“So he didn’t give a spirit that gift?” Allen asked.
“There’s no summoning component to it, you have to summon a spirit once you’re finished,” Maxwell answered. “Zack barely knows enough about this stuff to pretend he’s a novice, so I doubt he could remember a summoning to use.”
“So he didn’t invoke a major spirit?” Bernie said.
Maxwell pointed to one of the circular symbols at the back of the bus. “Three there,” Maxwell said. “All in one seal. Old enough so no one knows what the language sounds like aloud, Sumerian. They’re household Gods though, so not Old Ones.”
“Any idea what they were Gods of?” Bernie asked.
“None,” Maxwell said. “I listened to my dad, but not well enough to memorize that whole tribe of minor Gods.”
“Max,” Allen said, picking up a marker, shaking it and joining in on the striking of symbols. “You led a ceremony a while ago. The people who told me about it say it went well, miraculously.”
“I wouldn’t say miraculously,” Maxwell said. “Did what it was supposed to.”
“So, I’m already getting pressure from the Circle to initiate you, and I think my son should stand with you during the ceremony as your brother,” Allen said. “There are things you should know, and I can’t tell you unless you’re initiated.”
“Like?” Maxwell said. He was already tired of the topic.
“Where your father is really buried,” Allen said. “That graveyard hasn’t been used to bury anyone in a long time.”
“I want Miranda to stand with me as Summoner,” Maxwell replied, watching Bernie smile a little as he looked for a marker that worked.
“I think that can be arranged,” Allen said. “Welcome to the fold, Max.”
“There goes the neighborhood,” Maxwell said.
* * *
Maxwell could no longer assume anything he saw or felt was all in his head, a defense he’d used most of his life. The book was securely in Max’s jacket again, but he felt absolutely nothing from it. The shard was a different story. He suspected that it was why the Ablesmith family was dislodged from the crossroads, why they were able to follow him, and why their tormentor was following him. If he kept the stone, they would be the first of many.
When he finished working on the bus he quietly left when no one was looking. There were campfires with people gathered around them dotting the field between him and his bike, and he was ignored as another shape passing through the humid darkness between.
He made his way to the main house, ignoring the people who were inside – a crowd of older visitors playing cards at the kitchen table, another at the long dining table doing the same, a few older gentlemen in the den having a drink and a cigar, and then he was in the library. Three older fellows, one of whom Maxwell recognized as someone who used to visit his father, were sitting in the large armchairs. The sofa and table were empty. “Sorry, gents, time for you to find another room to have your evening brandy,” Maxwell said, opening the French doors, bowing and gesturing towards the hall. “Lots of room in the house.”
“Pardon me, son,” one of them said, a tall man with a full head of grey hair.
Maxwell noticed that the locked cabinet where many valuable old tomes were kept was open, and the man sitting next to it had an old book bag in his lap. “You’re fucking leaving in an orderly, expedient fashion, library’s off limits,” Maxwell said with crystal clear enunciation, staring the grey haired man in the eye unwaveringly.
The trio took their bottle, one took his book bag, and they all took their glasses out of the room. “I fear for today’s generation,” one said as he passed Maxwell.
“Fear’s the problem, not today’s generation, grandpa,” Max grabbed the book bag from one of the gentlemen, opened it and retrieved a book he knew his father brought to the collection – Jackal’s Book Of Practices – he held the black bound tome up and threw the gentleman’s book bag back at him. “Not yours, you bloody thieving geezer. Hammond, right?”
“I used to do business with your father, young man,” he replied. “That was-“
“His,” Maxwell said. He opened the roughly cut pages to the middle where he knew he’d find a note from his father. The yellowed flipbook page said: $2,800.00 owing – Gregory Hammond, and Maxwell held it up. “Don’t suppose you have this on you?”
“Twenty-eight hundred dollars?” the shorter of the elderly fellows scoffed. “I should tell you a truth about your father, he always overcharged.”
Maxwell may have not loved his father as well as some sons did, but hearing him slighted in the least raised his ire. “Oh, you think he overcharged, do you? Wait ‘till you’re beggin’ me to fetch something for you, lazy thief. This is mine now, and forever,” Maxwell said, snapping the large book shut and brandishing it for a moment. “This, all this here’s off limits, get along ye geezers,” Maxwell said. He closed the twin doors behind the older men then locked them.
Maxwell waited a moment as he waited for the elderly fellows to move down the hallway. The pressure he felt from the shard, though it was ever so slight, was gone, and Maxwell remembered that the main house was blessed and warded in countless ways. He hadn’t realized the pressure was there until it was gone, like a stone weighing all his moods down.
The library wasn’t a place he spent time in since his father passed. He had forgotten how impressive it was, with an old hearth made from river stones nearest to the fire and blue quartz on the far sides. It was the second hearth built in the house. The walls were covered with heavy shelving filled with books. The old armchairs and sofa in the space had been reupholstered numerous times, the last rebuild had one of them in brown, and two in black leather. The sofa was redone in a gaudy fabric with twisting tree limbs and birds printed across a field of green.
The thickly varnished study table had three old wood chairs around it, even though it was made for six. His handiwork was still carved on one of the corners, the Cantonese symbol for RESIST FOOLS, an act of vandalism that did not impress his father back in the day.
The old candle and oil sconces had yellow bulbs in them, and all the lights were on. Maxwell turned off three of the four switches, leaving only the two small lights by the door on, and he checked to make sure the old trio had gone. When he was sure they were down the hall and most likely complaining to the card players in the kitchen and dining room about their rough treatment, Maxwell walked to the bookshelves at the rear of the room.
He knelt down and reached into one of the shelves, behind the books where there was a knothole in the backing of the shelf. He pressed his index finger into the knothole and reached up, pushing hard on an old, narrow steel plate. The plate moved and Maxwell felt a click underfoot.
A narrow section of floorboards came up with a slight pull, the latch unlocked using the mechanism in the bookcase, and Max lowered himself down. He reached for his zippo lighter and remembered that he’d thrown it at Panos weeks before. The house’s second basement was a relic, and only had a few electric lights strung up. He pulled the trap door closed above his head and made careful steps down.
He felt the stony wall for the old light switch and found it. The single light in the narrow hallway flickered, it was on its last minutes. The concrete walls left behind by Bernie’s grandfather were bone dry, the ceiling was made out of the same material, skills the man took back to Canada with him from his service in World War Two were put to use on the rebuilding of an old cellar into a secret set of rooms.
Maxwell pulled his key ring from his inside jacket pocket and found the old two-tine key right away. There were five steel banded doors ahead before a ninety-degree bend in the narrow hallway. He headed for the second one on the left. The key slid into the bolt smoothly, but it took some effort to turn before he heard the bolts slide on the other side.
“You got me, you old bugger,” Maxwell said as he pushed the heavy door open. The steel hinges creaked loudly. The floor was marked with wards of protection, interlocking circles
and symbols in white, red, black and green. The ceiling had more marks on it, but these were meant to turn prying eyes away.
Whatever was brought down into the surprisingly large space, a fourteen by fourteen foot room, had to be moved through the narrow, secret passage in the basement, the only other way to get into the hidden bunker. There was a worktable in the middle of the room, square, laden with his father’s scrying tools and many other objects. Maxwell took a quick inventory of the scrying tools first, there was a fine copper bowl, a brazier with a wrought-iron stand, copper incense burners of varying age and ornamentation, as well as a silver plate and a fiercely sharp, narrow dagger. He knew he’d find knucklebones and river stone runes in the old leather bags on the silver plate as well.
On the other side of the table his father’s ceremonial tools were laid out, including an athame that was made by his great grandfather. The dish, bowl, simple working blade, three seals – one of iron, one of wood, and one of silver, all round and ornate – and the hanging bell were all where they ought to be. There were small, clear vials, one of blessed virgin oil, another of blessed water, and the last was blessed alcohol. If he didn’t know which order they were to be placed in, he wouldn’t know which was which, but it had been drilled into him. The wand, a simple branch, was not there, nor should it be – Maxwell knew that it was buried with his father, wherever he lay.
With bated breath, Maxwell drew the oldest thing on the table out of a folded cloth. The athame had a finely carved bone handle, featuring a doe’s head on the hilt, and a silver-plated cross guard. The blade was finely crafted iron, and the oiled cloth was meant to keep it from air and rust. He held it up in the light and inspected it closely. The seven-inch blade was still as fine and rust-free as it should be, evenly coated in oil. He picked up an old machine oil tin and slowly re-coated the blade over the cloth, then sheathed it in the scabbard beside.
“Now, let’s see what condition your big brother is in,” Maxwell said. He turned to the shelf behind him and opened a lacquer black, long case. Red velvet padding held a long sabre with a silvered basket in its fine black scabbard. It was a Weaver’s sword, and it had been used to defend the Circle from Purifiers once in England. He picked it up gingerly, even though the scabbard was heavy, a quality made to be carried into battle with the sword. “All right, killer, let’s see how you are,” Maxwell said, shuddering at the memory of fencing lessons, something he managed to get out of after two years. The thick blade gleamed in the light of the bare bulb, the oil coating on the metal adding to the shine. “Your coat is good for another year, I’ll fix you up later.” He slipped it back into the scabbard and closed the case.
Kneeling down, Maxwell opened another black box, this one was made of stained wood, not nearly as precious, and looked at the amulets beneath. A few were in velvet bags, the rest were made of cheaper, sturdier stuff – old iron or heavily varnished carved wood. He pulled the dark blue bag he was looking for up and shook his head. “Never thought they’d get this on me,” he said to himself, drawing a two inch wide silver circle out of the bag. He could still recall his bitter disappointment at receiving it for his sixteenth birthday. Bernie was promised car insurance, and the opportunity to drive, but Maxwell got a fine silver amulet instead.
The pentagram was the main feature of the piece, with carefully crafted protection symbols, two of which were marks passed down through his family, the serpent on the left side of the amulet and the doe head on the other.
“Here we go, almost wish the old man was here to see this,” Maxwell said, standing with the silver chain in his hand, the small amulet dangling from his fist.
“We are the wardens,
walk without fear.
We are the weavers,
act with knowledge.
I am young and proud,
wisdom will come.
Humbled by this token,
service is my lot.
Ancestors,
lead me through wilderness.
Light ones,
guide your instrument.
As it is right in light,
so may it be.”
Maxwell put the chain on, pulled his hair out from under it and looked at how it fell on his chest. “No adjustment necessary,” he muttered. “Like he knew.” He pulled an iron symbol, a circle with three roughly made hands coming together in the middle, out of the box and closed it.
“Time for the rest,” Maxwell said, scarcely glancing at the books on shelves that stood a few inches from the walls. There were five trunks at the back, all locked. He unlocked the middle one, a giant made from thick wooden slats and heavy metal strapping with his two-tined key and pushed the heavy lid open. It creaked on its hinges, the inside stopped at ninety degrees so it served as a surface to affix knives and an old German Luger pistol to the top. The trunk smelled of oil and frankincense.
He took a well-used leather scabbard from inside the trunk, and unstrapped a blade with fine serrations across the back and a slightly curved edge. He tested it against the cuff of his jacket, and the leather parted with the merest touch. There was a hollowed out section in the middle of the blade’s body with a silver insert inside. Symbols made to ward off dark spirits and turn the eye of the enemy were etched into the insert, and the hilt was decorated with the same symbol he wore around his neck.
He slipped it into the scabbard, buttoned it shut, then tied the knife to the scabbard again with a leather thong. He took a small collapsible shovel from the trunk then closed and locked it. Maxwell looked along the books, all neatly sorted on the shelves. So many were hand-written, bound with care. He could remember many of the family grimoires, all uniquely bound to last centuries, that his father used to teach him history, spells and old languages. Most of what was on the thick shelves were from families whose lines came to an end, those were of great interest to collectors. Maxwell found a space for the one he’d taken back from Hammond and carefully slipped it in. That particular grimoire belonged to an individual practitioner who claimed to summon spirits to do his bidding. His descendants were alive, but refused to admit any attachment to the man, so the grimoire had value, but family to search for it.
He found what he was looking for, the grimoire belonging to the Lamonts. Maxwell brought it down and opened it on the far end of the table, away from the altar objects. He looked for the ceremony he needed quickly, but was careful with the parchment just the same. They were a good family, and became very powerful in France because every generation there struggled to have sons. Each eventually did, until the last generation was killed when their ship was sunk. They had plenty of daughters, however, and the alliances that they made through them over hundreds of years gave them great wealth and power. He was happy to see that his father had finished translating most of the pages: Maxwell’s French was terrible. Each of the translated pages were sandwiched on archival paper between parchment leaves in the book, with a full English version of what was on the page.
Maxwell compared the iron symbol in his pocket with the drawing in the book and nodded with satisfaction. “Might just be able to get rid of this shard after all,” he said. “High milk? This requires high milk? What is high milk?” he asked himself as he read the next paragraph. “Hope I don’t have to fight something for it,” he muttered as he reached over for a book published in the modern style, with a square glued binding, and flipped through the pages. “Oh, that’s easy,” he said after reading the description of high milk. “Guess milk that pure was harder to make in the Lamonts’ day.”
Maxwell returned the Lamonts Grimoire to the shelf and used the basement exit, a narrow door that moved out of the wall entirely and into the hidden hallway on tracks to allow a person to pass, to leave. The door could only open from the inside, from the outside it sealed into a paneled wall, a finished part of the main house’s basement that served as an extra bedroom.
The basement was quiet, even though there were cots set up for children down there for a sleepover that would be an epic
event for anyone under thirteen. He made sure the storage room at the other end was locked, as was one of the bedrooms where they kept antiques when there were more visitors than they could keep track of.
Maxwell continued upstairs and ignored two older people, one in a baseball hat who looked irritated, and another in a suit who matched the trio he kicked out of the library. The latter tried to stop him by repeating; “young man,” over and over again, louder each time.
Max went to the fridge and took a couple single serving cups of cream, then turned on the taller, old man in the suit who was hounding him across the first floor of the house and stared him in the eye. “What?”
“You were very rude to some old friends of mine a moment ago, and I’d like you to apologize to them. It is only appropriate.”
“Can you get Hammond to apologize for trying to steal one of my father’s books? One of the last books he fetched for him?” Maxwell looked to the kitchen table, where Miranda’s aunt Gladys had joined the Bridge game. She put her hand down slowly as she observed him. “Hammond owed my father twenty eight hundred dollars for the book, didn’t happen to have it on him, so I took it back for safe keeping.”
“He was a customer of your father’s for a very long time,” explained the older gentleman. “You didn’t give him a chance to-“
“Hammond wasn’t in my father’s will, and the note he left didn’t mention any payment, so he doesn’t get his book. I’m wondering if he should ever get it, in fact. It happened to be a book filled with experiments no one here would like to see repeated, research into imprisoning spirits, creating barriers that Old Ones would be attracted to so a Summoner could try to communicate with them. What’s an old car dealer like Hammond going to do with that? Imprison a few spirits so he can trade with an Old One? Bring a little good luck his way? A nice young wife, or good business?”
Dark Arts Page 10
