A Deeper Darkness

by Jamel Cato

  “Thank you,” I said while flexing my repaired bicep.

  The supernatural being acknowledged me with a nod.

  “How can I repay you?”

  The Bantu looked at Art. “Any debts between us have been settled, Talker.”

  Art walked the creature out.

  Jason and Stanella each looked like they were going to say something, but then Jasmine walked around the side of the bed.

  They stepped away to give us some privacy.

  “Hey, Tree,” she said.

  “Hey yourself, Gorgeous.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “I was trying to ride the wind, but I crashed headfirst into a monster truck driven by an old lady who couldn’t see over the steering wheel.”

  She chuckled. “You’re always so funny. You’ll probably do standup in Heaven when you’re not flirting with some pretty ghost.”

  “How did I get here?”

  “Your cousin rushed you to Stanella’s shop and she used her gate to bring you here. Art had a Bantu waiting.”

  “How did he know to do that?”

  “I called him and explained you were critically injured.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Eve called me after she had Jason rush you to the gate.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s the least I could do after what you did for Alonzo. He’s walking on air right now. He’s like the Alonzo I fell in love with again.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “I didn’t do anything.”

  She cocked her head at me.

  “Okay, you got me. I just pushed his canoe from the shore. He’s a good brother.”

  “And you’re a good brother for being a better man. I know it wasn’t all an act for you either. You thought you could see Good Jasmine behind the naughty one.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but she silenced me with a palm. “Don’t go there. You’ve seen enough of Naughty Jasmine. She’s retired and happily married now.”

  “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” I said.

  Less than an hour later, I was out of bed and putting my shoes on.

  “Did the monkey eat your brain?” Stanella asked. “You heard that blue wanker. You need rest.”

  “He just said not to touch my wounds.”

  “And you think your wounds won’t get touched in a battle?”

  “Better my wounds than my conscience.”

  “Well I hope you’re not expecting me to ferry you there.”

  Art walked up and handed me an Astral lamp. “It doesn’t have the Egyptian field extenders like yours, but it should get the job done.”

  “Does every bloke around here have his head in the loo?”

  Art made eye contact with her. “May I speak with you in private?”

  After they walked off, Jason approached and handed me Maryellen’s Athens blade. “You dropped this back at the spot.”

  “Good lookin’ out, Cuz,” I said, accepting the weapon.

  “How you gonna go to a fight without your big cousin? That’s against Section 103 of the Street Code.”

  “The same way I used to sneak behind your back and wear your Air Force Ones to the Willow Grove Mall to mack some honies when Uncle Clif made you go to that Future Officers camp every summer.”

  He laughed. “You never left the laces right. I knew. But I let it ride for my first cousin.”

  “Look, you know we ride or die, but you can’t roll with me on this one.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I still want to have a big cousin when I get back.”

  “I’m not scared of monsters.”

  “I know, but your wife and kids are, and they need you more.”

  CHAPTER 37

  After speaking with Art, Stanella agreed to transport me to West Virginia.

  Just before I stepped out of the gate, she said, “The trick is to only fight the little ones and stab them while they’re not looking.”

  “Good advice,” I said.

  She kissed me on the cheek. “Good luck, Mate. I’ll keep the gate warm for you.”

  I crossed the threshold and began making my way up the mountain.

  The moment I emerged from the final waypoint leading to the Gheecie Court’s village, two Guardian caste Leprechauns in full body armor thrust the tips of spears at my throat.

  “Kaskolaru!” a deep male voice shouted from the hill above us.

  The Guardians retracted their spears and snapped back into formation on either side of the waypoint.

  I looked to the crest of the hill to see Cleetus in gleaming gold armor with a red commander’s cape billowing in the wind behind his back. He had a spear in his right hand and an iron helm in his left. Ten hard-faced and hard-bodied soldiers in similar armor encircled him.

  He descended the hill toward me.

  There are a few things I’m sure of in life, and one of them is that the stout warrior who stood before me was not really named Cleetus McGhee.

  “What is your true name?” I asked.

  He pounded a fist to his breastplate. “I am Mallius, second of my name, first into battle and the last Commander of the Queen’s Guard of her Majesty’s Court of the Gheecie.”

  I had no idea what the commander of the Knights of the Flame called himself, but he was about to earn his pay.

  “Will you escort me to the mine, Mallius?”

  He cut his eyes to my Athens blade and Astral lamp. “For what purpose, Talker?”

  “To free Tuano-Negee Jira and Sellietuanajo from their bondage.”

  Sellietuanajo was Serenity’s true name.

  He considered my answer. “Has the Queen consented to this?”

  “She gave me her consent when she met with me at the Ozark Institute. One of your guardians was in the room, hidden by a cloaking glamour. I’ll wait while you confirm my claim with him.”

  “I have your word this is true?”

  “You do.”

  “I cannot personally escort you because I must remain here to be the first to stomp our enemies back to Blackshire, but I shall have one of my men guide you.”

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded and shouted, “Ingron!”

  One of the Guardians protecting the waypoint came forward.

  I was floored when Ingron and I rounded yet another hill and came upon the glamour-free entirety of The Gheecie Court arrayed for battle.

  At the vanguard were six Hound Handlers holding thick leashes. The desiccated dogs I had seen on my first visit were now enormous Hell Hounds with curved saber fangs and muscles rippling beneath jet black fur. They padded back and forth, eager to be set upon an enemy. Behind the Handlers were ten crisp rows of green-skinned Guardians, alternately armed with spears, broadswords, battle axes and shock whips. Behind the Guardians were three rows of human men and women of different races clutching assault rifles. Two rows of magic throwers lined up beyond them, many of their fists encircled by glowing purple light. Three women stood on a raised platform. In the center was Queen Caroline, adorned in a hunter green battle gown with sparkling dragon scales protecting her torso and the jeweled hilt of a sword in her right hand. Her red hair was tied into a single braid and a golden crown rested on her head. To her left stood Maryellen. The fertility matron wore an ankle length leather skirt and chainmail armor above the waist. She was holding a large shield emblazoned with the green and gold Gheecie Crest. To the Queen’s right was Gillian Kersetter, decked in green Kevlar body armor from her neck to her feet. Curiously, her only weapon appeared to be a curved horn. A mass of several hundred unarmored civilians milled behind the platform. None seemed possessed of weapons, unless you counted their steely expressions.

  I postulated that at least half of their force must have been called home from elsewhere since there was no way a tiny mountain village could house a population that size.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more impressive fighting force,” I said to Ingron
.

  “If you survive,” he replied, “tell the world how we gave a good accounting of ourselves.”

  Just before we passed the platform, he stopped and knelt before the Queen. Out of respect and gratitude, I did the same. When we rose, Queen Caroline gave us a prim nod of acknowledgement.

  As we navigated our way to the coal mine, I asked Ingron why the Gheecie Court didn’t just ask Jira and Serenity for a wish that would eliminate the threat posed by the Duchess.

  “The second thing a Djinn Master does after capturing a Djinn is make it swear an oath that neither it nor its bloodline will ever use its power to harm the Master. Our Djinn sisters cannot assist us against the Duchess, regardless of how much we wish it were otherwise. Attempting to do so would only expose them to recapture.”

  “What’s the first thing a Djinn Master does?”

  “Kill the Djinn’s bloodline.”

  “Why?”

  “Djinn can locate their kin anywhere in the world—or in other worlds—by their unique atomic signature. This is doubly true of Tuano Djinn, who can search every world at once. It won’t do to have a secret weapon which can be snatched from you at any moment.”

  We walked a little further before I asked, “How did Jira escape from the Duchess?”

  “Forty years ago, the Duchess made a wish to become the most powerful woman in the United Kingdom. Jira told her that the current most powerful woman, the Foreign Secretary Eleanor Covington, would need to be eliminated first to avoid a causality loop and make the wish possible. When the Duchess went to London to do the deed, Queen Caroline, Eleanor’s Chief Confidential Assistant, was present. Jira asked the Queen to measure the Scales of Justice and grant her asylum if they were unbalanced. The Queen found that they were. When the Duchess returned to Blackshire after poisoning Eleanor with a blood disease, she discovered that Jira’s vessel of imprisonment had been replaced with a plain ceramic urn. She has hunted us ever since.”

  “Queen Caroline is Lady Justice?” I asked in astonishment.

  “They are one and the same.”

  No wonder the Queen thought I was young on a cosmic scale. Hundreds of cultures from antiquity to the modern day had a variation of the same female goddess of justice. Greek mythology called her Themis.

  “Thank you for explaining that. And I’m sorry I’m asking so many questions.”

  “It is my duty to answer.”

  “It is?”

  “Queen Caroline advised me that you would have such questions and it was my duty to answer to the best of my ability and knowledge. I have spent many hours in the Court Library preparing.”

  “When did she tell you that?”

  “Two moons ago.”

  I was still just a little songbird in a world full of birds of prey.

  “Who was the Duchess before she became what she is now?”

  * * *

  THE DUCHESS OF BLACKSHIRE

  Ten generations ago, a child named Corella Waverly was born to a house which had sworn fealty to the Duke of Edenshire. As a maiden of a low court, and despite her great beauty, she could not ascend into the nobility through marriage. And even if marital advancement had been a possibility, Edenshire was a tiny duchy on a remote island.

  But her circumstances did not dampen her ambition.

  As a young woman, she would send ravens to ships passing at sea. Each raven bore a note claiming that one tenth of a great lost treasure belonging to the Queen of England awaited the Captain who could safely deliver the bounty to the English mainland. As an inducement and alleged proof, each note would be wrapped around a glittering dark sea stone. Such stones were common on Edenshire’s black sand beaches, but to foreign eyes, they appeared as precious rarities.

  More than two dozen ships came, each guided to Edenshire by its unique lighthouse. If its captain possessed the honor to request only a tenth of the treasure, or no fee at all, Corella would seduce him and infect his crew with the blood disease that had run rampant through the soldiers defending her family’s house when the Duke had arrived to conquer them.

  Finally, after a great sea storm, a captain arrived who demanded the entire treasure. His ship was propelled by black sails which matched his black eyes. When he stepped upon the beach, Corella could see no sign of the rowboat which delivered him to the shore. She led him by torchlight to her hidden liar. Upon entering an empty room, the captain asked to be taken to the treasure. Corella gave him a bewitching smile and said that she was the treasure.

  The captain broke into his own winsome smile and said, “No, dark maiden, I am. I have searched for one such as you just as you have searched for one such as I.”

  The visitor’s name was Zandimir and he was a strong warlock. Much of his black magic involved fire and raw materials which had been stolen from Hell. He taught Corella the dark arts. They made love and flames together. When her power grew to match his, she ended her apprenticeship by burning him to death.

  Corella took dominion of Edenshire by throwing its current Duchess into the sea and then marrying the Duke, over whom she had cast a subservience spell. The first Duke had to be kept alive to fool and pay the Queen’s tax collectors. When the tax collectors sailed away, the Edenshire flags were lowered and black flags raised in their place. She had renamed the duchy to Blackshire in honor of Zandimir and the sea stones. She spun black magic to stop her body from aging and turn the honorable sea Captains into the undead Knights of the Flame. Each generation, she changed her legal name and chose a handsome man from among the spellbound population of Blackshire to serve as her new Duke and servant. She also selected a woman to serve as her personal Gate Maven and operator of the magic travel portal which had existed on Edenshire since its founding.

  One of the first things Zandimir had taught her was that true power usually rested in the hands of a monarch’s advisors rather than the monarch himself, who was merely a symbolic figure needed to make the common man feel that he was part of a republic of equals. To find great might, seek the shadows not the candlelight. Corella applied this teaching by founding The Scale, a secret society of aristocrats who quietly centralized and managed political power in nations around the world. Every chapter of The Scale swore fealty to the Duchess of Blackshire. Those who behaved as though they had forgotten their oath were burned alive. The specter of such a repercussion was a highly effective tool of obedience given that the Duchess could use her personal gate to instantly appear anywhere in the world. As a bargain to avoid the Duchess’s wrath, a Scale chapter in the Middle Eastern lands made the Duchess aware of the existence of Tuano Djinn. Unlike the common genies she had enslaved many times, this species could grant innumerable wishes. But they were exceedingly rare.

  The Duchess leveraged her captive Djinn and travel portal to amass untold wealth and hidden influence until two recent events disrupted her hegemony. First, the Gheecie Court had stolen and given refuge to her Djinn. Then, to compound matters, the Americans developed a technology to block her portal’s access to its borders. They subsequently shared this technology with MI9, which used it to protect England, Scotland and Wales. These developments might have been devastating if not for the continued loyalty of the American chapter of The Scale, which had delivered a new, unblocked Gate and the long-sought whereabouts of The Gheecie Court.

  * * *

  The puzzle pieces began to coalesce into a coherent picture as I walked along and ingested Ingron’s answers. But there were still a few things which eluded me.

  “How did Garrison Peakes know to steal Jira’s urn after he, uh, violated Gillian at that conference? How would he have even known what it was?”

  “Maryellen told him. She had been plotting on Queen Caroline’s throne for a very long time. By having Peakes defile Gillian and subjugate Jira, she weakened her chief rival.”

  “And you’re letting her stand at the Queen’s side? How can you trust her?”

  “You don’t need to trust a sword to swing it. We defer to the Queen’s judgment in matters o
f Court. And might I point out that knowing Maryellen’s true nature did not stop you from making your own bargain with her.”

  Touché.

  “What was the favor Queen Caroline did for Arthur Carini in exchange for hiding the Gheecie Court in America?”

  We came upon the entrance to an abandoned coal mine. There were warped planks of wood crisscrossed over the opening and several faded signs that read, DANGER. KEEP OUT.

  Ingron gestured to the mine. “The answer can be found in the darkness below.”

  “Okay,” I said, warily eyeing the bizarre Astral patterns that were radiating out from the entrance.

  “If you make it back out, use your owl’s site to follow the Astral residue of my footsteps back to the waypoint. If you do not, then I hope your people remember your name.”

  “May your spear fly true,” I told him.

  He banged a fist to his chest and marched back the way we had come.

  I lost my footing several times on the way down because the handholds and footrests were rotten or the bolts attaching them to the mountain had rusted away. And those close calls occurred after I’d nearly tumbled to my death when a flock of cave bats suddenly stormed around me like a tornado.

  When I mercifully reached the mine floor, I help up Art’s glowing Astral lamp. In the pitched darkness, it provided only a two-foot sphere of illumination. I would have preferred the stark brightness of my high-power LED flashlight, but I was not entirely surprised when it had refused to function. My backup flashlight and smartphone experienced similar problems. I didn’t panic because I had encountered this before. Whatever the strange Astral energy was, it was interfering with the flow of electrons through circuits and diodes. That gave me a hint as to what I might find.

  I followed the weak lamp light in a circle as I examined my surroundings. The air had a dank smell and the plopping sound of dripping stalactites echoed from every direction. I was standing at a junction of three tunnels, two of which were partially blocked by decaying coal trolleys.