THE LAST TEMPTATIONS OF IAGO WICK
Jennifer Rainey
The Last Temptations of Iago Wick. Copyright 2017 by Jennifer Rainey. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places or products are of the author’s own creation or are used fictitiously. Any similarities to persons living or dead or actual events or locations are purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the author’s written consent.
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The Last Temptations of Iago Wick
I.
On the evening of September 20th, Dylan Courtwright cut out his own tongue. Blood gushed from his yawning mouth. Fresh blossoms of crimson stained his waistcoat and shirtsleeves.
Fortunately, his cousin, Edgar, wasn’t in as much pain. This was assuredly because he was dead, his throat slit.
Wilburn Cox led the police to Courtwright’s study, sputtering of murder and madness and razor blades. Courtwright sat squarely in the center of the room, eyes wide and wild. The space was dimly lit by two lingering kerosene lamps upon the desk. Dozens of papers covered the ground, each page featuring half-completed formulae the likes of which no man had ever conjured. Useless, all of them! With the eyes of Ra upon him, Courtwright had failed!
There was a faded tattoo of a scarab beetle upon Courtwright’s upper arm, and chattering all the while, he took the straight razor to his flesh in an attempt to remove it. The police hastily intervened.
No one noticed the cause of the calamity. It was a seemingly innocuous object which had been cast in a frenzy to one of the darker corners of the study: a small, gilded box. Dylan Courtwright was too dazed with pain and the Abstractia drug surging through his veins to reach for the box as the police restrained him.
A figure in an impeccable gray suit lingered in the corner. He was a brown-haired gentleman, well-groomed and dignified. His countenance, though handsome, suggested a man flirting sweetly with middle age, and yet, his mottled hazel eyes held a spark of mischief. He remained undetected as he retrieved the box in question. Invisibility always came in handy when beautiful disasters turned into affairs of the police. The authorities made things a bit difficult sometimes. Their long and bumbling arms were always overreaching, but he relished a challenge.
At his touch, the box vanished to be used for another day. He tiptoed neatly over Edgar’s bloody corpse. Wilburn Cox was busy violently vomiting into an umbrella stand.
Concealed from the human eye, the man in gray followed the police as they dragged away the miserable and drugged Dylan Courtwright. A filthy rag had been crammed into his mouth to slow the flow of blood. The removal of his tongue had not been a part of the plan, but it was so gruesome and dramatic a detail, the man in gray could not be entirely displeased.
Once outside Courtwright’s stately saltbox house, the invisible man moved briskly over the cobblestones until he was half a block away from the home and the police patrol wagons. He dispensed with his invisibility—a convenient skill, but one that did take some concentration. He had completed his task, and now it was time to step back and watch the pieces fall into place. Or out of place. A little chaos was a beautiful thing.
The sting of early autumn air was invigorating, and there was a distinct and altogether pleasant smell of ash on the wind. The street lamps glowed, and a settling fog turned the policemen and neighbors into apparitions. He leaned against the lamppost, just another busybody wondering what on Earth could be happening at Dylan Courtwright’s home.
“Are you burning the midnight oil, Iago Wick?” a voice asked.
The man in gray turned and smiled. A pale and dark-haired gentleman named Dante Lovelace stood behind him. As always, he was dressed in widower’s black despite having no one to mourn. He looked exactly as an agent of Hell should look: tall, wiry, and darkly attractive. Iago answered, “Mr. Lovelace, I’m not one of these young demons strutting about and striking nothing but dull, slapdash Faustian deals. You know I always do whatever is necessary to complete a job satisfactorily.”
“Does that include missing an engagement at The Golden Swine?” Dante Lovelace asked with a smirk as he stood beside Iago.
Iago cleared his throat. “In Lucifer’s name, I swear to you I didn’t forget.”
“Oh, I have no doubt that you remembered, Iago. However, I suppose I can forgive you, given the significance of this case,” Dante said.
Iago asked, “Breakfast tomorrow? The Raven’s Nest?”
“Apology accepted. And who was this?”
“Dylan Courtwright,” Iago answered. “Property owner. A man often in the grips of the Abstractia formula. Member of The Fraternal Order of the Scarab. Most recently, murderer. He has forged quite a foul list of accomplishments. Need I go on?”
Dante hummed. “And so, one by one The Order shall fall at the hands of Iago Wick,” he said before adding regretfully, “Your swan song.”
“What a swan song it will be! It will provide excellent fodder for the newspapers, I have no doubt. The people in this town are so very fond of tragedy,” Iago said. “As long as they are only spectators, that is.”
“And how exactly did Courtwright’s soul become the property of Hell?” Dante asked. “What tricks did Iago Wick conjure this time?”
Iago produced the gold box once more, causing his partner to wince.
“The Puzzle Box,” Dante groaned. “I almost feel sorry for him.”
“Don’t. Dylan Courtwright was well on his way to damnation already. Each of the members of that detestable Order are dangling by that glorious thread. No amount of prayer or repentance will save them once I’m through.”
“All the same, that box is cruel and unusual punishment,” Dante said.
It was a Sunday picnic compared to what awaited Courtwright in the afterlife.
“I gave him the box,” Iago said. “Within a week’s time, Courtwright had enlisted the help of his cousin, Edgar, the poor bastard. Days of figuring mathematical equations he believed would lead him to the solution were fruitless, and so, he convinced himself that the box required a sacrifice to be opened.”
“Oh, not again.”
“It was quite the display he put on,” Iago said before proclaiming grandly, “‘The box demands a sacrifice, Edgar! It wants you!’ Naturally, it wanted Edgar and not Dylan. The box promises eternal life if opened, and what good is that if you’re dead?”
“Humans think everything demands ritualistic sacrifice, the morbid creatures,” Dante sighed. “It’s not always that difficult.”
“No, opening the damned thing requires a sharp mind, a limber wrist, and an outrageous amount of patience and self-restraint.” He smiled. “None of which are traits Dylan Courtwright possesses. Frenetic murder was a bit more his forte.”
“Delightful. And what comes next?”
“I wait,” Iago said as they turned to walk away from the to-do at the Courtwright house. “I have done preliminary research on the remaining members of The Order. One is conquered, and five remain. It will be a surprise which name I receive next. The initial assignment was terribly vague—no names mentioned. It adds a tremendous element of suspense to this beautiful disaster.”
Dante rolled his eyes, but he was not about to be outdone. “While on the topic of beautiful disasters,” he said as he pulled a newspaper clipping from the pocket of his black coat, “The Lady Liberty will soon take to the skies.”
A clipping from The Marlowe Recorder displayed a drawing of the extravagant passenger airship. Its captain, the heroic and outstandingly mustachioed Nige
l Ingram, stood proudly in the foreground. Direct from England, he would pilot the ship from Marlowe to Chicago for a luxurious and disgustingly lavish flight which left those of more modest income on the ground.
“It never ceases to amuse me how humans believe they’re birds,” Iago said.
“And soon, they’ll plummet like Icarus to Earth again,” Dante purred. “I’ll be upon that airship. Down it will go. Captain Ingram won’t be as expert as he seems, and they’ll die at his hands. The ship won’t even make it out of Massachusetts.”
Such affairs admittedly did not suit Iago’s more discriminating tastes, but Dante Lovelace was one of Hell’s finest catastrophe artists. He spent his days causing disasters and mayhem. “You’ve always had a remarkable fortitude when it comes to such wanton destruction, dear Dante.”
Dante smiled and inhaled the chilled air through his nose. “It’s a wonderful time of year for such catastrophe.”
Marlowe was a curious city. Every shadow in every alley and crack and crevice swelled and breathed and watched. It was a darkly proud city, one that had been a companion to Iago Wick, a macabre sort of spirit which wrapped encouraging arms around a hardworking minion of Hell. And in the autumn months, its eerie presence seemed only to blossom along with the season’s blood, rust, and gold hues. A demon could feel very at home in Marlowe.
They reached the front step of Dante Lovelace’s house at 13 Darke Street. It was a magnificently gloomy little address, one which Iago frequently mocked. Dante might as well have had a baker’s dozen of black cats and a raven perched outside his front door.
“Home already,” Iago sighed. “Must we part ways?”
A sly and inherently devilish smile crept across Dante’s lips. “You’re welcome to keep me company tonight, if you wish.”
What awaited Iago at his own small apartment? The immaculate and well-curated room rented above Willard’s Cigar Shop held only the promise of work. What, after all, was work without play? If Iago went home, he would spend the remainder of the evening craned over pen and paper in the lamplight, crafting temptations and plotting the tale of his next soul to be collected.
His beloved craft could not stoke every fire. Despite the dismal address, there was a warmth in Dante Lovelace’s home which Iago lacked in his own.
Alas, the sudden smell of burning paper halted him before he could follow his partner. In the air before him, a curled and singed piece of parchment appeared, burning into existence rather than turning to ash. There was the vague scent of sulfur. It was still sizzling as he plucked it from mid-air and carefully unfurled it.
It was a signal of a job well done, for he wouldn’t have received it if Courtwright’s crimes had not thoroughly soiled his soul and tipped the golden scales in Hell’s favor. In a perfectly Hellish script, the parchment bore the name of Wilburn Cox: Iago’s next target.
“Oh, the poor bastard,” Iago muttered. He held up the paper, freshly-arrived from his Overseer. “I’m afraid I must prepare, Dante. Perhaps another night?”
Dante Lovelace looked a bit gloomy, but then again, he frequently did. “Of course. At least find a moment to write a sonnet for me, will you?”
Iago gave a shallow bow in both apology and regret. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Dante asked, “And how shall you claim this next soul?”
“Ah!” Iago grinned broadly before he turned to disappear into the fog. “Dreams, dear Dante, which are the children of an idle brain.”
II.
William Willard had rented the room above the cigar shop to the same gentleman for years. Of course, he hadn’t seen him in nearly three decades, but once a month, Mr. Willard would find his tenant’s rent placed neatly in an empty cigar box next to the cash register. There was always a simple note, thanking him for the accommodations. He might have been a recluse, but at least he was polite, and didn’t that count for something? And he always paid on time.
Seeing as money is the root of all evil, it was never in short supply for a demon.
Iago Wick sat in his tidy apartment, surrounded by notes and carefully-plotted narratives. The room was clinically clean, every surface like stripped bone. Dust was afraid to settle. Perfectly fanned pages were splayed atop the desk, accompanied by a glass of scotch and a single kerosene lamp.
Three days of invisibly shadowing Mr. Wilburn Cox and reaching Hellish hands into his mind had led to the creation of a perfectly grim plan. Iago would not see his apartment often in the coming weeks. He made a note to leave the rent with Mr. Willard before departing.
Words were as much Iago’s medium as were the souls of man. Wilburn Cox’s fate was already written before him. Every persuasive word poised to fall from Iago’s lips was written. Every ghastly detail was planned. He crafted his temptations as though they were the profoundest dramas, where he was the author and principal player all at once. Now was the time to take to the stage. And should Cox deviate from the script and behave in a way Iago did not anticipate… well, improvisation carried its own special joy.
To his right, stacks of pages—one portfolio for each soul at hand—were tied in twine and kept neatly upon an oak bookcase. The ones which pleased him most were kept to be reread. This was not so that he might travel pitifully and nostalgically down the roads of his past, but so he might always learn from them.
Pages of failed temptations made excellent kindling.
He plucked one page of The Temptation of Wilburn Cox and smiled. If all went according to plan, this would be a tale he kept for a long time. Upon the parchment was a nightmarish sketch: a sunken corpse with beetles for eyes.
The lucky members of the scarabaeidae family of beetles spend their lives rolling dung into great balls before shuffling them across the earth. They even see fit to lay their eggs in the mire. It is, no matter how one looks at it, a rather nasty lot.
Mythology, however, has a tendency to make the unpleasant something wondrous. Life is unpleasant. It is up to Man to soften the blow through creation stories, myths, and legends.
In Egyptian mythology, the scarab represented life, death, and renewal. The god, Khepri, who helped roll the sun across the sky each day, often appeared with a large beetle in place of his head.
As frightening a concept as that was, it was a terribly romantic interpretation of a bug inevitably destined for the dung business.
The mythology was enough to attract Eusebius Brooks, who not only became the first Mayor of Marlowe, Massachusetts in 1820, but also founded The Fraternal Order of the Scarab. It was a secret society, and so it was a vastly unpleasant affair, as most secret societies tend to be. They acted out of intolerance and hatred, and let it be said that nothing good was ever born from hatred—save for perhaps insecticide.
The majority of Marlowe was unaware of The Order, and so the mystery surrounding the strange tale of Dylan Courtwright made the case all the more alluring. Citizens gripped their newspapers and salivated for more. Why would such a respectable gentleman murder his cousin? Why would he cut out his tongue, for God’s sake?
And they were all too happy to discuss what the curious scarab tattoo on Dylan Courtwright’s arm could mean.
“He must have been a sailor, or maybe a pirate.”
“I’ll bet he was a prisoner in his youth. You know he is almost fifty? Much older than his poor cousin, God rest his soul.”
“I’ll bet he’s different. You know, different. He prefers the company of men, I mean.”
“To me, it seems representative of some… secret society.”
Wilburn Cox, who had an identical tattoo in the same spot on his upper arm, found it quite unsettling to hear that final conjecture while breakfasting at The Raven’s Nest Dining Room one week after Dylan Courtwright was taken into custody. It was so unsettling, in fact, that he promptly finished his hashed meat and left the busy establishment. He shoved arriving patrons aside with a growl.
Cox had never been personally close to Courtwright. They were associates, brothers in their cause, but
nothing more. And now here he was, expected to testify in court! He turned his collar up against an unseasonably cold late September breeze as he trekked down Marlowe’s gloomy streets. Exhaustion settled in the bags under his eyes, and it tingled in his limbs.
Marlowe is the sort of city where a man always feels as though he’s being followed. There is always that spider web tingle about the back of the neck, a cold feeling in the heart. Cox feared he would turn a corner suddenly to face the man who had haunted him in his dreams. He knew in the pit of his gut he would see him again that night, beckoning to him, faceless and shifting like the sand from which he nightly emerged.
Cox had tried to fight sleep since the horrid dreams started a week prior. How long could he last if he pretended he didn’t need rest? He found that whether he read or talked to himself or walked aimlessly around his house, sleep found him. It always nipped at his heels, and in the end, it always conquered him.
He decided to read the entire library that evening, starting with a book on the mating habits of birds.
Alas, tales of birds in amorous congress failed miserably to hold his attention, and the fearsome hands of sleep gripped him by his collar and pulled him into the barren wasteland of his dreams.
He was alone in the sweltering desert in his mind. Painful grit collected under his eyelids and nails. Behind him, night after night, there were the building blocks of what would surely become some grand temple rising from the sand. Surely someone put those rocks there when he wasn’t looking, for each night more progress had been made.
The builders never graced Wilburn Cox with their presence. He began every dream alone.
And then at once, he would be there: the man with no face.
There seemed to be a lack of anything—matter, space, life—where the man’s face should be. He wore a hat and necktie that Wilburn Cox could perceive with perfect clarity, but in between was repulsive nothingness. Above them stretched a vivid blue sky which held no sun and yet was always achingly bright.
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