Dark Arts

by Randolph Lalonde

  “No, you’re not,” Miranda said. “You need to join us, especially now. You need our help.”

  “I need to get as far away from everyone as possible,” Maxwell said. “I’ve brought misery and death home with me, and I don’t want to see the worst happen.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me,” Miranda said, picking up on his inference. “I’m not going anywhere, and I’m going to get you initiated tonight if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Maxwell cocked his head and fixed her with a look.

  “Poor choice of words,” she said. “But you’re coming, buster, and you’re going to watch as we take you in and work you through all the trouble you’ve found.”

  “We’ll see,” Maxwell said.

  “Max?” Scott said as he almost passed by the door. He stopped and turned into the room. “Everything okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Maxwell told him. “Cops just wanted to check my knife and ask if Zack had a history with drugs. They’re moving their investigation on.”

  “Okay, good. Wait, why are they asking about Zack?”

  “He cut himself a bit, they’re taking care of him now. His family doesn’t want us anywhere near him, so just stay near April’s room when he gets out of surgery.”

  “It’s that bad?” Scott asked.

  “Looks like, but pay attention to April, she needs you more than Zack will,” Maxwell said.

  “Was it the same guy who got April?”

  “They told me it looks like he did it himself,” Maxwell said. “Wouldn’t say anything else. We’ll figure it out at the farm, all right?”

  Scott looked stunned, his normally carefree visage etched with worry and an emotional weight he’d never carried before.

  “Focus on April,” Maxwell said. “Zachary has his people.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I will. Listen, I have to tell you something,” Scott said. “When I picked up your bike at the crossroads I felt something. Bernie had dropped me off and was on his way back, so I was alone for a minute. Before I knew it, I was kicking up dirt, and I saw the seal you left on top of the Dawn Shard. I didn’t even know you left it there then. Man, I wanted to pick up the iron seal and get the Dawn Shard in my hand, I could hear my grandmother telling me to do it, but then there’s the rule. Demons lie, so I reburied it. Thank the light you left the seal there, Max. If it wasn’t covering the Shard, it would be in my pocket right now.”

  “Did you disturb the seal at all? Do you know if it moved?” Maxwell asked.

  “Maybe a little, but I didn’t dig past it, just enough to see it.”

  “How many voices did you hear? Was it one that changed, or more than one?”

  Scott thought for a moment, looking at his hands in his lap. “Definitely more than one. At first I thought I was gardening with my grandmother, she’s been gone for ten years though.”

  “Okay,” Maxwell said reassuringly. “Don’t worry about it, everything’s fine. I’ll just make sure the seal is still there, maybe work a little harder in laying it down.”

  “I’m sorry, Max,” Scott said. “I hope this isn’t because I let something out.” He stood up.

  Maxwell hugged him. “In all this, I know one thing for sure: you’re not the cause, you’re part of the solution. Full stop, mate, you’re the good sort, through and through.”

  XIV

  The faces of his crying mother telling him; “We’ll get you the help you need,” and his stoic father at the edge of his bed barely penetrated the heavy haze Zachary Ross was in. His eyes needed drops, the nurse in white who put them in did so with terrifying speed and accuracy. She appeared with her applicator, the moisture dripped, then the pads went back in.

  “We’ll have to keep his eyes covered for the time being, you can hold his hand if you like,” she told someone in the room.

  A wet hand took his, squeezing a cross into the palm. It was a comfort in the thick darkness, except for the weeping. Across the murk in his mind, most likely the result of more drugs than he’d ever take on his own, expertly administered by the hospital staff, no doubt, that weeping rolled in like a sad mist over his calm.

  The thick chunk of meat in his mouth would not move, his body was too heavy for any motion. “We’re going to keep him sedated for a while,” the white nurse-terror said an instant before all his mental pictures faded and he was embraced by the relief of sleep.

  “Well, you’re in a real spot, Zachary, I’m not going to lie,” a warm, low voice said.

  He opened his eyes to discover that the drugged haze was gone, and he was completely fine. The sheets were tucked in firmly around him in the hospital bed, and he was curtained into a space with a window overlooking Ramsay Lake. “I feel fine,” Zachary said.

  A glance at the gently grinning gentleman in a pristine suit standing two feet from his bed, and the memory of his own hands cutting his lips, his nose, his eyelids and more away came back. “I couldn’t stop, I cut my own dick off.”

  “Now, let’s take a moment away from the grisly details,” the Gentleman said. “I’m here to help.”

  Zachary looked his perfect hands over, touched his intact face, then checked between his legs and sighed with relief. “Was it a dream?”

  “I’d love to tell you that you took the brown acid, friend, and that it was all a bad trip, but I’m afraid I’ve taken you here. This is a space outside your mind, where I can help you create a space without distractions. You know, so we can have a little chat.”

  “Who are you?” Zachary said.

  “One of my favorite questions,” the gentleman replied. “I’m the man that’s going to turn tragedy into opportunity for you. Oh, brother, this is your lucky day. You got caught by someone that your friend brought into your life, and there was no mercy in that crossfire. Then again, I shouldn’t call him your friend at all, because friends don’t let friends get possessed, now do they?”

  “Panos, he took control, I, he, lured April away, and, oh my God!” Zachary said, remembering the torture of her, and being so afraid that he would start on Darren when he finished. He didn’t, but went home instead, and then Panos forced him to begin cutting himself. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I tried to stop him, but he had me from the inside.”

  “I know,” the Gentleman soothed. “It’s Maxwell’s fault. Panos wanted him, and couldn’t find a way in, so he took you and made you do all the dirty work. I’m sorry this happened to you, Zachary, really, I am. It’s time to move on, to make a decision about your future.”

  “What future?” Zachary burst. “Half my face is off and I don’t even have a pecker!”

  “Believe it or not, that’s not the worst part. You’re about to die without any guide to go by.”

  “I’m fucking Catholic! There’s a heaven for people who get murdered.”

  “Not only is there no guarantee of that, but everyone knows you could have fought Panos off if you really wanted to. He wore you down, took you unawares, sure, but something in you relished what you did to April. Taking power over someone else, making changes than no savvy surgeon could ever undo, and having your best friend, Darren, looking on because he didn’t have a choice either. Bah! Choice, you both had it, you could have kept fighting, but I heard you. I heard you screaming inside at first, then you cried, weeping for your dear mother to save you, then your God, then you just watched. You gave up until the knife turned on you.”

  “I didn’t like it!”

  “The method, the bench in that old house, the audience, the tools, no, you didn’t like any of that, but a part of you enjoyed the doing, the taking, the cutting. We’re two spirits here, do you think there can be any lies?”

  “April was beautiful!”

  “But not memorable,” the Gentleman countered, a twinkle in his eye. “Now anyone who sees her will remember, her face will follow them into nightmares, and that is remarkable, is it not?”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Oh, I’m here with the truth and that’s what I get? Are you and Maxwell
both made to be ungrateful? I suppose I’ll find out when I visit you in hell and wonder why you both turned me down. There is too much doubt in your mind to prove to anyone at the gates of the Grove that part of you didn’t like carving into poor April. I am the help you need, but no, both you and Maxwell slap my hand away.”

  “What? What help?”

  “You’re going to have to be more specific, because I approached Maxwell, and he could have prevented this,” the Gentleman whipped the curtain behind him aside, revealing another bed where a young man was covered in bandages. His right hand, his face, and there was obviously padding around his middle under the blankets. “Now I’m approaching you, and I’m getting the same message.”

  Zachary stared at the bed and knew he was looking at himself. A tube in his throat was forcing him to breathe, and a monitor that displayed each beat of his heart. He was alone in the dim light. “We’ve matched shoe prints from your son to where we believe your son assaulted a young woman who was admitted with similar injuries.” He heard an officer telling his mother and father in the hall. “We have to ask, does your son have a history of harming animals or keeping knives?”

  “My son is not a monster,” Zachary heard his father say. “How dare you insinuate that he could do this to anyone. This was drugs. He got high and did this to himself.”

  “I bet he hits Officer Tall-and-Handsome,” the Gentleman said.

  “I’m sorry, I interviewed and searched the young man you said provided your son with his supply, but there were no signs that he has engaged in trafficking. The doctors are telling us that there’s no evidence of drugs in his system, but they aren’t finished with their tests.”

  “Get out of here! Can’t you just get out of here?” Zachary’s mother wailed, slapping the shorter, older Officer.

  The pair of policemen stepped away, turned and left. “Whoa, was I off,” the Gentleman said, drawing the curtain. “Good thing I’m not a gambling man.”

  “If I never wake up, I’ll never be able to tell them,” Zachary said.

  “I hate to tell you, but in a few minutes the first of a bunch of blood clots are going to start roaming around. The first will hit your brain, and then your heart. Those surgeons did the best they could, but they could only do so much. We’re on the clock. Don’t pass on what I’m offering like Maxwell did.”

  “You offered Max a deal? What could you do?”

  “Oh, you could not imagine, so I’ll give you a hand. What’s the long note you like to hold on that song, Blazing High? Think you could sing it for me?”

  “What?”

  “Just indulge me,” the Gentleman asked with an inviting smile. “Close your eyes, start singing that note, and open them before you’re finished. It’ll make you feel better, trust me.”

  It was the last thing he felt like doing, but he was hallucinating, so he had nothing to lose. “Blazing high!” he sung as he’d done so many times before. “Sooo Hiiiiiiii” he continued, closing his eyes and extending the note.

  The world around him changed, he was standing, with a microphone in hand. The sounds of thousands cheering drifted up, and the band was playing that last note, Scott pounding a long drum roll, Bernie, Darren and Maxwell grinding the last note of the song. When he opened his eyes he was on stage, sweat running down his face, a full house in Boston Stadium, a place he’d only visited when it was empty. He could feel the excitement of the audience, people were trying to hold that last note with him, eyes beyond counting followed his every twitch and move.

  He held it longer, mentally daring anyone in the audience to beat him, listening to the band’s roar around him, supporting his voice. Then he was out of breath, and he leapt up. The final note of the song burst and ended as his feet landed on the stage.

  Just as suddenly, he was in the hospital again, a machine breathing for him, a monitor tracking his heart, and bandages covering his face. Zachary was back in the dark, the Gentleman’s comforting voice in his ear. “He said no to a dream that would have taken you with it, to glory, to fame, to riches and success beyond anything you’ve ever dreamt. That is what Maxwell cost you, even before this. Now you are about to die, and your spirit will wander without my guidance, so I’m here to offer you a deal.”

  Zachary could feel his mother at his bedside again, squeezing his hand, the cross between their palms. Her head was down on the back of his hand. “Tell me you didn’t do it, Zack. Just wake up long enough so you can tell me you didn’t do this to that girl.”

  “I can offer you three choices,” the Gentleman said. “You die, a soul in the wind without direction. I save you so you can see what life brings before I take you into my arms when you die. The recovery will be painful, they’ll put you in front of a judge, and they’ll convict you of attempted murder. They won’t find enough drugs in your system to say it wasn’t your fault, and a psychiatrist will find you sane, so they’ll put you in prison like this – without lips, without a nose, and missing even more than that. Then there’s the last choice, you let yourself die, and I take your hand in mine. I live a life of true privilege, and every once in a while I find a soul with such a lust for life, with such charm and potential that I can’t resist. I have to make my best offer to take you on, teach you the wheeling and dealing trade for souls, and get you working for me. You want details? Good. I teach you how these deals are made, how to charm people into giving them such a sweet time that they gladly trade their souls for it. Then you go on your own for a while, use my power to help spread the love, and take a crop of souls for me that will make Lucifer and Peter weep. You’ve got it in you, kid, I can feel it. I don’t want to watch your soul get pulled off across that dark plain, so I’m going to dumb down the fine print for you too. You are mine until you trade for seventy souls under my supervision, using your cunning, your charm and my goods. Then, with all that you’ve learned, and the power you gather – and there will be power, traders like us always find the best things when we make the most of what people abandon for us – you will be free to make your own destiny. Who knows? Maybe we keep working together, and we find a way to shake down those pearly gates. You can always find someone who is willing to make a deal. It’s paradise for a pittance, or you can suffer. Become a bitch to someone in the wastes of the afterlife, or in some prison cell. You give your mother’s hand three squeezes if you’re down for option three.”

  Zachary’s mind was so muddied that all he could feel was his mother holding his hand, and the breath of the Gentleman against his ear. The pain was numb, but still there enough for him to know that he was damned to suffer through life if he chose it. He squeezed once, and rushed to the second.

  His mother’s head came off his hand. “He’s awake!” she shrieked.

  “The doctor said he was sedated,” his father said. “It’s not possible.”

  “He squeezed my hand two times,” she countered. “He’s awake.”

  “That’s two, champ,” the Gentleman said. “Give me one more, and it’s a done deal. An ‘A’ grade training program, safety in the afterlife with me, and power waiting for you at the end.”

  “I know you can hear me,” his mother said. “Stay with us.”

  The thought of dying on his mother, of not having a chance to tell her that he had no control over himself when he cut April and himself was almost too much. Telling her that something had him, that he had been possessed would be a gift to her. It was something she believed in, she was no rainy day Catholic, but a woman who went to church and believed. He could convince her that her son couldn’t hurt anyone like that.

  “But if you cut that girl, you can go,” his father said. He would never convince him. His father was as much a churchgoer as his mother, but he was strict, a believer in the wrathful God, and a world determined to destroy itself. What was worse, his father never believed in him. He would rather believe a policeman or a judge once someone told him that there were no drugs in his system.

  Zachary found the strength to squeeze one more time
, and he did so with vigor, crushing the crucifix into his mother’s palm hard enough to make her wince and pull away.

  The Gentleman patted him on the shoulder, and then he was standing beside the bed, looking down on himself as his body went into a violent seizure. “Well,” the Gentleman said. “If you can close like your father, you’ll do just fine.”

  XV

  Miranda led Maxwell to the bathroom in the main cabin, where she sat him down on the closed toilet and straddled his lap. He only suspected something strange was about to happen when he was through the bathroom door. By the time she was in his lap, straddling him and turning the sink’s hot water on, he was full of questions. “Sure you have all this in the right order, luv? I’m thinking we’re wearing a little too much clothing.”

  “I’m giving you a shave so we can get you ready for the initiation,” she told him with a smirk. “Tie your hair back.”

  He had never met a woman who could lead him by the hand like she did, but there was a certain energy when she was determined, and it was best not to fight it. He took a hair tie from the sink’s edge and pulled his hair back. “I’m pretty sure I can meet the spirits as I am,” Maxwell said. “Then again, this is one of the only things my father didn’t educate me on.”

  “They’re secrets for a reason,” Miranda said. She picked up a can of shaving foam from the bathtub’s edge. Beside it was a straight razor. “I think the only good thing that’s come of today is that we all remember why. Purifiers and circles that think there’s some point in competing with others would never leave us alone if they knew how we’re initiated.”

  “I was trained as a solo Weaver,” Maxwell said. “I know how to work with people, but my father didn’t expect me to for some reason.”

  “He didn’t believe you would ever have to,” Miranda answered as though it was something she had known as a certainty for a long time.

  “How do you know?” Maxwell asked.

  Miranda turned the hot water off and checked the temperature of the pool in the sink then piled some shaving foam in her hand. “Over the last year my aunt Gladys has been telling me all about you, and until I saw you a few days ago, I didn’t believe that we were going to get together for a second. Among many other things, she told me as much as she knew about how you were trained by your father, and she knew a surprising amount.” She used a brush to spread shaving foam across his face and smiled at him. “Tonight you’re going to get all the attention, and when we finally get time together we won’t feel like talking, but for the next few minutes, it’s Miranda time. I’m going to have a razor against your face, and I have a few things to tell you.”