by Jason Murphy
The last remaining cook shot him a disapproving look but didn’t dare say anything. The help was terrified of Vandermeer the Mystic. With the humidor tucked under his arm and chicken juice dripping down his chin, Clark slipped into the library. He’d be back up to his room in time to prep the box and get a solid nine hours before—
“Good evening, Clark,” a sing-song voice said.
Clark nearly choked on the tortilla. No one here called him Clark, no one but Marissa. The girl sat in the corner of the library, swallowed up by a black, leather chair. She smiled with a mouthful of braces. An old, worn book was open in her lap. Clark composed himself, stood up straight, and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his jacket.
“Marissa,” he said, and tried to turn his body so she wouldn’t notice the bag.
“You’re out late,” she said with a smirk.
“And you’re up past your bedtime,” Clark said.
Fuck off, was what he wanted to say. Putting this brat in her place was always fun, but tonight he was under the gun. This kid was on his ass. Every time he was in the room, she watched him, smiling with her metallic grin. As much as Clark wanted to unload on her for her constant needling and sly looks, this kid was bulletproof. One cross word to her would result in him having his molars ripped out or an unpleasant encounter with Rodrigo, her laconic and ever-present bodyguard.
Even now, Rodrigo, hovering just a few feet away, tensed at the edge in Clark’s voice. Clark gave him a polite please-don’t-kill-me smile. The buzz-cut man, all ropey muscle and tattoos, didn’t so much as nod. Clark squirmed under his shark-eyed stare and caught himself smiling meekly at the Santa Muerte tattoo on Rodrigo’s neck, too. He never heard the bodyguard speak. Clark couldn’t get a read on him. Everyone else was easy to nudge. With a little Latin or something that sounded like an evil fortune cookie, he could make them dance. They puzzled over his every word. But not Rodrigo. Clark tried to steer clear of him.
Marissa tapped the yellow pages of the book in her lap. “Just doing a little light reading before bed.”
Even in the murky light of the library, the letters on the page glowed with a dull red. Blood. The letters in the Vivlio Chovis were written in blood. That’s what the weird old man said when Clark met him at the abandoned factory in New Mexico. It was one of the few “legitimate” occult tomes he’d acquired for the family. After that, Clark just started acquiring useless trash and passing it off as magic. What was the difference? It was all made-up bullshit anyway. What did it matter if the lie came from him or some weirdo in New Mexico?
But here this kid was, thumbing through this accursed Greek tome like she was perusing Teen Vogue.
Clark cleared his throat and assumed the posture and demeanor of Vandermeer the Mystic. “Ah,” he said. “The Vivlio Chovis. Marissa, dear, I would exercise great caution when handling such a book. Its contents are not to be taken lightly.”
She snorted and thumbed through a few more pages. “Uh-huh. Okay.”
“Do you even read Greek?”
“A little,” she said, grinning.
He believed her. Fine. She was a smart kid. But he was a better liar.
“You would do well not to disrespect the forces contained within the pages of that ancient tome. You may awaken its fury.”
She stood, languid and assured, and gestured to the rows and rows of ancient tomes that lined the walls. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in old paper. Probably the most expansive occult library in the southern United States. Only about twenty of them were Clark’s forgeries. Marissa had been spending a lot of time in here, lately, going through everything, paying particular attention to his additions. Why couldn’t she just watch makeup tutorials or play on her phone like every other fifteen-year-old girl?
“Oh no!” she said, throwing her hand over her mouth in mock horror. “The book might get mad? Maybe something bad will happen, like all of the bad things that happened when I went into the vault.”
“Marissa!” Clark said. “The vault is forbidden. You know this. It’s quite dangerous in there.”
“Yeah,” she said, her grin widening. “So you keep telling everyone. And yet nothing has happened. I wonder why that is?”
This wasn’t going how he planned. Usually, they exchanged a few thinly veiled jabs, rolled their eyes at each other, and went about their business. But tonight, her eyes sparked. She practically licked her lips. She got right up on him, smiling as she tried to see what he had behind his back.
“You really should be careful, dear. Your parents would be devastated if something were to happen to you.”
“Somehow, Clark, I think I’ll be just fine,” she said, circling around him. “What’s that you’ve got?”
Clark showed her the bag, just giving her a glimpse. “A few last-minute preparations for tomorrow.”
“Hm,” she said, and crossed her arms. “Is that the Habanero Subaru?”
Alejandro. He told her.
“Habbanatu Serratum, child. Yet another storied artifact from one of history’s forbidden corners.”
“Hmm. Habbanatu Serratum. That’s a fun phrase. That was my first thought when Alejandro told me what you were acquiring.” She giggled, circling him with steady steps. “I thought, what a funny word. It sounds made up.”
A hot tide of rage surged behind Clark’s cheeks.
No. No, I’m not getting outed by a fifteen-year-old little shit.
He bit back the anger and leaned into her. Rodrigo took a half step forward. Clark ignored it.
“You know, if you keep spending time with these books and playing in the vault where you’re not supposed to, it might have some … deleterious effects on you. You may get ill. Madness could set in. Your very soul could be at risk, Marissa.”
She shrugged. “Well, that’s why we pay you, right, Clark? To take care of things like that?”
Clark smiled now. “That’s right. You do. And it’s sometimes my recommendation that anyone who spends an unhealthy amount of time with artifacts like your family has in the vault go through a … let’s call it a spiritual detoxification.”
“Oh, that sounds really serious, Clark.”
“It is, but I know some monks in the Ukraine who would assist us. You’d be taken to their monastery for daily exorcisms, fasting, meditating, the occasional mortification … you know, that manner of asceticism. In six months to a year, you’d be as good as new.”
Marissa rolled her eyes. “Yeah. No thanks.”
“Well …” Clark said, “let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I’d hate to have to make that recommendation to your parents. But like you said, it is my job to keep you safe from spiritual threats, and if that means sending you away to a monastery…”
She stopped smiling.
Got you, bitch.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Clark said with a smile, “I’ve miles to go before I sleep. Good night, Marissa. Rodrigo.”
Clark tried to tell himself he was leaving with another victory in their ongoing game, but he knew it was a retreat. He had to run before she saw the spreading stains of his flop sweat.
Just as he was about to step out of sight, Marissa said, “You want to know something funny? I was so curious about this Habanero Subaru. So I searched on the internet. No mention of it. Not one.”
“You could start by spelling it right. That’s your first problem.”
She followed him down the hall, taking her time. Her fingers trailed lazy streamers across the wall, matching the soft lilt in her voice.
“But that’s why we have all these expensive books, right?” she asked. “One of the most thorough occult libraries in the world. That’s what you called it, right?”
Clark’s bones started a slow slide into an ice-water bath.
“With due respect, young lady, I haven’t got all night. If you’ll excuse me…”
“And guess what, Clark. There’s nothing in these books about your box of eternal smoke. Nothing in any of these books, actually. Not one wor
d. If this Habanero Subaru is such a big deal, you’d think it would at least be mentioned.”
Clark breathed deep and slow and affixed his eyes on her. She watched his face, searching. Just down the hall, Rodrigo waited, her silent shadow.
“That’s what makes the Habbanatu Serratum special, Marissa. Its very existence was kept secret for centuries. And tomorrow, I will bestow it upon your dear grandmother. Let’s not ruin such a momentous day for your family.”
He patted her on the head, expecting her smile to crack into a sneer. It didn’t.
“You’re really sweaty, Clark. Feeling okay?”
“Goodnight, Marissa.”
***
Clark willed himself to not to slam his bedroom door. His hands began to shake the moment it closed. That was that. The gig was up. The red velvet walls of his faux-gothic sanctuary were closing in. This entire scam was predicated on the family not asking questions he couldn’t answer with a quote from H.P. Lovecraft or Dr. Strange.
But Marissa wasn’t going to let this go. It seemed he was her new project. If she was able to get the family to question the authenticity of just one of the artifacts he’d acquired for them, they’d start asking about the others, too. They’d spent a lot of money on books and toy phones and skulls, money that he’d pocketed. He’d be lucky if they just pulled a few of his teeth. Once they did the math or found out how much cash he had in the bag hidden in his closet, they would kill him. No question. But first they would spend their time with him, just make a little family picnic of his misery.
This day wasn’t supposed to come. The last year had been a cake walk. He’d had more trouble prying social security checks away from medical debtors. The plan was to live the good life for a while, fill his coffers, and disappear in a shroud of mystery, on his terms.
Now he wiggled loose the baseboard in the closet and pulled two bags from behind the drywall. One was fat with money. The other was stuffed with a week’s worth of clothes and some fake IDs. If it ever got too scary, if they started to get wise, these were ready. He lugged the bags to the window and looked out over the sprawling lawn.
Onto the roof.
Drop down into the garden.
Across the lawn, behind the hedges.
And over the western fence.
He’d rehearsed his exit dozens of times.
But there were never armed guards then. He wouldn’t make it to the street. Taking the Jaguar would raise too many eyebrows. The guards already hit him with the Spanish Inquisition just for heading to Re-Mart.
The only way through was forward. Make it through the party, then slip out with the crowd. But he needed in that library tonight. Without the right flourishes, the humidor was just a cheap box. Before his encounter with Marissa, he thought he’d just grab a random book from the shelf, find some ominous looking symbols, and etch them into its side. He kept a Dremel and some wood varnish in the bathroom just for that purpose. A little spit and polish and boom! The Things Remembered humidor became the Habanero Subaru.
Dammit!
The Habbanatu Serratum. Now she had him doing it, too.
Even if he could get down there and managed to slip away with one of the ancient tomes, there would be evidence. Marissa was tenacious. It would only be a matter of time before she found the symbols he copied, did a little cross-referencing, and realized he was full of shit. He never should have told that prick Alejandro anything. But that would have only delayed things.
Clark sat at his desk, found a pen, and started scribbling symbols. It shouldn’t be hard. All the weird demonic sigils looked the same, like cave-people doodling on the back of a notebook during cave-person homeroom. A triangle here, a star there.
But after a few minutes of sketching, Clark ripped the pages from his spiral and dumped them in the trash. No one would fall for these. The symbols weren’t evil enough. They weren’t mysterious. They looked like someone had a seizure while doing geometry homework.
He rocked back and forth in his chair. The internet wasn’t an option. She’d find one of them. Maybe basic alchemy? Lean into it. Just put symbols they would all recognize on the side of this box. Tell them it was owned by Hermes Trismegistus or John Dee.
Nope. Too many details with that lie. Too many threads for them to pull at. With just an evening of research, Marissa could unravel that lie. He was going to have to be more careful going forward. After tonight, of course. Tonight, he didn’t have time for careful. He had twelve hours to create a convincing mystical box. What had he called it? Vessel of eternal smoke? Jesus, what did that even mean? Fortunately, he’d told Alejandro it was Witch Tongue. No one spoke that. And Habbanatu Serratum? Even if that were Witch Tongue, it didn’t translate into vessel of eternal smoke. It didn’t translate into anything.
God, he hoped it didn’t translate to anything. Maybe it did. Maybe it meant the alligator’s dildo or does this wizard cloak make me look fat?
Clark crawled beneath the bed and rifled through the detritus. This was where the real Clark lived. The bedroom looked like somewhere Vandermeer the Mystic would sleep. Red velvet-lined walls with intricate, charcoal gray crown molding. Prints by Brueghel and Gustav Doré. An antique desk with a stained-glass lamp. It was all a show. Beneath the bed, it was beer cans and stray socks. Xbox controllers and a dust-covered box of condoms. Surely there was a stray book of spells or an old scroll, something that wasn’t on the family’s radar.
But no, just a deck of cards from when he was learning to cheat at poker, a dog-eared catalog of fancy watches, and a player’s guide for Eternal Worlds, a Dungeons & Dragons knockoff he played back when his friends from college would still talk to him.
Eternal Worlds. Clark stared at the cover. A necromancer engaged in mystical warfare against a black dragon emerging from a portal. Around the portal swirled a myriad of arcane symbols. Clark’s stomach quivered, and he began to sweat all over again.
He pulled up Tuvan throat singing on a playlist he’d labeled Magic Shit and turned the volume all the way up. With the door locked, he grabbed the Dremel and went to work.
***
Abuela Ernesta stood over him, grinning. Clark stared up into her ever-present black sunglasses. When she opened her mouth, her wriggling tongue stretched back into eternity. Bits of spittle sprayed from her earthworm lips. As they flecked into his open mouth, they tasted like spoiled meat.
He hated going to the dentist. Hated it. And why was that old hag in here? Where was the dentist?
He couldn’t move his arms. He couldn’t close his mouth.
Rodrigo and Alejandro were gripping his ankles, keeping him from kicking. Ernesta shoved both of her hands into his mouth. Her leathery fingers pulled at his teeth. They came loose with ease, sliding free from the gums without resistance. He tasted blood as her fingers pinched his tongue.
She laughed.
His heart pounded.
Louder and louder, more insistent, until he thought it would burst. It would crack in two with the sound of a tree struck by lightning.
***
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Clark sat upright, knocking his head on the lamp. The Tuvan throat singing droned.
The banging came again.
Sunlight. Why was there sunlight? It lanced through the slit in the black velvet curtains to hatchet him right between the eyes.
He checked his phone. 11:45 a.m. His alarm had been buzzing for two hours, but he hadn’t heard it over the vibrating Mongolian noise.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Clark leaped up and stumbled to the door. Rodrigo, clad in a white suit with a blue silk shirt and tie, snarled at him. Santa Muerte looked disappointed, too. Without a word, the man cocked his head in the direction of the stairs.
“Oh shit,” Clark said. “What? Am I late? Am I in trouble?”
Rodrigo tsked, shook his head, and walked away.
Clark sprinted to the bathroom. His face was caked with sawdust where he rested his head on the desk. Pain washed over his brain in w
aves. It was the acrid stench of the wood stain. He probably should have opened a window. Now he got to be high on fumes at the birthday party of a geriatric psychopath.
His hands were streaked brown, and for a second, he imagined Abuela Ernesta with her wrinkled hands digging down into his throat. He scrubbed at them. He scrubbed at them with soap. He scrubbed at them with soap and a washcloth.
Rubbing alcohol.
Shaving cream.
Anything.
He scrubbed and rinsed and scrubbed again, but the drunken zebra pattern didn’t fade.
Fine. Gloves. He could wear gloves.
Clark threw open drawers, tossing aside expensive underwear and monogrammed socks. Somewhere he had expensive, kid leather gloves with red piping to match his brocaded, signature jacket. He checked under the bed, in the closet, and ransacked his dirty laundry. Nowhere. The gloves were gone. Okay. That was fine. He could spin it.
11:52. He had eight minutes.
No time to cover the stains with makeup.
After scrubbing the sawdust from his face and hair and a liberal spritzing of a cologne he couldn’t pronounce, Clark grabbed the Habbanatu Serratum and bolted down the stairs.
Where there was an emu.
A nervous member of the help led the giant bird down the hallway.
“What the fuck?” Clark said before remembering that he was Vandermeer the Mystic now.
The woman gave him a panicked look and continued to guide the twitchy bird through the bustling corridor.
Maybe it was an ostrich. Clark didn’t know the difference. After a bird gets to be a certain size, it’s basically just a dinosaur, and Clark had seen enough movies to know that dinosaurs murdered people.
God, if they didn’t like the gift, would they feed him to the killer dinosaur bird? Make him fight it, gladiator-style?
Clark pushed the thought away, cleared his throat, and took the last few steps into the fracas with dignity. The crowd parted for him. As the Cabreras’ resident Rasputin, he ranked below the family, but above the help. He hated being shitty to them, but it was important to maintain the façade.
