The Hollow Ones(57)

“Instruments,” he said.

The religious articles jumped out at her first. Silver and bronze, some jeweled, crosses and what seemed like astrolabes and compasses. Goblets and candleholders. Powders in corked glass vials and accessories such as gloves and scarves that looked like vestments.

“These look like weapons,” she said.

Daggers and chisels and drills. Metal picks and short swords. There were wooden cases filled with tools for either medieval surgery or torture.

Another broad shelf held amulets fashioned from metal and from cloth. Stone figurines and carved totems. A handful of skulls. “Or trophies?” she said.

“They are work tools,” said Blackwood. “Please touch nothing.”

He had rolled out a black leather kit and began selecting items from his collection, inserting them into the worn pouches. He selected a dagger, a weird cross, a tube containing a pinkish potion that could only be called an elixir.

“You amassed all this over time,” Odessa guessed. “Acquired or stolen?”

Blackwood said, “I have built this collection for no other reason than necessity.”

Odessa wasn’t nervous anymore. She was beyond intimidation. “How old are you?” she asked.

He hesitated in packing his kit, a sign of impatience. “How old do I look?”

Odessa shrugged, walking along the table behind him. “Thirty-five.”

“Then I am thirty-five,” he said.

She passed a collection of writing instruments in an old glass jar. “How long have you been thirty-five years old?”

“Ah,” he said. “Now you are asking the right questions. But I hesitate to give you the answer.”

“Why is that?” she said.

“Most of the time—when I answer, the most irritating sound comes out,” he said. “A guffaw, I believe you call it, and I don’t much care to hear it again…”

“Try me,” she said.

After a long pause, Blackwood said, “Four hundred and fifty years.”

Odessa, of course, guffawed. Blackwood sighed.

“Coming up on half a millennium,” she said. “Quite an accomplishment.”

“Not really.”

“How is that possible?”

“Too open-ended,” he said, working with his back to her, unlacing a soft calfskin pouch, sniffing at the powder within.

“How did it happen?” she said. “How does a man—a human—live so long?”

“I think it should be obvious,” he said. “I was cursed.”

“Cursed,” she said. “By whom?”

“Not by a whom.”

“By a what, then?”

“It was the result of a transgression. A transgression against nature. It was just a folly, or so I thought. A séance…an invocation. But a line was breached. The sacred was met by the profane. And I was doomed to this existence.”

A lot to take in. Odessa said, “You were a barrister…?”

“Outside London. I was respected but unremarkable.”

“Did you have a family?”

“I was married.”

“How did a married barrister get involved in—”

“I had a retainer, a friend…an amazing man, actually. Someone I looked up to. Someone with many connections in the royal court, someone I thought could help me improve my professional standing. But also someone charismatic and fairly brilliant. I guess you could say I fell under his sway. I was little more than a bystander, I didn’t understand the depths he was exploring, nor the heights. I was fascinated, curious—but a dilettante. A layman. An amateur who had no place at his side. You must understand, though, this was 1580s London. I was a city barrister. And this man—his name was John Dee—opened my eyes to a speculative world of magic and mystery. Though the truth is, I blundered into his ministrations. The fact is, I’ll never know why he allowed my presence in the first place.”

Odessa continued slowly around the table of ancient instruments. “And…? What happened?”

“The world went out of balance. We—he—invited entrance into our plane of existence.”

“From…?”

“An astral plane. He was convinced he could contact an angel. But that is not what happened.”

“What did happen?”

Blackwood sighed, though with his back to her, Odessa could not tell if it was from impatience over this line of questioning…or regret for what had occurred.

He turned and stacked a few books on top of each other.

“Imagine, if you will, layers of reality—many astral planes existing on top of and beneath each other. These planes mostly stay separate, save for the occasional aberration or the dream world…”

“Dreams are an astral plane?” she asked.

“Entirely so,” answered Blackwood. “And we can live or die in them if properly trained…”

He pulled out a book from the center of the newly formed pile.

“Now,” he said, “through a complex process, these planes can be visited, or one can summon entities to visit our own. We did just that…The world, as I said, went out of balance…and I was thrown into, well, righting it. Not my choice, mind you.”