A Deeper Darkness

by Jamel Cato

  She groaned. “Mine was better.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that, so I had another one prepared: A beekeeper and her campaign manager walk into a bar. The bartender points at the beekeeper and says, ‘You’re a Tryvodyn.’”

  “Now we’re talking, pun intended.”

  “I’m sorry about the Temple poll, but it was a necessary evil, like getting stuck in the drive through behind somebody ordering for a family of eight who can’t remember which pocket they put that damned debit card in.”

  “I hate it when that happens.”

  “The poll was only sent to people within your social graph and each view of it was tagged with a unique identifier. By doing it this way instead of having Liz setup a meeting directly, we would be able to spot the person in your circle who’s working for the other side when they sent it outside that sphere.”

  “Liz?”

  “Elizabeth Minton.”

  “You’re on a nickname basis with her?”

  “I make it a habit of being on a nickname basis with any woman who can destroy me with a phone call or a sway of her hips.”

  “Call me Ash.”

  I looked up.

  She smiled. “Who sent the poll outside my circle?”

  “Shayla Butler.”

  Her smile vanished. “Can you provide proof of this?”

  “I can have Liz’s folks send you a log of her account activity and incriminating screenshots from her phone.”

  “Please do that.”

  “I will, but you don’t look like you need proof.”

  “It would explain several leaks I couldn’t track down. It’s a risky but brilliant tactical move. I’ll have to pat Garrison on the head like a good little boy the next time I see him.”

  “While you’re at it, can you tell him to forget about me?”

  “I knew he was desperate when I heard he came to see you.”

  “He’s afraid of you.”

  “He should be.”

  “He said he will ruin me and hurt the people I care about if I don’t find out what Serenity really is and report back to him.”

  “Judging by your work on that poll, I presume you have a plan to prevent that from happening.”

  “My plan won’t work without your blessing.”

  “Jasmine looks like the kind of girl who always wears matching bras and panties. Am I right?”

  “Jasmine wants me to tell you that she could leverage her credibility and relationships in DC to help Serenity get things done if you are open to that. She told me to suggest that to you in a subtle way so you would think it was your idea.”

  Ashley studied me. “What can you bring to the table?”

  “When Garrison came to my office, I tagged him with an Astral signature that only I can see.”

  “And you can track him with that?”

  “He’s in Manhattan right now.”

  “Do I have your word you would never tag me or Serenity with a signature like that?”

  She was asking me to make a supernatural oath, which cannot be broken.

  “You do.”

  “Let me hear this plan of yours.”

  After I laid out my plan, she said, “Serenity is in Atlanta speaking at the national convention of the American Library Association.”

  “Library association? That sounds boring.”

  “Nothing involving Serenity is boring.”

  “When can I meet her?”

  “It will take three days for the Secret Service to do a background check and issue you a proximity clearance. I’ll connect with her in South Carolina tomorrow night and discuss this with her.”

  “Do you think she’ll be okay with it?”

  “She’ll be okay with it if I am. And she’ll like you, which, to be frank, concerns me a tad.”

  I gave her a hurt look. “I’ve been totally honest with you.”

  “And I’ll be totally honest with you: If you flirt with Serenity the way you’ve flirted with me and the way you must’ve flirted with Jasmine for her to trust you enough to deliver that offer, we might have a problem, Houston.”

  “Why? Serenity is a happily married woman.”

  “You’ll see. And I mean that literally.”

  “Can’t wait.”

  “I’m sure. In the meantime, enjoy Carghill’s hospitality. Cleetus can take you anywhere you need to go.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Back in the car, I asked Cleetus to take me to the hospital.

  He lurched away from me and pressed himself against the driver side door. “Hospital? You got Coon Tummy?”

  “What the hell is Coon Tummy?”

  After a bit of navigating our differing ways of speaking, I realized he was asking if I was infected with E. coli.

  Once I convinced him I was perfectly healthy, I asked, “How many black people live in Carghill County?”

  “There are some down here in dee town, but ain’t none up in the mountains with dee Hillfolk.”

  “You’re from the mountains?”

  He nodded.

  “And the Hillfolk think all black people carry African diseases?”

  He looked down guiltily. “We don’t meet a lot of different folks.”

  “Then why are you so comfortable around me? And why did you defend me at the airport?”

  “Workin’ for dee campaign, I done met all kind of folks. Plus, I had a colored friend one time.”

  “Colored?”

  He blushed. “I mean Black ‘merican African…ya know, what you folks call yur’ selves. Ash keeps pesterin’ me to get it right.”

  “Where did you meet your black friend?”

  “Up da mountain.”

  “I thought you said there were no African Americans up there?”

  “He ain’t ‘merican, so I don’t count ‘im.”

  “Is he still there?”

  “Naw, he went back down under.”

  At the time, I thought he meant Australia.

  If Carghill Memorial Hospital were a person, it would have Split Personality Disorder. On one side of the campus stood a small, two-story building made of reinforced concrete slab. That was the original hospital. The other side was dominated by a modern glass and steel architectural marvel that had been built eight years earlier with donations from the local beekeeping industry.

  Cleetus and I made our way to the Records Department, whose lowly importance was affirmed by its location in the basement of the old building.

  I politely asked one of the two clerks at the reception desk if I could see a copy of Serenity Blakemore’s birth certificate.

  Clearly accustomed to this request, one of the women said, “It’s in secure storage for privacy reasons. Unless you have a warrant or a subpoena, we’ll have to direct you to her campaign headquarters on Arch Road. There is a public relations representative there who can assist you further.”

  I handed her a copy of a Limited Congressional Subpoena of the House Armed Services Committee. That’s what was in the envelope Jasmine had given me when we met.

  After some spirited whispering back and forth, one clerk picked up a telephone and the other instructed me to have a seat.

  I sat down next to Cleetus. “You think they’re afraid I have Coon Tummy?”

  “Naw,” he assured me. “They townsfolk.”

  Not more than a quarter hour passed before a white woman in her late fifties came through a door behind the reception desk and approached me. She was adorned in expensive business attire and possessed an unmistakable air of authority.

  She extended a hand. “I’m Gillian Kersetter, the President of the Hospital.”

  I stood and shook it. “Preston Tiptree.”

  “May I ask the purpose of your request to review Mrs. Blakemore’s birth certificate?”

  “I’m with the Campaign and I need to review it as part of a special project I’m working on for Ashley.”

  “Ash has already seen the certificate.”

  “But I haven’t.”
<
br />   “Are you new? I haven’t seen you before and I’m pretty familiar with the campaign staff.”

  “I’m more of a consultant.”

  “What kind of consultant?”

  “I think it would be easier if you just called Ashley and confirmed my story.”

  “Tell me your name again?”

  “Tiptree. That’s tree, like a tall tree.”

  Ten minutes after that I was in a conference room with Gillian examining the certificate.

  “This birth date doesn’t match what’s in the campaign’s media kit,” I said.

  “Almost all of the babies that are born in the rural communities at the higher elevations are delivered by traveling midwives. They stop in the Records Department and fill out the birth certificate forms whenever they’re in this part of the County, which is sometimes weeks or months after the birth, if they remember at all.”

  “If they remember?”

  “On rare occasions, a birth is not recorded.”

  She was telling me that Serenity was such a case and the certificate in my hands was fabricated after the fact.

  “That could be a constitutional issue.”

  “Ashley says you are on our side.”

  I closed the folder containing the certificate. “What birth certificate?”

  “Can I assist you with anything else, Dr. Tiptree?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What falls from the sky when it rains?”

  “Pardon?”

  “H2O is the formula for what?”

  “Water.” She’s said it like wooder.

  “I’ve heard you pronounce twelve different words with a Delaware Valley accent.”

  “Oh. I graduated from Swarthmore and spent many years in the area afterward. I suppose I still have some vestiges of that.”

  “Sounds like home.”

  “Ashley mentioned you were from Philadelphia.”

  “But you didn’t need her to tell you that, did you?”

  She smiled. “You might as well be wearing a cologne called Rita’s Wooder Ice.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “She said your ex-wife lives in Gladwyne next to a Pew. If you can still afford to wear an original Vacheron on your wrist, you must have been a wealthy man before the divorce. That tells me you are not doing this for compensation. A man who is not motivated by money, power or the possibility of sex is a behavioral rarity. And rarities are always worthy of close attention.”

  I realized only then that I had been sent to the Records Department to be examined, not to do the examining.

  I looked down at my watch. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  Kersetter was Gillian’s married name from her current husband. Her name had been Gillian Gilbride when she had given birth to Ashley.

  CHAPTER 13

  After leaving the hospital, I had Cleetus drive me to a particular house we had passed on the trip from the airport. He wasn’t happy about it.

  I knocked on the front door.

  An elderly white man with white hair, a white shirt and white porcelain on the butt of his handgun cracked the door open and look closely at the laminated press pass hanging on a lanyard around my neck. “Whatayya want?”

  “Good Afternoon, Sir. My name is Craig James. I’m a correspondent with American National Media. I’m in town doing background research for a series on Serenity Blakemore that we’ll be airing next week. I was hoping I could ask you a question or two. It won’t take more than five minutes.”

  He said, “You’re at the wrong house.”

  Then he started closing the door.

  “The piece will air on Today’s News,” I quickly said before it had completely shut.

  The door stopped moving. “What’s that?”

  “I said the piece will air on Today’s News.”

  “You’re from Today’s News?” he asked incredulously.

  “I was a quota hire. They keep me so far off camera you wouldn’t even think I work there.”

  “Quotas. Figures.”

  “I need to get some usable quotes for the show but everybody in this town sounds like they’re reading straight from the Blakemore website. I saw your lawn signs and I was hoping you would be willing to speak the truth about the inconsistencies in Serenity’s background.”

  He was still suspicious. “What kinda inconsistencies?”

  “Her birth certificate. The patent for the bees. The way she talks like a Yankee even though they say she was born up with the Hillfolk.”

  Now I was speaking his language. “And don’t forget about the marriage.”

  “What about it?”

  “They say they got hitched at the church right over on Oxford behind the Citgo, but I don’t remember no weddin’.”

  I wrote the word wedding on a notepad. “Anything else?”

  “Naw, I think you got most of the big ones, but I’ll go on the computer and check SerenityFakemore.com to see if I missed one. How can I get in touch with ya?”

  “Call the New York office and ask for Chuck Farver. That’s my boss. I don’t have my own extension for obvious reasons.”

  “Damn shame is what it is.”

  “I know. They won’t even give me business cards.”

  “No, I mean Serenity. We’re about to turn our whole country over to Gheecie scum.”

  When Cleetus dropped me at my motel, I called Art Carini. He sounded out of breath when he picked up.

  “You okay, Art?”

  “Yes…Yes. I just got off the treadmill.”

  “That’s great.”

  “This is your fault.”

  “What is?”

  “My new workout routine.”

  “How is that my fault?”

  “Whatever was in that Kale smoothie made me lose seven pounds. My wife loves it. She’s demanding I keep it up or else.”

  “Happy wife, happy life.”

  “Says the divorced guy. What can I do for you?”

  “Who or what is a Gheecie?”

  The next morning when I got into Cleetus’s pickup, I found a full set of beekeeping protective gear on the seat between us.

  “Are these for you or me?”

  “Most all of dee new folk do their time at the Hives.”

  Ashley had instituted a nonnegotiable rule that all new staff, consultants and volunteers spend time doing community service in Carghill before being allowed to join the campaign. This requirement could be satisfied by working eight hours at the local beehives or forty-eight hours elsewhere in town.

  “I’ve decided I’m going to do my service at The Gheecie Court.”

  He said, “Never hearda’ no Squeechee Court. That a new hive?”

  But his face had already given him away.

  “Let’s just keep it real, Cleet.”

  “What now?”

  “Look, I know Ashley assigned you to keep an eye on me because she doesn’t fully trust me. I understand. I would do the same thing if I were in her shoes. All I’m saying is that you could do that without the extra hassle of the country bumpkin routine.”

  He adopted a menacing expression. “What’d you just call me?”

  “Your Hillfolk dialect is flawless and your Aw Shucks demeanor is Oscar worthy, but when I asked you about Serenity’s chances, you slipped up and gave me an analysis of delegate counts that would make any political science professor green with envy. Then, when I came back from meeting with Gillian, you were reading an online article on The Atlantic’s website. And you aren’t always the same height.”

  His skin darkened to a lime green hue and his musculature increased by at least fifty percent.

  “Now I see why they call you The Piercer of Shrouds,” he said in deep, unaccented English.

  “Do we have a deal? You can still play Cleetus The Neatest when other people are around.”

  “As long as you remember they call me Dejanu De Krackenshriven.”

  In Latin based languages, that roughly translated to The Crusher of
Bones. There were two subspecies of Leprechaun. The smaller Trickster Caste Leprechauns exceled at deception and stealth. They had originally been created to carry out espionage. Guardian Caste Leprechauns like Cleetus had been expressly created for battle and the defense of the queens of their courts.

  To keep them under control, both species had been cursed with an immutable genetic addiction to gold alloy.

  I placed a large and gleaming coin on the dash.

  Cleetus’s breaths became deeper and quicker.

  “If you can keep me alive for the next seven days, I’ll give you your weight in gold.”

  “Do I have your word, Talker?”

  “Yes.”

  “When we arrive at the Court, kneel before the Queen.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The Appalachian region of the United States was home to a variety of unique cultures, including an eclectic community of supernatural beings who had fled to the mortal plane after being decimated in a brutal war with the Tuatha de Danann. The conflict had been primarily sparked by the community’s practice of granting political asylum to non-Celtic refugees, many of whom were seeking asylum because they had committed, or been accused of committing, acts that were considered scandalous or treasonous in their homelands. Like many supernatural societies, it had a matriarchal political structure ruled by a Queen.

  It was called The Gheecie Court.

  It took ninety minutes of driving and then twenty minutes of walking to reach the Court’s remote encampment, which was nestled high in the mountains of Carghill County. It was a strategic location that could only be reached by passing through two undetectable waypoints that served as defensive bottlenecks. Fae waypoints were like supernatural toll bridges where the toll was either a standing travel treaty or a direct dispensation from a Court Queen.

  After the arduous journey to get there, I was disappointed to find they were pretending to be just another community of regular Appalachian Hillfolk, especially since my gift allowed me to see right through their glamours.

  To normal eyes, I was kneeling before a ramshackle log cabin with a lopsided chimney stack and patches of blue tarp covering spots in the roof where the shingles had worn off. Three heavyset white women who appeared to be in their forties and fifties sat in creaky ottoman style rocking chairs on the wide front porch. Each was wearing a threadbare cotton dress and two were smoking cigarettes. A leathery old man leaned on a cane for dear life behind the woman sitting in the middle chair, which was larger and in better condition than the other two. Cleetus and another bearded man in his thirties were standing between me and the porch. The other man was holding a leash attached to a mongrel dog that was so malnourished I could see its ribs. Thirty or forty other people, all white and dressed in ragged garments, crowded around me.