when I thought––never mind. Anyway, it’s called Half Moon.”
I had learned that when I was looking into werewolves. “It’s pointing,” said Ballard.
I nodded. “The engraving on the bench, meanwhile, has the eye with the moon in it waning crescent. Pointing to the left.”
“Thataway,” said Ballard.
We started following it.
The next set of eyes that we came to was on a fire hydrant. Marek found them.
On these, the moon was waxing crescent. Pointing to the right!
We followed where it pointed, everyone spreading out, trying to find the next one. We searched on the sides of buildings, for carvings in trees... looking for the next one. One set of eyes had been written in white upon a traffic sign. “Pointing waning,” I said.
We continued to follow the signs, zigzagging left, right, around the empty streets. Infester had hidden the way to get to his place in the open!
“I can’t believe I never saw this,” said Lennox. “Have you noticed the sun? It seems to be rising.”
So it was. The sun in the other eye would go up or down, depending on how close we were. “Like we’re getting hotter or colder,” said Marek, pointing to the symbol in the eyeball beside the moon.
“Keep going,” said Ballard.
It took all of us together, to find them all. When we did, we were standing in front of an old wooden door, with a triangular-shaped stone pediment above it, that had been carved with a full moon and a blazing sun. Like two giant stop signs.
We had found it. We were here. This was it.
* * *
Ballard knocked. I held my bag with the Codex in it. It was just about the most eye-opening experience of my life. He was a little man. That’s what I noticed, first of all. He gave us the runaround at first. “Who are you?” “What do you want?” All that.
He peeped at us through a small opening in the door. Then threw it aside when he realized who we were.
He had scraggly, unkempt white hair, and his eyes, in their sockets, contained pale cataracts, as though Infester hadn’t seen the sun in years. He had the hands of a tinkerer and he held a string that he rolled and unrolled around his fingertip.
He beckoned for us to come inside. He knew instantly Lennox and Marek were vampires. “And I don’t hold it against you,” he said. “Not at all, not at all.”
Ballard said hello. When he got to me, Infester’s eyes did a double take. He quickly bolted the door, when we were inside. The doorway was nearly concealed by the rusticated masonry and vines growing over it, and also by the location. It was the oldest of old Rome, the valley in the seven hills. “I have never received visitors before,” he said. He called us his fellow travelers.
“So you’re him?” said Marek.
“I am Infester, yes.”
“Is that your real name?”
“Names are illusions, boy, given to us before we know who we are yet. I am who I say I am,” said Infester.
He showed us around; it was like a fortification. “I am afraid I have the Apocalypse on the brain,” he informed us.
“So you do believe in it? That it’s coming?”
It was Lennox who spoke. Infester looked him up and down. “It is a pleasure to meet you. Truly,” he said, then nodded. “I am too old, of course, to fight. Thirty years! It’s a long time to wait... I always imagined I would be on the front lines. When I tried to tell people, they wouldn’t listen. They refused to listen.”
We followed him into his home. I saw a box with lights blinking and a large display he had on the wall. It was an image of the city. There were red dots and blue dots. The blue dots were many, but then the red dots started taking over. Pretty soon, the red dots were destroying the blue dots.
“It’s simulating,” he said.
Over and over––the red dots kept wiping out the blue.
“It’s the Zombie Apocalypse.” He had a high wee voice.
I didn’t want him to be right. I wanted him to be crazy.
“We’ve read your book,” said Lennox.
“Good, good,” said Infester.
“There isn’t a date. When is this supposed to happen?”
“Ah, but you haven’t been reading the signs,” said Infester. “It’s all in the papers. Murder, death, mayhem. The signs are upon us. ‘When is it starting?’ It’s starting now, boy. It’s starting NOW!”
“You know about what’s going on?”
Infester nodded. “The dead rising. Guardians... too busy...” He pointed at Ballard with his finger. “That’s how it starts. They bide their time, you see, building their forces. When they have enough, that’s us gone, boy.”
“You talk about weapons, in here,” said Ballard.
Infester grinned, playing with his string. “I haven’t been twiddling my thumbs for thirty years,” he said.
“So you do have weapons?”
“Some,” he said.
“Can we see them?”
“Well, that depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether or not you’re prepared to swear the oath. ‘I, state your name...’ Go on,” he said.
“‘I, state your name,’” said Ballard. “What about the other three?”
“No. Just you,” said Infester, crazily.
He made Ballard do the oath that was in the book. It was only later that I realized vampires were exempt. It had to be spoken by a human. So why hadn’t he made me do it? And did that mean Ballard really was human?
The overriding impression of Infester was that he saw everything everybody else missed, like he could look right through you.
When he showed them down to the basement, he stopped me, and said, “Not you.” I looked at him, confused.
“I need to talk to you,” he said. “Have you brought it?”
“Brought? What?” This was when things got really creepy. Lennox was too caught up with the prospect of weapons to notice I and Infester had gone.
“The book, child.”
I cocked my head at him. “What book?”
But he rolled his eyes at me. “My book brings you to me, and your book is supposed to––you know––” he made a motion with his hands. Did he mean the Codex?
I took it out to show him, and he clasped his hands together. “The book! The book!” The light in his eyes was manic. “May I?” he said.
I didn’t see why not. He took it and rubbed the cover with his hand, tracing the symbols, and flipped it open before my very eyes––like he had seen it all before, and had only been waiting for time to catch up with his precognition. “I see things,” he said, confirming this. “I saw you come. I’ve had a long time to think about what I would say to you. We haven’t got much time. Come, come,” he said. “I won’t take your book. There. See?” He gave it back to me. “They’ll only be down there for so long, and then I lose my Sight. Come on.”
I followed him to a place where he could see better.
“May I again?” he said.
I handed him the Codex. “In my visions of this moment,” he said, “you didn’t know about, well, any of it.”
“That’s me,” I said.
He smiled, warmly. I didn’t know if he was a lunatic or what. Something told me if this had been a few centuries ago, they would have burned him at the stake.
He laughed, as if he could read my thoughts.
“For a witch, you have got a delightful sense of humor about stake burnings,” he said.
I think I just goggled at him. Who was this guy? He had my full attention. He flipped the book open to the symbols. It was like a tarot reading––except I really did believe it.
It was like he had seen my future and could tell me what to look out for. I wanted to know about my parents.
He seemed to get that sense from me. “This did indeed belong to them,” he said, telling me what I already knew, “but I wonder if you have truly deciphered it, yet.”
br /> “I don’t know anything,” I said.
“Don’t be hard on yourself. You will get there. I see a long road for you, full of many adventures. But it won’t be easy. Now. Look.”
It was like watering a rose with my own blood. I looked on as he described the many symbols.
“You have got them only half right or not at all,” he said. “Take this symbol, for instance,” pointing to the Greek triangle for change.
“It’s the delta,” I said.
“No. That is only part of it,” he said. “It means more than that. Think. This is a magic book. These symbols are magic symbols. They are not Greek or anything else. They’re meant for a witch. They also happen to be about a witch. They tell a story of a young lady with tremendous powers.”
It was like pictograms.
“Exactly,” he said. “They tell the tale in pictures––or, well, symbols, really. But look.”
He pointed to the first symbol. It was the symbol for vampire. The circumpunct and triangle.
He told me I had it all wrong.
“It is and is not about a vampire,” he said. “With symbol, you’re talking about extremely complex ideas rendered ridiculously simply. Everything means two, three, four times more than what you expected.
“For instance, the triangle––Delta, as you called it. It means change, yes, but it also means fire. The vampire symbol speaks of a great romance, i.e., fire or passion, between a mortal and an immortal.
Lennox, I thought.
“But look.” He pointed to another symbol.
It was like the moons that I had followed to get to him. “In Wicca, this is the Triple Goddess. But there they’ve got it all wrong. It is actually the story of the Three Protectors.”
There was some banging going on downstairs. I paid no attention to it.
“There is a Legend,” began Infester.
Isn’t there always? I thought. And then mentally shut up.
“...Of a witch more powerful than any of her kind ever. But she is young and powerless, when the story begins. She doesn’t even know who she is yet. Then things get really dangerous.
“The Three Protectors are two vampires and one other one, represented here, by this symbol,” he said, pointing to the Triple Moon. “One moon is full. It neither waxes nor wanes. It is steady. Like a rock.
“The other two are fickle. And, if you noticed, against one another. See how they turn in different directions. Their backs are to each other. Some interpret that as a sign of coming grief, that they will tear her apart. Which is why the third moon separates them. However, I think something differently. I think they are vampires, and the symbol suggests that they can only protect her at certain times of the day.”
“When the sun’s not out,” I said.
“Exactly. The two crescent moons alternate looking out for her, but they can only do it sometimes. It is the third moon that never leaves her. They’re represented here also.”
He pointed to another symbol.
“This is the magic symbol for Protection. It’s a trefoil. Three circles, creating an unbreakable knot. Together they protect her from all comers.”
He pointed to his own book, The Urban 411. “What the cover is really saying, is that she––this superpowerful witch––is always protected, come day or night, whether by moonlight or the sun. Which takes us back to the first symbol. She will meet a vampire. His strength will protect her from death.”
“The circumpunct was the theta symbol, originally, the symbol for Death,” I said. I listened.
“And she will be his sun,” Infester continued, nodding. “That is why the circle encloses the symbol for vampire, the symbol for fire. And in the very center is his heart. His passion for her.
It looked like a tiny dot.
“But the sun means something else,” said Infester. “Light. What the symbol is saying is that when they... join together... they will have a Power. A Power of Sight. It even looks like an eye... You see?”
I looked at his spooky white eyes, wondering if I could be this witch. Impossible.
“How will she know when she meets the vampire?” I asked.
He pointed to the quatrefoil. I originally thought it had meant a warning.
“That is difficult. This one here, means a Vampire Coven. It suggests that she may meet a plurality of them. Many. Also, that she may have her eyes on more than just one.”
“The two vampire Protectors,” I asked.
“Precisely,” he said. “There’s something else, though.”
“How will she know which vampire to choose? Sorry,” I said, when I saw that I had interrupted him.
“Well, there’s actually a Fourth Protector. It’s the quatrefoil that suggests it.”
“A fourth!” I said.
“The symbols are deep. If you look at the symbol for Protection––” he said; he pointed to it again––
“––you will see that in the center of the three interconnected circles, there is a fourth point. That is the center. It shows up again inside the vampire symbol. It’s the center, inside the fire-symbol. The dot.”
“Is it a vampire, too?”
“I don’t know. But who- or whatever it is, look for someone with a connection to fire.”
I felt like my head would explode. So the symbols told a story. And... what?
“You don’t think––I mean, I’m not...”
“The person in this story doesn’t have a choice. These things will come to pass. They’re finished,” he said. I looked around confused. “Downstairs,” said Infester.
We got up and he gave me back my book. “Take this too,” he said, passing me The 411. “Like I said, I’m too old, and if no one listened, so be it.”
Lennox, Marek and Ballard had their arms full of stuff––weapons; they were getting lots more. “What I can’t figure out,” said Marek, “is if there are supposed to be zombies, where are they?”
Ballard and Lennox told him about their stone theory. “Can we ask the computer?” asked Marek. He pointed to the computer. It was running simulations.
I continued to think about what Infester had told me. I thought I knew what the symbols meant. But there was a final one, I didn’t know.
Chapter 18 – Halsey
Marek loaded up the car while the computer continued to run simulations. “I designed the program myself,” said Infester, looking on as red swept the blue.
“Can we enter in some new variables?” said Ballard.
Infester showed him how to do it.
It began returning interesting results. “No, no, that’s wrong. Cold-blooded. We need to take into account ambient environment and also food sources,” said Ballard. He continued to type at the console.
Infester said, “Red’s first move is always to reach critical mass, boy. Numbers.” He twiddled his string. “It’s only after they have enough foot soldiers, they launch their offensive.”
“What we need is where they gather,” said Lennox. Marek had come back in.
Ballard continued to type. “I’m having the computer simulate the first seventy-two hours based on geography with reference to stone monuments; it’s doing it very rapidly.”
We watched the screen run through the simulations, first fast, then blindingly fast. The screen became an endless blur, first blue, then red, like a wave, washed over the entire city.
“What happens if you pull it back from Rome?” asked Marek.
They showed him.
The red overran the Earth.
“So nothing good,” said Marek, sarcastically.
I realized Marek was like his own machine––he was running simulations, too––whether or not to get the Lenoir involved.
“I’ll be,” said Ballard. “Of course. It makes perfect sense.”
“What did you find?” asked Lennox.
“It’s just a hunch, really.”
On the screen, the simulation reset. Except this time, the ‘first wave,’ as Infester called it, surrounded the
city. We watched as the red dots popped up.
“What kind of shape is that?” I asked.
“And why is it so big?” asked Lennox.
“I thought you were doing monuments,” said Marek.
“This is a monument!” said Ballard.
On the screen what looked like a gigantic, jagged circle, enclosed the heart of old Rome. I was nonplussed; and then it hit me. “Brilliant,” I said. I had seen that monument before. We all had.
“The Aurelian Wall,” said Ballard. “It runs everywhere.”
I gulped. Didn’t it run through Trastevere? Ballard seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “I need to tell Lia,” he said. “Now!”
Lennox nodded. “We may need their help,” he said.
“Have you forgotten,” said Marek, “about the first rule?”
“If we don’t stop this, there won’t be any rules,” said Lennox. “You saw the computer. They wipe out everything!”
“What exactly is this Aurelian Wall?” Now that he had a target, Marek cracked his knuckles. He tossed his head back and the hair fell out of his normally shadowed dark eyes. He looked menacing.
“It’s a battlement. Like a castle wall,” said Lennox. “It was built to keep out invading hordes.”
“Except now it’s going to keep us trapped in,” said Marek. “Let’s go there. Stop them.”
“You don’t understand,” said Ballard. “The Aurelian Wall is massive. If they’ve filled it with zombies... we’re done for.”
“They haven’t filled it with zombies,” said Lennox. “That would require murder on a grand scale. This boker, whoever he is, is too smart to raise old dead. The cemeteries have gone untouched. No, it’s the homeless people––the ones the city finds dead in the streets. Otherwise, the cops would have noticed something. It would be all over the newspapers.”
“We have to use our heads,” said Ballard. “The Aurelian Wall is huge in places. It’s twelve miles long, ten feet thick, it reaches heights of thirty-plus feet in some places. On top of it is a road. Inside are passageways. That’s where they’ve been hiding! No wonder no one saw them!”