Vintage Soul

by David Niall Wilson

  “I should have guessed,” he said, taking another sip of his drink.

  Windham glanced at him again. “You sure you’re up to this? Maybe that dust is safer right where it is, if you know what I mean.”

  “I have an assignment,” Donovan replied. “It’s important.”

  “Rumor has it,” Windham continued, returning his gaze to his drink and twirling the nearly empty glass in slow circles, “that you’re after Johndrow’s woman. Are you working for the Elders again, DeChance?”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear,” Donovan replied, wondering if Vein and his cronies had been nosing about and giving away too much information.

  “Makes no difference to me, either way,” Windham replied. “It’s just this; I don’t think it would be good for any of us if that bone marrow dust gets into the wrong hands. I told you there are three of us who could get it, but none of us has. There are other rumors. I hear things about journals, and formulas that should never have been written down in the first place, and I worry.”

  “I’ll get the dust,” Donovan said, taking a longer drink. “Don’t worry about that. “I won’t lose it once I have it, either. I’ve already had something of mine taken, and I intend to get that back as well. Did you bring what I asked?”

  The collector nodded. He took another sip of his drink, hesitated, and then he reached into a deep pocket and pulled out a small amulet dangling from a silver chain. He held it out to Donovan as if reluctant to release it.

  “What is it?” Donovan asked.

  “It’s charmed,” Windham answered. Then he shrugged. “I don’t know exactly what it does. The only way to contact the buyer once you have what he’s looking for is for that amulet to touch the dust. Once the object is verified, the information on delivery and payment will be made available.”

  Donovan stared at the small pendant. He considered taking it back to his apartment and testing it to see if he could break the charm. If the information he needed was already in his hand, it seemed foolish to take the added risk of breaking into a graveyard.

  “I don’t think I’d try that, if I were you,” Windham said, guessing his thoughts. “I’ve seen one of these before, or something very much like it. It was a different time and place, but a similar charm. A collector that I knew tried to have the charm broken because he wanted to know who he was working for. He took it to a man trained in such things. When they broke the charm, they found a curse beneath it. Very nasty, that was.”

  Windham didn’t have to go on. In such an instance, there would be no time to protect one’s self, or, even if you did find a way to do so, no way to prevent whatever other action the curse might entail. It wasn’t a chance Donovan wanted to take.

  “Just touch that to the dust,” Windham repeated. “You’ll know what to do next.”

  Donovan nodded. He tucked the amulet away in an inside pocket, and stood, draining his glass and wishing suddenly he had time for more than one. A bottle, maybe.

  He pulled out his wallet and laid a bill on the table. In that same motion, he deposited an envelope in Windham’s lap. Again, no one was watching, and if they had been watching, they would have expected to see money change hands. Donovan had been known to use collectors in the past, and everyone was familiar with Windham. Still, Donovan erred on the side of caution. He turned and exited the bar without another word. He reached the street and headed east. The Shady Grove cemetery was outside of town at the halfway point between San Valencez and Lavender, California. It was several miles, and he had no time to make it on foot, but there were other ways.

  He checked the street for prying eyes, found it vacant, and stopped in front of a dark stairway leading down from street level toward a brick wall. There was no apparent reason for this stairway, but he knew it well. He turned three times, took three steps down, climbed back two, and then descended. At the wall he stopped, and a door shimmered into view. He etched a symbol into the dust clotted on the glass pane that centered this door, and it opened with a mechanical sound reminiscent of large tumblers sliding into place – very large. The sound echoed. Donovan stepped through the doorway, and was gone. Where he’d passed, the brick wall stood solid, and grimy.

  ~ * ~

  Johndrow listened as the phone rang for the tenth time, and then slowly lowered the receiver back into its cradle. It was his third attempt in as many minutes to reach DeChance. He wanted an update on Vanessa’s abduction, and he wanted to warn DeChance about Vein. Ever since the hotheaded young one had left, Johndrow had grown more and more certain he’d made a mistake in allowing it. He wanted to believe that all parties involved would keep Vanessa’s welfare in the forefront of their minds, but it was growing harder to believe it as true. He also wanted to feel as if he was a part of it all, as if he were doing more than sitting back on his heels and waiting while others fought his fight.

  He knew Vein hadn’t been swayed by their talk, and in reality, he was glad the young ones had gone on the hunt; just sorry they’d gone alone. Maybe they were right. Maybe he was just getting old and complacent, and they didn’t need outside assistance to settle a matter like this. The blood bond was strong enough that Vein could probably track it to its source, and they were not without resources of their own, albeit darker and less magical in most cases than what DeChance offered.

  He thought about calling Joel, but decided against it. There was nothing either of them could do, and if he got started talking about Vanessa he might never stop. He needed to keep his head clear, and he needed to be ready to act if the need arose. Until then, he needed to be able to do something much more difficult. He needed to wait.

  A knock sounded lightly on his door.

  “Enter,” he called out.

  A thin young man stepped through the door. He kept his eyes downcast, but his voice was firm.

  “There is a message for you, sir,” he said.

  “Send them in,” Johndrow said.

  “There is no messenger,” the young man replied. “Only this.”

  He held out a dark bundle, and Johndrow, frowning, nodded toward his desk.

  “Open it on there,” he said.

  The young man complied, and they both stared. What hope Johndrow had faded, and he drew in his breath so sharply it sounded like a hiss.

  On his desk, wrapped in a long, dark jacket, were five pairs of very dark sunglasses. Johndrow stepped forward, reached out, and then pulled his hand back. He didn’t need to touch them; he knew who had worn them last.

  “Who brought these?” he asked sharply.

  “It wasn’t a man, or a woman,” the boy replied. “The bundle was dropped from the eaves by a bird. A raven, I believe. When we retrieved it, it was tied with a red ribbon, and this note was attached.”

  He held out a white note-card sized piece of paper, and Johndrow took it, flipping it over so that he could read the single word lettered across its back.

  “Johndrow.”

  “There was nothing more?” he asked.

  The young one shook his head. “Nothing, sir. What shall we do?”

  “There is nothing we can do,” Johndrow said. He swore under his breath and crushed the card in his hand. “Nothing but wait.”

  The young man’s eyes glittered, but he held his silence, and a moment later he turned on his heel and left the room. Johndrow watched his retreating back for a moment, then glanced down at the sunglasses and shuddered.

  “Where are you, DeChance?” he asked the night. “Where in hell have you gone?”

  FIFTEEN

  Mist swirled about the base of the tall, wrought iron gates of the ShadyGroveCemetery. Donovan approached from the rear, not out of any fear of being seen, but because the particular doorway he’d chosen to use opened into an abandoned barn nearby. In any case, if he’d come in through the front gates he’d have needed to make his way to the rear of the graveyard eventually – that was where the priest was buried. All of the oldest graves were in a lightly wooded, semi-overgrown section of Shady G
rove that few visited. Most of the graves were so old the markers had begun to crumble, or had fallen. Most of the families of the deceased were long gone themselves, or had married and moved on beyond any blood ties that might have bound them to their history. The world moved on, but Shady Grove remained.

  A trail led from the barn up to a point where it joined with the old back road into the cemetery, and it was at this crossroad Donovan stopped to consider his options. The gates were tall, stretching nearly twenty feet into the air. The fence wound around to either side and was formed of iron spikes similar to those on the gates, though a bit shorter – perhaps ten feet. They were joined near their base, and again near their top, by a poured concrete frame. It was a solid, imposing wall. Nothing human could slip through those bars, and it would take a superhuman effort to climb either wall or gate – that and the luck not to slip at the wrong moment and be impaled on one of the spikes.

  Donovan thought back to a time not too far in the past when just such a thing had happened, then dismissed it from his mind. He had to keep his mind on the task at hand. The graveyard, and its past, was interesting, but not relevant, and he had plenty of work ahead of him before he’d have leisure to dwell on either.

  He watched the shadows beyond the gate for a few moments, but nothing stirred. He knew there were two guards on duty at all times. Earlier disturbances had prompted the city of San Valencez, and the neighboring town of Lavender, to combine funding for twenty-four hour surveillance on the cemetery. Kids had used it in the past for late-night gatherings, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The graveyard had a history of murder, dark ritual, and unexplained mystery that made daylight citizens uneasy. The result was a constant patrol, and though the guards themselves had quickly begun to grow lax as day after day passed with nothing more interesting than leaves blowing across the trail and an occasional teenager turned away at the gates, the San Valencez and Lavender Police Departments still cruised by regularly, flashing spotlights between the gravestones and watching.

  The locked gate didn’t trouble Donovan. He stepped up quickly, gripped the heavy padlock in one hand and pressed a small circular charm to the back. The lock opened with a soft pop, and the chains snaked down to pool at the base of the gate. Donovan opened one half very slightly, cringing at the loud creak, and slipped inside. Once inside, he wrapped the chain back around the gate, slid the hook of the padlock through the links on both sides, but left it open. A casual glance would not show that it had been tampered with, and on his way out he didn’t want to be bothered with stopping to open it again. He didn’t expect to be in any more of a hurry when he left, but you never knew.

  When he was clear of the gate, he stepped immediately into the shadows. He didn’t believe the guard would actually patrol this far back so late at night, even though it was part of the job. Still, if anyone had been close the sound of the gate creaking, and the clanking of the chains would have been unmistakable. No one came, and Donovan set to work.

  He brought out the charm that Windham had given him and let it dangle from its chain. He knew that if it was created to react on contact with the bone marrow dust he sought, that he could magnify that reaction and use it to track the proper grave. He’d narrowed it to an area by quick research, but records from that far back were sketchy at best, and not too reliable. The ground that had comprised the cemetery had been a much smaller plot when Father Vargas had served the congregation at the Cathedral of San Marcos, and the maps of the area and of the grave plots were not set in any perspective that made sense in the modern layout.

  It didn’t matter. There was only one older area of the graveyard, and of that section a very small portion was reserved for the use of The Church. Using the charm like a dowsing rod, Donovan carefully crept between trees and around low-slung, ornate monuments. He moved steadily toward the center of the older section, and before long he knew he was on the trail. The pendant hung at a forty-five degree angle, defying gravity, and led him onward.

  Windham had been right on at least one count. If there were other suitable graves, the pendant would not have reacted so strongly and the search might have taken much longer. It would have shifted from side to side, catching the essence of other possible targets; it did not. The pull of Vargas’ grave was strong and steady.

  As he proceeded, he kept a close eye out for any glimmer of approaching light. He didn’t want to be disturbed as he strolled through the garden of the dead, but he also didn’t want to expend any energy that might attract less-earthly attention before it was absolutely necessary. The walls between worlds in Shady Grove were exceptionally thin; he sensed motion just out of the periphery of his sight, but ignored it.

  It took nearly twenty minutes, but at last he came to a grave marked by a squat, heavy cross. The cross was ornate; there were some chips missing from the edges, and green mold grew up one side of it and dangled from beneath the arm, but for all of that it was impressive. The ground near the grave was permeated with energy that pulsed with Donovan’s heartbeat. The pendant pulled against the thong holding it out away from his skin, as if it wanted to fly to the stone and become a part of the design. He quietly removed the enhancement he’d added to the charm’s attractive qualities, and tucked it away.

  Donovan didn’t hurry. There were mistakes to be avoided, and he intended to steer clear of them all. He walked around the grave in a circle, and began to clear his mind. He measured his steps carefully, and when he finished the first circuit, he immediately began another, carefully walking the same line, placing his feet one in front of the other precisely as he had the first time around. As he continued this, he slowly picked up speed. He drew a small pouch from his pocket. Being certain not to violate the precision of his steps, he opened the pouch. He dangled his hand before him at an angle and very carefully sprinkled the powder on the ground. Where he passed, a tin wall of mist rose. He completed the circuit, stepped within the circle, and closed the pouch.

  Donovan didn’t move for several moments. He watched carefully, letting his gaze slide along the base of the mist wall he’d created, but there were no breaks. It was solid, and complete. He placed the powder carefully back in his pocket and drew out another bag. This one was slightly larger. From within he quickly unpacked four small braziers for the compass points, which he placed, filled with scented powder, and lit, each with a short invocation to the archangels, Earth, Fire, Air and Water. The last was spirit, but he would not invoke that name until he was ready to open the grave.

  A rustle in the air caught his attention. He glanced up and saw that the crow, Asmodeus, slowly circled within the perimeter. He hadn’t realized the creature had bonded with him so closely in such a short time, but it was good to see him there. It meant the ward was complete, and he could begin; there was no way the crow could have found him unless it had traveled dimensions. The spell he’d just woven cut him off from Shady Grove, and the other graves, but it did considerably more than that. It removed the small plot of ground within the circle from the dimension it normally inhabited and placed it in a sort of limbo, where he could do what he needed to do. The crow had come to him in this other place, and was trapped as surely as those beyond the mist were impeded as long as the circle held. When he was done, he would seal the grave, break the circle and the dimensions would snap back into place.

  If someone stood in Shady Grove and stared at the spot where Father Vargas’ grave had been moments before, they would see a mist that clung low and heavy on the ground, and grass. Leaves would blow across the space, and if they stepped on that patch of ground, it would be solid and unmarked. It might be bad if they were still standing there when Donovan released the ward, but it was a chance he had to take. The spell insured privacy, and if he was going to act quickly, he’d need all of that he could manage.

  He drew a dagger from his pocket next. It had a large, carved obsidian hilt. This was in the form of a Celtic equal-armed cross. The grip was inside a circular hand guard and required the insertion of one fi
nger through a round gap in the arm of the cross nearest the blade. Donovan plunged it into the earth to one side of the grave and began to slowly draw the blade in a rectangular pattern around the exterior of the space where the coffin rested, presumably six feet down and rotting. He had no way of knowing how large Father Vargas had been, so he allowed for a very large, ornate coffin. It took another ten minutes, but eventually he slid the blade back across the first point where he’d jammed it into the soil.

  He lifted it free, held it up before him so that he gazed at the surrounding mist through the circle and the cross, and closed his eyes.

  “Father Antoine Vargas,” he said in a firm voice. “Rise and face me. Release the earth, as the earth releases you in turn. “

  Donovan leaned in, slammed the blade dead center in the rectangle he’d drawn, and then stepped back quickly. Asmodeus sensed the shift in energies and dove from the air to land with a heavy thump on Donovan’s shoulder.

  At first all that happened was a gentle vibration in the ground beneath his feet. He watched intently, and the hilt of the dagger shook slowly, and then faster, as if some unseen hand gripped it beneath the soil and was flailing back and forth with increasing violence. The dagger shimmered as its motion picked up speed, and in only a few moments it reached an odd, thrumming harmonic that matched the vibration from below. Donovan stood very still, though he felt the frequency of the shivering, pulsing energy battering at his thoughts and his heartbeat.

  The sod split at the point where the dagger pierced it. The ground rippled outward in four directions, toward the corners of the rectangular pattern he’d drawn. Soil and the grass curled back and something long and dark rose, very slowly, cresting the break in the earth like a huge spacecraft hovering just beyond the curve of the horizon. Where the ground peeled back, it hardened and remained very still.

  The casket was worn. Whatever finish had protected it was long eaten away by moisture and worms. For all that, it was amazingly intact. Donovan stepped closer and placed his palms flat on the lid. He spoke softly and curled his thumbs under the lip. With a quick motion he lifted, and the wood parted. There was a groan, and the sound of rotted planks tearing free from one another as ancient glue cracked and the wooden pegs binding the joints of the casket parted with a snap. The lid flipped up and back and Donovan leaned in.