Conquer (The John Conquer Series Book 1)

by Edward M. Erdelac

  “Goddamn,” he murmured, leaning against the frame of the kitchen doorway as his legs went to jelly with the weight of her loss. This was the woman who had raised him.

  He had always thought he’d come home to her someday; always thought they’d reconcile. Somebody had taken that away, torn it right out of the calendar. He had experienced a lot of loss in his life. His mother, a Montagnard wife, his best friends; it had made his heart a fallow place for grief. Anger was easier to cultivate, less of a waste of time. But it came nonetheless, squeezing his heart in his chest, and he stamped it down.

  “Couldn’t you cover her up?” he hollered at the suits behind him.

  “I wanted you to see her as I found her,” said a smooth voice from behind him. “Before the cops came and wrecked the place.”

  Conquer turned and saw a slight, high yellow man in his late twenties standing in the living room, flanked by the color guard in their bright suits. He was decked out in a pinstriped Terra Cotta Pierre Cardin three-piece, a camel hair coat too warm for April draped over his shoulders. He regarded Conquer from behind a pair of expensive gold rimmed yellow teashades. He wore his hair neat and stylish, but natural, and was immaculately shaven. There was a glittering stone big enough to kick off a Yemenite step at the Diamond Dealers Club riding his finger.

  He hadn’t even seen the man when he’d entered the apartment. He’d been too preoccupied with Mama Underwood. That made him angrier somehow.

  “Who in the hell are you?”

  “Reho Keyes.”

  So. ‘The Man’ in this case wasn’t the King of Harlem, but the heir apparent. King Solomon’s little-seen son, Reho. The last he’d heard, the boy had gone out of state to rub his head against some college wall. Well, he was back now.

  “People say you have skills, John Conquer,” said Reho. “Seems like my men picked you up pretty easy.”

  Conquer reached in his pocket.

  Instinctively, the three bodyguards pulled their guns.

  He smiled, seeing that only Reho hadn’t flinched. He had guts, for a college boy.

  Conquer looked over at Maroon, whose dark face was shining with sweat now, the Essence of Bow-Down he’d dressed the inside of his jacket pocket with to lay a trick on unwanted hands now in full effect. He’d used it to stop a pickpocket dead in his tracks, and once, sent an overzealous cop packing when he’d tried to plant a dime bag in his pocket.

  He snapped his fingers at Maroon.

  Maroon tossed his pistol across the room instantly, blinking stupidly at his empty hand when Conquer caught it.

  The other two guards, scowling at their compatriot, thumbed back their hammers.

  “Cool it!” Reho admonished.

  Maroon stood blinking back sweat in confusion.

  “She teach you that?” Reho asked, nodding to the dead woman in the kitchen.

  Actually Conquer’s own mama had shown him how to make Essence of Bow-Down with Calamus root when he was seven. She used to take a packet of the stuff to work with her and wash the floors of the white folks with it, to insure she got the days off she wanted, and a nice bonus come Christmas time. His mama had in turn learned that from his grandfather, a two-headed doctor down in New Orleans. Along with his grandmother, a Vodoun mambo, he’d gotten a rich informal education in magic as a boy.

  Mama Underwood had continued that education after his mother’s accident, initiating him into Ifa with the teaching and memorization of the Ese Ifa, the sacred Yoruba texts consulted in divination. She’d made her living as a bookie for King Solomon, but was also a respected reader and root worker. She’d built on Conquer’s foundations one brick at a time, and mortared them with an old bookie’s knowledge of the Harlem streets. A helluva woman. Somebody had done her dirty; done all of Harlem dirty.

  When Conquer said nothing, Reho took off his sunglasses. His eyes were shot with red.

  “We both lost mothers today, Conquer.”

  Mama Underwood had worked for King Solomon. After what he’d seen of the man’s operation, his smuggling of heroin and rare magical ingredients in the coffins of dead soldiers, Conquer had severed contact with her nearly ten years ago. Had her motherly love, deprived of Conquer, gone over to her boss’s boy? He felt a twinge of jealousy at this surrogate, dismissed it as irrational, and moved on. Mama Underwood had been a mother to every kid that had ever crossed her path, down and out or otherwise. Foster children had come and gone from this apartment like socks all during his childhood. It had been stupid of him to pass judgment on her for doing what she had to do to scrape by. He’d let his hatred of King Solomon bleed over. Now he’d never have the chance to tell her.

  Conquer put Maroon’s gun down on an end table in the living room, next to the carved wood àgéré Ifá dish containing the sixteen sacred palm nuts.

  “What happened?” he asked quietly.

  “That’s what I want you to tell me,” Reho said. “I came here to give her some money like I do every last Monday of the month, found her and Phaedra like this.”

  “Phaedra?” Conquer half-gasped. He went across the room to the girl in the yellow satin jacket. “That’s Phaedra?”

  He hadn’t seen Mama Underwood’s niece in nine years. He remembered her clinging to Mama’s hip, crying when the police put him in handcuffs and took him away for beating a pimp to death in the park. The last piece of the cake Mama had baked for his eighteenth birthday had still been in the icebox.

  He hunkered down and peered closely at her corpse now. She had made a dash for the fire escape and the shooter had lit into her as she’d run. There were at least twelve magnum rounds in or through her, so the killer had fired six times from the doorway or the middle of the room, then reloaded, stood over her, and put six more in her. If he’d used a revolver, he hadn’t left the empty shells laying when he’d reloaded. A speed-loader? He counted the wounds again and looked around for stray shots in the walls. No, the first set was an expert grouping as far as he could tell; no misses. Mama Underwood didn’t have the mark of a bullet on her.

  “Nobody heard all that shooting?” Conquer remarked. Twelve high caliber rounds going off in an apartment would have sounded like the 1812 Overture. But this was Harlem. Nobody saw or heard anything.

  Reho only watched as Conquer got down to stare at Phaedra again, working things out.

  Conquer bit his lip. He had taught this little girl how to read and count on street signs on their way to the park. A dirty pimp’s half-assed comment about her having ‘bedroom eyes’ had made him kill; landed him in jail and Vietnam. Who had done this? He could make out the black iron-on lettering of the blood-soaked jacket now.

  18 BRONZEMEN.

  “What’s Eighteen Bronzemen?”

  “I don’t know,” said Reho. “Some kinda gang?”

  The name was familiar to him somehow, but he couldn’t place where he’d read it.

  “18th Street?” Conquer wondered aloud. What would Phaedra be doing running around down down in Chelsea?

  He turned back to the lake of blood in the living room, the upset couch. Mama Underwood had been sitting here doing Phaedra’s nails. She had been slashed here, maybe in the neck with a machete or something after the door was kicked in. Blood had sprayed the TV. Phaedra had probably flipped the couch trying to get away. Had Mama Underwood lain here gasping and bleeding while the killer had unloaded on her niece? No time to hack at her and shoot. Mama Underwood had crawled or limped into the kitchen, where she’d either been pushed onto the table or collapsed trying to get at the phone. There the killer had gone to town on her, hacking, mutilating, tearing.

  But not without purpose. Why hadn’t Phaedra been similarly outraged? And why remove Mama Underwood’s head?

  He thought a while.

  To the Yoruba the Ori was the divine determiner of the totality of one’s spiritual power and destiny. It was the Head, connected to the mortal form on earth by a silver etheric chain to the Ori-Inu, the Inner Head, or mind, housed in the Ori-Akoko, the Exterior H
ead. Decapitation could be some kind of message, that like her staff, Mama Underwood’s spiritual power had been broken.

  And what about their hands? Why take them? There was an old trick to finding a murderer; bury the victim with a black cock’s egg in the right hand. Did the killer know about that? Conquer couldn’t help thinking the other mutilations were a distraction from the significant removal of the head and hands.

  The killer had knowledge. Magical knowledge.

  Were the shooter and the cutter the same person?

  Two could have done this, for sure.

  “I want you to use all your skills, John Conquer,” Reho said with a quiver in his voice. “I want you to tell me who did this. I’ll pay.”

  “You should call a Babalawo,” said Conquer. A goat would have to be sacrificed, and the apartment cleansed with ritual snail and shea butter water from a palm branch.

  “I intend to,” said Reho. “But first, you.”

  Why him? Why hadn’t Reho gone to his daddy with this?

  He had an idea why not.

  It wouldn’t be the first time King Solomon had punished his own people severely, and with magic. Once, the man had left one of his bookies shrunken and floating dead in a lava lamp.

  “You pay me to find out the who, that’s all,” said Conquer, nodding to his guards. “I ain’t one of these. My gun ain’t for rent, dig?”

  The hired muscle took this personal, by the sour looks they gave him.

  Reho snapped his fingers and Canary stepped forward, reached in his jacket, and pulled out a wad of cash in a money clip, hundreds showing. He held it up, and tossed it to Conquer.

  Conquer pocketed it without counting. He had a feeling the kid wouldn’t lowball him. He was too upset.

  A fly buzzed past his ear and he turned his head instinctively to dismiss it. The old wooden cabinet in the hall situated beneath the shrine to Orunmila caught his eye.

  At the sight of that cabinet a thousand and one thought and feelings rushed all through him, and the memory of his once daily visits to it. He felt something more than nostalgia; something like compulsion.

  Conquer went over to the cabinet, wondering if Mama Underwood had kept it all these years.

  When he opened it, he felt another pang of regret. There in the back was his opon Ifá, the circular wooden divination tray Mama Underwood had gifted him after he’d completed his initiation. It had seemed big as a serving bowl in his hands when he was a kid, but now he saw that it was only about a hand and a half by a foot or so big. It had been the last creation of one of the real Yoruba carvers, descended from an artisan who had embellished the palace at Oyo-lle, the capitol of the Oyo Empire, when Shango, the deified Orisha of lightning and thunder, had been king. The etchings on the outer rim, lovingly detailed, depicted the palace and the royal person’s transition into an Orisha, as well as the face of Eshu and his monkey and the nine diviners. Leaning against it, he found his old carved ivory iroke ifa tusk, his opele diviniation chain, and a bottle of iyerosun powder. They’d all been kept neatly arranged, as if waiting for him.

  Maybe they had been.

  John Conquer was not a man to believe in coincidences, and he felt something unmeasurable stir within and around him. Maybe primordial Orunmila, the bearer of the wisdom of Oludomare, was calling him back; back to Ifa.

  “Give me an hour up on the roof,” Conquer said. “Alone.”

  “You got it,” said Reho.

  Dig The Totally Unofficial, Totally Unauthorized Conquer Soundtrack At

  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_K7yegKfWJLBKXHcfIcp8BQW41Txh0B1

  Or Get Your Spotify On At

  https://open.spotify.com/playlist/74Mwz3mC88Y7ZzRXhNRUgJ?si=nV-mmqXZQFu_PU1vWZAiUg

  Or, if Amazon Music Is Your Thang, At

  https://music.amazon.com/user-playlists/1ab42201153d43eb8245b66f563911e4sune?ref=dm_sh_d585-0626-c29b-e21b-8ecb3

  Edward M. Erdelac is the author of twelve novels including Andersonville, The Knight With Two Swords, Monstrumfuhrer, and The Merkabah Rider series. His fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and periodicals ranging from Occult Detective Quarterly to Star Wars Insider Magazine. Born in Indiana, educated in Chicago, he resides in the Los Angeles area with his family. News and excerpts from his work can be found at -http://www.emerdelac.wordpress.com

  Hailing from Tochigi, Japan, cover artist Juri Umagami started painting at Uskukubo Art Atelier when she was only 8 years old and received her BFA from Otis College of Art and Design. She now lives in the Los Angeles area where she works as an instructor at the Kline Academy of Fine Art. For commission inquiries, she may be contacted at umajuri78@gmail.com

  If you enjoyed, Conquer, check out SLAY from Mocha Memoirs Press!

  Mocha Memoirs Press is proud to present SLAY: Stories of the Vampire Noire — a revolutionary anthology celebrating vampires of the African Diaspora. SLAY is a groundbreaking unique collection and will be a must-have for vampire lovers all over the world. SLAY aims to be the first anthology of its kind. Few creatures in contemporary horror are as compelling as the vampire, who manages to captivate us in a simultaneous state of fear and desire. Drawing from a variety of cultural and mythological backgrounds, SLAY dares to imagine a world of horror and wonder where Black protagonists take center stage — as vampires, as hunters, as heroes. From immortal African deities to resistance fighters; matriarchal vampire broods to monster hunting fathers; coming of age stories to end of life stories, SLAY is a groundbreaking Afrocentric vampire anthology celebrating the rich cultural heritage of the African Diaspora.

  Featuring stories by authors Sheree Renée Thomas, Craig L. Gidney, Milton Davis, Jessica Cage, Michele Tracy Berger, Alicia McCalla, Jeff Carroll, and Steven Van Patten.

  Additional Contributing Authors: Penelope Flynn, Lynette Hoag, Steve Van Samson, Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald, Balogun Ojetade, Valjeanne Jeffers, Samantha Bryant, Vonnie Winslow Crist, Miranda J. Riley, K.R.S. McEntire, Alledria Hurt, Kai Leakes, John Linwood Grant, Sumiko Saulson, Dicey Grenor, L. Marie Wood, LH Moore, Delizhia D. Jenkins, Colin Cloud Dance, and V.G. Harrison.

  ANDERSONVILLE (Del Rey-Hydra)

  In 1864 thirty thousand ragged Union soldiers pray for a way out of the disease ridden confines of the South’s most notorious prison camp, unaware they are about to become unwitting accomplices in a dark ritual enacted by a madman to turn the tide of the Civil War.

  When Mary Todd Lincoln’s spiritual advisor has a vision of the nation awash in blood, Union Black Dispatch agent Barclay Lourdes is dispatched to infiltrate Andersonville prison and put a stop to the terrible events about to enfold….

  PRAISE FOR ANDERSONVILLE

  “[Edward M.] Erdelac makes a heady brew out of dreadful true events, angel and demon lore, secret societies, and the trappings of Southern gothic novels. This is thoughtful horror at its best, and not at all for the faint of heart.”—Publishers Weekly Starred Review

  “Andersonville is a raw, groundbreaking supernatural knuckle-punch. Erdelac absolutely owns Civil War and Wild West horror fiction.”—Weston Ochse, bestselling author of SEAL Team 666

  “If you took a tale of atmospheric horror by Ambrose Bierce and infused it with the energy of Elmore Leonard, you would come close to what Edward Erdelac has accomplished with Andersonville. But even that combination would sell the novel short. What Erdelac has done is not just splice genres together but create his own voice in telling of the horrors, real and supernatural, inhabiting the most infamous prison camp of the Civil War. This is U.S. history seen through the eyes of the tortured dead, told with amazing skill by an author who knows how to create genre literature with a purpose.”—C. Courtney Joyner, author of Shotgun and Nemo Rising

  “Andersonville definitely stands out . . . with its nuanced language, complicated characters, engrossing narrative, and subtle commentary on the past and the present.”—LitReactor

  MONSTRUMFUHRER (Comet Press)

  In 1936 Dr. Josef Mengele discovers the lab journals of V
ictor Frankenstein and is tasked with replicating his reanimation procedure by the Reich Institute.

  In 1945, a Jewish boy uncovers the secrets of Mengele’s horrific experiments behind the barbed wire of Auschwitz KZ. He escapes and heads north in search of the only being on earth who can stop the Reich’s insidious project – Frankenstein’s original creature.

  But the Creature has its price….

  PRAISE FOR MONSTRUMFUHRER

  “….profound; a wrenching and tragic look at the horrors of war, tortured dynamics of father-and-son relationships, race and ideology, pride, belief, ambition, survival, philosophy, brotherhood, the very nature of humanity and life, and the darkest insights into our collective psyches.” – The Horror Fiction Review’

  “….absolutely devastating.” – Cemetery Dance

  “Highest possible recommendation.” – Confessions of a Reviewer.

  TEROVOLAS (Journalstone)

  The recovered personal papers of Professor Abraham Van Helsing recount the events which took place immediately following the account of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA.