Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams

by Damian Huntley

  He pulled a key out of his pocket and hammered it into the awkward old lock of his 69 Mustang Boss, resting his case in the passenger’s seat. He had built the Boss’s engine himself, hand machining parts rather than 3d printing; however, the engine was sufficiently powerful that designing and fabricating specialized tires for the car had also been a necessity.

  Every time he heard the deep throaty roar, it brought a smile to West’s face, but the streets of D.C made him feel like a caged animal. He drove up New York Avenue, heading toward 34th Street and pulled into a small housing development, coming to a stop one block from the Beach’s house in Brentwood at five thirty.

  It was a pleasant neighborhood, with tree lined streets and houses built in a modest variety of styles. West climbed out of the car quietly, closing the door with a gentle push. No longer the caged beast, now he scanned his surroundings for possible threats. Not many things could pose a real threat to West, but not many, was too many, and that thought was never far from his mind. He walked toward David Beach’s house slowly, stopping beside a large oak tree. He leaned against the tree and stood silently watching the cars in front of the house. There should be something there, some movement, some indication …

  He was only standing there for a few minutes when he heard the low rumble of a van’s engine as it pulled around the corner. The advertising decals on the van boasted the “Best cleaning service in Maryland” and West wasn’t surprised to see the van roll past him and park on the opposite side of the street, fifteen yards from the Beach’s home. He was even less surprised to see two men of average stature exit the front cab of the van, both glancing furtively about the street, both paying particular attention to the cream sided double garaged three bed townhouse. The two men climbed into the back cab of the van and closed the door behind them.

  Stephanie couldn’t sleep, which was always the case if she was awoken by the first light of day. She would pull the blankets about her head, leaving a little tunnel to the outside world so she could breathe, and she’d lie with her eyes closed, concentrating as hard as she could on not thinking about anything. It never worked. Once she’d accepted that she wasn’t going back to sleep, the morning seemed to open up in a vast array of possibilities, and usually, overwhelmed by choice, Stephanie would resort to the familiar.

  She was part way through this ritual, pulling the first breaths of outside air through her blanket snorkel, when she heard coughing from the next room. Brow wrinkled with determination, she climbed carefully out of her bed, tiptoed to the bedroom door, and pulling the brass handle down slowly, she whipped the door open in a smooth motion, making sure she didn’t slam the door handle into the wall. She took wide steps past her dad’s bedroom door, determined not to wake him. Her Aunt Hannah’s door was an altogether trickier affair, usually booby trapped with clothes hanging on noisy hangers on the back of her door, but Stephanie was ready for this, and only opened the door far enough that she could squeeze through the gap, but not so far as to bump the jangling clothes against the tall dresser behind the door.

  Hannah woke with the smell of strawberry lip-gloss, wafted into her face by the labored breathing of Stephanie, who had either been running laps, or had been trying really hard not to breathe.

  “Spiff, I’m really sorry, but if the big fat hand hasn’t made it past six, I’m going to have to kill you.”

  “There’s no big fat hand.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Stephanie pressed the button to wake up her aunt’s phone on the bedside table, and saw that it was a little before twenty till six. She buried her face in the pillow, and mumbled something.

  Hannah nudged her shoulder gently, “What did you say?”

  Scared eyes peaked out from the safety of the pillow, “Aww shish kebab,”

  Hannah gasped, “Stephanie Beach!”

  “I said shish kebab!”

  “You know what it means. What time is it anyway?”

  Stephanie checked again, “It’s five twenty-seven, and plus forty-two seconds.”

  Hannah groaned and pulled the blanket over her face, “Run away little girl!”

  Stephanie jumped out of bed and ran out of the room as delicately as she could. Muscle memory kicking in as she reached the hallway, she skipped over several squeaky floorboards so as not to wake her dad, then crept downstairs, using the banisters to take the weight out of her steps. She ran through the kitchen into the den, and issued the command, “TV on, volume mute.” It had taken her a while to get used to the correct inflection to use with voice commands, despite her dad’s insistence that it worked perfectly, there was definitely a knack. She lay on the floor, waving her hand listlessly in the air in front of her, conducting her own symphony of colors and shapes until she found what she was looking for. She made a beckoning motion with her fingers, the conductor asking for that little bit more from the timpani drums, the volume raising on the TV, as the rolling deeps of the ocean, and the tattered French flag filled the screen. Stephanie leaned back on her elbows, ready to sink into:

  “1815, Twenty six years after the start of the French Revolution …”

  Before the string section was able to strike up its first note, Stephanie’s attention was torn from the screen by the sound of a car pulling up outside. She heard a car door slam shut, and she ran over to the couch so that she could stand on the cushions, leaning over the back of the couch, watching the street through the large front window. She pried open the blinds, trying to make out which of their neighbors was returning from work at this early hour, but a little way down the street, she caught sight of a man standing under a tree. He was quite motionless, just staring at the back of that same cleaning truck she’d seen outside of the house this past couple of weeks. She watched as he shifted his weight, pushing off from the tree, long slow steps through the shadows, the sound of the waves and the symphony orchestra crashing about him, his movements fell oddly into syncopation with the yells of the slaves. Stephanie smiled at the coincidence, then suddenly, as Jean Valjean sung the first notes of his song, the man turned to face her, looking at her, even through the blinds, she was sure of it. From behind her, Jean Valjean sang his warning to her, “Look down,” and she did, breathing rapidly, shivers running down her spine as she allowed herself to get carried away with the serendipity, listening to the words of the song, ‘look down, you’re here until you die.” She gasped, sucking her bottom lip. She was too young to die.

  “TV mute!” she grabbed a couch cushion, and bravely peaked through the blinds again, but now the man was gone. When the phone rang, she mashed her face into the cushion and screamed a little.

  West placed his phone back in his pocket and tapped the side of the van with an open palm. When no response came from within, he leaned his back against the van, and crouched, curling his fingers under the van’s sill. He lifted the van slowly, cleanly, just far enough that he could hear things tumble about inside, then he bent his knees, touching the tires to the floor, so very gently. West had expected the FBI, and it had cost him very little time, and only a couple of thousand dollars, to ensure that he was the only person with a working cell phone. It was almost disappointing that the agents didn’t call for back up. The doors didn’t burst open in a flurry of motion. The side paneling of the van didn’t erupt in a thousand smoking metal flowers while agents with itchy trigger fingers fired blindly.

  Hearing had become somewhat of a problem for West, but it had its uses, and right now he could hear two heartbeats, calm and steady, and he could hear another thing; subtler, more delicate … that unusual flutter, the silent yearning of a thousand mouths, so desperate to make their hosts perfect, the perfect machine, the perfect vessel.

  He stepped away from the van, calmly, backing onto the short grass.

  “Can Agents Carmichael and McMahon come out to play today?” West spoke the words softly, and in response, he heard the soft clicking of useless buttons, the tapping of useless screens, "Asspérges me, Dómine, hyssópo, et mundáb
or; lavábis me, et super nivem dealbábor, …” West whispered the words from the rite of extreme unction, and the response from inside the van was unmistakable. West could taste it on the air, that heady mix of adrenocorticotropic hormone, cortisol, and epinephrine … fear, and anger, in almost equal doses.

  The rear door of the van opened slowly, and the two men stepped out onto the street, weapons holstered, hands held with palms facing forward at waist height. This signal, their welcoming of hand to hand combat was an empty gesture; each of the three men knew there would be no exchange of gunfire. West didn’t move, offered no countersign, no genuflection, no kowtow.

  “We have no quarrel.” The man on the right spoke. West recognized him from his file as agent Carmichael, forty-two years old, single, Episcopalian, of Irish descent, and a recent transfer from Jersey to the D.C field office. Except for the fact that he had transferred from Jersey, none of this was true, of course, but it added flavor to West’s perception of the man behind which the monster lurked. West thought of Sun Tzu, know other, know self, hundred battles without danger. Recently, he’ had to acknowledge that he was struggling a little with his self-awareness, but by Sun Tzu’s math, this meant that he should have at least a fifty fifty chance of coming through this little fracas unscathed.

  McMahon raised his eyes to the morning sky, “Their concerns are not our concerns friend. Leave us in peace, and go about your business.”

  West narrowed his eyes, and knelt in the grass, watching the two men closely. “You, the two of you were born of the Void Garden, and so, there is a possibility that your making was not of your own volition. You have chosen names which suggest Gaelic ancestry, so perhaps you are Sentinel of Aífe, or else of Bé Chuille, or possibly you’re Tuatha Dé Danann? It’s of little consequence … It could be that your chosen names are merely an affectation. Whatever is true of your ancestry, on this day, you walk in to battle with unsound reasoning, a dogmatic and uneducated adhesion to a woefully corrupt morality, and an entirely misplaced confidence. Their concerns are the only concern.” West spread his arms to indicate the surrounding houses. “Their needs are our needs. To carry yourself without concern for others, you are completely without self. Opinions can change, and the defects of thought can be untaught, but you have chosen your side. You were born of the Void Garden, and of your unmaking, I shall fertilize the Void Garden. I was once her scourge; I am now her groundsman.” He grinned malevolently, and lowered his voice, almost to that of a growl, “We’re painting the roses red.” He watched Carmichael and McMahon’s expressions, wondering who would be rattled more by his words. McMahon.

  West leapt across the space between them, mouth aiming at no particular target, but finding a hold on McMahon’s left eye socket, digging in quite firmly to the curve of bone which formed his left eyebrow. He wrapped his arms around the man’s neck, swinging his legs to the left so that McMahon’s neck twisted almost to the point of snapping. Alarmed by agent McMahon’s screams, and suddenly aware of the trajectory on which West’s feet seemed to be traveling, Carmichael stumbled backwards, but his action came too late, and he felt a sharp blow to the back of his head. His arms flailed at the air in front of him, hoping to catch the assailant’s legs, but he was disoriented. By the time he’d managed to work out where the man had landed, there was already a blur of motion from below, a hand punching up towards him with disgusting certainty, thrusting into his rib cage, bending the costal cartilage and shattering his sternum. Carmichael realized before his head hit the ground that he couldn’t breathe, and that McMahon would be dead before he could attempt to come to his aid. He clutched his chest, and allowed his head to roll to the side as he watched McMahon stumble cautiously about the grass, body low, legs wide, arms forward.

  West now had his legs wrapped around McMahon’s neck, trying to choke him. From his position in the grass, all that Carmichael could see was West’s hands gripping McMahon’s left calf, an unusual sight, but Carmichael was unable to move his head to see what was happening further up this slithering totem of flesh, and he gazed on in impotent horror, as thumbs and fingers pushed through fabric, into muscle fiber, and presumably, only stopping when the hands had grasped bone. He had closed his eyes, but the soft crunching sound confirmed his suspicion.

  When he opened his eyes again, McMahon’s body was nowhere to be seen. His breath caught finally, and he inhaled, pushing himself over in the grass. There, by the van, the attacker stood, blood dripping from his face, his hands, and smeared across his chest. Carmichael got to his feet carefully, his gaze fixed on the man, desperate not to be taken unaware again.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this.” His words were ragged, still struggling to breathe deeply.

  West walked forward, surefooted, calm, “You will have a chance. Just a ghost of a chance mind you, but that’s all we ever have really.”

  Carmichael didn’t see it coming, and couldn’t understand how he had been bested, but he felt consciousness slip away quickly, as somewhere in the distance, a voice spoke softly to him, familiar words, “Pax huic dómui.” Peace to this house.

  West dragged agent Carmichael into the rear cabin of the van and lay him next to McMahon. At least Carmichael was a clean take down. Neither of the men were dead yet, but their bodies were in a race against time, and odds were not in their favor. He undressed, wiping his face with his shirt, spitting on the fabric and doing his best to clean off the blood. He did the same with his hands, and realized that he really wasn’t getting anywhere with the blood, so he tossed the shirt on the metal floor. He stripped Carmichael of his clothes, careful not to get any blood on them as he tried them on. They were a tight fit everywhere except the waistline, which although not ideal, West could cope with.

  He went about the van now, systematically removing every type of hard drive, recording media, or transmitting device. The hard drives and recording media, he placed in a gym bag he’d found conveniently sitting behind the driver’s seat, and the transmitting devices, he crushed and broke, either with his hands, or under foot.

  Once he was satisfied that there was nothing left of use, he stepped out of the van, and closed the doors on the devastation, removing the phone from his pocket, and navigating to redial.

  Stephanie had only just managed to regain her composure, but as Jean Valjean marched towards the camera, veins almost managing to claw free of his forehead, the phone rang again. Stephanie inhaled quickly, her eyes darting to the phone, but after two rings, she hid it under the couch cushion, and allowed her eyes to return to the safety of the screen, where a leaf traveled up into the clouds. The phone rang off, then started up again immediately.

  She took a deep breath, then pushed her hand under the cushion.

  “This is the Beach Residence …” the voice on the other end of the line cut her off, “Yes, good morning Stephanie Beach, it’s so good to hear your voice again. I spoke to you, and your father last night regarding your prize, and I’m afraid he was rather short with me.”

  Stephanie sighed her relief, “He’s average, he says he’s average anyway. He can’t help his height.”

  “No, sorry, short tempered, he lost his temper.”

  “Oh … yeah.” Stephanie’s focus returned to the screen in frustration, lip syncing to the mute singers. No free lunch … no free lunch.

  “Do you mind putting him on the phone, there’s something I need to discuss with him urgently.”

  On autopilot, Stephanie spoke the words she’d been just about to lip sync, “At the end of the day …” she tried to think of an appropriate follow through, “He just doesn’t want to talk to you. You could … I suppose you could send him an email or something … He has email.”

  “Miss Beach, this is a matter of life and death!”

  “Dun … Dun … Duuunnnn …” Stephanie responded mockingly, in a sing song tone, as if she’d expected this. “Everything is.”

  There was dumbfounded silence on the other end of the line, then finally, an equally dumbfounded,
“Pardon?”

  “Everything is either life, or death. There isn’t another thing, like not life, or death … there’s just them.” She breathed slowly for effect, mucus catching in the back of her throat, then she repeated her key thesis, “Everything is either life, or death.” She hung up the phone, satisfied that her philosophical observation would give the salesman something to think about.

  West stomped the grass in the shadows at the side of the house. He pondered the child’s words while he listened to the sounds of the house. She was right of course. Everything was about life, except the bits which were about death. Profound thoughts indeed from a seven-year-old, at … he glanced at his phone again … not even six in the morning. He redoubled his efforts, trying to cleanse his mind of the Zen of Stephanie Beach.

  It wasn’t always possible to tell a person’s sex just by the sound of their breathing, but West was pretty sure he had the somnolent rumblings pegged. He picked a pebble up from the ground, and threw it at the window frame. He waited a while, and when there was no response, he tried again. A woman’s face appeared at the window, and West tried his best to hide behind a marginata bush, which provided less than adequate coverage. The window opened, and Hannah Beach held her hand over her eyes to shield them from the rising morning sun.

  “Are you fucking kidding me? I can see you dick head.” She waved, and the bush rustled its awkward response. “Yeah you! You better be about to propose to me or I’m gonna ram that fucking bush up …” West stepped out from behind the bush, waving his hands in surrender.