The Curse Merchant (The Dark Choir Book 1)

by J. P. Sloan

  “Jesus, Carmen. What’s going on?”

  She pulled away, then sniffled as she wiped her eyes. “I’m in trouble, Dorian, and I don’t know how to fix it. I’m so fucking far over my head, here.”

  “The club?”

  “No, not the club. I just, forget about the club, okay?” She calmed down and took a breath. “I did something a while ago. Almost two years, now. It’s something I was told would be temporary, and that I could undo if I needed to.”

  “What did you do?”

  She sniffled again, and her face slowly crumpled into a wincing sob. I reached behind me to grab the paper towels from the counter, bunching one up and offering it to her.

  Carmen daubed her cheeks and cleared her throat. She looked me square in the face with bloodshot eyes and said, “I sold my soul.”

  From time to time, someone will tell me something so patently unbelievable that I manage not to understand the words as they’re spoken. This usually leads to my blathering something incredibly insensitive or incongruous which makes me look like a tremendous jackass. This was one of those moments.

  “No you didn’t.”

  Carmen held a breath and shook her head. “Yes. I did.”

  “No, you couldn’t have. What do you mean you sold your soul?”

  “You know what I mean, and I did it.”

  I closed my eyes and held up my hands. “Wait, what the hell are you talking about? You didn’t sell your soul, Carmen. There’s no way you could be that stupid.”

  “Thanks, Dorian.”

  “Carmen!” I shouted, making her jump. “What the fuck?”

  “It happened a couple weeks after we… after that happened. It got bad for me. I was losing everything, Dorian. My job, my contacts, my reputation. Everything that meant everything to me, all because…”

  She let the sentence hang, but I followed her train of thought just fine.

  “Because of me.”

  She shook her head.

  “No, I’m not going to let you take responsibility for my life.”

  “You’re being kind. I know I really screwed you. I admit that. Never apologized for it, did I?”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter now because I went with what I thought was my best option. That was my choice.”

  “Your best option was selling your soul?”

  She glared at me with a mix of patience, anger, and despair. I could tell she wanted to tear my head off, but she kept it reined in. She needed my help.

  Only, I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do for her.

  “You know people in this sort of business, right?”

  “A handful. Not many.”

  “Look, you don’t owe me anything, Dorian.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  “No!” She slapped a hand down on the table. “When I left you, I left everything. I made my break, and we were done. That’s over. I’m asking you for your help right now, not because you owe me anything, but because… Jesus, please just let me ask you.”

  “What do you want me to do? I don’t deal in Netherwork. You know this.”

  “I know. But like I said, you know people. And maybe you can talk to the man who brokered the sale? Find out what options I have.”

  I squinted and pushed away from the table. Pinching the bridge of my nose, preparing for the answer before she gave it to me, I asked, “What was his name?”

  “Osterhaus.”

  Fuck.

  “Right.”

  “He has an office on Light Street.”

  “I thought he was on Pratt.”

  “Then you do know him.” Her eyes brightened and she settled in her chair. “So, can you talk to him for me?”

  I stood up and walked slowly to the narrow window overlooking the alley and held myself up against the casing.

  “That could be complicated.”

  “Look, I wouldn’t ask you, but you have clout with these people. I know you do.”

  “Not as much as you’d think.” I turned to watch her eyes melt, and I wilted. “Why don’t you talk to him? You said he gave you an out clause, right?”

  She sneered. “I’m not a complete idiot, Dorian. I tried. I sent word through his people. He keeps putting me off.” She mumbled something in Spanish and sniffled. “He said two years. Two years, and I can cancel the contract. But, he knows if he keeps putting me off, I can’t ask to get out of it. He’s a total sleaze. But I can’t make anything happen. That’s why I need you, Dorian.”

  My brain replayed that phrase over and over in my head for a few seconds.

  “There’s no guarantee I’ll have any more luck than you.”

  “It’s something. It’s more than I have.”

  “I suppose it is.” My stomach burned with acid. “All right. I’ll do what I can.”

  Carmen’s chair scraped across the floor, and I braced for a hug, or a hand, or some kind of thanks. After I felt nothing, I turned to find her peering wide-eyed up at the corner of the ceiling.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. It’s nothing.” She turned to me with a leaden face and eyes full of dread. “Thank you, Dorian.”

  I watched her as she stood rigid, a monolith of misery in my kitchen. There was none of the glamour, the sexuality, or the command left to her expression. She was horribly and terrifyingly fragile. Alone.

  Scared.

  I walked toward her, feeling compelled to make some kind of contact with her. Before I could reach her, however, she stepped into the foyer and straightened her jacket.

  “I, uh… I’ll call you tomorrow,” she rasped.

  “Maybe I should call you. I don’t know when or if Osterhaus will deign to see me.”

  She shook her head.

  “I changed my number.”

  “Okay, so…”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “Okay.”

  She turned the doorknob and let herself out, pausing only briefly as she stepped down onto the sidewalk. Her lips remained closed, but I could tell by her eyes she wanted to say something. Ultimately, she turned and walked away, leaving me staring at her in the chilly morning breeze.

  I closed the door and stepped back into the kitchen.

  Carmen sold her soul.

  That explained her remarkable fortune since last I saw her. The club was slowly perishing, but she had been flourishing. In fact, the one day she wasn’t there, the club seemed to have a measure of life injected back into it. Such was the nature of Netherwork. Unlike the karma-powered charm and hex work that I specialized in, Netherwork never granted its recipient, or the practitioner, any benefit without first securing its toll.

  Plus interest.

  Now, I had to find Neil Osterhaus, secure an audience with him, probably eat several bowls of piping hot crow, and possibly even terminate any future business dealings with Julian Bright.

  That was a serious decision to make. Carmen, a woman whom I had effectively ruined and was very unlikely to return any measure of gratitude or even courtesy, or Bright, a man with real money and a real vision, who actually liked me. Still, no matter how much her Latina pride wouldn’t allow me to say it, I was the one who got her into this mess. It was my pride. My jealous damn pride. Going into our relationship, I honestly thought I could handle her profession. I was wrong. And in a whiskey-fueled fit of boyfriend angst, I slandered her in front of the entire club. My big, fat mouth had screwed me out of my first healthy relationship since my parents died.

  And now my big, fat mouth may have screwed my only chance of getting her back.

  I looked for my phone in my pants lying on my bedroom floor, and gave Edgar a call.

  Wren answered, unfortunately, and I braced for a tongue lashing of epic proportion.

  “Dorian, is that you?”

  “Hi, Wren.”

  “So, what. You can’t stick around for a damn hour and say hi to me?”

  “Sorry, Wren. I ran into someone, and it wasn’t going to help anything for me to stay there.”

/>   “Don’t even. You going to come back any time soon, or are you going to disappear again?”

  I sat down on my bed and tried not to sigh into the phone.

  “Yeah, I owe Edgar a hamburger, anyway.”

  “All right then. You looking for Edgar?”

  “Please.”

  She shrieked Edgar’s name, and I instinctively pulled the phone away from my ear. After a minute of anonymous shuffling and footsteps, I heard Edgar’s voice.

  “Hey. Two years I don’t see you, and now you’re calling me more often than my mother.”

  “Edgar, I need a solid.”

  “What kind of solid?”

  “I need to get in touch with Neil Osterhaus.”

  There was a long silence, after which Edgar chuckled, “You sure about that, man?”

  I wasn’t in love with the way he said that.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Just that Osterhaus is kind of a shark, you know. Big fish, lots of teeth.”

  “Big fish, huh? Last I heard, he was a little nothing horning blue collar types into soul contracts.”

  “Yeah, well, your info is old. He basically owns the Baltimore occult scene. Why am I telling you this? You live there.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Last couple years. You doing okay?”

  “I’m fine. Do you have a contact, or some way to get a hold of the man? It’s kind of important.”

  Edgar grumbled for a second, then responded, “Uh, yeah. He sends his man to pick up materials every other week.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “Let me guess… tall, Samoan, big fucking arms?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Fuck me sideways. Okay. If you can put me in touch with this guy, I’d owe you.”

  Edgar gave me the name and number. His name was Reed Malosi, and he had a Baltimore area code. I sat and stared at the number for about an hour before I mustered the courage to call it.

  The line rang for a long while before the man’s basso profundo answered, “Hello?”

  I had to decide on the quick how I was going to approach the situation. Should I grovel? Try to sound tough? Or should I do what I usually do and completely sabotage my own attempt at sounding competent. I chose the first, but ended up with the latter.

  “Hey, Penn State. How are you?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Dorian Lake. We spoke yesterday.”

  Malosi might have dropped the phone. Possibly, he had buried it into his shirt to consult with someone.

  “Mister Lake, I remember you.”

  “Fabulous. Anyway, I feel bad about what I said, you know, about stuff and things.”

  “Stuff and things?”

  “What we talked about yesterday.”

  “You called my employer a bottom-feeder.”

  “Yeah, that stuff. So, I kind of shot my mouth off, and I wanted to apologize for that.”

  After a pregnant pause, Malosi replied, “I’ll convey your apologies to Mister Osterhaus.”

  “Actually, I’d like to do it in person.”

  “You want to speak with Mister Osterhaus directly?”

  “That would be preferable.”

  After another muffled pause of the phone, Malosi answered, “I can pick you up in an hour.”

  “Today?”

  “Unless you would rather keep him waiting.”

  “Uh, no. An hour’s fine. Let me give you my address.”

  “I know where you live, Mister Lake.”

  I cringed at that.

  “Okay. Good. See you then.”

  Malosi hung up without another word. I was pretty sure he was in the same room with Osterhaus. An hour. Osterhaus must have wanted to see me pretty bad to dispense with the pleasure of leaving me dangling. Either I was about to have a very productive meeting, or I was about to get my ass varnished.

  Fucking karma.

  black Cadillac pulled up in front of my door an hour and ten minutes later. I was dressed and ready by the time Reed Malosi stepped out of the driver side door. He wore a light gray suit and sunglasses. A car pulled around him in the street as he stared it down, apparently unimpressed with a ton and a half of Japanese automotive engineering.

  Malosi marched up to my stoop and nodded.

  “We’re ready,” he said.

  I took a deep breath, and stepped down toward the car.

  Malosi held up a hand and twirled his finger at me. “Please raise your arms and spread your legs shoulder width.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Do I give you the impression that I kid about this kind of thing?”

  I sighed and spread myself out to be frisked. His hands were quick and discreet. I wondered if he didn’t have some kind of formal training.

  After patting me down, he stood up straight, reaching into his pocket.

  “Can I put my arms down now?”

  Without responding, he fished a small, gold ring from his jacket, and slipped it onto the middle finger of his right hand. A gold chain spilled out from his fist as he flattened his palm, dangling a green shape beneath it. I recognized it as a well-patina’d chunk of copper.

  Malosi let the pendulum settle before lifting it slowly across my shoulders.

  I watched the pendulum with interest. Copper was a fairly common material in hermetical practice. It loved energy, though it rarely ever did anything specific with it. In practice, copper is typically used in tandem with a concentrating focus like quartz or obsidian. By itself, however, it would simply respond to any non-specific concentration of energy, particularly in the hand of someone who was competent with a pendulum.

  Which made it a reasonable charm detector.

  Malosi circled me with the pendulum, the process easily taking four times as long as the pat down. Once he was satisfied I wasn’t packing any esoteric weaponry on my person, he slipped the ring off his finger and dropped it into his blazer pocket.

  “After you,” he offered, opening the rear passenger side door.

  I slid into the Cadillac, inspecting the interior for anything that could inflict bodily damage upon my person. Malosi slipped into the driver’s seat, and pulled the car into a U-turn in the middle of Amity Street.

  I watched Malosi as he turned north onto the MLK expressway, pondering the man. I wondered how deeply Malosi had delved into Osterhaus’ world.

  “You’re a practitioner,” I stated.

  “I’ve been trained in the necessities. Just to do my job.”

  “Where did you receive your training, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Mister Osterhaus. Everyone in his employ has a basic understand of hermetic theory.”

  “How many people are in his employ?”

  Malosi lifted a brow behind his sunglasses.

  “Enough.”

  “Just you, then?”

  “Like I said.”

  I looked out my window, watching as the taller buildings of downtown Baltimore cast their shadows over us. This wasn’t going to be a long drive.

  “Do you have any advice for me?” I asked.

  “Advice?”

  “For talking to Osterhaus.”

  He cocked his head and considered the question for a moment before responding, “Be polite.”

  He drove up Light Street and stopped in an alley between a tall bank building and a red brick row house. I tried to step out, but the door was locked. I had to wait until Malosi opened the door from the outside.

  Once free of the Cadillac, I looked up and down Light Street, the clear sky above slowly succumbing to a front of overcast clouds. Malosi gestured me toward a flight of steps dropping below the street in the alley, leading to a basement entrance to the red brick building. At the base of the steps was a thick iron door with a wrought bronze knocker. Malosi pulled the handle and pushed the door open with a loud scrape.

  “Watch your head,” he muttered as I stepped into the dark room beyond the door.

  A low-hanging wood case cros
sed the lintel, and I eyed it as I entered Osterhaus’ basement office.

  Malosi closed the door, and my eyes adjusted slowly to the dim light. The case above the door was part of an intricate series of bookcases and display cabinets with leaded glass doors that wrapped two walls. The near wall to my right was covered in a tapestry depicting what I imagined was a scene of the Crusades. A solid, finely carved wood desk sat near the far wall, leather-topped and well-polished.

  The room was dim, lit only by two gas coach lamps that flickered in a cased opening that lead to stairs slipping up and out of view into the building above.

  Malosi pulled one of two green leather chairs from the front of Osterhaus’ desk and held out his hand.

  “Have a seat. I’ll fetch Mister Osterhaus.”

  I nodded, and watched as Malosi disappeared up the flight of stairs with heavy footfalls.

  The room was thick with the smell of frankincense. I recognized the aroma, though it was laced with other sharper scents I couldn’t pick out. Cedar, perhaps. Something for wardings.

  As I squinted up at the glass displays, I noticed several vials of blown glass set in neat rows upon the shelving. They resembled perfume bottles, the kind one buys at tourist friendly kiosks in Venice. I was on the verge of piecing together all manner of theories regarding their contents when I heard the upstairs door open, and two pairs of footsteps descending.

  I stood up in time to see a short, thin man step into the room from the cased opening. He had a wiry frame, almost shriveled as if elderly, though his face and eyes were sharp. He had a hawk-like brow, jutting over clear blue eyes, sending bushy, gray eyebrows up at angles toward a receding salt-and-pepper hairline.

  He parted his thin, crooked lips and said, “Dorian Lake, I presume?”

  “Osterhaus?”

  His eyes narrowed, and he looked back at Malosi with a nod before proceeding into the room and behind his desk.

  “Believe it or not, Mister Lake,” he continued as he slid into his chair, “I’ve been meaning to speak with you for some time now.”

  I took my seat, giving Malosi a sidelong glance, making sure he wasn’t holding a shotgun or baseball bat.

  “That a fact?”

  He stared at me with those piercing eyes, and the more I took him in, the more I realized that I really hated this man.