by N. P. Martin
“I agree, but not from the shadows by people with selfish motives and hidden agendas. People like you, Father.”
“I know you see yourself as some moral crusader, son, but that’s not what you are,” he said. “You’re just another person pointlessly raging against the machine, the machine that keeps order in the world and prevents it from falling into chaos. If you came to work with me, you would soon see that.”
For a second, I actually gave his offer some thought. Maybe I could’ve gone to work with him just to see the inner workings of the machine he spoke of, and then expose the whole thing down the line. But even that wasn’t worth spending so much time with my father, and probably risking becoming like him; becoming indoctrinated into his way of thinking; becoming another cog, however big, in the great machine. No thanks. I had already found my calling, and I was sticking with it. “Your business is your own, Father. I’ll just stick with what I’m doing.”
My father stared at me for long seconds and then nodded as if he wasn’t surprised by my answer. “All right, fine. If you insist on sticking with what you are doing, then perhaps you can do something else for me. Something more in line with your current skillset.”
This should be good.
“Do what exactly?”
“There’s something I’d like you to investigate.”
“Don’t you have your own people for doing that?”
My father nodded. “I do, but this a personal matter, and I need someone I can trust to handle it for me. Can I trust you, Damion?”
I wasn’t sure I liked where this was going. It felt like I was being pulled into the dragon’s den, inch by inch. “We have our differences, Father, but you can still trust me.”
“I wouldn’t have believed so last year when you published that story on me.”
“That was business.”
“So I can trust you not to write about whatever you find?”
“That depends how many people it effects.”
“Just us, Damion. It effects just us. For now.”
I frowned. “Us? What do you mean?”
My father paused as he rested his elbows on the table and interlocked his fingers. “The investigation would concern your sister.”
“Ava? How? I thought you’d given up on trying to find her.”
My father stared at me. “She’s my daughter, Damion. Don’t be a shit. I’ve never given up on trying to find her. It’s just that leads are thin on the ground after all this time, as you well know.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. Tell me what you’ve found out and I’ll look into it.”
“Word reached me recently that a young woman had gone missing, a gifted music student who was attending Fairview University,” he said. “Her name is Elisa Lopez. She was last seen by witnesses walking to her dorm room, after which she disappeared and hasn’t been seen nor heard from for the last three weeks.”
“Jesus,” I said, remembering how it felt when Ava disappeared, how torn up I was by the mystery of her vanishing. “I’m taking it the police have investigated her disappearance?”
“Yes, they have, but as with Ava, they didn’t get anywhere with their investigation,” my father said. “If you can even call their brief and rudimentary search an investigation. The case has now been added to the slush pile with all the rest of the unsolved cases.”
“What about the witnesses? Did they see anything?”
“Two of the girl’s classmates saw her walk to her dorm room. She waved at them. One of the witnesses reported seeing a strange man sitting on a bench. As Ms. Lopez passed, the man got up and walked in her direction, entering the dormitory a moment after she did.”
“I see,” I said. “And I’m taking it you found out who the man is?”
“I’ve read every missing person’s report to have been filed over the last twelve years,” he said. “In half a dozen of the cases, witnesses have reported seeing a strange man in the vicinity of the missing person’s last known whereabouts. All the witnesses used that word to describe the man—strange. Yet none of the witnesses defined how the man was strange.”
“Which is a little strange in itself.”
“Yes. I didn’t pick up on the pattern until after this latest girl’s disappearance. So I had Mac look deeper into things.”
“Okay,” I said, silently cursing myself for not picking up on the stranger’s presence myself. “What did he find?”
“He spoke with some of the witnesses again, including the most recent ones.”
“And?”
“Well, this is where things get a little murky,” my father said, and I knew by his tone that he had done something that had crossed the moral line, though his tone also indicated he was unrepentant about whatever he had done. As always, he was doing what was necessary. To him, anyway.
“Define murky,” I said.
“I had Mac bring one of the witnesses to the house.”
“You mean you had him kidnap someone?”
“I prefer to think of it as merely borrowing them for a time,” he said, in all seriousness. “I used magic on them so they wouldn’t remember what happened.”
I shook my head. “Who was this person? A young girl?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus, Father.”
“No harm came to the girl,” he said. “I merely needed to tap her mind so I could see exactly what she saw that day Ms. Lopez disappeared. I also left a no doubt welcome surprise in her bank account afterward.”
“Okay,” I said, shaking my head at his methods. “You see, this is exactly why I could never work with you. The line doesn’t even exist for you.” My father didn’t comment as he sipped on his martini. His capacity for shame was non-existent too. “So what did you see then, when you tapped the girl’s mind?”
“I saw the man who followed Ms. Lopez, of course.”
“Could you identity him?”
“He was wearing a hood, so I couldn’t see his face, unfortunately. I did, however, get a glimpse of a tattoo on his hand.” My father reached inside his jacket and took out a folded piece of paper, unfolding it before handing it to me. “Do you recognize it?”
I shook my head as I stared at the symbol on the paper, a black circle with a horizontal crescent shape on top. Two crossed daggers also pierced the black circle. “Can’t say that I do.”
My father closed his eyes for a second as if trying to conceal his disappointment. “That’s unfortunate. I was hoping you might know something about that symbol, given your knowledge of the occult.”
“You think this is an occult symbol?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “Perhaps. This man has been seen several times by witnesses. The symbol on his hand has to mean something.”
“Are you even sure it’s the same man?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
My father shifted in his seat as he raised his hand to signal the maître de. “Another drink?” he asked me.
I nodded, wondering at his sudden shiftiness. “Sure.”
After signaling the maître de again, our drinks soon arrived at the table. When the maître de left, I asked my father again how he knew it was the same man spotted by all the witnesses.
“I tapped all the witnesses’ minds,” he said eventually. “I had to know.”
“Jesus. How many?”
“Seven. Including the last person to see your sister.”
“Ava’s girlfriend? Rita Jenkins?”
My father nodded. “Yes. Her memory was hazy after so long, but I caught a glimpse of the man in question.”
“And you’re sure it was the same man?”
“I saw the tattoo.”
“But not his face?”
“No, and that’s what’s also strange,” he said. “Given the angle I was looking at him from, his face should have been visible, but it was cloaked in shadow, almost like someone had gone into Miss Jenkins’ mind and blacked the face out.”
“Is that even possible?�
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“Anything is possible, but my gut feeling on the matter tells me that the stalker was using some form of magic to conceal his identity from anyone who saw him.”
“Christ,” I said before sipping my single malt. “So we’re dealing with someone well-versed in magic?”
“It appears that way, doesn’t it?”
“Meaning the guy is a goddamn ghost.”
“Yes, at least until we can identity the tattoo. That should lead us to him.”
“Have you researched it?”
My father nodded. “I’ve searched through every book I have and asked every knowledgeable person I know.”
“Maybe the tattoo is unique to him then,” I said. “Something he designed himself for whatever reason.”
“Possibly.”
“He may even have done the tattoo himself. It wouldn’t be hard with a bottle of Indian ink.”
“Well,” my father said, “if that’s the case, then I doubt we’ll ever find him then.”
I stared down at the piece of paper on the table again. “Leave it with me,” I said. “I’ll try my best to find out what it is.”
Smiling slightly, my father said, “I know you will, son.”
Our eyes met for long seconds, and in that time I saw my father, not the man I had grown to despise, but the man who had carried me in his arms when I was a child, and had read to me at bedtime every night without fail until everything changed. I wished he could be that man again, but there was too much water under the bridge. “Do you think she’s still out there?” I asked him in a quiet voice.
My father sighed and gave me a wan smile. “For both our sakes, son, I hope she is.”
13
Before leaving the restaurant, my father persuaded me to have dinner with him. I was starving anyway, so I took little persuading, eventually ordering a steak while my father had a salad. The conversation throughout dinner was mundane, sometimes strained, but for the most part, it was pleasant. We even laughed once or twice about things that happened when Ava and I were young, like the time Ava swapped all of our parents’ clothes around, putting our mother’s clothes in our father’s drawers, and also mismatching all their shoes. Ava and I had hidden outside in the hallway as we peeked around the bedroom door, tittering to ourselves as we watched our parents’ confusion and then frustration as they tried to find their clothes and shoes.
Ava was always doing stuff like that, playing practical jokes. Even when she was older, she still did it. One time she snuck into my apartment and filled the bath, and then dumped about a hundred small rubber ducks into the water for me to find. And then there was the junk mail war between us, which went on for weeks until I finally had to call an end to it, admitting defeat after I got home one day and could barely open the front door there were was so much mail piled up against it. My father and I smiled and chuckled about these things as we ate, and at one point, my father’s eyes seemed wet until he excused himself and went to the washroom. Upon his return, he merely smiled and continued eating.
When I left the restaurant, it was only a half hour from midnight. In the car, I sat and stared at the piece of paper with the symbol on it, wondering as to its meaning before I remembered I had to meet the mystery caller calling himself Deep Throat over in Downtown. Doubting I would make it there by midnight, I hoped Deep Throat would wait for me, for he sounded on the phone like he had some good information. But then, I thought as I pulled off, they all do, don’t they?
Traffic was light on the roads, but it was still ten after midnight by the time I drove into the underground parking garage in Downtown, driving to the bottom level where I said I would meet Deep Throat, who by the way, had clearly seen a certain movie too many times if he was calling himself that, making me wonder what kind of clown I was about to meet. I parked the Corvette in a free space, and before getting out, I took out my Glock 19 and checked it over for a second before re-holstering it, just in case.
In the dimly lit, deathly silent parking garage, I stood for a moment and looked around for signs of anyone else being there. There wasn’t many cars parked, and all of them appeared to be empty. “Hello?” I said, my voice echoing off the concrete. “Are you here…Deep Throat?”
A second after I spoke, someone said, “Psst. Over here.”
Sighing slightly at all this over the top cloak and dagger stuff, I turned toward the voice, which seemed to come from behind a large concrete pillar. “You might as well come out,” I said as I walked toward the pillar. “We’re alone down here.”
I stood waiting on the contact to show himself, which he did a moment later, stepping out from behind the concrete pillar to stand under an overhead strip light. I don’t know what kind of person I expected to meet down there, but the person who emerged from behind the pillar was certainly not it. This guy was over six feet tall and built like a brick shithouse. He wore tight black leather pants and a white shirt that was half open to reveal a tanned, hairless chest. A black leather jacket completed the rockstar getup, as did his long, flowing dark hair with the blond highlights, and the smoldering blue eyes. In fact, this guy reminded me so much of Fabio, it was uncanny. He really looked like he had just stepped off the cover of a romance novel. Slightly stunned by his appearance, I could only stand staring at him, thinking this was possibly some sort of joke. If Ava were still around, this was precisely the sort of practical joke she would revel in playing on me, setting up a clandestine meeting only to have someone like this Fabio-looking dude show up.
“Hello there,” the guy said in a deep voice, flicking his mane of hair back as he stood with his huge chest sticking out.
“Hello there, yourself,” I said back, trying not to laugh, still unsure if this was all a joke or not. “You must be Deep Throat.”
“Yes. That’s right. And you must be Damion Deadson, proprietor of Deadson Confidential.” He looked me up and down for a second. “You look how I expected you to look.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding, unsure of how to take this guy. “You…don’t.”
“Yes, well,” he said, running his hand through his silken hair. “My beauty can be overwhelming to some.”
It was all I could do not to laugh. Was this guy for real? “So, you said you had information for me. On Ethan Drake. How do you know him?”
“How do I know him?” Deep Throat pressed his fist against his chest. “Ethan and I are brothers.”
“Really? You don’t look like him.”
“What? No, not blood brothers. God forbid we should share the same genes. I’m too good looking to be his real brother. Please.”
“Of course you are.”
“No, we’re, how you say, brothers from another mother. Even though my mother was a—”
“A what?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, I know Ethan better than anyone.”
“Where is he?” I asked. “No one’s seen him lately.”
“Ethan is off on, shall we say, a sabbatical at the moment. He needed a break.”
“A break from saving the world, is that it?”
“Yes, exactly,” he said, coming closer to me. “You have no idea the kind of hell you and everyone else would be living right now if it weren’t for Ethan, and me, of course.”
“Are you referring to what happened with Wendell Knightsbridge?”
“Yes. Ethan sorted that bastard good and proper. Ripped his heart right out of his chest.”
“So the rumors are true then?”
“Yes,” he said. “I should know. I started the rumors on your website forum.”
“You posted all that?”
“Yes, well, I thought Ethan deserved a little credit, especially given that no one knows what he did to save everybody. And me, of course.”
“It’s funny,” I said. “I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you around.”
Deep Throat smiled. “I’d wager you have.”
I shook my head. “No, I’d remember if I saw you, believe me.”<
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“Yes, I do stand out from the crowd a bit, don’t I? Perhaps you saw my acting debut?”
“You’re acting debut?” I said smiling.
“I made a movie some months back.”
“What was it called?”
“The Stud.”
“You made a movie called The Stud? What kind of movie was it?”
“Well, it was marketed as an erotic mystery thriller drama, but it quickly got labeled as porn, which I thought denigrated my nuanced performance, but there we go. It still made a lot of money. I have a large online following now. I’ll send you a copy if you like.” I stood staring at him, still unsure of what to make of this person. There was something off about him, like he was one sandwich short of a picnic. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Because I can’t figure you out,” I said. “I feel like I’m being pranked here or something.”
“Pranked?” He shoved his chest out. “Do I look like a prank to you?”
I wanted to say yes, but I decided not to antagonize him just yet. “How about you tell me exactly what happened between Wendell Knightsbridge and Ethan Drake? I mean, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“Okay,” he said. “I thought perhaps we could ease into it, but since you’re being so insistent, I’ll fill you in. Will you be writing up everything I say?”
“Depends on what you say.” I took out my phone and turned on the voice recorder. “Depends if any of it is true or not.”
“Oh, I can assure you, little man, it’s all true.”
For the next fifteen minutes, I listened as Deep Throat told me a story about Ethan Drake and his arch nemesis, Wendell Knightsbridge, who apparently had Drake’s wife and daughter killed because Drake had the gall to blackmail his way out of Blackstar, whom he used to work for. It then transpired that Knightsbridge was actually the son of a demon called Mephistopheles, and was supposed to be a kind of antichrist figure who would help bring about Hell on Earth by helping his father kill God, which he almost succeeded in doing. With the help of Lucifer and a load of angels, Drake was able to avert this crisis, killing Knightsbridge in the process. Death apparently reaped Mephisto’s spirit, and Lucifer made sure everything was settled in Hell again before ascending to Heaven and claiming the Silver Throne that he currently sat upon. When I asked how Lucifer came to be involved, Deep Throat told me about Drake’s trip to Hell, and about how Drake stole some of Lucifer’s energy, which Drake then stupidly gave to Knightsbridge, allowing Knightsbridge to gain the power he needed to kill God and take over the world.
