by Emby Press
“All respects, Mr. Prescott,” the mystic investigator replied, “that is just a hole…and if you’re telling the truth, and you buried your father here, he must be quite short.”
“I got overzealous when I killed him,” the younger Prescott replied awkwardly, “and it made it easier to bury him in a smaller hole.”
She stared at him. When no elaboration was forthcoming save the buzz of dragonflies and the chirp of crickets, Maybelle said, “And how did you do the deed?”
“I….took a crowbar to him. In my enthusiasm, I’m afraid I may have atomized his spine. Made folding him up easy.”
Maybelle blinked once, then twice. “You are such a charmer,” she said sarcastically before kneeling down to inspect the hole.
It was hard to determine the original dimensions of the hole, given the semi-liquid consistency of the mud. It did appear to be rather shallow, which only indicated that Prescott was lazy as well as murderous. She placed her hand along the edges.
Her hand began to glow, a soft white light that started at the tips of her fingers and spread down her palm. She smiled.
“The good news,” she told Arthur Prescott as she rose and tried to wipe the mud off her slacks, “is I believe you. Your father was revived by mystical means.”
He visibly sighed in relief. “So you will help me.”
“By the Brightest, no!” Maybelle exclaimed. “You’re a creep, a coward and a murderer. If I could turn you in—”
“But you can’t. You gave me confidentially!”
“I know, I know.” It was Maybelle’s turn to sigh. She turned away from the hole and started to walk away from her so called ‘client. “You’re lucky you made me promise to keep your secrets before you told me….and more importantly, you’re very lucky that the Tremens women are dedicated to protecting humanity from abusers of magic, or I’d just wash my hands of you.”
She could hear the squishing noise of Arthur Prescott trying to catch up with her. Maybelle muttered a quick and simple cantrip that caused the stains she couldn’t get out to disappear. “What do we do now?”
Maybelle pointedly did not look over her shoulder to address the man directly. She was excited by this case for the first time; the last thing she needed was for this sniveling rodent of a man to see her contempt for him on her face and misinterpret it. “We seek out the personage that is standing in for your father and narrow down what he could be.”
*
After she got rid of the annoying, murderous Arthur Prescott—and took a good long shower to divest herself of the swamp mud and its accompanying stink—Maybelle visited the local library. In a matter of time she was sitting before the microfiche machine, a pile of nickels at her side, scanning older copies of The Star for information on Prescott’s father, Cavanaugh.
There was the typical business information. She read news of acquisitions, charity events he hosted or appeared in, and profiles. The most interesting thing given the situation was news of the death of his first wife and his remarriage to a former beauty queen two years later. The photo of the first wife was hazy and indistinct, but the pictures of Maureen Leewell were so masterfully lit and composed they looked more like headshots. She was a woman in her early middle age but you could see the blonde, smiling and composed woman that, according to the newspaper, got as far as the Florida regionals. As she got closer to the present, Maybelle caught gossip columns speculating on tension between the happy loving couple, but it could have been just hearsay.
By the end of the afternoon, she had a sheaf of notes about the family in hand, and a decision to talk to the second Mrs. Prescott.
Prescott Mansion had a decided modern cast to it, with sections seemingly carved out of crystal. It looked more like a castle constructed in the far future than the home of one of Nocturne’s leading lights. Maybelle was ushered into the mansion and led through a number of rooms littered with strange modernist furniture and even more modern art. She kept her opinions to herself while silently longing for the traditional confines of Palmersdale House.
It was in one of these rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the north where the illustrious Mauren Prescott received Maybelle. The woman was lounging on a strange couch that seemed accordioned at strange angles, a silk robe strategically draped so that no one could notice her toned and generous body. She looked at Maybelletowards her with half-lidded eyes of a startling blue and motioned towards what looked like a divan with horns. Maybelle smiled softly. “It’s okay. I’ll stand.”
“Whatever you wish, Mrs. Palmersdale.”
Maybelle shifted her feet. “It’s Tremens. I’m not married.”
Maureen Prescott craned her neck to face her. A slight smirk Maybelle had to interpret as judgmental played on her lips. “Bohemian couple, are you? Is that why you refused to have my maid take your coat.”
“I prefer to keep it on,” she told Ann. “In case I’m called away.” Or have to defend myself for asking the wrong question, Maybelle silently added.
“Well, what do you want?”
That was abrupt. “I wanted to ask you about your husband. I understand he disappeared for an extended period—”
Maureen’s laugh interrupted Maybelle’s musing, a musical twitter that seems coldly designed to be charming, interrupted Maybelle’s musing. She sat up on her couch. “Oh, Ms. Tremens. If you ever marry that man of yours, you’ll understand everything about extended disappearances.”
“This is not the first time this happened?” Maybelle asked.
Again the former beauty queen smiled, this one void of any charm or warmth. “I knew what I was getting into the moment Cavanaugh proposed to me. I give him a certain amount of cachet and a bit of arm candy, whereas I get kept in a style befitting my station in life. In exchange, I do not inquire as to which of his younger bimbos he shacks up with from time to time.”
Maybelle tilted her head. “So you’re used to his disappearing.”
“Of course, darling. I thought you knew. To be honest, I thought you had a similar arrangement with Colin. You’re much too pretty for him.”
“Thank you…I think.”
“Sometimes he’s gone for weeks, but he always returns with an open wallet for me, and I drown my sorrows in pretty little baubles.” Maureen’s eyes narrowed. “It almost sounds like you’re questioning me.”
“Well, that’s because I am. Did you notice anything unusual when he returned this time? Strange behavior? Odd body movements?”
“No. He’s just Cavanaugh.”
“Do you know if anyone in your family consulted with, I don’t know, an occultist or a voodoo doctor, or something similar?”
“I don’t like you asking questions of me in my own house!” Maureen Prescott stood up and gathered her robe. “I don’t like being badgered like this. I’m going to ask you to leave.”
“Sounds like you already did.”
The wife of Cavanaugh Prescott raised her arm, forefinger cocked dramatically. “Consuela! Lead this impertinent woman out.”
Maybelle raised a hand. “No, it’s alright. I can find my own way out.”
As she made her way out of the ultra-modern home of the Prescotts, Maybelle reflected on one thing. Whatever was going on, she detected no magic on Maureen’s person.
*
Maybelle never liked being without her battle coat. Even when she was playing super-hero with Colin and his friends, the shorter leather jacket she wore allowed her access to a limited amount of materials for casting elaborate spells on the fly. Being dressed to blend in with normal humanity as she was, in a maroon dress, light black jacket and matching pumps and handbag, her hair pulled back into a ponytail, made her feel vulnerable. She did have a limited amount of material in the small clutch purse, but it still took away from her confidence. Still, it did prevent her from drawing attention to herself as she mingled with the other citizens of Nocturne. More importantly, she didn’t need any specialized ingredients for what she needed to do.
She w
as outside the corporate headquarters of The Cavanaugh Container Company in Silver Spire. Before she allowed Arthur out of her sight, she had grilled the insufferable young man on his father’s habits and peculiarities. If this version of Cavanaugh Prescott was trying to pass itself off as the real article, it would be following those same habits. And apparently Cavanaugh Prescott left his offices to have lunch in any one of a number of small cafes—to ‘stay one with the people he serves,’ the younger Prescott practically spit out. And that may be the best time for her to conduct her tests.
In her hand she had palmed a simple compact. Maybelle moved carefully about, varying her approach and casting intermittent glamours to hide her presence. Her eyes kept on the revolving doors that fronted the building.
Just a few seconds before noon, a broad shouldered man in a simple suit emerged. His snow white hair was elegantly coiffed. Maybelle could see echoes of the insufferable young man who started her on this path in this elegant man’s face. He strode onto the street with a quiet, confident assurance.
What he did not look like, save for the glassiness of his eyes, was a man who had been recently beaten to death with a crowbar.
Immediately, Maybelle turned away from the elder Prescott and opened her compact. As she made a show of adjusting her make-up, she angled the mirror so that it caught Cavanaugh Prescott’s image.
The man showed up in the silvered glass. Maybelle closed the compact with a snap. This eliminated most common forms of undead. She turned, cast another glamour that obscured her appearance, and followed the man.
Cavanaugh made his way past Napoleon Center onto Orange Street. Maybelle struggled to keep him in sight. As she quickened her stride, she reached into her clutch and produced a simple pair of glasses. The lenses interacted with the light, each ray that hit them causing them to shimmer with a multicolored translucence. Donning them, she saw all the people on the street replaced by various colored fields of energy. Ahead of her, Cavanaugh’s field was dead black. He was the sole human being with such an aura.
Maybelle stopped. She removed the glasses. Her mirror test had eliminated the possibility that the elder Prescott had become a vampire, lich or other undead form that justified its ability to feed off the humanity it was once a part of by losing its soul. While using the occulus obscura, she determined that Cavanaugh was in fact dead, but did not have a second aura laid on top of his own, which eliminated the possibility of a walk-in or demon borrowing his body.
That meant that Cavanaugh Prescott was, in all likelihood, a zombie.
And that gave Maybelle a couple of avenues to pursue.
*
Not surprisingly, Nocturne had a high percentage of practitioners of both Voodoo and Santeria. The bulk of those practitioners tended to stick to LaRouse, operating out of any number of small storefronts off Madeline Walk, where the tourists never went. Maybelle made it a point to know each and every one of the bocors, and knew that they universally had a pact to preserve their community and shun the practice of black magic.
But there was one who she knew sometimes bent that pact, someone who never quite stepped into the realm of black magic, but danced much closer to the edge than his peers. If anyone had revived Cavanaugh Prescott for potentially nefarious means, it would be Tio Legrande.
The simple bell over the door rang as she came in. She had had enough time to return home and change into something more suited to her present pursuit. Wearing her battle coat made her feel whole again.
The shop itself was a messy jumble of fetishes, totems and other artifacts piled haphazardly on mismatched shelves. She could barely see the counter where Legrande held court. Maybelle stood off to the side, hidden from the bocor’s view until he was finished pushing what was obviously a fake love charm to some gullible tourist who had found his way past the safe portion of LaRouse. The shop smelled of wood shavings and alcohol. Only when the gnarled, bewhiskered black man with the cheshire cat grin sent his customerthe man on his way did she call out, “Tio Legrande!”
The man’s wattled neck turned in her direction. She stepped out from behind the shelf. His grin remained, but it lost some of its salesman’s lustre. “Ahhhhh, Ms. Tremens once more graces my shop…and in her business clothes, no less.”
“I’m not like your clueless comrade who just left, Tio,” Maybelle sneered as she approached the bocor with her hands in her coat pockets. “So let’s forgo the flowery speech.”
The man straightened his posture. “Fine. What do you want?”
“What do you think?”
Tio Legrande laughed mirthlessly. “You know that I have to keep my clients’ needs confidential.”
“Again with the confidentiality,” she muttered before slamming her fist on the counter. “Enough with the dancing about, Legrande. Someone decided to make someone pretty important a zombie. No one in LaRouse would mess with necromancy. Did you do the deal?”
“I did not,” the bocor said, who suddenly showed an interest in the display underneath the glass top of the counter. “But someone did ask me to.”
“And you think I would believe that?”
“She wanted him to have a greater degree of freewill than my zombies would have,” Legrande explained. “So I gave her a referral.”
“She?” Maybelle smirked. “I thought you guarded your clients’ confidentiality.”
“Well if I turned her away, she’s not my client, right?” Legrande countered.
“Well then, tell me who it was,” she said.
“I will not go that far, just in case she needs my services at a later date. I can tell you who I referred her to, however.”
And when Legrande told her, Maybelle blanched.
*
Maybelle finished tracing the protective circle with salt in the gazebo of the Palmersdale House garden. Candles provided soft light north, south, east and west. Once she was satisfied with her handiwork, she reached down and retrieved the Brilhante Escurido e Todo o Seu Trabalho. Even though it was a warm spring night with the hiss of the summer lawn providing a nice counterpoint, Maybelle was extremely cold.
She could not believe she was calling forth The Libertine.
The Libertine was one of those mystical personages that seemed to predate civilization. Throughout history he wove from place to place, providing items of powers to mortals regardless of the potential risks. Many were the times the Tremens women had to handle the dire consequences of one of this sinister figure’s brokering. Many lives were shattered or lost due to this figure’s belief that one must do as one will.
She opened the unspeakable tome to the proper page. She took a deep breath, trying to cleanse herself of the bad feeling she had. Truth was, she never dealt with such an eldritch entity. Those of her ancestors who did had nothing good to say about him.
Slowly she spoke words in a language that could have evolved into Portuguese. With each word, the ambient sound of the spring was slowly drowned out by what to her ears were moans and sighs and screams of ecstasy. The night sky visibly dimmed, and it wasn’t until her incantation was over that Maybelle realized that she was no longer able to perceiveing the stars. Winds plucked at her clothes, directing her to a spot right by the gazebo’s steps. The lush green lawn became mashed down in four places, circular indentations visible to her naked eye.
And then he appeared, sitting on a high backed chair of red velvet and elaborate gold molding that looked like serpents entwined in some hideous orgy. His long curly hair was a shade of red not seen in nature, a shade that matched his solid, too large eyes. Since he tended to dress with the times, the creature wore a black tuxedo with deep red patterns etched into it that seemed to move when looked at too closely. His shoes were deep oxblood in color, but displayed signs of wear. The being’s skin was so pale as to be translucent; Maybelle could perceive the vessels and bones underneath that appeared slightly inhuman.
The Libertine smiled, revealing sharp teeth that shone blackly like onyx. His voice was sweet but sharp, like an appl
e with a razor blade embedded within. “Well, if it isn’t one of the Tremens girls….which one are you, May or Meredith?”
“As if I would give you my name,” the magician shot back.
The Libertine pushed back his hair, revealing a pointed ear. He tilted his head to one side and listened. “This is Nocturne, which makes you Maybelle. I think I gave your mother your name. Let me get a closer look at you.”
The sinister figure made to stand. Maybelle’s right arm lashed out, palm up, fingers curled. She cried out “Etain!”, causing the area immediately around the gazebo to flare with a corona of golden white flames. The fire caused everything around it to dimple and distend.
“You stay where you are or by all that is Beneficent, I will make you hurt,” Maybelle said levelly.
The Libertine sat back down. “You could come closer yourself, my dear. I have plenty of items that will be of use to a burgeoning defender of the mundane like yourself.”
“I know exactly the sort of price I’d pay for them as well, which is why you’re here.”
“Oh, do tell.”
Maybelle shifted in her circle. She already had a spell ready in case this being tried to make another move. “You recently pawned off one of your accursed artifacts to someone looking to raise a dead man with his personality intact. I need to know who, and I need to know what.”
The Libertine leaned back and laughed, a sound that set Maybelle’s teeth on edge. “Ahhh, her.”
Again with the female pronouns, she thought silently.
“I had thought when she called to me that she would be needing a restorative for her youth. It was clear what a beauty she was before age preyed on her, and how much that mattered to her. When she explained what she really needed, I knew what I could give her. The Paw.”
Maybelle’s mouth dropped open. “You gave a human inexperienced in thought transference magic The Monkey’s Paw? You are aware of the disasters caused by people utilizing that item so recklessly.”
“It is not my concern,” The Libertine said with a yawn. “My concern is with allowing people the means to do what they wish. I’m bored with this conversation.”
