Ethan Rayne woke to himself in the midst of the Nevada desert, half blind and starved but standing. Behind him was a blackened, smoking hole in the sand, a doorway that vanished a little more with each wind gust. Before him was the wavering horizon, a stretch of gold and blue rolling ever onward. He drew in a rasping breath, the heat a physical weight banding his chest and slackening his thin limbs. He fell to his knees and stretched his wet red hand into the rippling heat, his fingers dragging in the sand.
The curve should be just so, and within it a line this long, adjoined to a sickle here, and in this portion a sharp edge, and here a doorway and here another and this to buffer and this to demand. He was breathing hard when he finished, the sweat already starting down his naked back, but it was still there. He had not lost the knowledge, had not lost the sure symbols that had somehow come from his shaking hands.
He cleared his throat and, sucking in great lungfuls of heat, drew his fingers through the well of moisture collected above his collarbone. Then he anointed himself with the blood of those he had slain.
"Iane Pater," he called, his voice a hollow rasp in the stillness as he traced his index finger unerringly over his forehead, smudging a sigil with the blood. "Iane biceps." He traced a new mark over his throat. "Iane," as he marked his nipples, "evoco vestram animam." Sternum, navel, penis. "Salve Iane Pater Matutine." He turned his feet up to mark their soles and the power was humming around him now; something inside was opening.
"Chaos," he said as he reached around to mark the back of his neck, his shoulder twinging at the angle, "namque ire per omnes terrasque tractusque maris caelumque profundum." For Chaos pervadeth all things, all lands, and the tracts of the sea, and the depths of the heavens.
"Veni," he implored, tracing the last sigil at the base of his spine, "appare et nobis monstra quod est infinita potestas." It echoed in his head as around him the desert dropped away (Come, appear) and there was an influx of bright and dark and (Show to us) a burning expanding from his core that was both heat and cold (that which is infinite power), and neither. And his ribs were sharp steel and his heart split open like a ripe plum and his mind was tossed aside into dreaming.
* * * * *
A huge, gasping breath. He did not realise he was holding it and it dries his mouth for a moment, his throat, his lungs. He can still taste blood, his tongue finding the little valley where his lip has cracked. His ribs are splintered, his back burning where he had been dragged roughly across the carpet, his jaw already swelling. The mattress shifts and the weight that had been pressing him down falls heavily aside and for a moment he panics, convinced he may float away at the slightest breeze. But then he is being rolled over, gathered to a heaving chest, pinioned by strong arms. Ripper's mouth soft on his damp hair, his forehead; Ripper's hands already pressing lightly against his bruised skin, making plans.
Ethan breathes and smiles and curls against his lover, presses himself into this force which has overthrown his life and his heart and his reason. He closes his eyes and, happy, rests.
* * * * *
"Iane biceps," Ethan said into the broad, waiting desert, his voice low and rich and holy, heavy with the names of the divine. Janus two-faced. Father Janus. Keeper of the gate. Guarder of keys. Warden of the vast universe. Ruler of the wheeling pole. Opener of the softly gliding year. God of beginnings. God of gods. Janus. Iane. Chaos.
* * * * *
There is laughter in the room, ringing all around him, but the face above him is changing. The eyes were always empty but now the mouth is wrong, the mouth is stretching and beneath are fangs.
Suddenly it is not fun. Someone has cut loose the strings and he is falling fast, falling terribly fast, and over him the thing wearing Randall's skin is getting out and around him they are laughing, laughing. He screams and suddenly it hurts, it *hurts* and it is driving into him, up into him, and he sees in its bright black eyes that it will devour him. It will skin him from the inside.
Like it has Randall.
There is a strong smell of rotting burning skin and he sees Randall's throat is blackening and peeling away. It falls on his bare chest, a piece of Randall's throat, a piece of Randall, Randall raining down on him and in him and around him and oh god it *hurts* and the smell is too much, the smell and the scratching and oh god oh God Jesus God.
* * * * *
Iane Matutine. Janus of the newly-risen morn. Janus of the night. Janus two-faced. Forward-looking, backward, and below. The sower. Saeculum, Aeon, Olam, Purana-Purusha.
The desert purpled slowly with shadow and the glittering sand faded into the glittering black sky, and Ethan broke into and out of his trance, his mind skipping and stuttering like an old record. The air was cooling quickly but his body glistened with sweat, and the marks burned and his body burned and his mind wheeled around the holy power spilling over him.
Janus. Pilier du ciel. The means by which one may pass from the earth to the sky.
* * * * *
At night the city lights are supposed to be like stars, from far enough above. London spangled over the black earth, and through this constellation Ethan blazes.
Beyond each darkened shop window that the motorcycle flies past is their apartment. Ethan, young and heart-sick and mind-sick, can see only their empty bedroom, the bed where no one has slept for days yet unmade, all the wrong clothes tumbling from the open closet. The complete absence of Ripper. Not everything gone but just enough that Ethan knows, he knows he is not coming back.
Nine days and Ethan cannot fathom his own continued existence. Nine days since that day when there was no Ripper. The day of Randall and the demon. The day which threw one young heart and his last abominable act into the balance-pan. And now Ethan has only his shame and the motorcycle beneath him and the wind on his face and chaos in him like a new flower, a thing of thorns and silk petals. Ever-opening.
He knows the divinity of threes. He can feel the city quiver around him as he flies (and he is flying, flying, the wind so strong he can hardly breathe, his hand aching on the gas) and within him is the knowledge that Janus has two faces you see and another you do not, that Janus is god of beginnings and endings and ---. The divinity of threes.
Before him a shining pair of headlights in the darkness, approaching fast. Within him the memory of Ripper and his heart flaking away from the inside.
The lights bear down.
Ethan leans into them, hard.
The delivery truck swerves but does not miss.
* * * * *
He woke again to the small world of his circle to find it ringed with a whirling pillar of sand which continued up into blackness. His limbs unfolded easily, no longer aching but singing with power, hollow and heavy. The sorcerer stood and in three steps he had broken through the protective boundary he'd scratched in the shifting ground.
He closed his eyes and spread his arms and the gale spiraled around him, scouring him clean and pressing new strength through his thin skin. Around him everything flew apart in a high roar, the earth lifting into the sky as Chaos broke open and set its long teeth into the world.
He stepped into the yawning jaw of his god.
The desert heaved and the night buckled in flame.
In Ethan there was bright and dark and holy holy holy.