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I knew these clowns. Bouncers at the club ready to show anybody they ain’t bluffin’. The brawlers you wanted on your crew, backing you like solemn monoliths to a beat down. Yeah, I’d seen their type a thousand times.
Now? Only a subtle change had taken place, but they were unrecognizable.
Glee. Mania. Hunger. All of those leaked through their once impenetrable tough guy mugs. A similar vibe I imagined I'd had charging onto the hood of their SUV. Not quite so wild, their eyes showed cunning and calculation. They held the truth that the body they inhabited was expendable; the casing on a bomb, the shell for a slug, meant to fulfill one purpose - the desires of Mordecai Sunday.
Thing One opened its mouth.
The words had undeniable density and the voice delivering them rumbled like the lower notes of a church organ. I’d heard plenty of foreign languages in my time. Walking the beat, traveling cross country in search of magical cures, and speaking with dead natives. This language had a unique sound, a rapid cadence and harsh inflection close to the Middle Eastern cat who owned the halal food cart parked on Hopkins. That sampled with a mother tongue which the Pan-African brothers spoke with reverence.
The sound caused the hair on the back of my neck to prickle. My limbs felt light with adrenaline. As the brute continued rumbling, he raised a hand to point at Araceli. I went for my gun.
“Wait,” Araceli said, grabbing my arm.
“Until he finishes his spell?” I said, gun half drawn. Neither of the bruisers appeared worried.
“This is no spell. Mordecai is speaking through him in Sumerian. He’s reminding you that you have a job to do and I’m not welcome here.” Araceli spit a reply in the same ancient tongue, commanding and powerful.
I thought about pulling iron anyway. I didn’t work for Mordecai, no matter what kind of coercion he used. And the constant suggestion I consorted with demons was grinding on me.
I could see the demon inside these two. Their faces had warped. The underlying bones had become sharply rigid to hollow out their cheeks and throw their gaze into shadow. Whatever kind of people they’d been before, they were no longer in control. Dropping these thugs wouldn’t change anything but add more bodies to any murder charges they hoped to pin on me. He knew that or he’d have come here himself to supervise.
“Tell Mordecai Sunday to kiss my ass. In Sumerian.”
“Already done.”
The minions didn’t react, just continued to barricade the driveway. They might attack her if we forced the issue. I could give them a fight, though I’d only gotten weaker since the tussle in the intersection. My lungs felt congealed. Resting state, I could breathe. Any cuttin’ up and I’d be struggling for air.
“They want you gone,” I muttered and turned away from the mouth-breathing brutes. “You gonna walk away or exorcise them?”
“Not that easy,” she said. “An exorcism banishes demons to the Below where they came from. Sunday is here, on this plane. He’ll just take back control. I’ll need to confront him directly.”
“Sounds like something an old sword might help with.”
Her jaw flexed. “Something like that.”
“Wait for me at the car,” I said. I could sense a closing argument and cut her off. “They’ll only hurt me if I find the sword, but possessed, from what you said, they can’t even touch it. He’ll need my co-operation. I don’t plan to give it.”
“You haven’t been listening, have you? Nobody ever plans to co-operate with demons,” she hissed. “Don’t let your other arrangements cloud your judgment.”
Arrangements? There she goes, back on about Atofo.
“Oh, I’ve been listening. I told you to chill on me,” I fired back, forgetting to care about what our entourage might hear. With a grimace, I cleared my throat and lowered my voice. “Take the car, wait for me. Give me until dusk. If I’m not back, you need to complete Fortune’s ritual.”
“What in the three realms makes you think I’ll do that!?”
“Because if I’m gone, that’s your only shot at locating the sword. Right now, I need to start searching, and if these brimstone muppet motherfuckers want to tag along, it’s whatever.” I cleared my throat. “At this rate, I’ll be lucky to live until dusk.”
Araceli scowled. “Take this.” She stepped into me, her face drawing close to mine. The scowl never wavered but she quickly kissed both cheeks in a continental sorta way. The move caught me off guard until I felt a gentle pull on my jacket pockets. “If you need help, just clap your hands together.”
I didn’t quite understand. I knew she’d planted something in both pockets. The goons didn’t appear to be any wiser, and they exchanged a sneer as we pulled apart. Maybe confirmation we had more than a professional relationship. Hated to disappoint them so I kissed her.
A quick brush of the lips, that’s all. I know. Bad Ace. But you get furred this close to dying.
“Shot clock’s running,” I said as I left Araceli staring after me. “I never got your names.”
“We no longer have names,” Thing One replied. It was the man’s voice from the diner only deep enough the gunk in my chest vibrated. “We surrendered those with failure. I suggest you not fail our master.”
I chuckled nervously and glanced back. Araceli fumed by the gate, arms crossed, eyes like her daggers. My first few steps had been a confident strut. The closer I got to the house, the more that swagger faded. Breathing, slow and steady, became my focus. Avoiding a repeat of my first vision would be nice. I didn’t want to slip into the Below with demons breathing down my neck. And the ancestors had already given me all the information they were willing or able to give. I had to make it happen here, in the present.
We went inside the house first. My escort tromped close behind, exhaling a sulfurous heat down my neck. Whatever Araceli thought I was, after that kiss she couldn’t believe I’d become the tool of some demon. I brushed my teeth on the regular.
“Give me some space?” I asked. They just stared like good little meat puppets. “Your demon stank is clogging my other senses, you feel me?”
They swiveled their bowling ball heads toward each other to exchange an unspoken agreement then backed off.
Sheriff Hallewell had tossed the place pretty thoroughly. Aside from a halfway impressive collection of antique furniture and a silverware set which Hank probably didn’t know was antique Victorian sterling and worth a fortune, I didn’t find much. I managed to pocket one of the forks without being noticed.
The house had a definite patina of residual magic. Pervasive and powerful, it spread throughout every room. The longer I stayed, the more I could tell about it. My first hope was I’d picked up the scent of the sword. Worn room to room maybe an artifact like that would leave behind such an even trace. Then I recalled the lingering enchantment on the front gate.
I couldn't say exactly when, but a wizard had lived here. A powerful one.
I hadn’t detected the traces in the house before because the vision and the body had overpowered them. Those gone, I could feel a stirring sensation similar to Araceli’s magic only with that musty quality of age. This was the gap which predated the Hallewell family.
Caleb had mentioned a former owner, an Englishman, who’d wanted to be called a magus. Araceli had avoided us as we spoke about it. The threads here ran deeper than she’d volunteered. People being tight-lipped came with the territory, but I always got answers.
Finished with the house, I headed to the backyard. I’d come in through a window here in full darkness with no magical night vision. In broad daylight, I could see Hank had put more effort into his garden than the bland landscaping out front. Roses just beginning to bud in the early coastal spring draped a trellis. Flowerbeds ran the border of a circular prayer maze made of flaking brick as old as the house. Another trellis faced the dense woods where a gravel path wound into the saw palmetto and oak.
I felt a glimmer of hope. That same surface tension, a residual hum, skinned the bricks of the walkways but offered no definitive pull. Whoever the wizard was who’d been here, they’d walked this path. From a crime scene perspective, regular digging and flowerbeds made for a great place to stash whatever.
I recognized plants in the flowerbeds as I searched. I’m no gardener and only one herb I ever gave much thought. Anything else I know, I know because of Atofo. These were the same plants I’d cobble together for my medicine bag. Itamo. Chitubexatica. Beads of Saint Helen. A sassafras tree grew on the outer edge too. I knelt and snapped off a leaf from the Beads of Saint Helen.
The surface felt tough, leathery, hardier than what I’d been able to find in the wild. I saw evidence poor old Hank had tried to eradicate these invasive species from his brightly colored flowers and failed. Planted by a wizard who left behind a trail of magic centuries old, herbicides didn’t have a chance. If everything worked out, I might come back here and restock.
“Find something?” the escort rumbled, towering over me. His buddy had taken up a wary position on the edge of the prayer labyrinth.
“I’ll let you know when I do.”
I palmed the leaf and slipped it into a pocket. Much of a shaman’s medicine bag relates to healing and protection. With a little mojo, this leaf could toughen skin and give me an edge in a fight. It had plenty of other uses too.
I made for the gravel path. Going by the property map, this should lead in the direction of the creek and toward the old rice fields. As much as the great outdoors left me creeped, I’d grown to appreciate the advantages a shaman had when surrounded by nature. No magic wands, no boiling cauldrons, all I needed was to pinch off a leaf or dig up a root. A plan started to form, and I kept my eyes on the ground. The giants lumbered along behind, maintaining a working distance. It didn’t take long before I spotted what I needed.
Needed. Not wanted. I’d wanted a piece of an antler. Maybe some fur rubbed off on the toothy tree bark. What I got were deer pellets.
No time to pause and think, I stopped and scooped it up. A quick tug at my laces on my Timbs and I set off again before any questions came.
I’d lucked out if you could call it that. The deer poop wasn’t fresh but dried into little dusty beads. One spell focus down, I could maybe ditch these clowns later.
The path turned from gravel to dense sand. I moved quicker, gradually expanding the gap with the demon-possessed bodyguards. Smaller paths and game trails overlapped the main one, forming miniature crossroads. I passed through, tentatively probing at the boundaries. Ahead the verdant light of perpetually green trees took on the powdery gray wisp of dangling Spanish moss. With dusk coming, the tree line opened on a sea of waist-high grass the color of a blank newspaper.
The sudden open space came as a shock. I hadn’t wanted to stop and stare, but that was what I did. Probing for weak spots in the connection between worlds, I felt the emptiness of the fields. On the edge, I stood on the rim of an endless abyss. A deep pit which I never realized had been inside me, far beyond the blackness on my lungs, seemed to open.
In the middle, danced Fortune.