On this, all depends

In my admittedly limited experience of the world, the police of any country tend to take the murder of a rich man very seriously. I was sure Hammond and Rigdon would follow up on every aspect of my story. I was clearly one of the last people to see Lyman Raimi alive. There was a witness to our altercation a day or so before his death. Sooner or later the police would find the ten grand locked in the safe at the market, if they hadn’t already. That, plus a million dollars’ worth of liquidated assets, suggested a very serious motive. Blackmail maybe — perhaps over the contents of Kell’s womb. Short of some forensic evidence to the contrary, she and I were likely the chief suspects. It was only a matter of time before I was questioned again, if not detained. Next time, I figured, they wouldn’t be nearly as polite. Telling the whole truth would only implicate my friend. Being caught in a lie would implicate myself. And my alibi, if we got around to that, sounded like a complete fiction. I’m not sure I believed it myself. And anyway, I had no idea where to find Irfan, or Bastien, and no idea what either of them would say if questioned by the police. Fish, for his part, would be happy to tell them whatever story he figured was most likely to send me upstate.

All things considered, I would’ve said I was fucked. But I’m an optimist, and as it happened, there was still one person I hadn’t talked to, someone who knew the deceased, who had been inquiring after him. Someone I suspected the police didn’t even know was involved.

I knew enough by then to appreciate that wasn’t an accident. He stayed in the shadows on purpose.

I told the cops that my phone had been stolen and got them to spot me a single call. I asked directory assistance to connect me to a cab company. The dude took his sweet time getting there, but he got me home. To be honest, I stiffed him out of the fare. I do feel a little guilty about that. I ran inside as he yelled after me. I cleaned up quick and changed. Fresh panties, matching socks from the clean pile — I think — and my best vintage green Captain Caveman tee. But I was purseless, walletless, and phoneless, and it totally sucked ass. But I wasn’t totally without luck. In a desperate search for loose cash, I found an old train card I thought I had lost. It had a little over four dollars on it, which is why I hadn’t spent very much time looking for it before. With the additional $1.56 in loose change I found scattered throughout the mess on my floor, I had just enough to get me where I was going. I snuck down the fire escape, just in case the cabby was out front, and exchanged both the card and the loose change at the station office for a little paper ticket. The woman behind the window looked at the change and my black eye, then at Captain Caveman, but she didn’t say anything.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

She nodded as she handed me the ticket.

“Do I smell like dung to you?”

She didn’t answer.

Let me just say, Bistro Indigenes is legitimately amazing. There’s this big stone hearth with a raging fire looking out over an open dining room. The hostess was so graceful and classy. I would feel so completely fugly standing between her and Kell. I could never pull off short hair like that. In fact, she set me back a second. I had come expecting an over-made teenager at the stand, with lightened hair and a pre-summer tan, someone I could bully my way past, but the woman before me had such poise and casual grace that I was instantly certain there were no string of words I could utter that would convince her to act against her employer. Especially since I had come to a fancy restaurant wearing a shiny, multicolored jersey jacket over a cartoon T-shirt and flower-print shoes.

I took a deep breath as I approached, contemplating what manner of devious lie would get me to the chef, but there was no need.

“Ms. Song,” the woman greeted me warmly before I could utter a word. “I’m afraid he got pulled into an unexpected meeting, but he should be done soon. Can we offer you dinner?”

“Um . . .”

I looked at the dining room. It was so busy. And everyone was so nicely dressed. I looked down at Captain Caveman.

Before I could answer, the hostess nodded to a heavily mustachioed Latino man, who took me to a seat at the counter that ran around the open kitchen where I watched the chefs put on a little show. They were all pretty young. And relaxed. Joking with each other. It was nice. And the cuisine . . . The menu had two options. “Man” or “Woman.” Guests were encouraged to choose the one “with which they most closely identified.” I’m sure the chef pissed some people off with that. Good for him.

A woman in a dark bandanna, about my age, produced a basket from under a counter. It was full of spindle-like rolls of thread. Spider silk. She put three or four of them on a wire spoon and dipped them in boiling water. Then she set the blanched, sanitized, and deflated nests under a heat lamp to dry. She took some dry ones and put them in a round machine — like those rotary tubs carnivals use to make cotton candy, only smaller — and added a spoonful of thick crystals, sugar maybe. Finally she rolled a wafer twirl, a tubular cookie, around the center of the machine so that it accumulated a filamentous layer of red-violet fluff. I have no idea what candied spider web tastes like, but for the “Men,” that was dessert. Their entree was fatty chicken. The meat was stuffed on the bone and fired in clay that had to be smashed open after cooking. The chefs brought out this big mallet. It took several hours to make, so they always had a few extras. Each time they smashed a pot, it was loud, and the crowd cheered. I guess since it was cooked at such high temperature and pressure, the meat fused with the marrow and spices and melted in your mouth.

I chose “Woman,” because duh, and got sliced ox penis — which was like four feet long before they cut it into individual servings. It was soaked in chili oil, grilled over open flame, and served with a cold puree of parsnip, egg white, and flowering-cactus jelly. The palate cleanser was a tiny glass of alcoholic chrysanthemum sorbet — sweet and sour, earthy and floral. And a little buzz to boot.

Before I had a chance to sample the dessert, the hostess came to get me. She took me back out the front and around to a side door. I could see the lights of downtown. I got a little jittery. We walked up the stairs and the door swung open and — BOOM. There was a head, like a giant shrunken head — nine or ten feet, all gray and shriveled and nasty. Its eyes are stitched shut. Its mouth is pursed, like it’s frozen in a perpetual wail. I slid past it and stepped into the living space. The floor-to-ceiling windows had a killer view of downtown. The sun was low and the light came in beams from between the distant skyscrapers.

The room was like a little museum. A metal mobile hung from the high ceiling. A pair of couches faced each other in front of the windows. At the back was a little bar. There was a big battle club and a mummified hand and some killer art on the walls, and that great view. In between the couches was a worn Buddhist stelae that he was using as a coffee table.

The hostess, whose name was Milan, motioned for me to sit and said he would be out soon. I nodded and she turned to leave just as a blustery man with a thick comb-over walked in from a side hall, through an open pair of French doors. He looked so out of place in his tired suit and loose tie. At the other end of the hall I saw stacked stone cubes. Each cube was deep red and capped in a different Chinese character. I recognized the radicals but I didn’t know the script. It looked like some kind of ancient calligraphy.

The man spun and yelled. “I don’t know what you expected. You can’t keep venomous spiders in a kitchen — ” He stopped when he noticed me. He scowled. He took a deep breath. “Young lady, I hope you’re not here for a job.”

Then he stormed out.

I turned back to the hall and there he was. The chef.

“Ms. Song.” He was flat. Like he’d just gotten horrible news but was trying to be polite. “How nice to see you again.”

He had some folded papers in his hand. It looked serious. Like legal stuff. You know, where the back page is blue. I caught the words New York State Department of Health at the top.

“Is this a bad time?” I stood.

He handed the papers to Milan, who had stepped out of the way of the retreating man.

She read them. “Again?”

“Please talk to Raul and finish the service immediately. We can begin calling next week’s reservations in the morning.”

“And the staff?” she asked.

He looked at me as he thought, as if I somehow figured into the equation.

“They may leave after the kitchen is clean.”

I pointed to the door, like I was happy to show myself out, but the chef was already walking toward those stone doors, which swung open as he approached. I looked to Milan. She nodded and I scurried after. It was so quiet up there. I passed the open door of a small office and bathroom. I think he lived up there.

I stopped in the stone doorway. “Wow . . .”

There was a high vaulted ceiling. And a tree! Like, a whole live tree inside! And this giant wall of books behind faintly tinted glass. And you could totally see where the new building had been on the remains of something a lot older — like, there was a broken brick wall at the far end which sloped to the carpet at an angle.

Étranger walked to a semi-circular kitchen that arced around the tree trunk. It was raised a step above the floor. Around it were piles of reclining pillows. To the left, huge windows covered in symbols and writing.

But I barely saw it. My eyes went right to the chair.

No, not a chair. A throne. A bone throne.

It rested inside an arched brick nook under the wall of books, which was flanked on both ends by cast iron spiral staircases. Like pillars. It was made out of skeletons. The arms were arms. The feet were feet. In the middle of the back, which was an array of spines, sat a human skull, wedged between the vertebrae. It stared out at me through empty sockets. Like a sexual predator.

“Thank you for coming.” Étranger washed his hands and wiped them on a towel.

I was frozen. I couldn’t move my eyes. “That chair . . .”

He turned. “Hm?”

“It looks like it wants to kill me.”

“It does.” He was serious.

“What?”

“Don’t worry. It is quite secure.”

He was right. It was chained crosswise and the links bolted to the floor in six places, as if it required it — that if one of those locks was loosened just a little, the whole thing would break free and slaughter us both.

There was a Japanese screen resting against the nook, and he walked over and stretched it across the opening, hiding the chair.

Something moved out of the corner of my eye and I turned. “Oh!”

Behind me, next to the doors, was an upright, man-sized terrarium with ferns and a few large branches. It was full of spiders. But not just any spiders. Fiddlebacks. Black widows, too. I stepped back when I saw the red marks. I could actually feel the absence of the terrarium’s front panel. It was completely open. I could have reached out and touched them as they perched silently on their silk.

“Won’t they crawl away?”

I had visions of sitting down to talk business and finding one crawling up my leg. One of them moved just then, and I fought the urge to shiver.

“Only if I stop feeding them.”

I didn’t want to ask what they ate. I turned away, but my eyes didn’t know where to go. There was something amazing in every direction. There was a mask and a colorful feather suit and writing on the windows and a stained glass in the ceiling and on and on. I spun around slowly.

“You’ve been having me followed,” I accused with my eyes on the ceiling. “Haven’t you?”

He didn’t deny it.

“The big guy,” I said. “With the hunch. He wasn’t one of Lyman’s. Lyman and his people were too busy getting brutally murdered to follow me all over the city. He was yours.”

He walked to the other side of the kitchen area and looked in one of the cupboards. He stood straight holding my bag.

“Fuuuck me,” I blurted. Then I covered my mouth. “Sorry.” But I couldn’t believe it.

He handed it to me and I looked inside. Phone was dead. Big surprise. But everything was there: Samir’s knife, my wallet, the compact, the unopened tarot deck I bought at Sour Candy, even the last of my cash.

While I was looking, I noticed the faded symbol on the back of my hand. Time and repeated hand washings had reduced it to broken lines and blurred color.

“And this?” I asked holding it up. “You did this as well, I assume. In my flat the other day.”

“You could not have appreciated the darkness circling you, even then,” he said, like it was worse now.

I ran my thumb over the remnants of the symbol. “Someone I met called it a dispel.”

He nodded. “It is a ward. Effective, but only against minor magicks.”

“When I went to see Lyman,” I said, “he had a picture on his wall. It was from an old manuscript. A man stood in a circle surrounded by all these daggers impaled in the ground. There was a noose around his neck and a gallows above, but the rope had been cut. I hadn’t thought anything about it at first. I hadn’t thought about any of this stuff. Why would I, right? But it’s an allegory, isn’t it? Or something like that. Cutting the noose. That’s what all this is about. The escape from death.”

“The dream of the alchemists,” he said softly. “The dream of man,” he corrected himself, “since he first woke to his own mortality. Sought by kings and paupers alike. First as a Holy Grail, the receptacle of the Water of Life, also sometimes imagined as a fountain.”

“All that alchemy stuff, turning lead into gold and everything. It was another allegory, or a cipher, I guess. The philosopher’s stone wasn’t a thing. It was the jewel of ultimate knowledge. How to perform the ritual.”

“Ah, but there are two universal principles, whose union begets all things. Male and female. Sun and Moon. Heaven and Hell. And so two gifts were made. One, the chalice or fountain, is the source of life and its master. The other . . .”

“It’s an athame, right? Sort of like a dagger.”

“Not an athame,” he corrected as he walked back around the counter. “Theathame. The original sacrificial blade, carved from the dome of the earth by ancient gods and gifted to the first dark priest, who was to be their emissary on our world. Cain, if you’re Christian.”

“I’m not.”

“Much of its history is lost. We know the Spanish took it from the Aztecs. Where they got it is less clear. It might have been carried by fleeing Easter Islanders, who found it in the wreckage of an imperial Chinese trading vessel, blown far off course by unnatural winds. Before it was banished by the emperor, it came to the Chinese from India, where it had been enshrined at the temple of Kali. How it came to be there is also a mystery. Before that, it had been buried in a tomb in Bactria by the priests of Alexander, just before his great army — which nearly conquered the world — fell to chaos and turned back. Alexander himself took it from the Persians, who took it from the Hyksos, who took it from the Pharaohs, who took it from the Hebrews, who took it from the Babylonians, who took it from the Akkadians . . . And everywhere it went, ruin followed. The fall of the Aztecs. The Muslim conquest of Hindustan. The untimely death of Alexander. The plagues of Exodus.”

There was a long silence.

“In the sixteenth century,” he explained, “after the mighty Spanish Armada — whose ships stretched from horizon to horizon — was decimated in a freak gale that swept across the North Sea, the High Arcane had finally had enough.”

“The Masters,” I said.

He nodded. “Their agents wrested the blade from the Inquisitors, who had thought they could keep its evil contained, and buried it in a place of forgetting.”

“Apparently someone remembered,” I joked.

“Yes,” he said softly. “Unfortunately, the magic of that place was broken. Many years ago.”

I caught a touch of guilt in his voice, but it didn’t seem like he wanted to explain.

I looked up at the tree behind him. I hadn’t noticed before, but there were tiny red fruits, like berries, peeking from between the leaves.

“Ms. Song,” he said pointedly, “you are in far, far more danger than you know. Courtesy dictates I suggest retreat, that we find you shelter. But in truth . . . we must recover the dagger before the Lord of Shadows — at any cost. On this, all depends.”

“The Lord of Shadows,” I repeated.

He nodded.

I took another deep breath and let it out. “I had a feeling you’d say something like that. Good job on the delivery, by the way. I was totally expecting it but I still got goosebumps.”

“Where is your friend?” he asked directly.

“Yeah. About that . . .”

Thing is, I was pretty sure I knew. It was the pullover she wore, the one she’d swapped my jacket for. It was off-the-rack but very high end. Expensive. Sak’s maybe. Whoever bought it for her was almost certainly a man, one with a little money but not a ton. That ruled out Lyman as well as Bastien, who wouldn’t be caught dead in Sak’s anyway. It also rules out most of the other guys Kell knew. Except one.

“If I help you,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat, “I’ll need something in return.”

He bristled a little but tried not to show it. “What is it you require?”

“Well.” I stood and grabbed my bag. “I’d like to not die.”

 

I’m posting the chapters of my forthcoming urban paranormal mystery in order until the book is released in early 2018. You can start here: I saw my first dead body the summer we moved to Atlanta.

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The next chapter is: (not yet posted)

cover image by Daniel Zrom

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