The Curse Merchant (The Dark Choir Book 1)

by J. P. Sloan

  At first glance, I could have been looking at solid work for a half year, easy. But I couldn’t feel happy about this list. I forced myself to look at the names and personal problems in an opposite fashion than I was accustomed. I needed to find exactly the kind of customer I usually turned away, someone whom the Cosmos wasn’t inclined to help. Someone with no options.

  Someone desperate.

  I had sixteen qualified names that I couldn’t weed out as a sterile lead or a crank call. The sixteen ranged in depth of misery from Rachel Burlein, the single mother of a parochial school girl who was on the receiving end of some fairly harsh social bullying; to Tom Brandt, an addict who had lost his family, home, and his job thanks to a mistress who had introduced him to the magical world of crack cocaine. I ruminated over the list as I ate a bowl of blistering hot lasagna, and kept coming back to Tom Brandt.

  As a professional, I was familiar with addiction magic. Addiction has been a part of the human experience since the advent of higher thought, and the discovery of certain special mushrooms. It’s as old as the human soul, and as such, the mystical arts dealt with addiction before mankind invented language. I knew addicts. I recognized their behavior patterns. I had seen how they can turn from your best friend to an animal and back again in the time it takes to pour a lowball.

  I could thank Aunt Viv for that.

  Despite my personal experience as the outsider of an addict’s turmoil, I never gave up on them. There was always something inside a human being that I recognized as a spark of the Divine. Be it the fire of Creation, the glimmer of consciousness, or simply the relationship I shared with my fellow, fragile human being.

  But I learned how to say no. That had made all the difference. I may feel for him, but there is a depth to which a person can sink at which the Cosmos has exerted its will, rendering my craft irrelevant.

  Brandt was precisely that man. Never in a hundred years would I attempt to do business with a man like Brandt. But I wasn’t trying to do business.

  I just needed him to do business with Osterhaus.

  Brandt was homeless, but the son of a bitch had a cell phone. I gave his phone a call after dinner, a belt of scotch, and a thorough centering.

  The phone rolled to voice mail, a generic robot voice asking me to leave my message. I had no idea if his cell had run its battery dry for the last time, if he had pawned it, or if it was floating with his corpse somewhere in the harbor. I decided to leave a message, just in case he used his phone to contact his dealer.

  “Hello, Mister Brandt? My name is Dorian Lake. I’m returning your call from about six weeks ago. I apologize for the delay in getting back to you, but my schedule has recently opened up. I wanted to discuss your situation with you. Please give me a call back…” I left my number as a matter of habit.

  I was making some notes on possible fallback candidates, feeling sick that I was predating on my own clientele, when my phone rang. My heart skipped a beat, and I snatched it up, trying to sound as professional and detached as possible.

  “This is Dorian Lake.”

  “Hey,” a familiar voice muttered.

  “Carmen?”

  “Yeah. Did you talk to him?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Well?” she snapped.

  “Oh me? I’m doing just fine. Thanks for asking. How are you?”

  “Dorian―”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “There were conditions. Nothing you have to worry about.”

  “But he’ll do it?”

  “Yes.”

  She released a husky, ragged breath that put the hook in me. “Thank God.”

  “Listen. I’m having to do, well, a lot for this. Again, it’s nothing I can’t handle, but―”

  “What do you want, Dorian?”

  Her tone was dull and pliant. For the first time in recent memory, she didn’t sound like she was trying to stab me with her voice.

  “I want to see you.”

  I listened to silence for a long moment, broken only by her breathing. At last, she responded, “I’m visiting Mama Clo tomorrow morning. I’m sure she’d want to see you again.”

  That wasn’t exactly the environment I was hoping for. I would have preferred conversation over coffee, a glass of wine, even a hot tub. But my mind being in the state it was in, I was willing to take what she was willing to give me.

  “What time?”

  “Ten o’clock, give or take. Depends on if she’s awake. She’s at Johns Hopkins Hospice. Room 213.”

  “Ok. That sounds good.”

  We sat through another lingering silence before she finally said, “See you.”

  She hung up.

  It occurred to me that she never bothered thanking me. I supposed that was reasonable. Despite how much I hated doing this, it would have been much easier if I hadn’t shot my big, fat mouth off at Malosi. Getting Carmen’s soul back could have been a simple, polite business transaction. Instead, it was one giant mess. My mess. Still, some kind of thanks would have gone a long way toward keeping my head in the game.

  The next morning I got my buttercream vest and tie ensemble together, and went with a gray jacket. I figured black wasn’t the preferred color to wear at a hospice. Johns Hopkins was a very short drive from my house, so I spent extra time at the café, looking over my yellow tablet of names. I felt like Brandt would have been an easy sell if only he would call back.

  After two cappuccinos, I got in my car and drove to the hospice. Parking was a bitch, more so than I had counted on. Despite the short trip, I ended up knocking on the door to Room 213 ten minutes late.

  The door opened, and I found Carmen’s deep brown eyes staring back at me through the crack in the door. She stepped aside and ushered me in.

  The room was filled with natural light, fluid gray from a leaden fall morning filtering through gauzy drapes. Several cards and a couple flower bouquets lined a credenza by the door. The room smelled strongly of rubbing alcohol and some strange pungent odor that fell in the range between almonds and rot. Lying in a bed, woven into a web of intravenous lines and monitor cables, was Cloteil Barbeau.

  In her prime, Mama Clo was a tall, elegant, stately Creole woman from New Orleans whose sheer presence could rival any of the industry kings or political kingpins that frequented the club. She was a powerhouse, equal parts frightening and hospitable. No one screwed with Mama Clo’s girls. They were always treated with respect, for if they weren’t, Mama Clo would certainly see to it that their social life would suffer for years.

  She and I got along famously from the day we met. I loved that she never took shit from anyone, and she loved that I kept trying to give her shit. She was the one who had introduced me to Carmen, some four years past. She trusted that I was capable of accepting her lifestyle without demeaning her, without exploiting her, and without sending her running back to Miami. She never expected in a hundred thousand years that I would end up falling for Carmen.

  No one was prepared for that. Least of all myself.

  Looking down at Mama Clo, withered and pale, breathing hard through the cannula, I felt a fond part of my memory shrivel into despair.

  It must have been obvious what was going through my mind. Carmen laid a hand on my arm and gave it a squeeze.

  “Clo?” she whispered. “Someone’s here.”

  Her eyes parted slowly, and the corner of her mouth flickered.

  “Is that Dorian?” she rasped.

  “Hey, Mama,” I chirped, trying to sound as pleasant as possible.

  “You back, boy?”

  “Yeah. I’m back.”

  “How was New York?”

  A bolt of guilt shot through my midsection. “Boring.”

  She chuckled, and winced in pain.

  “Only you could get bored in New York City.”

  “Well, you know me. More of a ‘big fish small pond’ type.”

  “Come over here.”

  I stepp
ed close to Clo, reaching for her trembling hand.

  “You lost some weight,” I quipped, hoping she was still game for our repartee.

  She gave my hand two quick squeezes and smiled.

  “Gotta fit into my prom dress.”

  “Who you taking to the prom, Clo?”

  “You, sugar. Almost missed it, too. Wouldn’t you have felt dumb?” She looked up over my shoulder. “Girl, you didn’t call him back for me, did you?”

  Carmen leaned over my shoulder and shook her head with a muted chuckle. “No, Clo. He’s helping me with something.”

  Clo’s chest racked with a paroxysm of coughing, melting into what sounded like laughter. “Never thought I’d live to see the day,” she sputtered.

  “What day?” I asked.

  “The day you two would work it out.”

  I drew in a breath to set her straight, but Carmen gave my ribs a jab, and I held my tongue.

  We stayed with Clo for about half an hour before the exhaustion caught up with her, and she fell to sleep. Carmen reached over and pulled her blanket up to her chin and stroked her silver hair. I sat in my chair staring at Clo’s face, finally returning to some of its previous grandeur as she rested. I had no idea how much I had looked up to that woman until I saw her laid low like this.

  Carmen pulled me from my seat, and as we moved to the door, a lump caught in my throat and my eyes began to sting. I hated that. I didn’t want to lose it in front of Carmen. I had perhaps this one minute to make some kind of peace with her before she either ran away or pushed me out of Johns Hopkins personally. And here I was, fighting back tears.

  She gave me a good minute before she turned back to look at me. Her face was stiff. Steely.

  “I’ve been doing this on my own,” she said. “And when the deed is done, when the contract is cancelled, I’m probably not going to be around.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “The rules. At least that’s what Osterhaus told me back then. If I cancel the contract, all of my benefits are returned, with interest. Penalties.”

  “Sounds about right. Classic Netherwork.”

  “You don’t get it. When it’s done, I’m probably going to be ruined. There are things in my past. You know this. And worse in recent memory. Any of it goes public, and it won’t just be my life that’s ruined.”

  “Still think it’s worth it, then?”

  “Absolutely,” she answered without hesitation. “But no one’s going to look after the girls. Not the way she did. I don’t know who the owners are going to find. But I’m worried about them, Dorian. I’ve seen the darker side of the business.”

  “I know.”

  Her face pinched in grief, and her lips quivered.

  “I don’t…”

  Tears ran down my cheeks.

  “Damn it, why didn’t you just stay away from me?” she groaned.

  “Sorry.”

  She rushed forward and threw her arms around me, burying her face in my chest. I wrapped a hand around the back of her head.

  “Please don’t make me believe in you, Dorian. I really, really can’t handle that right now.”

  “Don’t worry,” I whispered, clearing my throat. “I’m pretty unreliable.”

  She pushed away from me gently and ran a hand over her cheeks.

  Nodding, she muttered, “Yeah. You are, aren’t you?”

  “That was actually kind of a joke.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself nonchalantly and shook her head. “What’s going on with Osterhaus?”

  “I’m on it.”

  “That’s it?”

  “It’s a little complicated, but I’m working it.”

  “How much can I trust you? Really?”

  “Look, it’s going to get done. So just relax.” I cleared my throat and felt a little strength returning. “You want to go get some coffee or something?”

  “I have an appointment.”

  “Ah. Walk you to your car?”

  “I’m going the other direction.”

  I looked down the hallway to the parking lot, then back at her. The other direction. Kind of weak, but message received.

  “All right. When it’s done, I’ll need to get a hold of you.”

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  I clenched my jaw for a moment.

  “What’s the deal? I’m not going to stalk you or anything.”

  “I know that.”

  “Why won’t you give me your number? I mean, I kind of need it if anything goes wrong.”

  She lifted an eyebrow.

  “Something’s going to go wrong?”

  “No. But if it did.”

  “Tell me now if you think something will go wrong.”

  “It won’t.”

  “Then why did you say that?”

  “I was being hypothetical.”

  She stepped toward me with a finger lifted in her typical pissed off Latina posture.

  “What’s hypothetical about it? It’s supposed to be a contract, right? He’s terminating the contract. What’s so complicated about this?”

  I sighed and shrugged. “I have to do something first.”

  “What?”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she barked, some of her accent slipping into her tone, “it’s just my soul, here! What are you talking about? I asked if I could relax because I was worried Osterhaus would fuck me over. But you’re saying I actually do have to worry?”

  I didn’t have a good reply, and I was too afraid to smart off to her. So I just shoved my hands in my pockets and kept my lip buttoned.

  She shook her head and turned in a circle. “Okay. Just, don’t screw this up, Dorian. This isn’t just… it’s important.”

  “I think I get the gravity of the situation, Carmen.”

  She turned and walked down the hallway with clopping heels, finally disappearing around a far corner.

  By the time I reached the parking lot, a stiff breeze of continental air was driving leaves over the sidewalk. I regretted not wearing something more than a sweater. I fished for my keys and unlocked the car. Before I could settle in the seat, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but wasn’t willing to risk missing any calls.

  I answered with a professional, “Dorian Lake.”

  A gravelly voice rumbled from my phone.

  “Mister Lake? My name is Tom Brandt.”

  ister Brandt,” I stammered. “Thank you for calling me back.”

  “Yeah.”

  He didn’t seem to know what to say, and for a second, neither did I.

  “So, you left me a message a few weeks back.”

  “Right.”

  “If I understand correctly, you’ve had a turn of bad luck recently?”

  “I fucking lost everything.”

  His voice was low and even, if annoyed. He didn’t seem to have much fight left in him.

  “Granted. Listen, I want to meet with you. Discuss your situation in detail.”

  “What can you do?”

  “I assume you were referred to me by one of my clients. Do you know what services I provide?”

  He answered with a long pause followed by some very wet sounding coughs.

  “There was a man on Pulaski, said you got him clear of some kind of hex.”

  I immediately knew whom he was referring to. This client was suffering from a particularly wicked affinity hex that had him pursuing the wrong kind of working girl. His wife found out thanks to her gynecologist, and an embarrassing, but curable STD. I had to call in some help to identify the hex to begin with. It was Wren Swain who had cracked it. She studied some of Edgar’s textbooks and discovered she had a particular gift for scrying. She was a godsend. As practiced as I am in crafting a charm, I’m notoriously bad at spotting one.

  “I remember him,” I replied. “You feel you’re under a hex, Mister Brandt?”

  “Everything’s gone completely to shit. I don’t have any options, so if you can�
��t fix whatever’s wrong with me, then I’m about done.”

  His tone was dark and final. By “done,” I assumed he meant “done living.”

  “Then the sooner we meet the better. Where can I find you?”

  He shuffled his end of the phone for a moment, then replied, “Twenty-one twenty Haven Street. The Onyx Lounge.”

  I wrinkled my nose. That wasn’t exactly the safest corner of Baltimore.

  “I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  True enough, I found the Onyx Lounge after a quarter hour’s drive. It was a dilapidated building, dry-rotten wood siding slashed upward in anachronistic eighties architectural fashion. There were no windows to speak of, and the door was upholstered in a faded and cracked vinyl with iron bars. Classy.

  I double-checked that I locked my car before leaving it with a prayer on a side alley, and stepped carefully toward the entrance. I pulled the door open to find a dark, burly man standing just inside. His beard covered most of his face below his sunglasses, drifting down his neck. He turned his shoulders to me and gave me a once-over. With a smirk that shouted “I’ll be damned, a white boy!” he stood aside.

  Two stages, both with stripper’s poles, lined the center of the space. The stages were empty, as it was probably too early for anyone to work in a place like this. There were, however, four people sitting at the bar. Too early to strip, but not too early to drink.

  A filthy man on the far end of the bar waved me over. I stepped around the first stripper stage, my shoes sticking to the floor as I crossed the room. I pulled a stool next to Brandt and took a careful seat. He was wearing a trucker cap, some grimy, white concert t-shirt, and torn jeans. His face was sunken, his eyes bleary beneath bushy eyebrows.

  “Mister Brandt? Dorian Lake.”

  I offered a hand, but he just lifted his bottle of beer in acknowledgment.

  “What’s up?”

  “Your fortune, I’m hoping.”

  He shrugged and took a swig of beer. The smell of cheap cigarettes and booze wafted off of his body, and I swiveled a little in my stool.

  “Yeah,” he mumbled. “What do you charge?”

  “Well, as a matter of course, I quote a price based on the specific service required. But in your case, I’m not really sure what you’re suffering from. I’d like to discuss it.”