AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES...by Derek Emrys Rayne, Ph.D.
Lompoc, California - Sunday, 12 Nov. 2000 - 10 p.m.
It's been one year, almost to the moment, since the horrendous, miraculous, chaotic events of 1999 ended... my personal version of the Apocalypse... and I awoke at home, in my own room, the barest shell of what I had been only a few months before. It was so strange... "strange" is hardly the word for it... to awaken in such a condition, when I had no memory of reaching that state... and equally strange to have memories of a year that did not exist in my world.
I remember Jane Witherspoon crucified, hanging with dignity sullied, on a St. Andrews cross of steel girders. I remember Kristin Adams dying in my arms in a catacomb beneath Boston, but in this world, Kristin died in Philip's arms, while I lay in my bed 3,000 miles away. I recall the look on Megan's face the moment before her car blew up. The Megan Torrance of this world is living with her mother in Sacramento. She teaches nursing at UC Davis.
Everyone has bent backwards to be kind, to be understanding, compassionate, and concerned. Their "kindness" is suffocating. A year has not lessened it. I know they don't intend it so, but I sense an intensity... a fretfulness... beneath the surface... even in William, in his own antagonistic way.
He has had his own problems in dealing with an absence of two years. He should be home, with Patty. Is he here because the Ruling Council has lost faith in my abilities? I've certainly given them enough reasons to doubt me. Or... perhaps, they don't know what to do with William, and don't want him in London. Usually, a Ruling Precept serves until retirement, but his situation is unique. How to give him a position, without making it a demotion? Oh, well... his presence allows me the freedom to pursue my new project, which is far more time consuming and demanding than I'd anticipated. I'm beginning to feel like a battered tennis ball, whacked from San Francisco to LA and back again. Let him occupy himself here for a while. I'll flit in and out, or if needs be, stay away, and he can nag everyone else to distraction.
~~~~~~~~~
As for myself... I can tell when my memory has played me false. I'll mention something and everyone grows silent. I see a flash of pity in their eyes, then they'll instantly adjust their expressions. It's become routine... then I'll ask, "What happened in this world?" I find myself simply not wanting to be on Angel Island. I cannot define the emotion. I try, but I don't know how.... So... here I am... in a Motel 6 in Lompoc.
I've a meeting in Los Angeles with building inspectors tomorrow afternoon; I could have stayed at home an additional night, but I couldn't endure another moment of hearing about what I should do, what I should eat, when I should eat, when I should rest. Even when no one says anything, I hear their remonstrances in my mind. I find it difficult to sleep in my own bed. Dreams come... worse than I've ever known. Dreams of a House destroyed. Dreams of death... bloody, gore-covered hands and an abominable hunger for something I cannot begin to describe. Dreams of hell and an eternity of claustrophobic agony. Dreams of Father... "two sides of the same coin." Dreams of that "other" Megan's panicked eyes screaming at me. Dreams of the fireball that followed, and the charred corpse we identified. She was not my Megan... she was his. My "twin-self" cared deeply for her, but if he cared for her, how could I not? Then there are the dreams of being ripped self from self and torn from a body that was not my own... of hurtling back through I-don't-know-what and waking in my own body, which had no right to be alive. Dreams of being so frail that I was more helpless than any infant, but unlike an infant, I was aware of every "kindness" shown me. Where is the dividing line between that sort of kindness and humiliation?... Another thing I don't know. How can one be humiliated when loving assistance is freely given, and yet the humiliation is felt deep within the soul?
So, I run from everything I've ever loved and fought for. I balance Legacy case files and foundation ledgers in San Francisco, then hustle to LA to meet with Social Service administrators and roofing contractors. I could have flown, but chose to drive. The road offers freedom, a few hours of me just being me... no name attached... no identity... no past... no present... no future... just now... just me.
~~~~~~~~~
I made good time even though I took US-101 south, rather than I-5. It was barely noon when I reached Santa Maria. Suddenly, I didn't want to get to Los Angeles yet. I didn't want to think about the new project. I didn't want to face, or feel, my sister's concern, or Maggie's, on this night. I found myself turning off the highway. La Purísima called to me. Neither the missions at San Luis Obispo, nor Santa Barbara, nor Ventura would do... all are too urban. It had to be La Purísima.
I've not been here for almost 10 years... not since the museum donated a document chest from its collection. It had been made in Spain and had belonged to Fr. Mariano Payéras, who had served as Father-President of the entire mission chain while in residence here. Philip and I brought it down to present on the 50th anniversary of La Purísima's dedication as a California State Park - 7 Dec. 1991. Also the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. It always had been a hard luck mission.
I arrived in mid-afternoon. Though I had difficulty finding a place to stay due to what is apparently a newsworthy space launch from nearby Vandenburgh AFB, I had the mission to myself. I walked in silence across an open field, along the footpath that leads to the cemetery's pink, adobe arch. No fog this afternoon, but a glorious, warm gold and brilliant azure. It's one of the few missions where it's easy to slip back into time and approach as a weary traveler would have once done... afoot, along a hot, dusty trail to the sound of buzzing bees and the caw of a distant crow. For that reason, I value this mission, as well as San Antonio de Padua, San Juan Bautista, and La Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, Our Lady of Solitude, but on a Sunday afternoon the chapel is a bleak, desolate place. No holy candle burns in the sanctuary, nor rack of votives at the foot of a saint or in a darkened niche.... There is no smell of incense, only of dust. Only on rare occasions does it function as it was intended... as a church. Now it plays hostess to throngs of California's fourth graders. It's a worthy function, but somehow it no longer seems living. It has a function, not a vocation.
Ah, well... the solitude and the feelings of a dead, musty past suited my mood, just as the austere, serviceability of this room does as well. Nothing fancy... just a hard bed and a hot shower, haute cuisine from a local drive-thru, and the car parked outside the door. I've lit my candle of remembrance, a tradition since childhood, to call the departed spirits to me. They'll stand in the shadows, just beyond my field of vision, and watch. Tonight, I'll offer them a toast in warm beer and hope the candle doesn't set off the establishment's smoke alarm... and I'll commiserate.
~~~~~~~~
Ever since I became a precept, I've requested periodic autobiographies from my team members... just as every Rayne who has been a precept has done. These are private documents for Precept's-Eyes-Only, asked for with the instructions to be honest and open about me, about the Legacy, about themselves, about their lives. I care not about the grammar, nor the format, nor the presentation. A chronological telling is fine, as is what someone might call an "Op-Ed" piece. If they are angry, let it out. There will be no retribution, nothing held against them.... They'll feel the better for it, and I might see my own flaws as a leader reflected. The document will never be seen by London.
Father made me write my first when I was 10, in English. Thereafter, I did them annually, in Dutch, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. I've not done one since he died. I'd thought of it last January when I was first up, but still too weak to be up-and-about. However, I found my emotions were still too raw, my mind too confused. Is it any better now? I'm not sure. I feel like I'm embarking on a new journey, a new life. Did God grant me this boon? Or has he finished with me... earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust... a burnt offering upon the Legacy's altar? Who knows? I no longer know anything... not even what to hope for... but I have my new project in Los Angeles. It's something that has let me escape that raw, emotional pain, that cobweb of the brain. I guess because it's a different world. Slowly, I'm distancing myself from that nightmare that was only half my own and I'm building something centered around life and hope, but a different sort of hope, gleaned from monies won on Fortune's Wheel... not blood money from a heritage of tragedy and anguish. It's clean money for a clean purpose, and I find focus and escape in the details.
Where to begin? I suppose at the beginning. Perhaps, by writing something so simple, I shall gain perspective, or at the very least, come to recognize the futility of it all. Who knows... Papa always called his Legacy Journals "Journals of a Ghosthunter." He once told me that he intended to write an autobiography in his old age and to entitle it "A Ghosthunter's Life." Perhaps, I'll do it instead.
~~~~~~~~~~~
My name is Derek Emrys Rayne. "Derek" from my mother's brother, who died from a Nazi bullet in the brain. "Emrys" - it could be worse - perhaps, Homer or Clyde. It's a family name repeated from the Raynes' Welsh line. It was said to have been one of our ancestor's many guises... Myrddin Emrys... Emrys Ambrosius Aurelianus... Merlinus Ambrosius Aurelius... Merlin the Magician... Arthur's wizard... Arthur's mentor... Arthur's right hand.
I was a midnight baby, born in the hours between 16 November & 17 November 1953. It was a "dark and stormy night" on Angel Island... never good weather omens for the birth of a Scopio child or a Chinese Snake... and I am both. For some unknown reason, my mother chose to record my birth date as the day and hour I began my journey into this world, rather than the moment I completed the voyage with a squall in a squall.
It was that confusion over the date that first gave me the idea to obfuscate the issue further. So many records are originally generated by birth date that to give different dates can cause confusion, which can be valuable if properly manipulated and maintained. Just as I have a variety of passports in a variety of names, I have several birth dates, but I suppose I most often fall back on 17 August 1954. I happened to attend a funeral once, at Colma, I think, where I saw a small stone with an angel atop. It belonged to Derrick Raine, 17 Aug. 1954. His life had been but that single day. Poor namesake, but maybe he was the lucky one.
My father was away on the night of my birth. My mother had planned on going to the mainland a week before her due date, but I was early. She told me once that it seemed as if the island & the sea around it had conspired. The House and the Portal beneath it wanted to claim me for their own. I suppose they did.
Like many of the Raynes, including Ingrid, my sister, I've always been gifted, or cursed, with the "Sight". Even at a young age, I knew things. Even at age four, I knew my mother was unhappy on the island and that my father was growing increasingly angry and driven. He was away for long periods. It was an isolated existence.... It must have been particularly difficult for Mother to see the city, bright and sparkling, across the water and, like a prisoner on neighboring Alcatraz, to be cut off from it.
~~~~~
When I was five and Ingrid was seven, something terrible happened. I still don't know what it was. Mother never told us. She took us and fled. Again it stormed, as the Island tried to hold us. I recall being wrapped in an old quilt from Nanny's bed and carried through the darkness, along a treacherous cliff-side path. Lightning flashed all around and waves crashed far below. Nanny and Mother kept whispering, "Shhh... don't cry. Don't make a sound. You're our little man. You mustn't let Ingrid know you're afraid. Shhh...."
We went to live in Amsterdam, at Grandmama's house on Herengracht. What a formidable old woman the Gravin was! In her presence, one stood erectly, spoke only when spoken to, and showed proper respect for age and title. Her fan across one's knuckles was the price one paid for insolence... or for tears.
Father came... and went. We were never a family again. When I was 7, I was packed off to a boarding school in Switzerland, and Ingrid was off to her first convent school. My time there tended to be uneventful. I was an adequate student... not brilliant... but brilliance doesn't fare well in that world. The one diversion at which I excelled was music. I was never a child who permitted myself to mix freely. School boys can be a vicious lot... to those whom they perceive as vulnerable or different. Because of my "Sight" and my own nature, I've always been guarded with others. One could even say secretive. I'm slow to trust. Sometimes, keeping one's own counsel is the only way to survive. I suppose I was always a bit of the "odd duck out." My holidays were spent home with Mother, while summers belonged to Father.
At first it worked well. Father was delighted to see us and to have us along on his archaeological digs, which in the early 1960s were in the US desert Southwest. That's the father I struggle to remember, and the one that Ingrid forgets ever existed. We'll never see eye to eye on that. We talk past each other. She speaks in saintly platitudes & I don't speak at all. She wants me to forgive as she has & to make peace with him. What she never understands is that I have nothing for which to forgive him. I understood him all along, even if I was a nasty brat about it. What I cannot make peace with are my own fears about his fate, and my own failures.
Others find it difficult to believe that Winston Rayne would be happy to have children present, but he was. He loved to teach us things. For him a simple potsherd spoke volumes of who made it, who used it, how it came to be where we found it. We were a self-sufficient, little group... off in our own world. I wish we could have stayed there.
Papa was particularly interested in ruins around the Four Corners/Canyonlands region that seemed Anasazi, but he felt they were not. Father bought a few square miles of the place and left his dig supervisor, Mr. Grayfox, in charge of it. It was there that I had my first lessons in wilderness survival. I learned to ride, to shoot, to track, to find water, food, and shelter. I grew to love the past and first heard the great voice of life in the silence of desolate places.
However, each summer gave me a different Father. Less and less was he interested in us as his children. Ingrid was already turning to the Church, and, therefore, removing herself as a part of his world. Not that a girl mattered much to Father, anyway. Father was drinking more, becoming even more driven, more obsessed with finding the Sepulchres. He had been collecting leads to them from all over the world for many years, but there in the canyons, he had found something that had truly frightened him. I could tell. After that, nothing I ever did was good enough. My Latin was not good enough, nor my Greek, nor my hieroglyphics. I wasn't strong enough for him. My memory wasn't photographic enough. I couldn't ride well enough, or run far enough. I wasn't brave enough. I lacked discipline and logic.
Then when I reached puberty, he took me to a remote place of red rock and whispering sage, where we met people that frightened me. I could feel their power and intensity. They were all Native American, but I knew that they were all different... of many tribes. Father told me I must be initiated into that part of my blood and heritage. My ancestress, Ada'wehi, had been a shaman of the Eastern Cherokee. Her son, Evan Rayne, founded the San Francisco Legacy House.
After a brief instruction, they left me, out there in the midst of that wilderness. I'd have died, but I heard my "voice." My spirit guide, the eagle, found me, and like Elijah's ravens, it fed me. Afterwards, I was taken into a hole in the ground, into the kiva, and there was a ceremony. I was given a bitter tea and we were purged by sweat. I remember little of it. It was a smokey, bittersweet smelling world. Time and space seemed warped.... I met ghosts who were not ghosts, and ghosts who were. Without that test of survival, I know that I'd have perished in the mud of Peru. However, in the cold, absolute blackness of night and the sweltering heat of day, I discovered that if I could find the center of my being, I could survive.
I'll never know how I meshed the boy gone native with that Swiss schoolboy in his crested blazer and regimental tie. I'm not sure I ever did.
~~~~~~~~
In 1969, when I was 15, came one of those events that prove to be the crux of one's life. Father was killed in Chipote, Peru by the demon of the Sepulchre, the first one that he'd actually found. I was furious with him for dragging me along on that soggy, hellish expedition. I behaved like a churlish "oetlul". I'd had a perfect holiday envisioned in my mind, but Father had other plans... and it was always his plans that won out.
The whole time he harangued me on my Latin translations. I was translating... not "thinking" in Latin as I should be. "Latin," he said, "is an essence.... Like Arabic, Japanese, or Hopi, its soul lies not in the meaning of the word, but in a communion between minds." Even now, I have to laugh. He expected that to make sense to a 15-yr.-old boy, who was just discovering "girls". Boarding schools make for late bloomers.
I "saw" his death a few minutes before it happened, but I couldn't stop it. He wouldn't listen. I wasn't fast enough. I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't clever enough. A moment before he died, he gave me his ring and told me the burden was mine. I didn't understand. Hell, I'm not sure I understand now. The older I get, the less certain I become about anything, and the more certain I try to seem... and the stronger, more vigilant I must be. What is this burden? I thought it was being precept, battling evil, wherever I found it. I thought it was being Christina's "Anointed One". I thought it was the "Sight"... or the weakness in the Rayne bloodline that makes us "hunger" to know or makes us vulnerable to the desire for power. Now, I come to believe that "the burden" may simply be life itself.
I hid the accursed box, my first black secret. I never intended to go back for it, but I did... years later. Then, I took up the quest for its brethren.
It was only by God's good graces, that I made it out of that Peruvian hell hole. Even now dreams of the mud and my father return when I'm at my lowest. I think it was partly because of my struggle that the Legacy's interest in me became more intense. A boy's dreams of another life were shoved aside by one and all... including myself.
~~~~~~~~
I thought I had dealt well with my emotions, but the anger exploded during my 2nd year at Oxford. I was suspended and nearly expelled for striking a teacher. Oxford had not been my choice. I had wanted Stanford. Mother had wanted Oxford. Balliol had been the Raynes' school since its foundation; they always returned to it whenever feasible. Thus, when I was 16, a private arrangement was made for me to matriculate... with William Sloan as my proctor and "on-site" guardian. He was doing graduate work and tutoring. For years, I thought he had been the Legacy's choice, but he had been Mother's.
Of course, I rebelled. I resented being placed in someone else's charge, particularly when that "someone else" was only a few years older than my own sister... and rather liked my sister. Sometimes, William and I fought like rival hounds. Sometimes, we were the best of friends... sometimes, brothers. I wanted to learn everything there was to learn, experience everything there was to experience, but I also swung from being an adolescent nincompoop... to the blackest depression... to rage... to jubilation at just being alive. As I look back, William did a good job. He kept a tight rein that provided stability. He always knew how to provoke me, how to burst my angry bubble, even if it cost him a black eye or broken nose. He knew how to make me focus on a goal. He just never learned when to let go.
~~~~~~~~
It was in my last year at Oxford that I met Annie Fitzgerald, Dominick's niece. She was the proverbial wild-child... hippie to the core... and my first real love. With her, because of her, I took part in Dr. Ernst Reston's time travel experiments. They were not really time "travel", per se, but an attempt to use the human mind to weaken the fabric of time and space.
The idea was that, perhaps, someone might not just be able to see through a "time-slip," but to actually, physically, step through into that other dimension. Reston was playing with drug cocktails as "brain enhancers". William was livid. I refused all but peyote, which had been a part of the bitter tea I'd once had in the kiva, but somehow he subverted Annie, who slipped me a "Mickey". William actually staged a sit-in at London House and got Reston's funding cut, then he nearly killed the man with his bare hands. I was lucky. I recovered, though I still have a bed awaiting me at Wells Ward, an asylum in Dorset, which houses Reston and all the other unfortunate test subjects, save Annie, who vanished into time. I thought I was free of that cloud, until the events at Ghost Gulch proved otherwise, but I get ahead of myself.
~~~~~~~~
The next few years were relatively normal... for a fledgling Legacy member determined and destined to be San Francisco's precept. William became active precept on Angel Island, while Arthur Middleton, who had succeeded my father, moved into a more advisory role as Precept Emeritus. I fulfilled part of my dream. I came home (Somehow, the place where one is born is always home.) and did some of my graduate work at Stanford. I got my Ph.D.s in Physical Anthropology and Theology.
It was in those years that I met Laura, Angeline D'Arcy, Clare Spencer, and there were others, none of which ended well. Then there was Alicia. I know that she was attracted to me, as I was to her, but she chose Randolph Hitchcock instead. I was too slow, too hesitant. Then, as now, with my "baggage"... how could I commit? Randolph older, more settled, and much better suited to being a husband than I. Then, once she had chosen, how could I pursue?
It was my own inexperience as a leader... my own, our own, undealt with emotions that killed her. I split the team. I told her to stay behind at the vehicles to keep her safe, but the vehicles were our only way out, and the demon knew this. It went for them, and Alicia, in what Nick calls an "end run". I thought I'd never love again. I could never permit myself to love again. It warps logic. One makes life and death decisions for all based upon how much one loves a single person. It's an invitation to tragedy. I might have made the same choice, the same mistake, anyway, but I'll never know.
~~~~~~~~
In 1980, I became precept in San Francisco. I was one of the youngest ever to assume the office. William took a step upward to become Precept-at-Large, the Legacy's roving troubleshooter. By then he had married Patty. I think it was a relief for them to not have to make their home in this great pile of rock. In London they could live normally... in a flat or a row house in a fashionable neighbourhood... and he found enough trouble to shoot in my duck line to give excuse for frequent visits.
~~~~
A couple of years later, I entered into a marriage contract. It was something that had been discussed and negotiated by my father. It sounds anachronistic, but where money, heritage, special talents, and secret societies exist, it is not an unknown thing, nor unpracticed... just unmentioned.
The Ruling Council was eager for the match. It's difficult for me to write of, even now.
My bride's family had a long heritage of producing both precepts and potent psychic talents... everything from healers to telepaths. At this point, I was too tired to care. Mother thought it was the right thing, the commonsense thing, to do, as did William, at the time. Alicia's death had made me decide against love, ever again. I would have a home and family, but take my pleasure where money was the only string attached.
We were wed quietly in Manhattan, but afterwards I found myself once more loving... against my will. I loved her innocence, her youth. She was 7 years my junior. I'd never been young in the way she was young. I'm an ancient soul... and often feel the antiquity of it. I don't shock. I don't surprise. I don't excite. She showed me joy in life and the wonder that can exist in small, mundane things and in large, boisterous families. She showed me a way of life that I'd never known. She filled a hole in my heart, and I in hers.
In June 1982, we were married for a 2nd time in a proper ceremony at Mission Dolores. We swore our union on the sword, with St. Michael, high above on the reredos, as our witness. It was a good marriage, for a while... until the world of the Legacy intruded... and St. Michael's "chosen one" was truly anointed by the flames of hell.
~~~~~~~~
Kym was of the Legacy, but had lost her 1st love to a demon's butchery, as I had lost Alicia. She feared loss above all else. Fate did not make it a good match, and my good friends did not help. It was a nightmarish 2 years that destroyed our marriage and my friendship with William. She dreamed of a perfect life, and I was a part of that dream, but I was torn between 2 honours, between 2 duties, 2 affections. How else could I choose? I chose that which had the most need at the moment, that which was in the most danger. I chose how I'd been trained all my life to choose, but she deserved better from me, from William, from the Major.
At the end of it all, I had experienced my first episodes of psychokenetic ability. I'd met the turncoat, Ian Kincaid, and had found him to be not at all the renegade that the Legacy proclaims to this day. I wonder how many others have lost their reputations on the altar of the Legacy. Shall I? That was the plan for my twin-self... Derek Rayne, an eccentric gone mad, who blew himself up with his House. But I digress... I had recruited a young Jesuit priest, Philip Callaghan, to become the first new member of my own House. I had faced the Carthaginian goddess, Tanit, and her minions, and had won. I had been broken and reforged on God's torturous anvil. I had defeated Sammael and his bride, Isheth, and the Beast, Choia, which they became when united in one flesh. I thought I had fulfilled my destiny as the "Anointed One". My body had played host to the power of the Archangel Michael himself in order to defeat the Beast, one of Satan's many guises. Once they had served their purpose, my special psychokenetic powers had been blasted from me. Now, I must wonder if I ever shall fulfill that destiny to the point that it will be finished... or is that the "burden" of which Dad spoke? I've often heard of people who pray to be God's instruments. Fools! They have no idea what it means. God is a monstrous taskmaster.
~~~~
Afterwards, lonely as it was, things went well for a couple of years, until late 1985, when Major Boyle was killed. I should have been with him, but we never anticipated that the killer he sought was one of the Legacy's own. I lost a good friend when Johnny Boyle died. He had been a hard man, sometimes a cruel man, but he had always been a loyal friend. I didn't know of his drinking.... He was careful. I never saw him take a drink while at Angel Island or on a case. I also didn't know that he took his rage out on his family. He bore angry scars from Vietnam and from his own father's belt. He knew how to be a commanding officer... how to be a drill sergeant, how to be a comrade-in-arms, but he never knew how to be a father. I was blind.
Sometimes, I think the "Sight" can make us more blind than a person without vision. We come to rely too much on that little "extra" sense that the "Sight" gives us, perhaps, to the detriment of the other senses and of commonsense. I needed the Major's strength, loyalty, and expertise. I think that, perhaps, I chose to be blind... to my everlasting shame. Still, he was a good man... no matter his flaws... and he left me something more valuable than I could ever have dreamed of. I believe with all my heart that the Great Scales will weigh in his favor.
~~~~~~~~
For some time after the Major's death, I tried to fill his shoes as well as my own. London sent me a succession of quartermasters and children, when I needed a trained soldier. I needed a good top sergeant. Then, in the fall of 1992, good fortune struck. Alexandra Moreau walked into a seminar I was giving at Berkeley. I was "substituting" for Dr. Fleischer, who was on sabbatical. Alex had just moved to California from Louisiana. As it turned out, I was to be her faculty advisor. I knew immediately that she possessed the gift of "Sight". I studied her transcripts. We discussed the topic of her thesis. I had found a kindred spirit - interest in history, anthropology, folklore, the paranormal. I invited her to be my teaching assistant, then I gradually, consciously, drew her into the Legacy. "Welcome to my parlour," said the spider to the fly. Should I have? I've drawn in so many... and lost so many... so many... some not even aware of the Legacy, or of their risk... mere pawns, as we are all pawns in the cosmic chess match.
~~~~~~~~
Julia Walker, almost the opposite of Alex in every way, came at about the same time. Where Alex was bookish, Julia would be athletic. Where Alex would scan an entity and study the readings ad infinitum, Julia would sweep that mop of black hair up into a knot, clip it, shut her eyes, and dive in. I think that's what won Nick's heart, for, no matter what he might say, I'm certain that he did love Julia. Who could not?
Nick joined us, not by his own will, in mid-summer 1993. I'd watched Nick Boyle ever since his father's death. I'd hoped that he'd grow into what his father had hoped he would. I sensed the potential for so much more, if only he could get past that rage.
Following high school, Nick had joined the Navy and had ultimately ended up in the SEALs, where he seemed to find his footing. Unfortunately, his unit met with disaster on a mission in South America. Afterwards, he resigned. The adolescent anger that he'd set aside returned in full force. He reminded me of me. He was a loose canon... without goals... without a place... without an anchor. Then Providence smiled once more. He got himself arrested in Los Angeles for a tavern brawl. Through Maggie, I arranged that the case against Nick should be prolonged, and while it was under advisement, he should be remanded to my custody. It was a clever little gambit that ultimately caused both Maggie and me some embarrassment. In fact, it nearly cost her judicial career and me any future that I had with Nick Boyle as a member of my House. However, Providence continued to smile... Nick stayed. I think he stayed because he had no place else he wanted to go and he was attracted to Julia... and, now knowing his sense of mischief, I think it amused him to tweak my tail whenever the opportunity arose. That playfulness is his saving grace. His father never had it.
So... for over a year we were a good, solid team... Nick, Philip, Alex, Julia, and I.... Philip left us in 1995. Nick has never quite reconciled himself to his best friend's departure. He sees it as a sort of betrayal of"the team" and an abandonment of himself. I won't go into it here. It was a complex, personal situation. I understand Philip's reasons and tried only once to convince him to stay. However, I have never ceased to consider him a member of this team and of this House. He will always be welcome.
This is not to say that his departure did not hurt. He's my friend and for many years was my closest friend. We spent many a long night playing chess, arguing philosophy, discussing theology. He saved my life more than once, and I his, but he grew to fear his own human weaknesses. He always said that his faith was his sword and shield, but he discovered that a sword and shield are only as strong as the arm that wields them. He has yet to come to grips with that conundrum. In the world of the Legacy, it is a wall that we all must face... to either stop before it, or breech it, or climb it. I've seen it before. Have I reached my wall? I think, perhaps, I have.
Philip once said that my greatest strength is my obstinance. I wonder... what is the distance between obstinance, as in the refusal to surrender... vs. a fear of failure. Why do we refuse to surrender... because failure is worse than all else... because we must win. Once we recognize our supreme fear, how do we get past it? All our lives, we fool ourselves.... We play games. What happens when we run out of ploys?
In the spring of 1996, my "Sight" led us on a disastrous mission to Ireland in pursuit of the 5th Sepulchre. I've tried not to hold it against Philip for refusing to accompany us. Over the years, unbeknownst to anyone save Philip, I'd managed to collect 3 more of the insidious boxes, then I had a vision of the last one and a little girl in a red coat and hat seated beside it. Philip, who was then serving at a Bay Area parish, had his reasons.... He had come to disapprove of some of my decisions... and he had run out of ploys. He feared that his weaknesses might be the team's undoing... that he might lose his own soul, but we needed him. I needed his Irishness, that Roman collar of his, his linguistic expertise, and his knowledge of the Sepulchres. Instead, I made do, and the seeds were sewn. Nick still blames me for splitting the team. It was against his SEAL's sensibilities, but this time, unlike Alicia, it was not done from inexperience and emotion. It was done because there was little choice, and given the same circumstances, I'd do it again. We needed information. Irish villagers love a good chat, but they love it far more with a pretty girl, than with a stampeding Legacy team. My decision gained us the Sepulchre, but cost us sweet Julia. Waking or sleeping, I still see those hypnotic, blue eyes, cold and frozen in death.
But, that fiasco completed the circle of Sepulchres, and it brought Rachel Corrigan and her daughter, Katherine, to my House. Both are gifted, but Rachel uses her psychiatric degree to deny it. She fears it because of her difficult personal past and her family's Darkside history with her grandfather, Joshua Cantwell, and aunt, Rebecca. What a tangled web life is. My father killed Joshua Cantwell and, in a case of mistaken identity, killed Rachel's mother, Ruth. Then Fate dropped Rachel and Kat, the girl in the red coat, along with the Sepulchre, into my lap.
Kat is a precociously "gifted" child, as Ingrid and I were. Her version of the "Sight" is much like ours. It's not a thing of empathy or telepathy, but more a thing of vision and clairvoyance... what my mother called being "fey". It can be slippery and deceptive... a thing one's own mind must interpret, and often interprets wrongly, and so, it can be used against us. It's not a warm thing born of emotions and of soul-touched certainty, but a cold thing, born of ancient prophesy. It's a thing that Satan's minions envy and hunger to turn, but when they succeed, they often find they play with something more than they bargained for. Even those gifted in other ways do not understand the power that lies coiled within.
Kat needs to be cultivated. She's been dabbling in the wrong ways of late, during my absence, and probably before. It's something that she must do. She'll burn herself... I hope not too badly... but it's the only way she will learn the differences. If her heart is good, she will be the stronger for it... as her mother was in her time of trial. If her heart is tainted, nothing will save her. It's difficult for me to be her friend, but we have our common bonds of music and our common difference, so there is a bridge between generations.
She likes Det. Royce. I think a match between her mother and David would not be unwelcome. He offers stability... and he may be more accepting of "power" than Rachel. He knows more than we think. I'm sure of it. I'm equally sure that he is an ally. If I step aside, and Nick assumes my chair, David Royce, though older, could be Nick's good right hand, as the Major was to me.
~~~~~~~~
From the retrieval of that last Sepulchre, the cases seemed to come at us with an unremitting fury. Little time even for a breath of normal life. William came back into my life early in 1997. The old hurts and antagonisms were mending... slowly. He was there for me, as he had always been, behind the scenes. His was the first face I saw after I awoke from trying to kill myself.
I had been possessed by a demon... a bullet into myself had been the only way I could avoid putting one into Nick or Alex. It had been the only way I could win. William must have had his Ruling Precept's antennae at full extension. He was there before my own team. He saved my team, and later he saved my sister, when Angeline d'Arcy had kidnaped and stabbed her. I couldn't see past the blood on Ingrid's chest. William did. He made me use the goblet as it was intended. It saved Ingrid.
He was there with me at Spencer Croft's funeral, but it was my turn when his plane crashed in the mountains because he couldn't let a sleeping demon lie. Finally, on that awful day in August, William sacrificed himself for me, for my team, for the world. The demon of the Sepulchre played upon my uncertainties, my fears, and unresolved emotions about my father. Is it my father, Winston Rayne? It could be. It felt like him. It knew every atom of my soul. But the demons of the Sepulchres are the Fallen Watchers... Fallen Angels. Can we ever comprehend their essences? How difficult would it be for such a being to masquerade as anyone... even as Winston Rayne?
Then that wicked, little voice in my mind will tell me that not only had my father fallen to the Darkside, it will go further, and further still. It will tell me that, like the incubus, who begot Merlin of a devout, young virgin by deception, so a creature, masquerading as my father, begot me of my mother. If that is so, then what am I? I tell myself that Merlin won out. Despite being demon-spawned, he revived the modern Legacy and founded its latest incarnation, but shall I always have the strength to win?
I failed against the Watcher of the Sepulchre, and lost William. After that I knew that my bastion of certainty was cracking. Could I ever be the leader I pretended to be, but I carried on, as I was trained to do. The counterbalance of my demise, was that Nick was growing, flourishing. He fought through his anger, and in early 1998, made his peace with his father... or at least with his ghost. The Major had promised that he'd give me a right hand, a champion.... He's given me so much more.... He's given me a son & heir.... As I've grown older, I've learned something about both our fathers. Both my father and Nick's felt a shortness to their lives. They were driven by passion... a flame that burns bright and hot soon burns out... and they were driven by fear... the fear that they would leave behind sons, who were prepared only to be victims of the Darkside.
Again it's a tangled web... a spiral. My father mentored William and when Father died, William, with the Major's help, mentored me. The Major then partially prepared Nick to one day take his place at my side, but I finished the polish. Who now will Nick groom? Kat, perhaps, whose innocent grandmother was slain by my father? So we see the continuity. Perhaps, that is the hope of the world
~~~~~~~~
At the same time Nick was coming into his own, we gained Kristin Adams. How like me she was... such a precocious, impudent, arrogant brat, but a beautiful one. She had the standard paternal baggage, but lacked Nick's anger, and my "Sight". I hate to admit this. I found her difficult to like, but at 23, I suspect I had been difficult to like. I probably still am, but at least with an old man it can be passed off as an eccentric crustiness. I'm sorry I didn't get to say good-bye to my Kristin.
~~~~~~~~
It was in early 1999, that my life took it's turn. I'd been called to London at precisely the wrong time. I was due to give a guest lecture at a community college in the Sierra foothills. I'd have begged out, but I owed a favor and had given my word. Nick insisted on driving me. We were caught in a blizzard and tried the wrong short-cut. Freezing to death was our greatest fear, or so we thought, but we stumbled into a stationary time-slip.
There had always been stories of hauntings at Ghost Gulch, but for some reason, it had never been adequately investigated. Perhaps, it took someone such as me and the fact that, once upon a time, in 1850, my ancestor, Evan Rayne, had been there. The various factors provided just the right imbalance. I slipped through a weakness in the fabric of time and space, and I dragged Nick with me. In the end, death released me from that era, but once home, I slipped into a coma that no one yet comprehends.
I somehow traversed space and time to co-exist in the mind of another Derek Rayne, Precept of another San Francisco House. I am minded of Sherlock Holmes and his doppelganger, Solar Pons.... I wonder, am I Holmes or Pons? Almost everything was identical to my world, but there were minor variations. I recall that he owned a Yale piano, whereas I own a Steinway. We had different music teachers at boarding school. His Megan Torrance was a "print journalist". My Megan Torrance gave up reporting to become a nurse... my nurse during my illness. "br2">
Together, my "twin-self" & I, pieced together Satan's Millennial battle plans for the opening of the Portal beneath his Angel Island. I knew things from a manuscript that exists in this world, in my library. It had once existed in the other world as well, but forgeries abounded, and it was a trap. For nearly the whole of 1999 that Derek Rayne was watched by filthy, Darkside minions. They were like roaches... there, whispering in the shadows, but gone when one looked round.
When he weakened, I was strong. When I weakened, he held firm. Together we played the game. We outwitted the Dark Master himself, and passed the ring, without the burden, to Nick. In the end he was able to tell his Nick how much he valued him. "I never had a son," he said, "but if I did, I'd want him to be like you." Does my Nick understand this? Will I ever be able to say that to him?
Anyway, our fathers' compulsions, and our own, to collect the Sepulchres, became clear. They were a two-edged sword... and it was all in the timing. If we could carry on the charade, and do it all correctly, we could create a time-loop that would suck those accursed boxes and that creature that professed to be my father down the rabbit hole to hell and back again... round and round for all eternity. However, the "roaches" couldn't know that we suspected. We had to seem to fall for their trap. It took every ounce of moral, emotional, physical strength that both of us possessed carry on for those months, but we did it.
At the moment the Portal blew, we were ripped apart by blinding heat and light. I don't see how he could have survived. He was standing directly in front of it with the Sepulchres at his feet. Yet... tho' I felt indescribable, searing pain and terror, I didn't feel his death. I pray that God gave him the chance to see his 47th birthday, as I shall see mine in a few days. Despite being a very annoying, pompous, opinionated person, I liked the bastard. Together we felt more than complete.
As I wrote above, when I awoke it was to a body that had wasted away to nothing. I'm a big man, and I'd sunk to below 100 lbs. I was dying for those 8 months, because my body here was helping to sustain us there. Once more, I returned at the moment of death. Why me? Was it the initiation into the Eagle Society all those years ago? Or is it just my brand of the "Sight" that makes me vulnerable to abnormalities in time & space? Could it have been Dr. Reston's experiments... or St. Michael's tricks? I don't know. I just know that I, my soul and my mind, lived that life and gave all there was to give in order to win. His sacrifice was felt as if it was my own. My "Sight" was gone, as well.
My team stood by me. My team supported my life. I owe them everything, but it is still disconcerting to be in a world where those sacrifices were never made. Where the possibility that they must be made still lies ahead. I was blessed with a strong constitution. That pure physical stubbornness that my body possesses has held up against Peru, against migraines, wounds, broken bones, injured organs, surgeries, exposure, and now this. I am quick to heal, sometimes miraculously so. I wonder if that's God's "trade-off". If only my soul could heal so well, instead I just bury the wound, cover it over and hide it away. If I pretend to others that it doesn't exist, then it doesn't exist to me either.... so I've carried on.
I've done much the same with my religious philosophy... or perhaps, it is my philosophy of life. Father's motto, which is an old one within the Legacy... "Faith hath need of the whole truth," is a linguistic trap. Ingrid's reply to it would be, "If one has the faith, then that is the whole truth, for there is no need for anything more." But if there are more worlds, more existences, than just this one... so there must be more truths... or so it would seem.
My philosophy is one that bypasses doctrine and the need for faith, for if one religion is correct, then others must be wrong, or so they like to preach. I try to do unto others, as they would do unto me. That is the supreme Christian rule, given by Jesus Christ. However, unlike Ingrid, I don't love my enemies as myself, because I don't love myself. I simply am me. I have always done unto others as they would do unto me... and on occasion, I have greatly enjoyed it. How else does one treat a friend... or deal with pure evil and survive?... and I have survived. The remainder of my philosophy is a simple, balanced scale. For every evil there is good. For every darkness there is light. God... whoever or whatever he may be... is in his Heaven, wherever & whatever that Heaven may be. It matters little... we still fight the fight that God gave us.
~~~~~~~~
To fight that fight... to become what I had been once again, I needed my "Sight" back. Migraines tore at me as it tried to break through, as it had done once before. Thank God... this time there was medication. I think I'd kill myself if I had to go through that agony as I had done fifteen years ago. I almost did kill myself then. I had no choice. I had to seek my past and shatter those psychic barriers. There was nowhere to go but back to the canyons, where the eagle awaited me... on the land Father had bought those many years ago. Nick came too. Stubborn that I was, I'd not have survived alone... caught in the wilderness in the throes of a migraine... and the flu. (I must remember to avoid putting Nick on a horse, ever again.)
My "Sight" returned in full force... complete with psychokenetic added attractions. It scared the schijt out of Nick... and me too, because this time it was wild and dangerous. I couldn't control it. Did its return mean that I was once again being called, as the "Anointed One"? Was I to face the Beast again? Although a relic of that horror lies on the altar in the chapel, no current member of my team knows of that episode in my life... or of my marriage. My formal records for those 3 years are sealed. What is available is mostly nonsense. My journals for that time are under lock and key in London. Only Nick, then a child, had been a witness from a distance. Never once has he mentioned it. Of course, Philip knew, but he, too, keeps my secret. We see little of him now. He's busy with his parish in Boston and handles much charitable work, as well as teaching the occasional seminar or class in ancient languages. He was there when I awakened, but returned to Boston within a few days. Though we've spoken a few times by phone, I've not seen him since. I wish the breach between Nick and Philip could be truly mended. They do well enough together, but it's not as it was before. They need each other and will need each other even more. I wonder if the Nick and Philip of that other world made it up after "the event", I pray so.
~~~~~~~~
Good Lord... it's 3 a.m. & I've written nearly 20 pp. The trucker from the room next door just pulled out. My candle is sputtering. I hope when I look back through this, if I ever do, I can make sense of it. Mr. Sykes, my English teacher, would tear his hair in despair at the grammar. It's a wonder every third word isn't in Dutch. I'm so damned tired. Dare I sleep? Will I sleep without dreams?
I'd best finish this, then find out. My meeting in LA is at 2 tomorrow afternoon. I need to be on my toes for that. I'll swear... if those bureaucrats think they smell unlimited money, they'll find unlimited ways for the law to force me to spend it.
~~~~~~~~
Two blessings followed.... I have to laugh at my usage of the word "blessing"... because of my temporal voyage. One... I have William back... and while we fight as we always did, and he still drives me to distraction. We are friends once more, as in the old days. Apparently, when the Portal in that other universe blew and I was cast back across the chasm of time and space, there was a disruption in the energies of all the universes... or so the Legacy physicists postulate. It cast William Sloan from his living non-existence in Limbo back into this world. They speculate that because he willingly entered the Sepulchres with body and soul in tact and from an honourable motive, the Gates of Hell were closed to him, but he could not get back. Thus, Limbo was the only place for him.
Sometimes, I must wonder if he is "our" William or belongs to some other realm. So far I've not been able to trip him up. He must be ours. I must confess that the only way I know that I belong to this world myself is that Steinway piano and a music teacher named Castagno. I look at my team and wonder if they are mine. Nick feels "right". Rachel seems a tad more... something. I cannot put a name to it... more "together"? A bit more centered. I know that, at first, she doubted my tale of that other world. Her training and logic told her it was a coma induced dream. She doubtless made Nick furious, since it would also have meant doubting his experience at Ghost Gulch. However, once the Legacy acknowledged that William had returned, how could she continue to deny the entire thing? I think there's still some part of her that doubts my personal experience, but she keeps it to herself.
Then there's Alex. Is she a part of the reason why I run? In those final hours in that other world, that Alex said things to that Derek. I think she truly loved him. His feelings were confused, as mine are. He had followed his own personal rule of never becoming "involved" with a student or a team member. With a team member it is too dangerous for all concerned. Alicia, for both of us, was the penalty we paid, and the lesson we learned. Yet in those last hours, I felt, and shared, my "twin-self's" regrets. Even then he couldn't bring himself to tell Alex to her face... just as he hadn't been able to return Megan's simple "I love you, too." Instead, he gassed her and haltingly told his Alex after she was unconscious... that perhaps, had he allowed himself to be more human, there could have been something between them. God, how I felt his regret. Yet I understood & shared, for he is me and I am him... and how many more are we? Perhaps, there is another world where Dr. Derek Rayne is a professor of music and gives piano lessons on the side... and Alex Rayne is a mother of 3. Maybe, there is yet another world in which Derek Rayne had the courage to profess his love for Alicia Summers, and their little ones bounce on the knees of Grandpa Winston at some archaeological dig in Utah. Who knows?
I do know that "my" Alex has not been "my" Alex since my return. She's reticent. She doesn't laugh the way she used to. She's uneasy around me, and I around her. I know what my problem is... a little. Does she feel the same way as that other Alex? If she does, what am I to do? I don't know. I've not known such turmoil and disquietude since that year of rage at Oxford. I feel this "desiderium"... this loss or longing for something unknown.... I see my House, its windows shining atop Angel Island, and it doesn't seem real. None of it seems real. I feel guilt because I know that it is real and all is well, while in the other world so much was lost. Then I feel more guilt because I feel that way. Why should I feel that way? It makes no sense. I did my duty. I didn't emerge unscathed. I too paid a price... and yet, it all haunts me.
I tell myself it's a wondrous thing... a miraculous thing. I wish I could feel that wonderment. Once upon a time, I would have. I'd have heard the golden voices and felt the warmth of being. Now, when I do feel, like as not, I feel pain or utter, absolute weariness. I think I've become like La Purísma. I have a function, but no longer a vocation. I go through the motions of existing, not of living. Is this what most people face at my age, or just those of the Legacy? Do I have any more fights left in me... any more decisions of life and death? Enough! ...and this too shall pass.
Oh, yes... the 2nd blessing.... On our way to the airport for our flight to the Bahamas last May, Maggie & I stopped at a local store. I bought a lottery ticket. Novice that I was, I didn't even know how to work the machine. We won with a Quik Pik. $69 million. I didn't want the money to be mixed with Luna Foundation funds, nor go to a Legacy cause. I wanted it to go to a new, good project aimed at giving life and hope. Thus, "New Beginnings" was born. Maggie conceived of it, and the Church has allowed Ingrid to join us. The Archbishop always was a good friend to the Raynes. Her gentle ways have been invaluable, and dear Maggie has been a refuge. She cares, but not too much. She's just there, waiting for me when I need her, and quick to pat me on the head and say, "Be a good boy, now, & go walk the dog for me. I've got me this legal brief to read, then we'll have us a romp."
Perhaps, this "New Beginnings" will be my new beginning.... We shall see what dreams may come....
Back to Chapter 2
of New Beginnings... Ancient EndingsAn Alternative Birth Date for Derek Rayne:
16 November 1953
by Dubricus & Jilly PaddockThe San Francisco Legacy Team:
Past, Present, and FutureWho's Who What's What A Brief History of the Rayne Family of San Francisco
by Derek Emrys Rayne, Ph.D., with Dubricus, C.G.Pedigree Charts:
the Ancestry of Derek Emrys Rayne
by Dubricus, C.G.Lexicon, or He said what?
Warning: NC-17
Home E-mail: Dubricus