At the Behest of the Dead

by Long, Timothy W.

  There was an ancient desk with an ornate chair pushed under it, like the occupant has been here recently and left it ready for the next person.

  “You may want to lead with flowers this time as well. How in the world did you destroy her place of work?”

  “I was chasing down a rogue changer.”

  “Still at the detective game, eh? How’s that working out for you?”

  “Not as well as I’d like.”

  There was so much here, and I didn’t see any warning signs.

  The room was large. In fact it almost felt bigger now that we were inside it. I strode around, counting my steps, which reached twenty-eight. When I did the same circuit the opposite way, I reached thirty-five.

  Glenda moved slower than I as she took in everything. She went to a desk at roughly the middle of the space and leaned over, hands crossed behind her back, to stare at something. I watched her for a moment.

  “Collin!” I said out loud.

  “What? Where?” She spun around.

  “Sorry. Just thinking out loud,” I said lamely.

  “Not jealous, I hope.”

  “What if I am?”

  “You aren’t. You made it pretty clear when we split last year that you were, let me see if I remember the words, ‘Sick of my shit.’ Yep, those were the exact words. Sick of my shit.”

  “I said I was sorry. I was under a lot of pressure then.”

  “You’re always under a lot of pressure because you won’t come back to the life you should be living. Instead you choose to hide out among regular people, helping them. So noble of you, Phineas. Remember how they helped my sisters to the bonfires?”

  “Okay, okay, but Collin? Does he read before he goes to sleep every night?”

  “Stop it.” She put her hands on her hips. Oh no. That was the female equivalent of a stop sign just before a semi rolled past.

  “Fine. Here’s a brilliant idea. Let’s just get out of here.”

  “Not yet. You have to read this first.”

  “I don’t really want to read anything in here until I have some rest, some absinthe, and maybe a full dose of Rockin’ Witch.”

  “You have to read it, Phin. It’s a note to you from Salazar.”

  I gulped and went to her side.

  His name made my stomach do a flip. I thought about him dying in that room, killed by a demon. His heart was ripped out. He’d been silenced, probably unable to utter a spell. He would have fought and used every trick he’d learned over his considerable years. But it wouldn’t have been enough. Even a master wasn’t invincible.

  And I missed him. I had missed him for the last few years and meant to write, call, swing by and have a drink, but I always put it off. Now I would never have the chance.

  If he had left me something, some hint to why he had been killed, or instructions on what to do if he fell, well, it might just help assuage my anger and regret.

  I went to the desk and pulled the old chair out. It creaked as it rasped across the stone floor. A layer of dust lay on the seat so I leaned over and brushed most of it off, but my aim wasn’t that great because I only had eyes for the note.

  The folded piece of parchment had a single word embossed on the outside, my name. It didn’t even look like it was written by a human hand because it was so perfect.

  I rubbed the ink on my robe and cursed. That wasn’t too bright.

  “Just read it, Phin.” Glenda stared at me.

  “Right.”

  I picked up the note and unfolded it.

  Phineas,

  There were many things we were to speak of, but I didn’t have time to bring you here. Time. That is something I always thought I would have enough of. Alas, some follies of youth have stuck with even this old man.

  You know the drill, my son. If you are reading this … in the event of my untimely demise … and so forth. So I am gone, probably dead, and that is a shame. I was entrusted with a gift millennia ago and I have been a steadfast guardian ever since. Now it’s all yours. All of this. You must be smart, though, and never use the items here. Never. They are far too dangerous and that’s why they were locked away from the world.

  Other caches exist such as this, but none so powerful. It should go without saying that you must never speak of this to anyone, ever. Not anyone. Not even Glenda.

  I coughed and stared with rounded eyes at the rest of the note.

  Others will seek the devices here. Never let them fall into another’s hands. Should I fall, trust no one, especially not Balkir. I fear he has dabbled in blood magic and if I am correct then he is a very dangerous man.

  Now. There is something you need to know and it is contained in a book, but I do not possess it. You should seek the necromancers at the necropolis. Use this spell to show them the truth and they will gladly hand over the infernal tome.

  Written in his perfect scripts were words that I could pronounce, but the root of the spell escaped me. There was also a glyph that I would need to commit to memory. It was complex and had several layers passing over each other.

  I have always loved you like a son and it pained me to keep this from you. You can think of it any way you like. That I was jealous of your innate abilities, that I feared for your life, that I didn’t think you were ready.

  Phineas, I beg you, please be smart about the artifacts. If you start using them you will find it hard to stop and that is very dangerous. First, learn to master the gift I have passed onto you. Please. Then learn to fear the things in this room.

  Farewell my son, my friend, and child of the cusp.

  There was no signature. Just a symbol I had never seen before. I studied the shape with the twisted stars, the unreadable runes, and tried to make sense of it. Every time I got my head around one of the figures, another caught my sight and my eyes were drawn to it. It was like three crescent moons chased each other across a starry sky. No, they were whales in a pod. That wasn’t it either. Planets shooting around a sun, or was it people chanting in a circle? I stared at the glyph and felt it unraveling. The layers came apart first and then the symbols around them. The letters left the page and floated before my eyes. This sort of mysticism was mind blowing.

  Then it was gone completely except for one thing. I could still see them floating in front of my eyes. I reached up to touch it.

  Glenda slapped me.

  I’ll never know why she couldn’t just poke me with a finger, ruffle my hair, pinch my nose, put a salamander on my tongue. She always went for the extreme response. I suppose I could appreciate it if I was into that kind of thing, but I wasn’t and I was sick of it.

  “What!”

  “You were staring at the page. Staring --for several minutes. You didn’t blink and you didn’t answer when I called your name.”

  “So you hit me?”

  “Yeah, and you’re welcome.” She nodded and turned to look at the items on the desk. “What happened anyway?”

  Glenda had her back to me so I slapped her leather-clad ass, hard. She spun around, eyes on fire, and I thought she was going to utter a spell.

  “Now, stop slapping me!”

  “Fine,” she said, hand rubbing her bottom.

  I stared at her and she stared back. Then her lips quirked up and she smiled.

  “Jerk.”

  “Bitch.”

  “That’s witch, you idiot.”

  “That’s what I meant.”

  She picked up a book and studied the spine. I followed her lead and studied the books on the shelf above the desk. The spines had titles, but they seemed to be written in a language I didn’t know. I had studied Latin, Spanish, and of course bad English. But this was almost a runic language, like something from Old Norse. I touched the spines, ran my hands over them, and even cracked one open. Luckily, Thor did not appear and crush my head with his hammer.

  “Can you read this?” She handed me a book.

  I took it and flipped to the first page. The symbols were different, similar to what I had just read, b
ut they were a bit rougher. The letters had a vicious edge to them, like they were written in pain or to cause pain. They didn’t mean anything to me, but when I flipped through the book and got to the back I discovered a symbol like the one that had been on Salazar’s letter. The room swam again, but the writing also came into view.

  I went back to the first page and found that it was a list of some kind. I flipped to random pages and found a drawing and description of something. It was like a set of antlers used to make a crown. I glanced around the room and spotted the artifact on the wall, mounted like a trophy.

  “Don’t mess with those,” I muttered. In the wrong hands they could be devastating, since they granted the power of a mad Djini.

  “How do you know what’s what?” Glenda asked.

  I shook my head. “We need to go.”

  “We need to start cataloging this stuff,” she shot back.

  “Glenda, listen to me.” I drew her close. We stood nearly eye to eye, thanks to the set of stilettos she had chosen to slink around in. “You can’t tell anyone about this. Not anyone. Do you understand?”

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m a child.”

  “I’m not. Just trust me on this one, okay?”

  “On what one?”

  “The portal, the note, all of this …” I spun around, pointing at the artifacts. “All of this stuff. No one can know. It’s dangerous and it’s the reason Salazar was killed. It’s also the reason I was almost killed. Balkir must have wanted in here, and the only way was through Salazar. When he died something passed to me and that’s why I was brought here.”

  “This is crazy, Phineas. Why would a demonologist care about you and your relationship with Salazar?”

  “Think about it. There’s nothing special about me. They could have called down to the necropolis and had a necro with ten times my power in a day. Why me? Because Balkir knew I was the only one that could unlock the door. I was the only one that could break the staff. I was the only one that could unlock the portal, because it was left for me. All of this was to pass to me when Salazar chose, but his hand was forced. He knew there would be treachery.”

  “But the demon tried to kill you.” She crossed her hands under her breasts again, pushing them up and exposing a lot of creamy cleavage. I did the smart thing and looked away. I regretted it right away because my eyes fell on a jar that contained some kind of tiny creature that was almost manlike. It had gills, and every once in a while an air bubble escaped from puckered lips that looked like a slit in its flesh. No eyes, but it did have a huge nose that took up most of its face. It seemed to be beckoning to me like, it needed help.

  Glenda turned to tip books so she could read the spines.

  “So why you? If you died, they never would have found the key.”

  “That’s just it, though. I used blood to call upon the spirit of Salazar. I did it to myself, blood magic. I made an offering.”

  I took the jar down, which was really no larger than a thimble. The creature smiled at me. I put the tiny vial back.

  I didn’t want anything to do with the guild. I didn’t want anything to do with the research, and I most certainly did not want anything to do with the artifacts I had been ‘entrusted’ with. I just wanted to go home and sleep for a few days.

  “I still don’t know what to think, Phin! What’s going to happen to all of this stuff?”

  “I told you. No one, and I mean no one, can know about it!” I grabbed her arm and escorted her out of the room. I kept the journal at my side, wishing I had a pocket.

  “Easy!” she hissed, but I marched her along the dank corridor again, right up to the stairs. She went, looking over her shoulder the whole time. But she wasn’t concentrating on me. She was looking at the room like a thirsty man lost in the desert.

  The hole in the floor lay wide open until I leaned over and touched the key. It slid out, so I palmed it. The hole was there one second and then gone the next. There was no fade in this time. The floor simply slid shut.

  We stared at it for a few moments before Glenda broke the silence.

  “Do you know what you are?”

  “Tired, hungry, sore, and I need a shot of something that will erase the past week.”

  “Guardian. You’re a god’s cursed guardian.” She looked at me with something approaching awe. A look I hadn’t seen – well, a look I don’t think I had ever seen on her face.

  “That’s … that’s just silly. “

  Guardians were long rumored but also long dispelled. Think about any myth you want. Think about the rumors and names surrounding it. Like Ponce De Leon, a man that supposedly found the fountain of youth and partook of it. Where was he now? He sure wasn’t living in Florida soaking up the sun. If someone announced that they could live forever it was almost guaranteed that there would be at least a hundred people that would try to kill him.

  But the truth was there. The room below, the key that I seemed to be able to control, not to mention a note that was the next best thing to a big neon sign that said, “You, sir, are a guardian.”

  Guardians were like that. Myths. They supposedly had rooms of powerful object hidden away from the world and it was their job to ‘guard’ the items. But they were also said to be immensely powerful. Salazar I could at least believe would have been a guardian, but I was far from the type. I wasn’t that great at magic. In fact I relied on prepared spells, glyphs, and potions for all my heavy work. If faced with a direct threat, say a pissed off werewolf, I was almost more danger to those around me, as I had learned with Ashley.

  Salazar would have turned the beast into a ball of floating fur. Even Glenda was stronger than me, and she said she didn’t really have to try that hard, although she was pretty good at bragging.

  “I should be a guardian, not you,” she said.

  As I was saying …

  “Guardian’s aren’t even real.” I scoffed. Then I looked at the portal again and almost ran.

  “Right. So why was Balkir so interested in you? I know he never liked you, but there were better ways to go after you than summoning a demon in the middle of our fair guild.”

  “And the changer the other night.”

  “The what?”

  I told her the brief version of my battle with the changer the night before while I walked around the room.

  “I think that just about does it. Anyone else trying to kill you?”

  “Just a minor demon Wednesday night, but I got him under control.”

  “Really? You got a demon under control.”

  “He was small. It was tough but I came through. I have a few tricks up my sleeves.”

  “I’ve seen your tricks, you ill-bred charlatan.”

  “Words hurt, Glenda.” I smirked. See, I can quirk my lips up with sarcasm too.

  She drew back to slap me again, then shook her head almost imperceptibly and lowered it.

  “So you killed a changer, tamed a demon, and managed to trick one of the most powerful demonologist in the world into becoming demon-bait. Yep, sounds like the greatest lucky streak in the world.”

  “I agree. It was all luck.”

  The door cracked open, so I spun around and whipped the hood up over my head. Glenda also spun and put her hands behind her back, even though she didn’t have anything to hide except the fact that we were guilty of some late night skulking. It wasn’t like Collin was around to suspect anything.

  Wouldn’t you know it, Mr. Chase-away-sunshine appeared in the doorway.

  “Glad it’s you,” I said and lowered the hood.

  “I guess I can rule out an affair, if the sentiment is genuine. I detect no untruth in your words.”

  “And I detect a hint of humanity in yours,” I said. Why did he always have to sound like a robot? If he was getting laid by Glenda he should be a happy robot, not Mr. Depressed.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “You wouldn’t, Marvin,” I muttered. I still had the stupid key in my hand, so I reached inside t
he robe and felt around but didn’t turn up any inner pockets. How the hell did these guys carry around little tattle tale notebooks?

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for a pocket,” I said to Glenda. She nodded and pulled a small pouch out of – well, I’m not really sure where. If her leathers were any tighter they would start cutting off circulation to her brain.

  “Use this for your taxi money.” She handed it to me after dumping a few cards and notes into her hand. I took it and tied it to my belt then turned around as if to consider the room while I slipped the key inside it. When I tugged the drawstrings tight, the flashing blue was cut off. The first thing I would have to do was get a case made and then hang the key around my neck. It was the only way I could think of to keep it safe.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” Collin asked.

  “Not a clue. I know that Balkir was up to some bad ju-ju but I still don’t know the reason.”

  “Perhaps there is something hidden in Salazar’s room? Did you thoroughly search it?” He did a circuit around the quarters.

  I did my best not to look in the direction of the portal.

  “Nope. Whatever secrets my old teacher had he took them to the grave.”

  Collin looked at me with something like disappointment, but I wasn’t about to start jumping up and down pointing out Salazar’s secrets.

  “Just as well. I came to warn you, Phineas. They’re looking everywhere for you. Searching the floors. I suggest you get out of here before it’s too late.”

  “Never heard a better piece of advice in my entire life.” I went to check out the potion station. Ingredients were well labeled and laid out. I took out a few, an empty vial, and then whipped out a mortar and pedestal.

  “Is this really a good time to make a love potion?” Glenda smirked for what seemed the hundredth time today. I suddenly remembered how much that churlish, upturned, know-it-all-grin used to irk the shit out of me.