The Dead Pools

by Michael Hesse

  “They’re cancelling your ticket, amigo,” Ramirez said.

  I slumped back in my seat, not knowing what to say. I’d been afraid of something like this ever since Manx raised his ugly head. He’d been looking for a way to get me back under this thumb ever since I was first transferred and he’d finally found a way to do it. I’d always known it was a possibility, but I hadn’t considered that the rest of my unit might pay a price too.

  “So, if we’re all gone tomorrow, what’s with the charade?” I asked.

  “The Captain’s buying us time,” Mac said. “We’ve got two weeks find out what’s really going on and convince the brass to overrule the OSS recommendation.”

  “Two weeks? We won’t have two days once Manx learns we’re gone. Did you forget that he’s got a fresh sample of my blood?”

  Nunez held up a square of stained silk. “Not anymore,” he said. He reached over the seat and handed it to me. “I’d suggest you burn that when you have a chance.”

  If I’d ever had any doubts as to whether or not I’d been accepted by my unit, they vanished. For a moment my emotions threatened to overwhelm me. The four men in this truck had just risked everything to sneak me off the base. If they were caught, they’d risk more than simple transfers. The laws against aiding runaway witches are significant.

  I knew better than to comment upon what they’d done. They weren’t the sort comfortable with emotional displays, but as I looked around the truck, I knew they understood what I was feeling. I stuffed the bloody silk into my breast pocket, making sure to button the flap closed. “Thank you,” I said as soon as I was sure my voice wouldn’t break.

  Heads bobbed in unison around the Humvee. “We take care of our own,” Ramirez said handing me one of the camouflage scarves we’re issued for desert ops. “Tie this around your neck,” he said. “It’ll look a little gay, but it’s the best we can do for now.”

  I nodded and wrapped it over the Brand. Hopefully I’d come up with a better solution in the future, but for now it would have to do. There was no point in running if the first person that saw us identified me as a witch. That sort of thing gets remembered. The strange guy wearing a scarf in the summer might not.

  “Ok, so what’s the play?” I asked once I got it settled.

  “First, we’ve got someone you need to meet,” Mac replied.

  #

  Twenty minutes later Mac turned off the interstate and sped through a small town. I couldn’t see much of it from my position in between Stevens and Ramirez, but I got the impression that the modern world had passed it by. The only sign of progress was the Piggly Wiggly advertising cheap gas and boiled peanuts. The combination made me smirk.

  A few minutes later we’d left the town behind and were passing through green pastures sprinkled with grazing cows. Shortly afterwards the family farms were replaced with the sort of dense woods you only see in the South. Thin pines and bent oaks crowded against each other, while bougainvillea, vines and wildflowers fought over the limited space they left. It was a wonder that anyone had ever settled this country.

  I was more than a little surprised when Mac slowed before a little white church and then turned into the parking lot. The sign outside read: Christ the Thaumaturgist. I had to laugh.

  “Seriously,” I said pointing toward the sign. “How does that go over in Georgia?”

  “It’s an exclusive congregation,” Mac replied.

  “I doubt one in a thousand knows what it means,” Stevens added.

  “Look, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, but I’m not interested in converting.”

  “We’re not here to save your soul,” Mac said pulling the truck to a stop in the gravel parking lot. “We’ve got something else in mind.”

  “The Captain needs to meet with us privately,” Ramirez said. “Would you ever think of looking for a witch in a church? I didn’t think so.”

  Everyone piled out of the truck as soon as it stopped and after a short delay, I joined them. Glancing around the parking lot I saw that there was only one other car in the lot, an old Chevy that looked at least thirty years old. It was spotlessly clean, without a smidgen of dirt or dust on it. The Captain’s car was conspicuously absent.

  With a nod Mac sent Nunez into the woods near the entrance and Stevens towards the opposite end of the lot. Within moments each disappeared from sight. He might be confident that our rouse had worked, but Mac wasn’t taking any chances either. If anyone showed up to crash our little party, they’d be in for a rude awakening. “Ramirez, Thorn, you’re with me,” he said as he turned towards the church proper.

  From the outside the church of Christ the Thaumaturgist looked like any of a thousand churches scattered throughout Georgia. White washed pine, red brick, and a weathered steeple thrust high into the darkening sky. A golden cross glimmered with the last rays of the setting sun, a sentinel opposing the encroaching dark. But this church was like no other I’d ever encountered. The ink pulsed along my neck, reacting to the magick saturating the grounds.

  Before we’d gone a dozen feet psychic fingers poked and prodded my aura, assessing my intent. Seemingly harmless, the sensation was disconcerting and I wondered how quickly the probes would turn if they discovered ill intent. No matter how charming this church might appear, it was well guarded. Someone had gone to a great deal of effort to weave their wards into the carefully tended flower beds, threading energies between the mortars along the winding bricks leading up the front. Someone with something to hide?

  Mac and Ramirez continued along the path while I took another look over the Church grounds. All was not as it seemed. Though I could find no obvious dangers, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something lay beneath the surface, shrouded behind the bright flowers and manicured lawns. It was as if there were two images superimposed upon each other, but try as I might I couldn’t pluck the hidden image from the background.

  As a witch I know about secrets. Secrets themselves aren’t indicative of sinister intent. There are a lot of good reasons for a person to hide, especially in a rural southern town. Shrugging my shoulders, I turned back to the path, whatever I’d felt was elusive, but not malicious. I wouldn’t learn any more standing on the front walk. The secret-keeper was waiting inside.

  Moments later I joined Mac and Ramirez impatiently waiting in front of two enormous oaken doors. Intricately carved and banded in iron, they were strikingly out of place or better yet, out of time. They belonged in a gothic cathedral, not attached to a modern church in rural Georgia.

  Had I the time I would have loved to investigate further. They were another oddity about this place, a potential clue to the mind behind the spells saturating the grounds. Before I could do much more than look, the doors ground open, swinging wide of their own accord. “Neat trick,” I whispered to Ramirez, but he only grunted in reply. There must be something truly remarkable about this place if it squashed his usual snark.

  Mac stepped through before the doors were completely open while gesturing for Ramirez to remain. Either Mac didn’t trust the wards efficacy or he wasn’t aware of their presence. As I turned to follow a third possibility occurred to me, perhaps he didn’t want any witnesses. The thought sent a chill up my spine, but I still followed him inside. What choice did I have? If Mac wished me ill, he had ample opportunity. He wouldn’t need to bring me out to the boonies.

  Chapter 19

  Unknown, Monday 19:30

  Church of Christ the Thaumaturgist

  Mac caught me as I stumbled through the threshold. “Catches you by surprise the first time, don’t it?” he said.

  I nodded mutely; surprise was hardly the word I’d use. Outside the structure I’d felt the whispers of the wards and weavings, but inside the building, magick shouted. The pine boards beneath my feet squealed with energy, the walls breathed power. It was as if the entire building were an intricate ward bound together in complex strings of magick rather than mortar and nails. I’d never felt anything like it before. I hadn�
�t known it was even remotely possible.

  After a few moments the weakness passed and Mac released me. Turning back, I saw that Ramirez hadn’t moved from his position in front of the open doors. “How,” I asked, the words jumbling inside, fighting to come out in the right order. “How is it possible that he doesn’t feel this?”

  Mac shrugged his shoulders. “Did you? As to how any of this is possible, I haven’t a clue. I asked Father Christopher about it once and he told me it had something to do with the harmonics of upper mathematics. But honestly, I didn’t understand his answer.”

  “This Father Christopher,” I asked, “this is who you want me to meet?”

  Without answering directly, Mac turned towards the doors leading into the chapel proper. “We need to know for certain what the OSS did to you, Thorn. That tattoo, it’s more than just a Brand, but what is it exactly? We need to know.”

  “And this Father Christopher, he can help with that?”

  Mac gestured vaguely to the space around us, “What do you think?”

  Before I could answer he turned back to the inner doors and threw them open, revealing further wonders. The setting sun ignited a stained-glass window of a man performing miracles, the same Christ I’d seen pictured thousands of times before, but within the glass, the image seemed alive. A trick of the light perhaps or a testament to the artist’s skill, but in this place and at this time, it made me wonder.

  So impressive was the window that I didn’t notice the stoop shouldered man who stood before it, gazing upwards, with his back to us. “Come in, come in,” he said without turning from the spectacle. “Just a moment more, this is my favorite time of day.”

  We walked slowly down the aisle in between rows of wooden pews painted honey-gold by the setting sun. A thousand scintillating colors blazed within the glass, filling the chapel with a kaleidoscope of pulsing light. For a moment it seemed as if we’d stepped across the veil and were transported to paradise.

  “I do wish we still held services at dusk,” the man said turning to face us. “The display is awesome, in the original sense of the word.”

  Though beautiful, it wasn’t the lightshow that left me speechless. The man standing before us looked ancient and young, bent and stooped with age and yet vibrant and strong, as if there were two images super-imposed over each other and occupying the same space. I turned towards Mac to comment, but I could see in an instant that he didn’t see what I saw.

  Mac bowed his head in respect. “Father Christopher, thank you for seeing us on such short notice. It’s a matter of some urgency.”

  “Yes, yes, Stuart informed me of such this afternoon. It’s always a pleasure to serve in whatever small way I can,” he replied in a smooth voice that belied the image of the ancient that stood before us. “But let us retire to my office. This light, though awesome, can play tricks upon the eye.”

  He looked at me pointedly as he stepped down from the dais, gesturing toward an inconspicuous door set in the northern wall. Father Christopher’s office was spare, but not Spartan. Two chairs sat before an uncluttered desk and antique bookcases lined the walls. A crystal decanter of water sat beside three glasses on a corner of the desk. Clearly, we were not only expected, but he knew how many and when we would arrive.

  Mac turned to me as we sat, “Father Christopher is not what he seems,” he said. “You can be entirely candid with him.”

  “Now, now, William, young Julian already knows that. Call me Chris,” he said with a wink. “All this Father business has me feeling a bit stuffy. There now, that’s better.” As the priest sat the image of his younger self faded away, leaving only the shell of the ancient behind.

  “Thank you, sir. It was getting a little uncomfortable. “

  “Of course, of course,” he nodded.

  Mac misinterpreted my remark and leaned over to reassure me. “Private, this church sheltered witches during the thirties. The good Father here even helped a number escape to Canada, although we don’t officially recognize that fact.”

  “Father Chris is the oldest serving member of the Vatican,” Mac added.

  “I’m sure of that,” I said. In fact, I was certain that he was vastly older than Mac suspected, perhaps older than the doors that graced the church’s threshold. He was certainly a sorcerer, though he wore no bracelets upon his wrist. I wasn’t entirely sure he was human, although I wisely kept that thought to myself.

  “So why am I here?”

  Mac shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “The Captain asked Father Chris to have a look at you and help him make some decisions about your future.”

  “He doesn’t trust me then.”

  Mac looked away and then over to Father Chris who’d sat quietly during our exchange. “It’s not that we don’t trust you, Thorn . . .

  “It’s not that he doesn’t trust you Julian,” Father Chris broke in, “it’s really that he doesn’t trust himself. Your Captain is under extraordinary pressure lately. He’s come to the point where his duty to follow orders and his instincts are warring against each other. It’s in times of crisis like this, that I can be particularly helpful.”

  What are you? The question plagued me as I stared into the Father’s blue-green eyes. They call the eyes the windows to the soul, but if that’s the case then the Father’s wore shutters. I couldn’t see anything beyond them but the sense that I was looking at a creature much older than the eighty or so years it played. It was like staring at a mask, I just couldn’t get a proper read. Finally, I shrugged my shoulders and asked what I needed to do.

  “First off, may I examine your tattoo? It’s quite unusual.”

  I nodded and sat still while the good Father got up from his chair and walked around the desk. Mac scooted his out of the way to give Father Christopher more room. The old man bent down and lifted a finger as if the trace the ink, but didn’t touch it. “This is truly remarkable work,” he said after a few minutes. “Can you feel where the artist threaded the spells through your skin?”

  “I can, but it’s fading like a scent you recognize when you first enter a room, but forget afterwards.”

  The Father nodded and bent back to his examination, his fingers tracing the knots in the air, following the patterns etched in my flesh. He muttered to himself as he worked his way through the whorls and slashes, occasionally hissing through his teeth as he discovered something unexpected. After several long minutes he stood back up and asked Mac to leave the room.

  “Call Stuart and tell him to join us when he arrives,” Father Chris added. “I’d like to speak privately to young Julian for a few minutes, William.”

  Mac shot me a look of concern and for a moment I thought he would refuse. Instead he rose and nodding once to both of us stepped quietly out the door. It shut with a sigh and something told me that it would not open again until Father Chris finished with me.

  The priest smiled and took Mac’s seat, sitting close enough that our knees nearly touched. He leaned back in the chair, folded his hands and closed his eyes as if in prayer or deep thought. I left him to it and sweated. I was certain that he’d seen more in my Brand than Twist himself had understood. The old warlock had been deep in trance during most of the time he worked on me, his will subverted by our gods.

  Eventually the good Father looked back up. His eyes were different now. Gone was the blue-green I’d first spotted. His eyes now looked more purple and deeper, like he’d pulled back the shutters that hid them at first. “Julian, may I call you Julian?” he asked without waiting for my answer. “You present a particular problem for me. Do you know that?”

  “No sir. I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Hmmm, I can see that. The truth is quite plainly written across your face. You weren’t aware of what you are before the, I think they call it a Brand, was placed on you?” He shuddered as he spoke the word, as if he found it as abhorrent as I did.

  “You know what it means?”

  “Yes,” he said, “much more than you or the hand th
at held the needle, I suspect. It’s been a long time since I’ve encountered one from your line and that was under much less pleasant circumstances, I’m afraid. That one had been trained since birth for his role, but you appear somewhat innocent to the implications . . .

  “My father was a Sword, but if he was a member of the Sons he never spoke of it. He only spoke about Madera briefly and neither praised him, nor damned him. He was a historical figure, our Moses, if you aren’t offended by the comparison.”

  “No, no, it’s rather fitting, I suppose,” Father Chris chuckled. “No, I think you’ve been dormant until quite recently. It’s peculiar that you were outed in such a dramatic fashion and I have to wonder at the reason, but time will tell.”

  The Father seemed to lapse into memory, certainly he didn’t offer any further explanation. He sat silently staring at me, but not at me exactly, more through me as if he were observing things beyond my ken. It’s an itchy neck sort of feeling, knowing that you’re being observed. It makes you question every action before you take it, an everyday proof of Heisenberg’s theorem.

  Minutes dripped by, slowly oozing as they passed under the Father’s gaze. “I can’t quite decide whether you’re a threat or not and quite a bit depends upon that answer,” he said. “I’d hoped that I might unbind the threads that gather about you, seek the one that would lead me back to the source, but it’s all too tangled.”

  “It’s a particularly vexing problem,” he continued. “On the one hand I could strike you down and remove a potentially disruptive influence upon the weave, but there lies the crux of the matter. It’s potentialities that hover about you like blowflies, Julian Le Mort. On the other hand, He does appear to support these situations. It’s quite maddening, really.”

  Father Chris didn’t appear harmless now, not with his talk about striking me down. I tensed in my seat, readying myself for the moment I might need to move quickly. I was unarmed of course, which simplified matters quite a bit. The only potential weapon I spotted was the crystal decanter and that was hardly more useful than my bare hands.