More than that, the spots and patterns seemed to have a kind of flow, though I couldn’t quite make sense of them until I began to see the rhythmic pulses of light like gleaming musical notes. They were as distinctive to me as fingerprints might be to a detective.
Lady’s pattern lit up with the lovely three-beat cadence of a waltz. The light of Church’s pattern didn’t oscillate as much, moving back and forth between a pair of gleam notes the way most Johnny Cash songs did. Cassius’s pattern pulsed in tight formations, like the close-set minor notes of Wagner’sRing Cyclefuneral march. Their spots obscured some of the gleam notes in the songs of them, but that also made them easier to see.
I pointed at Lady’s shadow. “You’re a . . .” Lady rolled her eyes sidelong toward Chuey. “Chuey and I don’t have secrets,” I told her.
“The proper term isvestige.” She pulled another stitch in Cassius’s neck. “A vestige is a semblance that has been bound to a body. A semblance is a soul that hasn’t moved on after death.”
Cassius had said something about that. “And the one who binds them is a thanatist?”
“Just so,” said Church.
“What’s a thanatist?” Chuey asked. “Like a necromancer,” I said.
“Again,” Cassius called from the corner, “be careful with whom you use that term. And even then it describes only a small portion of what a thanatist can do.”
Chuey muttered something I couldn’t quite hear and trudged back to his stool to work his rosary.
I could have used some loud music just then, to help me think. I took a breath, trying to slow things down. “So, I wasn’t able to see you for who you are until I came back.”
Church smiled. “Oh, Jack. Don’t tell me you don’t know us for who we are.”
My first night in London, I’d wandered into the Iron Horse. No connections in the city. No place to crash. I was scared, and the old pressure had been tearing away at my insides, even though I’d tried to run five thousand miles away from it. Church and Lady had invited me to sit with them, no questions about my lost-in-the-city look. They dragged me into a hilarious debate over which Deep Purple vocalist was the best, like I’d been there every night for years, and used my name as comfortably as they used each other’s.
“You’re right,” I said. “And you do look the same . . . but also different.” “It’s called the Enigma Covenant,” said Church. He held out one hand and used the other to trace some gilded stitching just inside his shirt cuff. I could see a faint glow inside them, like Cassius’s bindings.
“Thanatists weave a special thread known as ‘bunda’ into wristbands, bracelets, necklaces, and even clothing”—Church tapped his cuff—“which can then bind a semblance to a body. To the mortal mind, this thread can also disguise the thanaturgic reality, usually suggesting only an approximation of the truth.”He pointed to a symbol in his cuff—thread woven into the shape of a theater mask.
I studied the design of it. “Cassius has a symbol like this in his threads, too.” “Most vestiges do.” Church called over to Chuey. “Chuey, what do you see when you look at Lady’s patient?”
Chuey glanced at Cassius. “Guy looks like a linebacker in old military fatigues.”
“You see, Jack,” said Church, “the thread allows the thanaturgic world to hide in plain sight, thus avoiding human interference.”
“That why London’s CCTV won’t be any help identifying those Ren-faire thugs?” I asked.
“The vestiges, yes,” said Church. “Thanatists themselves, though, come by their camouflage naturally, so to speak. As for Lady and me, we don’t appear as drastically different because we’ve acclimated to our environment, its fashions, and more importantly, we’ve fallen in love with the music.”
Chuey tapped the chest of his tight Kamelot band T-shirt. “So, you’re nottotallyinsane.”
Chuey’s shadow, lying on the entry rug behind him, had the dark shimmer of the lantern-bearers, but with a crisp black outline and fewer spots. And its sequence of gleam notes had a jazzy groove.
I looked back at Church’s shirt cuff. “There are a lot of symbols on your bindings.”
“That is a lengthy topic,” said Church. “And one I think best taken another time.”
“Fair enough.” I pointed at the floor. “But what about the patterns and spots I see in your shadows?”
Lady smiled. “The patterns are the unique expressions of who we are.
And the spots are wounds of the heart—some given, some received.”
I nodded, though I didn’t truly understand. “Lady, you’re actually a doctor, then?”
“A barber surgeon in another life.” She wagged her needle. “Much easier at the time for a woman to be accredited for surgery if she was willing to do it in battle. I learned to fight while treating the fallen. Good training, too, since here I’m part of Henry’s crew—a wize, as we say. I fight when I’m needed and see to the well-being of those in his care.”
“Your nickname ‘Lady’ have something to do with that?” I asked.
Her eyes became distant. “Boys in the war took to calling me ‘Lady of the Valley.’ They believed I’d walked into the ‘valley of the shadow of death’ to try and pull them out alive.”
