Dark Ends

by Clayton Snyder

  Changing approach Trypp started picking up groups of books, a dozen at a time and stacking them on the desk. Soon, four more similar fake books were revealed, all on different shelves. Motega and Florian had stopped to look at what he was doing.

  “You think there is a certain order to pull them in?” asked Motega, his eyes narrowing.

  Trypp shrugged. “Maybe. Will have to try them to see. Be ready.” He took a moment to decide on an order. Middle, down to the bottom, back to the middle and to the top. He pulled the book-levers in turn, a slight click with each one, until with the final one, the set of shelves next to where he stood swung open. “Either there is no order, or I guessed right.”

  “Or you did it wrong and now all the traps are armed,” added Florian, really not helping the situation. Trypp could have listened but chose to go and see what they had found.

  The door opened into a square stone room, and he had to admit it, even he was impressed. Hanging from all four walls were paintings of staggering beauty. A few depicted Saints from long ago, beatific faces staring out of gilded frames. There was a dragon, wings outstretched on a canvas larger than he. And there were two that juxtaposed each other; a gathering of people of obvious wealth enjoying wine and conversation, while next to it were the same people engaged in fornication and cannibalism. His eye was drawn to two pedestals in the far corners. On one was a fist sized gem set in a silver surround that Trypp couldn’t possibly believe was real, and on the other was the gold bust that he was all too acquainted with.

  “I wonder whose this was?” mused Florian, walking over to admire another pedestal in the closest corner on which rested a white shield. His hand waved above it like he was not sure if he should touch it.

  Motega laughed and pointed at the sole remaining corner. On its pedestal rested a small wiry terrier, puppy eyes staring up to the ceiling. It was only when it didn’t move that Trypp realized that it must have been stuffed.

  “Focus!” snapped Trypp, turning his attention back to their prize.

  Motega swore behind him and Trypp felt like he was a swiveling weathervane, as he was just about to ask him what had happened to professionalism?

  “Cat,” spat Motega as a black blur rushed past Trypp, ahead of him into the room. There was a grinding of gears and then an audible click.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, hoping that when he turned around, he wasn’t going to see what he thought he was going to see.

  Unfortunately, he was wrong.

  “I told you to throw that fucking cat out of the window. Now, nobody move…”

  Clayton Snyder

  Born and raised in Michigan, Clayton Snyder is a North Dakota transplant currently living in Bismarck with his wife, two dogs, and a cat. He participates in several charitable works, including the Brave the Shave event for research for childhood cancer, and the local humane society. Clayton has worked as a system admin, chainsaw operator, and a host of other things. He's the author of River of Thieves, The Obsidian Psalm, The Infernal Machine, and the Nod series.

  In Savages, the story that follows, Jack Nyx can fix any problem, for a price. When that price is more money than he makes in a year, he enlists the help of best friend and witch Ivy Sosye to track down a missing girl. But some jobs aren't worth the money, and what they stumble into could cost Jack and Ivy their lives, or worse…

  "Thomas Edison once said: Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. Two problems with that.

  “One, ol' Tom never faced down a biker with a knife, and two, that motherfucker electrocuted an elephant to prove a point, so you'll forgive me if I assume he's full of shit.

  “Violence is a red thread in a white sheet, a bloody streak that colors everything we do, everything we have done.

  "But really, this is just academic twaddle when you’re punching a guy in the face. You have to understand, it’s not personal. People hire me to do things, and I do them."

  The man grunted as my fist connected and knocked a tooth out. I hammered my knuckles into the guy’s face again, and he crumpled. A growl escaped me. Regnos still wanted to hit him, and I clenched, forcing the demon back. She snarled once, and let it go.

  The biker groaned, blood spilling from a cut on his forehead onto the pavement. I knelt and pulled the wallet from his back pocket, rifling through the contents until I found the dollar I’d been looking for.

  I mean, it was a special dollar. I’m not a lunatic.

  The cab bumped and shook with every pothole, and still I fought off sleep. The demons took a lot out of me, and though the tattoos kept them in check for the most part, they still had enough juice to sap my energy. I can’t say when they showed up. Maybe they’d been with me since birth, maybe they’d come around when they heard me crying at night, alone in the dark.

  Whatever the reason, they were here. I spent a lot of years fighting them, denying them, and generally self-destructing. I spent a lot of time in and out of trouble. Later, I met a man who taught me their language, and how to bind them. I owed that man my life, but for reasons only the universe knows, he’s dead now, and I’m alone again. Sometimes it rains, sometimes the world substitutes the rain for shit.

  The cab hit another massive pothole, jouncing me up against the felt-covered ceiling for a second, making my skull ache. I gritted my teeth as the cabbie slammed on the brakes, sending me careening into the divider.

  "How much, Evel Knievel?" I asked after I finished picking threads of red upholstery from my incisors.

  He gave me the price and I tossed him a little extra, because while the ride sucked, I don’t cheap on tips. The cab pulled away, the tires splashing as the clouds overhead started to weep. The blue neon out front of the building read ‘THE STONE’, the light throwing the street into garish shades.

  Not the sort of place you’d catch someone who could afford to not be there. And still, it was a bit high-class for my taste. I preferred to drink with people who made their money honestly, as opposed to whatever pact the rich had signed for theirs. Still, my employer owned the place, so I had little choice. I stepped inside, warmth pushing away the chill from the rain.

  The sound of the blues and the sharp tang of alcohol greeted me, and I pushed past small tables filled with nuzzling couples and across tasteful carpet to a walnut and brass bar. A man roughly the size of a small mountain and black as night eyeballed me.

  I’ll admit to a certain amount of cynicism in regards to men with more muscle mass than neck. I suspect most rent their brains on a time-share. If Rizzo was any indication, he only got it every third weekend. Still, I did my best not to underestimate someone who could bench-press a Buick. I shot him a friendly nod.

  "Hey Rizzo," I said.

  "Hey Jack."

  "Boss in?"

  He reached under the table and I tensed. If Rizzo or his boss, Vincent, suddenly decided to give me a pink slip, it was coming in the form of a shotgun shell. Instead, his hand lingered for a second then withdrew. I breathed a sigh of relief. There are few things in my line of work that make a man tense and threaten to fill his pants with pudding like a hand disappearing for even the briefest of moments.

  I’d seen a lot of violence. Done my fair share of it. And I knew it only took a few seconds to do a lot of damage. Fighting and killing ain’t like you see in movies. People take wounds, and are haunted by them for weeks, months at a time. If they survive. Sometimes a hand goes into a coat, or under a counter, and comes back with a knife, or a gun, or a club.

  Then they do the opposite. And some poor flatfoot from uptown has to chalk around your body and lay evidence cards while a whole host of uniforms take pictures, dig under your nails, and tell your mother you’re expired meat. If they find you, that is. That’s the sort of thing that makes a man nervous down to his dangly bits.

  A minute later, a small man with a thick nose and wide-set eyes entered through a door behind the bar. He wore a suit th
at looked like it cost more than my entire life’s revenue.

  Vincent Cagliostro. Businessman. Weasel. Thug. He’d come into his empire the old-fashioned way, by making it clear to his rivals that he was intolerant of competition. Volatile at the best of times, but with an eye for talent, and deep pockets. Part of me was sure he had more than deep pockets and a good nose. He’d been operating pretty much in the open for years, and I suspected he had a patron behind the scenes.

  I skipped the pleasantries and tossed the dollar on the counter, a speck of blood vibrant against the green. Vince picked it up and tucked it away.

  "Thanks," he said and passed a brown envelope across the bar.

  I took it and tucked it into my jacket. I didn’t count it. I’m not suicidal.

  "What’s with the dollar?" I asked.

  The part of me that was smart winced and cursed internally. Questions were the sort of thing that got a guy nicknames like Freddy Nine Fingers and Joe Who Ain’t Alive No More. Heaven is filled with cats and contractors who had to ask Why.

  Vince eyed me for a moment. "It’s cursed."

  He watched me, waiting for me to react. I didn’t. I had bound demons to myself and had seen stranger shit still. Besides, I was in the business of doing violence, not asking questions that could see me floating in the river.

  "Interesting."

  "Yeah," he turned and left the way he’d come, leaving me to stand awkwardly with Rizzo.

  "Uh… I’ll be going now," I said.

  Rizzo did his best impression of a wall and ignored me.

  I tossed my keys on the table and kicked the door shut. Cory’s glow lit the studio as I entered the kitchen, popping open the fridge and fishing out a beer. Cory swirled in his jar, a disembodied soul agitated about something. I took a sip, letting the alcohol wash the aches of the day off.

  "Where you been, man?" Cory asked.

  "Workin’."

  I wanted to be annoyed with him, with his neediness, but it was hard. Looking at him swirling around that Mason jar—you can imagine how lonely it got. Besides, Cory and I had a complicated relationship. We were lovers, once. Then he killed Ramirez, and I paid a witch by the name of Ivy to trap his soul in a jar. I’m still not sure why he did it, or if he even feels bad about it.

  "You can’t tell me? Fine. Fuck you," he wheedled.

  "Fuck you too, buddy."

  A sullen silence followed while the things we’d never said hung in the air. I finished my beer and left it on the table, then crawled into bed.

  I'm drowning. But before that, I'm walking, feet on the rocks, water cold against my shins. I'm what, seven? Eight? My grandparents on the shore, and my grandfather, tall and lean in the summer sun, calls out.

  "Not too far. There's a drop-off."

  But the water is clear. I can look down and see the bottom. It's called Crystal Lake for a reason. I step out, and the water rises, but my feet are still firm, the chill in the water taking my breath for a moment.

  "Not too far!"

  I look back and wave and step, another step, a step to adjust against the wave. The world goes dark, and I'm breathing water, but you can't breathe water, you ain't got gills, silly wabbit. I thrash and try to scream, and my breath tries to come, but I'm holding my mouth shut, keeping the lake out, because if I don't, every ounce of water will try to force its way into my guts and lungs, and that will be it.

  Pressure squeezes me, my vision blots and spots and threatens to go back. I inhale despite my own warnings, and cold water rushes in. I sputter and choke, but the water is a blanket over my head, and no one hears.

  And then, thrashing and sinking, and sinking, a hand, strong and tan and weathered pulls me up like I'm made of driftwood.

  I cling to the owner -- my grandfather -- smelling of sun and tobacco and aftershave, and I'm crying, but it's okay because today isn’t the day I die.

  I wake in the small hours, weeping. A voice, Cory’s, calls from the other room.

  "Jack?"

  I don’t reply, memory hammering into me like time has fists, and it means to teach me a lesson. I lay awake until the small hours, regret filling up the minutes between. It’s some time before I sleep again.

  When someone wants to hire me, one of two things happen. Either I get a letter in a PO Box, or someone hammers on my door until I open it with a headache and an attitude. Why not get with the modern world? Because I like the sound of my own thoughts. TV, streaming, smart phones, little TVs at gas pumps, music piped into stores—there’s never a moment alone.

  If I were a paranoid man, I’d think someone didn’t want us a moment to think about the state of the world. But that’s a cynical thought, even for me. I want to believe the best of people. It’s too bad they’re more willing to show us the worst.

  When I woke up that morning, it was to the door shuddering in the frame, the fist on the other side threatening to shiver the wood to flinders. I stood and staggered toward the source. I felt like sleep was a foreign country, one that had me on some sort of no-fly list. To top it off, my mouth tasted like I’d licked a cat.

  "One sec!" I said.

  I undid the lock and flung the door open, the blonde woman on the other side looking like she'd caught one eyebrow with a fishhook. She sniffed and strutted past me, peering first into the kitchen and the bathroom, then at my living room, a simple space with a futon and a mural I’d painted on one wall. She gestured at the painting -- flowering vines climbing the wall.

  "That’s nice. Your work?"

  "I dabble," I said.

  She looked at the futon and its crumpled bedsheets. My rational mind was berating me in a voice not unlike Martha Stewart’s. I tamped it down mentally, locking it in a closet. In my defense, I hadn’t even pissed yet. Llyrial stirred then, trying to push out waves of lust. I squashed the demon’s instinct, but saw her reaction regardless —flushed cheeks, dilated pupils—and coughed to break the spell.

  "Can I help you?" I asked.

  She shook herself—a small motion that sent her shoulders and hips swaying, and I clamped down on the demon again before he found his rhythm. I sometimes wondered what the point of carrying around the embodiment of lust was, but figured I was never going to get an answer.

  Some people wake up craving milk, some people stop what they’re doing for a smoke. Me, I get the random urge to bed the closest person to me. Not all demons offer a mutual pact. Like the genie said: phenomenal cosmic power, itty-bitty living space. Besides, some things you just don’t get to know.

  She reached into her blazer and I tensed. If someone decided I knew too much, or had become a threat, this would be a good way to kill me. But I had safeguards. I'd had Ivy paint wards into the mural after I finished it—runes I could activate to immobilize unpleasant people, and despite the low-rent image the apartment threw off, it was defensible.

  I liked to see clients in person, sniff them out. I got the impression the woman standing in front of me was formidable, but safe for now, like a lioness viewed from afar. I relaxed a fraction and her hand came out, holding a business card. I took it, the paper crisp and white, thick. A name was embossed on the front: Mark Jacobs.

  "That’s nice, but who are you?" I asked.

  "I’m Mr. Jacobs’… liaison."

  "That’s not a name."

  She smiled in a way that could have frozen gasoline. So, she knew better. Names have power, and some of the less savory elements of the Umbra—the supernatural community—would be more than happy to show you to what extent.

  "Fair enough," I said. "How can I help Mr. Jacobs?"

  "Be at the address on the card by noon today."

  She left, and I watched her go. I wanted to say I didn’t take jobs without knowing more, but that was bullshit. I’d taken jobs on a whim. I’d taken jobs over a bet. I’d taken jobs when asked by a pretty woman, and this one certainly counted. The smarter part of me was ringing warning bells like Quasimodo on amphetamines. I told myself I’d listen. I probably lied.

&nbs
p; I stood in the kitchen in a battered suit, something I’d bought with my last couple hundred dollars my first week out of prison. Back then, I’d believed that though I’d been through Hell, the worst of it was behind me. I believed that I’d paid my debt. That the world would open itself to me like a flower, and I’d pluck the blossom with just a smile and a hard work ethic. Looking back, I realize I was full of shit. Prison is a brand that’s burned so deep that the bone still throbs.

  Cory’s spirit swam in blue ripples through the space of his jar.

  "Big meeting?" he asked.

  I adjusted my tie. "Tie or no tie?" I asked.

  "I always liked you without."

  I pulled the tie away and glared at it, then tossed it on the table. Even when you’re feuding with someone, if they’re right, they’re right. Half-dead, and still with impeccable taste. Mr. Blackwell would be so lucky.

  "Relax," Cory said.

  "I’d love to. At least this is a public meeting." The address on the card was an outdoor bistro on the west side. Plenty of witnesses.

  "What’re you so nervous about?" Cory asked.

  "Well, I keep thinking about that one meeting—what, three years ago? You know, when no one showed up and you murdered Diego?"

  "That’s hurtful," Cory said, his voice subdued.

  "How do you think I feel? You ready to tell me why you did it?"

  "I keep telling you, I don’t know. Don’t you think I’d tell you, Jack? Don’t you think I’d want to tell you?"

  "I don’t know what you’d do anymore."

  Cory didn’t reply, and I left, the sound of the slamming door punctuating my exit. I seethed on the other side for a minute. Some wounds never heal. They just scab over for a time.