Eleazar topped off his verbal fusillade with his most winning smile. It had no effect.
“Marc is coming back with his cock in a sling?”
It was a bit shocking to hear the crude term from Brenwyn’s lips. It was more terrifying that she was nowhere near convinced.
“You don’t believe me?” he pleaded.
“Oh, I do,” she said. “It is more true than you might think.”
Brenwyn took a deep breath to compose herself.
“When you see Marc again, could you tell him that I would like to see him, too? Not to ensnare him or occupy too much of his precious time, just because I miss him.”
Once again, she craned her elegant neck to look past Eleazar and address herself directly to his bed.
“I promise to leave before I wear out my welcome.”
“Oh, don’t be like that milady,” Eleazar urged. “Just between you and me, and the bedpost—the boy’s stupid in love. It makes him do stupid things in general.”
“That is very comforting,” she said in a voice with no comfort in it. “Pass my message on to Marc as soon as you can.”
She looked Eleazar in the eyes, gazing through them into the place where he kept all his secrets.
“Good evening, Eleazar,” she said and dismissed him.
She turned full about and left in a swirl of skirts and bangles.
“A good evening to you, lovely lady!” he called out to her retreating form.
Eleazar stepped back inside the trailer and closed the door. Leaning against it, Eleazar exhaled.
“Wait for it,” he called out over the music.
Finally the sound of an untuned engine and tires on gravel disappeared around the bend.
“All right,” said Eleazar, “the coast is clear.”
Marc threw the covers off his head.
“Nice work, Eleazar,” Marc snarled. “Thanks for the convincing cover story.”
“If it were me,” Eleazar replied, “I’d be calling her as soon as I got back from that appointment I didn’t go to.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
Eleazar crossed his arms on his chest.
“When I called you stupid in love, I was being charitable.”
“Is this one of your interventions?” Marc sat up and rubbed his hand across his naked scalp. “If it is, it’s not working.”
“Brenwyn knows your dodging her. She knows I’m lying to her.” Eleazar looked at his hands, his fingers splayed. “Are the webs between my fingers growing?”
“Don’t worry,” said Marc, “you started out as a slimy, little toad.”
“Enough! Out of my bed!” Eleazar shouted as he stomped over to the bed. “I have far more endearing company I’m expecting tonight.”
Marc got up as Eleazar grabbed his work boots.
“Don’t forget to change your sheets,” Marc said.
Eleazar handed over Marc’s muddy boots.
“I will just have to now,” Eleazar said peevishly.
Eleazar grabbed the bedclothes in both fists and yanked them off all at once.
* * * * *
Somewhere in the dark a jackhammer went off. At first, Marc was neither surprised nor alerted by it. His brain was still thick with sleep.
Jackhammer.
Dark.
Strange.
That was about the level of his thought processes. Then, he remembered that the noise was most likely his cell phone and sometimes important things were said on cell phones.
He caught it as it vibrated and called out on his bedside table. He clumsily turned on the light and checked the old digital clock. It showed three am exactly.
“What?” Marc snapped into the phone.
“I’m so proud of you, stud muffin,” an unknown voice simpered. “You’ve held up and hid out for five whole days.”
Marc looked at the caller ID but the call was blocked. No one should be calling him this late.
“Brenwyn?” Marc asked.
“Close, except I am much better in bed,” the voice responded. “I will have to let her know that you can’t distinguish us in the dark.”
Marc still didn’t recognize the voice, but the attitude was familiar.
“Jeremiah? What in the Hell?”
“Yes—Hell and Heaven and all the stars aligned,” Jeremiah intoned. “I was hoping since you’ve escaped Brenwyn’s clutches you could come out and play with the big boys.”
What he was saying still didn’t make sense, and Marc didn’t care at this point.
“Why are you calling me at three a.m.?” Marc grumbled.
“It’s the midnight of the soul. Special time, sweetmeat. Realizations, revelations, rationalizations,” Jeremiah said. “You do want to know what’s going on, don’t you?”
Marc only wanted to go to sleep, but if he hung up the phone Jeremiah would just call back again.
“Going on where?” Marc opted to play along with the stupid game.
“You must still be asleep,” Jeremiah said. “You can’t be that naïve.”
Jeremiah chuckled then, a sound that set off nasty reactions in Marc’s brain.
“I know you’re trying to work it out with your limited facilities,” Jeremiah continued. “You have no idea why every witch and pagan in Arcanum knows you, knows what you’re doing? Not a clue as to why they all want to be your best friend?”
Jeremiah stopped his questions to draw out a rhetorical pause.
“I know,” Jeremiah asserted.
“Supposing you know a damn thing at all, why should I believe you’ll tell me the truth?” Marc was starting to get pissed, which at least got the blood pumping to his brain.
“Because I know it all.” Jeremiah’s voice was smooth, like grease on ice. “Your brother, the madness. Decades of waiting for the first symptoms.”
Again another silence for effect. Marc could hear his own pulse in his temples.
“Even the darling little creatures that look into your window when you have bad dreams.”
That kicked the remaining cobwebs out of his mind. Marc sat up and swung his feet to hang over the bed.
“Okay, you’ve got my attention,” Marc said. “What’s the secret?”
“They want you,” said Jeremiah. “Not just for your tight buns and boyish grin. Arcanum wants you for what you do.”
It sounded to Marc as if Jeremiah was going to talk all night without saying a damn thing.
“They need a tool guy?”
“Don’t be obtuse, darling,” Jeremiah replied. “Haven’t you noticed what happens around you? Brenwyn’s circle—everyone said it was the best ever. Your misadventure at the movie marathon. And how Brenwyn wanted you to stay away from me when I was conjuring that lovely fire serpent. Do you see now how two plus two can equal five?”
The theory did make a certain amount of sense, what with all the coincidences and strange behavior. He might even believe it—if he were in an episode of the X-Files.
“You’re full of crap.”
“You don’t sound convincing at all.” Jeremiah took a deep breath. “You know certain objects or places can make magick stronger. You’ve seen all that in the movies, haven’t you?”
“Are you coming up to a point?” Marc asked. “I’d like to get back to sleep.”
“Oh, you won’t be sleeping anytime soon, don’t worry,” Jeremiah said. “All right, then, in small words slowly spoken: you are a power source—an amplifier. Any witch that had you in her pocket would dominate all others.
“So, you’re saying Brenwyn doesn’t love me; she’s just using me for my juju?” Marc did often wonder what she saw in him, but this was ridiculous.
“You do get right to the point, once you’re pushed.”
“You’re a lying sack of shit.” Marc was within seconds of hanging up.
“Most men say that when they can’t stand the truth.” Jeremiah cleared his throat and then went on in a wheedling voice. “Did Brenwyn ever anoint your head with oils? Maybe, sing
you to sleep with this tune?”
Jeremiah hummed the wordless lullaby Brenwyn used on Marc before.
That’s impossible, Marc thought. Brenwyn wouldn’t use me like that, would she?
“I’m hanging up now,” Marc said quietly.
”You still think about her day and night,” Jeremiah murmured urgently. “You feel her in your blood like a drug withheld. She’s gotten so good with that spell. I kept her in my bed over a year with it.”
It had to be a trick. Everything was a trick here in Arcanum.
“What do you want?” Marc asked.
“What everybody else wants,” Jeremiah said. “You. I have a very important ritual that needs to be performed at the new moon. Would Thursday be good for you?”
“I don’t think so.”
Jeremiah chuckled gently.
“Too bad. Maybe the next time.” Jeremiah was quiet for a moment; Marc almost thought he’d hung up. “Marc, you have a cunning mind, relentless when it’s set to a problem. I’m sure you’ll wake up tomorrow at this time, when you finally work out this question. Let me save you some time.”
“You’re being kind.” Marc layered on the sarcasm, not being able to punch Jeremiah through the phone.
“Thank you,” Jeremiah replied without irony. “As to that question you have yet to ask: yes, your noumena does make it easier for others to see things invisible, as you do. And yes, schizophrenics do see things like that.”
Jeremiah stopped to let that sink in.
“It’s awful to be treated as insane for seeing what you know to be true.”
“You should know.” Marc was wishing that he had Jeremiah’s throat and a shovel in either hand.
“Now, now, don’t be that way,” Jeremiah purred. “I’m sure you in no way contributed to your brother’s tragic suicide. But try to tell a guilt-ridden Catholic that. Oh well, sweet dreams.”
Jeremiah hung up.
Marc carefully shut off his phone, removed its battery and put the pieces on the night stand.
Marc laid back on the bed with one arm across his forehead. He stared at the ceiling, doing his best to ignore the shadows the little monsters threw in the orange sodium light.
Chapter 17
Chainsaws and Thunderbolts
THE MORNING WAS COLD AND GRAY and threatening, which coincidentally was exactly how Eleazar had found Marc to be. There was little conversation over breakfast, no pep talk to the men before leaving. Eleazar avoided attempts at wit for fear of what might be done with his rubber chicken.
Lumber operations had crept outward from their “beachhead” clearing away trees like army ants gnawing their way through the rain forest. Marc’s team was now working the gateway plaza. A small clearing had already been hacked out of the wilderness, but an area twice the size of a football field around it was still marked to be clear-cut. Two tall red flags designated where the gates would be. Beyond that was a fallow hayfield which would become the parking lot.
Eleazar and Michael discreetly watched Marc unload his equipment. It was no secret that Marc was in the grip of a foul mood. He slid his safety equipment off the tailgate to fall to the ground. Even the normally revered McCulloch chainsaw came out of the truck overhand.
“This goes way beyond ‘snit,’ you know,” Michael said.
“Exhaustion and unrequited love is a deadly mix,” Eleazar observed.
Marc dragged an oversized gas can off the tailgate and allowed it to drop to the ground. It made a crashing sound, which drew the attention of everyone within earshot. Marc squatted down and collected his things, grumbling as he did so.
“I had been thinking,” Eleazar said as he watched the tableau, “we could solve this by locking the two of them in his trailer, but—”
Marc attention turned from taking his mood out on his equipment to something far more rewarding. A pair of the younger workers was so unwise as to be doing nothing more than smoking and leaning against a truck. Marc stood up bolt straight with his chainsaw still in his grip.
“Hey, you two!” he shouted. “Get your sorry asses in gear! When I pay a man for eight hours work, I expect at least five!”
The unlucky pair stared at him like deer caught in the headlights of an approaching semi.
“Now, move!” Marc bellowed.
The two young men picked up hatchets, gloves, and rope and dashed away like frightened fawns.
Eleazar continued his thought as if the screaming fit had never happened.
“But, I’m afraid it would degenerate into a WWE cage match.”
“I agree,” said Michael.
They watched Marc try to pull himself together, made the more difficult by his weakened condition.
“She’d win, of course,” Michael added.
“Indubitably.”
Eleazar took a deep breath and tried to pull himself up to a height that would match Marc and his mood.
“I’d best go over and see if I can calm him down,” Eleazar said with a resigned sigh.
“I’ll tell your wife that you died bravely.” Michael clapped a reassuring hand to Eleazar’s shoulder.
Eleazar smiled weakly and marched over to Marc, as if to the gallows.
Up close, it was easy to see the signs of stress on his employer’s face. There were dark sunken rings around his eyes and hollows in his cheeks. Even the stubble on Marc’s scalp looked unhealthy.
“Are you sure you’re strong enough to be doing this?” Eleazar asked as casually as he could.
“Are you durable enough to keep pissing me off?” Marc shot back.
A wise man would have run away at that point, but it had been a while since anyone had accused Eleazar of that.
“I’m trying to save both our necks,” Eleazar said. “If Brenwyn were—”
Marc cut him off sharply:
“I don’t want to hear that bitch’s name ever again.”
“’Witch’, I believe, is the pronunciation you intended, with a ‘wah’ sound,” Eleazar continued. “If she—”
“I don’t want to hear anything about her,” Marc said, effectively ending the conversation. “Ever.”
Eleazar stepped back and threw his hands up in surrender. With luck, he would live to cross wits with Marc another day.
Marc picked up his saw, ax, and equipment and trudged towards the tree line.
“So what are you up to now?” Eleazar shouted at his back.
“What angry white guys do best: clear cut forests; eradicate environments; endanger a few species.” Marc didn’t turn back as he answered. “Don’t get in my goddammed way.”
“A man with a chainsaw need not ask twice,” Eleazar replied.
Marc ignored Eleazar and kept walking away. Eleazar glumly returned to where Michael stood.
“I heard,” Michael sighed. “This will be a big hurdle for their relationship. I hope they get past this.”
“Me, too,” said Eleazar. “I would like to live.”
* * * * *
Marc stepped over a fallen tree and attacked the next with his chainsaw. He made his three cuts in less than a minute, throwing sawdust everywhere. The tree fell across the others already on the ground.
He lopped off the limbs and the very top to trim it into a single usable trunk. With the chainsaw still running in one hand, Marc threw or dragged the loose branches out of the way. He angrily kicked the trunk off the others so all were more or less laid parallel on the ground.
After another few minutes’ work, he had dropped another tree on the same spot, but he didn’t fall upon it immediately to trim the extraneous branches.
Marc could feel something was wrong, something unsettling. It wasn’t the tree spirits. They had fled the woods as soon as Marc arrived this morning. Marc shut down the chainsaw and quietly scoped out the tree line, looking for whatever was making him uneasy.
He saw bare-limbed trees, fallen leaves, and dry grass. The clouds beyond the treetops were gathering and turning steel gray. Everything was normal for a November mo
rning
“You have been avoiding me.” Brenwyn’s voice came from behind him. Her tone was matter-of-fact, but her voice was small and restrained.
Marc turned to see Brenwyn standing on a freshly cut stump behind him. As always, she was colorful and beautiful, but her expression was like a dark cloud across the sun. Marc immediately felt the sappy smile on his face and butterflies in his belly.
Brenwyn smiled, just one corner of her mouth. It looked like an easy victory for her. Marc’s eyes narrowed and the dopey grin dropped from his face.
She’s just like Jeremiah, Marc reminded himself.
“I’ve been busy,” he grunted. Marc set down his saw and picked up the ax.
“So Eleazar told me.” Her voice was still restrained. “He is a charming man, but a pitiful liar.”
“He’s an idiot. Scared to death of you.” Marc checked the blade’s edge for defects. “Otherwise, he’s the finest liar I’ve ever seen. Excuse me.”
He turned away and headed for the canopy of the last fallen tree.
“Would you like to talk?” It sounded more like an accusation to Marc than a real request.
You do not want to hear what I have to say, was his first thought.
“Let me tell you something,” he said instead. “There has never been, in the history of the species, a man who has honestly answered ‘yes’ to that question. I’m not in the mood to bare my soul right now. I’ve got work to do.”
He turned to straddle the fallen tree without waiting for her answer.
“What happened, Marc?”
Marc spoke between ax strokes without looking up. He wanted to be very careful not to overshoot the branches and hit himself in the ankle during this conversation.
“Oh dear, what happened, Marc?” he mimicked.
Marc swung the ax and chopped off a branch twice as thick as his thumb.
Chop.
“I’ve been beaten.”
Chop. Another branch was gone with a single stroke.
“Attacked by demons and undead bunnies.”
Chop. And another.
“Driven mad by three hundred crazed witches.”
Camp Arcanum Page 20
