Dante & The Dark Seed

by C. J. Pizzurro

  Year after year, George said, “I’m not going to put a new driver on my insurance. The rates would skyrocket.” But Dante was grateful as a son should be, beaming from ear to ear while George went as far as to say, “The trunk is so big the mafia would love it. You could fit three to four bodies easy.”

  There weren’t many students out, but there were numerous Star of David and snowflake decorations fixed to the lamp posts. Feeling the festive spirit, they made their way to the parking lot where Dante’s boat of a car awaited with all its burgundy goodness.

  “Ya know I really do love your car, it’s yuge.”

  “You mean huge right?”

  “Yeah, yuge. What? I heard someone in class say it?”

  “Was his name Ronald Thump, the billionaire real estate mogul? That’s who they took it from.”

  “I have no idea who he is. Well, I thought it was funny, and it fits. This car is yuge.”

  “You done yet?”

  “It’s yuge!”

  Dante took his free hand, tickling Anora.

  “Both hands on the wheel, please!” Anora said, giggling.

  Dante did as he was asked, getting them to the gym in one piece.

  Anora bit her lip, thinking of strategies on how to beat Dante while he put on his gi and boxing gloves. Anora came out in nothing more than a regular shirt and some gym shorts.

  “Either one of us is overdressed or underdressed. I had no idea you’d be wearing your gi,” Anora emphasized.

  “What else would I wear? And neither of us is underdressed. Fighting naked even if you’re hot as you are, isn’t okay in this gym.”

  “You know what I meant, Dante!”

  “Won’t matter that much anyway,” Dante said.

  “Oh, just you wait,” Anora said, getting into her stance. She flowed like water around the mat, shifting her weight leaving Dante guessing.

  Staring her Beloved in the eyes, she recalled her uncle's words. With swift, high vibrational strikes, you will stun your opponent. He may want to keep his distance, but we want to close the gap.

  Dante came lunging toward her with a right hook, putting Dante right where she wanted him. She transitioned to her first move, Parting the Horses Mane. As he expended energy with each punch he threw, Anora grabbed him behind his elbow, ramming her right tricep into his armpit. In one fluid motion, she flipped him over her knee.

  Dante hit the mat and, while still in her stance, she looked down at him, pleased.

  “Nice move, babe! Let’s see if you can do that again,” Dante said, getting up.

  Dante took off his gi, throwing it to the edge of the mat.

  “Now that’s more like it,” Anora said as Dante wiped the sweat from his brow.

  They may not have acknowledged it with their conscious minds, but they knew they pushed themselves for the fights soon to come. They wanted to protect those that couldn’t protect themselves. This is why they fought with such vigor.

  Dante slapped his gloves together, hyping himself up, coming in strong once more. He came in with a right hook, and Anora transitioned to her next move, Lady Works the Shuttles. Deflecting his fist upwards, she struck Dante in the solar plexus.

  Stunned, Dante struggled to catch his breath.

  “Ouch, babe. You got me in my tender bits.”

  He wasn’t ready to lose, but he also wasn’t going to wallop on her as he would Dawayne.

  Dante jabbed with his right hand so Anora grabbed his wrist, putting pressure on his elbow, once again parting the horse’s mane.

  Eloquent she was as she danced around. Not able to move fast enough, he fell to the mat.

  Anora let go of his wrist and struck the back of his neck, ending the fight.

  “Yes! Finally!”

  “Well played, darling, but this is so not over.” Dante got up while Anora swayed from side to side with a massive grin.

  “It looks like it’s over to me.”

  “Well, who knows better than you that looks can be deceiving.” Dane threw off his gloves.

  “Umm, why are you taking off your gloves? I thought you said this wasn’t over.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘this is where the gloves come off?’ I just took off my gloves. You figure it out.” Dante held up his fists, extending his pointer and ring fingers.

  “What are ya gonna do, poke me?” Anora asked.

  “Not in front of all these nice people, pretty sure that’s indecent exposure no matter how decent ya look.” Dante winked, then lunged forward striking her right shoulder.

  A tingling sensation ran down her arm, as it went limp. “What the?! I can’t move my arm.”

  Dante struck her other arm, and all she could was spin around, flailing her arms about.

  “What did you…do to me, Dante?”

  “Come to think of it, I never did tell you how I’ve also practiced a martial art called Dim Mak. It takes advantage of opponent’s pressure points.”

  “I still win though, Dante. Tell me I won.” Anora stood there, not able to move with a frown upon her face.

  “You were whooping my butt. That’s the only reason I resorted to using it.”

  “Really?”

  “If this fight went off points, you would have won in a landslide.”

  “You have to help get all my stuff now.”

  “Yeah, I know, sweetheart. Just wait here.”

  Dante checked twice that there was no one in the woman's locker room before running in and gathering her things.

  “You did a number on me today, Dante.”

  “We did a number on each other. I’ve never seen moves like that.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” Dante answered. And I planned on taking it easy on her. Never making that mistake again. Dante opened her passenger door, helping her in. “You did awesome today. I couldn’t be more confident in you. Shoot, you could even hold your own with Dawayne using those moves.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know how I feel about Dawayne hitting me. I’ll leave that to you two.”

  “What do you want to do now?” Dante asked.

  With puppy dog eyes, Anora said, “I want to go to your house, drink some water after I take a shower, then cuddle with you on the couch. That’s what I want.”

  “Done and done.”

  Anora had a look of longing, staring at her arms and the seatbelt. “Please, honey, I’m going to need some help. I can’t move my arms, remember?”

  “As you wish. And just so you know, you’re one tough cookie.” Dante leaned over, clicking her seatbelt into place.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Muraqaba

  Although Asmodeus had told Dawayne that the necklace was for a special someone, Dawayne carried it around in his pocket. Rubbing his fingers across it ever so often, he pondered what its true purpose was, while he waited for Amy’s birthday, now just three days away. The true purpose of the necklace eluded him, not that it would have mattered if it were malevolent in nature. He was interested in all aspects of reality, not just the well-lit aspects of it.

  He, like Anora and Dante, had finished his finals but he opted for a more reclusive break from school to study even more. Dawayne made himself comfortable in the chilled room where the cadavers were kept, enjoying a privilege left for more accomplished students. Because his anatomy professor was fond of him and his cornucopia of catalogs, he let him stay as long as he pleased. The fact that he was chummy with Dawayne’s father also helped.

  Dawayne brought quite a few books as well as his journals, in addition to his sketchbook. Not yet ready to begin cutting, he puttered around, looking through the books that he had just gotten from the library that day. He hoped he’d come to find which one he’d want to read first before his date with the body behind him. The first book that caught his eye was The Essential Enochian Grimoire. Glancing through it, he saw it had many seals and symbols laced throughout. Maybe there’s something in here.

  Next was a book called the Necronomicon
, and for a few minutes, Dawayne had forgotten where he was, getting sucked into the book after reading the prefatory note. It spoke of other spheres of existence, lost cities forgotten by humans, and summoning souls from the netherworld. Should be interesting.

  And the third was a book he had only read about and, upon visiting the library that day, it had been checked back in. It was called Malleus Maleficarum: The Hammer of the Witches. Dawayne flipped through the pages of alleged activities of the witches, assuming the practices would be considered science or homeopathic remedies today. It was a toss-up as to what book he’d dive into first, but his focus again shifted him toward what he was there to do.

  It mattered not to him that many others had done what Leonardo Di Vinci or the illustrious Henry Gray of Gray’s Anatomy had done. But that didn’t stop Dawayne’s pride from wanting to do it better. It nagged at him like a splinter in the paw of a lion that those before him classified many organs and glands as vestigial.

  The gallbladder, once deemed vestigial, had been discovered to produce and regulate the bile and flora in the digestive tract. The appendix, also thought to be vestigial, was later discovered to be pivotal during the developmental stages of the endocrine system. He had read that it also helps many mammals, including humans, break down cellulose from plants.

  Dawayne wasn’t surprised by the gross miscalculations made by humans before him, but that only fiercened his resolve to find other parts of the body that were once thought to be useless. His books had snippets about the pineal gland, and with no prior knowledge of it, he knew some secrets lay within.

  Dawayne had yet to confide in Dante either, even though Anora was quite familiar with the subject. It just never came up in conversation, as if there was an invisible wedge being thrust between the two young men, forcing them to develop in their own way. Dawayne just couldn’t rid himself of the memory of the day that the Ashy One pressed his sooty finger to his brow, restoring his memory of the events in Rip’s room behind the fridge.

  Did he activate my pineal? What’s its true purpose? Dawayne turned to the lifeless man, no older than his father. He had a slight streak of grey along the sides and bushy eyebrows that appeared to have kept growing after he took his last breath. The man hadn’t been dead for more than a few months and, as far as cadavers went, this one was pretty nice.

  Dawayne rolled out the same kit from when he was a child, just a few pieces had been upgraded. He had sewn some additional slits to sheath scalpels and other tools of the trade. Closing his eyes, Dawayne ran his fingertips across the hilts, stopping at the exact moment his finger hit the scalpel. He then pulled it out, adoring its sheen in the light, leaning down to make the first cut. “Wait a second, got a little too carried away. I can’t cut my way through.”

  Dawayne searched the room until he found a cranial saw. He’d only seen one used in movies and the videos during class. Not yet being graced with using one, he flipped the switch on the side.

  At first, Dawayne couldn’t manage to keep it still long enough to get a firm grip, so he turned it off. Tightening his grip, Dawayne lined up the saw with the man’s forehead, and this time like a seasoned surgeon, cut around the man’s head. Then with a few final cracks of a chisel along the cuts, the top of the skull separated itself from the base.

  Dawayne pulled on the top of his skull, and as he freed it from the base, the slurping sound of suction reminded him of the goop he had played with as a child. Dawayne cut the protective membrane surrounding the brain called the dura. He then pulled it aside, revealing the brain and its lobes.

  With a watchful eye, he took the next hour separating the brain. Snipping, sawing, and slicing, he worked his way underneath where the cerebellum was, clipping the nerves and everything else in his way. On the home stretch, he clipped the oblongata at the base of the neck and pulled the brain from the man’s body. Placing the brain on the clean surface, he asked himself, what secrets do you hold?

  Looking upon the heap of grey matter, he then took yet another half-hour removing the cerebellum from the bottom half, working his way to the pineal gland.

  He could see it, and careful as he could be, he removed it. With the way he had clipped it free from its nest, it looked just like a shriveled little piece of fruit, leaf and all.

  Dawayne held the gland up to the light seeing the pinecone patterned striations.

  His eyes widened.

  “Oh, I’ve got to tell Dante.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Guru

  Dante had just turned off the main road and onto a side street in Siler City, with his love, Anora, by his side. Dante had called it a “podunk” town many years ago because it was so tiny, and it didn’t even have a Talmart yet. But things had changed, and now Siler City had a Talmart they could call their own.

  Many kids and inquiring minds came for the Devil’s Tramping Ground—which had made the town famous—but on this day, Dante and Anora came to visit her uncle. They drove by farm after farm, each with their own sprawling fields of grass. And a few of the farms even had pear trees, Dante’s favorite. This time of the year, they were in full bloom, with beautiful white flowers adorning their limbs.

  “It’s right up here, on the left,” Anora said as she pointed.

  “Which one is it? Right or the left?” Dante asked with a smile, knowing full well what she meant by that.

  Anora’s face was blank, emotionless. “Left up here, Dante.” Dante turned left onto the dirt and gravel road. The many trees and bushes lining the driveway were what those in the landscaping industry call privacy plants.

  They gave his yard just that, giving the yard a mystique before even setting eyes on it. Making it past the bushes, it was a secret to no one who set eyes on his yard that he had gone great to lengths to make it a retreat. It looked nothing like the other houses they had driven past in town. It was beautiful.

  ’Twas a ranch-style home with a large stone fountain out front, and with everything so perfect, Dante was impressed. Pursing his lips, he nodded his head in approval.

  “See, I told you it was nice here.”

  “Yeah, I believed ya, I just had no idea it would feel this peaceful and secluded,” Dante said while looking into his rearview. He cracked the window open, and soon heard the sound of running water. Looking to his left, just a few feet from the road, her uncle had constructed a babbling brook. The tiny creek coursed alongside the driveway and as Dante got closer, he could see it fed back unto the fountain.

  “Dude, I want a creek just like this.”

  “Yeah, my uncle dug it himself. Took him a few weeks and he has to replace the water pump every year or so, but it’s so worth it.”

  “So worth it.”

  Anora pointed up ahead where the garage was. “Park in front of the garage.”

  Walking toward the front, Dante noticed a koi fish pond to the right of the walkway. While he made his way to the black slate porch, Anora knelt at the water's edge.

  “Hi, fishies!” Holding out her hand, the koi made a commotion as the front door creaked open. Out came her uncle, wearing just a robe and some sandals as he gave Dante a kind but don’t mess with me demeanor. With arms wide open, he welcomed Anora in loving embrace.

  “It’s so lovely to see you my little lotus blossom!”

  “Hi, uncle! Did you hear us coming up the road?”

  “Come now, Anora, you know me. I sensed you coming.”

  Dante just stood looking amazed with a big grin on his face.

  Anora beamed. “Really?”

  “Nope, I saw you from the window,” he responded with a smile so big his eyes almost looked closed.

  While Anora giggled, her uncle looked to Dante, who joined in on the laughter. “And you must be Dante. My little blossom here has told me all about you.”

  Dante squinted his eyes, looking to Anora.

  “I assure you, Dante, she told me only of your most shining moments. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, I’m Basir.”

 
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Basir.” Dante turned to Anora. “Up until today, I’ve only known you as Uncle. Anytime your niece has told me about you, it’s always ‘my uncle this, my uncle that.’”

  “You can call me uncle if you’d like,” Basir said smiling.

  “You don’t want me to call you guru or anything?”

  “You can if you’d like.” Basir ushered them toward the door. “But please come in, come in, you two. I made tea. No one likes cold tea.”

  “Uncle, we live in the south. Most of the people that live here drink iced sweet tea.”

  “We don’t talk about that here.”

  Before they got much further into the entryway of his home, Basir turned to Dante. “Dante, you are new here, but I like people to take off their shoes before coming in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  It was a humble home, simple in nature, with many plants throughout and a large living wall of nasturtium, also known as watercress facing the front door. The sound of running water coursed through the house and as they followed Basir further, Dante dragged his fingers, feeling the leaves along the wall.

  Around the corner, Dante saw what was making the pleasant sound of water coursing. Basir had a wall fountain installed that took up an entire wall. He even put an assortment of colored stones along the bottom to meet the water as it flowed down.

  Adorning the walls of his living room were tapestries and wall hangings of the chakra system and other spiritual symbols from around the world. Surprised, Dante also saw a television and wondered why he’d have one.

  “The television rarely gets used, Dante.” Basir smiled.

  We’re here less than five minutes and he’s reading me. Damn, he’s good.

  “Come in here, you two. I hope you like ginseng and ginger.”

  Dante’s mouth watered. Neither he nor Anora had eaten anything before they left that day, but they also planned it that way, assuming that Basir would want them to detox their bodies in order to harmonize their minds.