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The shadow hound faded the moment the spray of salted earth struck. One threat down, worse waited.
From the kitchen, I heard a new noise like wind through leaves. A deep splash followed, and two heavy steps thundered into the butler’s pantry followed by a bestial snort. Hank Hallewell wailed pitifully.
I pressed up against the dining room wall, eyes down and too scared to move. My chest felt full, my ribs swollen. Around the corner, Hank Hallewell pleaded. His spirit flung itself protectively across his grisly corpse.
A sudden pressure ripped Hallewell to his feet and flung him away, his screams fading into bottomless depths. The air left my lungs and blood rushed to replace it. The cough I tried to stifle escaped as a wet and ragged gurgle. That looming presence in the pantry paused.
I had no magic powder to hedge out Death. I’d spent too long in the Below, drawn too much power, and disturbed the unnatural peace. Fight or flight? Those weren’t even choices. Death harvested souls without struggle. All this time running, and I’d barely been a step ahead.
When a Gallu came, you just aced out.
Dig deep enough into myth, you can find the point of origin. This one though, I’d never wanted to verify. Half man, half bull, the Gallu were the OG minotaur. A beast in a maze demanding sacrifices? That was all a metaphor for the loss of the mortal body and the soul’s journey.
One of the seven servants of Death, they brought home the souls of the departed. Where those souls made their final destination, the Gallus didn’t care, only that they’d found their prey.
Another snuffling of air through a monstrous snout issued from the pantry. I thought it was my knees going weak, but hooves shook the floor and the darkest shadow of them all fell across me. Hot, fetid breath washed down from a regulation height. I couldn’t raise my eyes and didn’t want to. I’d failed. A thick arm shrouded in tattered black sleeves reached out of the darkness. I caught a glimpse of patchy fur and a hand the size of a twenty ounce boxing glove. Too late for apologies or writing letters, I called out.
“Izaak! I’m sorry!”
The Gallu’s hand struck the golden breastplate with a shower of sparks and recoiled.
Son of a bitch. Atofo. He hadn’t been lying.
The air went still. The oppressive atmosphere of the Below faded. Last thing I saw was the horned beast glowering down, denied his duty.
I was alone with only the smell of Mr. Hallewell’s body in the nearby parlor to keep me company. The room looked the same as before. Almost.
Outside the tall windows, the manor’s grounds flickered with a blue glow — emergency lights.
A textbook police knock rattled the front door. “Hank? You in there?”
Shock finished off my fear. The break in wouldn’t have been obvious; I’d closed the rear window. No lights on, Hank’s truck gone, my car hidden at the cemetery, the cops had no reason to suspect anybody was even home.
“Hank? You open up or I’m gonna bring down this fancy door of yours, you hear me?”
The voice sounded concerned. This was one of Hank’s good ‘ol boys, not just a local cop. Forget the electric chair, if they found me here, I wouldn’t ever make it to a cell.
Roscoe was seconds from making splinters out of that aging door and cutting off my escape route out the back window. The floor to ceiling panes of the dining room, still unbroken after the shadow beast’s leap, wouldn’t work. And stepping over the late Mr. Hallewell? Bloody boot prints through the kitchen would only buy a head start on that death sentence.
Somehow, I needed to hide in plain sight.
Anything hidden, underground, in the shadows, even underwater counted for the Below. Atofo’s spells offered plenty of camouflage. But unless I wanted to mount myself on a wall, deer were out. Once over a threshold, whether or not the spells worked also depended on the spiritual legacy of the building. Hallewell’s wasn’t equal opportunity.
So I did what anybody might do after a brush with Death. I moved toward the liquor cabinet and prayed.
The man who’d spoken through me had died right on this spot. Soldier or a slave, we had a connection somehow beyond a shared skin color. Our pain about our sons united us across the gulf of history. I’d been bounced out of the Below, but with my cancer symptoms returning, the boundary remained close. It was possible this spirit could help, or maybe I could use his presence to reach past the hostile forces here and channel my spell.
I crouched in the compact shadow of the antique Tudor bar and whispered into the beyond. “I’m on your turf, surrounded by mutual enemies. I beseech you for your protection.”
Knife poised above my arm, I prepared to make the cut.
“Save your blood. Enough been spilt here.”
The quick, strong contact took me by surprise. “Fine, no blood, but spirits always require a sacrifice. Name your price.”
“Find my son. Don’t leave here until you put him to rest. Even if it kills you, find my son.”
Kills me. He didn’t know how right he was. Blood bubbled in a constant tickle in my throat now. Finding the remains of a boy killed two hundred years ago could take weeks. I definitely wouldn’t make it back home tonight for a follow up appointment with Atofo.
I heard the front door’s old-style rim lock snap under one swift kick. Heavy, measured footfalls rushed inside. Two men, a sheriff and his deputy if I had to guess. One called out again for Hank while the other’s voice trailed off in the opposite direction shouting “Clear!”
This wasn’t a welfare check. They’d come expecting violence. I’d been set up.
A flashlight beam bobbed along the dining room wall opposite the parlor, collapsing as it grew closer. Gear jangled on belts and vests. They’d be clearing this room next.
As a cop, you’re always walking into situations blind. Training tells you to expect the worst, so you’re prepared when the worst goes down. Adrenaline moves your feet, locks your elbows, guides the tension in your finger. You’re one muscle twitch away from dropping a perp so you can go home alive.
Some cops, they thought that meant their lives were more important than the people they protected. Cops like my former partner.
That day in broad daylight, Nelson could see the boy didn’t have anything but a cell phone. For whatever reason, the dumb kid wouldn’t drop it. Maybe he’d lost one too many and his parents were going to beat the fear of Jesus into him if he lost another. Maybe he’d started for social media, get some easy street cred. Me versus the cops. YOLO.
Nelson had kept shouting. The kid got more nervous. Scared. I could see where this would end plainer than any fortune teller.
What the hell? I’d already been given my diagnosis and a few months to live. My gun in Nelson’s face made him rethink the situation.
He knew he could drop a kid on the street and maybe get a few weeks off. He’d done it before. More than once. A fellow officer? Harder to explain.
When nobody ended up dead, it became my word against his. The white veteran cop snitched to internal affairs. The kid ended up in the wind. Dealing with terminal cancer? They didn’t care other than to write me up for another breach of protocol for not reporting the diagnosis to my superiors.
The two local cops reached the dining room. The flashlight beam swept the wall and crept into the far corners. Surrender and I might as well have pulled that golden breastplate aside when the Gallu came. What choices did I have? Go out guns blazing? Shoot a couple cops?
Maybe. I’d strutted over that thin blue line and been ready to die to make sure that dumb kid lived one more day. At the time, I figured I might as well use what little life I had left to do my damn job and protect the innocent. That was one reason I’d come to appreciate Atofo’s methods. Blood for blood. Spirit for spirit. Magic demanded sacrifice.
This request from beyond to find a man’s son at the price of my own life wasn’t any different.
I sheathed my knife. “We are agreed,” I whispered.
“Then accept the cloak of Kibaga!”
My own shadow stirred, and I nearly sprang out from my cover. I’d seen enough shadowy beasts for one night. It took every ounce of willpower I had to let the detached darkness encircle my throat. Twin bands of shadow settled with a numbing cold and a billowing weight which flapped along my back. Light, airy, the same feeling trickled through my bones and my feet left the ground.
Never before had I flown using magic. By the time the cops entered the room, I was hovering at the height of the raised ceiling a full story above them, the ebony cloak rippling noiselessly behind.
This wasn’t the power of Atofo’s blood and sun. No numbness of spirit or lurking death accompanied this spell. My chest swelled with pride. I wanted to scream in triumph, shake my fist, rain hell down upon my enemies. Whatever ritual had been brought to bear, it had summoned the cleansing divinity of the Above out of pure, ebony darkness.
A heavyset man lumbered into the room first. He had the strained, choppy steps of somebody with training but few opportunities to put it into practice. He seemed to know the place, even in the dark. His sweep was cursory, at best. A good way to get killed.
His partner burst in next, tall and wiry. He’d seen action somewhere, maybe a recent veteran himself. His eyes found all the places the big guy had missed. Gun held tight, it dipped as his focus became the liquor cabinet fifteen feet right below me. Two short steps and he stopped, reaching toward the floor. I heard broken glass shift. My hand wandered toward my gun.
The bigger guy had gone straight for the body, probably following the stench. His flashlight beam froze in the narrow pantry. His throat made a strangled noise.
“Jesus! Sweet Jesus! What’ve they done?”
His partner gave up on the broken glass. He shifted his attention to where the big guy had dropped to one knee just inside the butler’s pantry. More collected, the taller one stalked over, his gun at the ready, and sighted around the corner.
“I’ll check the kitchen door,” he volunteered, barely managing to slip past the crime scene. Moments later, he called out the all-clear.
“Hank? Hank?” The officer kneeling beside the corpse tried to rouse Mr. Hallewell, not fully processing the horror. “Lord almighty, what the hell they done to you?”
Lights flicked on and a wedge of illumination shined from the kitchen.
“Goddamn,” the tall one muttered from the far end. “Sheriff, listen, we gotta clear this house. Whoever done this might still be here.”
The Sheriff whimpered more prayers over the mutilated corpse. He wasn’t about to move anytime soon. I took this as my chance to run.
I floated along the ceiling, strange powers surging through my veins. Whatever blessing I’d been granted, instead of fighting to drag me under, it fought for control. Retreat felt every bit as wrong as turning my back on a rival gang or leaving a suspect unsecured. I needed to command the fear and respect of these, my enemies. My hand tightened on the grip of my holstered Emperor Scorpion.
I fought those urges as I drifted down the wall and floated into the parlor. The Sheriff never once checked over his shoulder. His partner tried several more times to convince him to secure the house but soon gave in to the man’s mourning.
Once out of view, my feet touched the ground. I felt the cloak slip away, drawn along an invisible current to be swept into the room I’d just left. Careful as I could, I made for the battered front door.
A black police cruiser idled in the circular drive, lights pulsing. I slipped around the trunk to avoid any dash cameras and rushed for the trees.
My heart pounded free and powerful. My legs pumped. My feet felt weighted down in their kicks. I’d never felt so alive, so free, every step a bounding leap which devoured the open ground. This was a magic I’d never before known and the taste left me aching for more.