When they finally reached the fireplace there was only the meanest semblance of a fire amid the grey ashes in the hearth. The blackness swallowed up the remaining goblins with the sickening sound of viscous death. Of the brilliant fire-lit ceiling, nothing was left, only crushing darkness.
“Go. Now.”
Rusty’s command left no room for negotiation. Freya stepped into the dying fire and immediately felt as though she were slogging through the gelatinous mire of a swamp. The sensation was completely different from the effervescence that had ushered her into the cavern. She could see the great room of Rusty’s lodge beyond the final few feet of bluish soot, but it felt as though she were drowning as it became harder and harder to move toward the safety of the lodge.
Freya summoned up every last ounce of strength she had and dragged her protesting legs through the nearly impenetrable space of the hearth, the air around her growing more opaque by the second. Finally, as she pushed forward one last time she felt the open air hit her outstretched fingers. It was the little jolt of hope she needed. Her foot found a toehold and with a strength she was certain she would never be able to summon again she launched herself forward.
Freya greedily gulped the air in Rusty’s great room as she lay prostrate on the floor, relief flooding her body. But the respite was short lived as the sounds of frenzied escape rocketed Freya’s consciousness back to the nearly extinguished fire and the giant of a man attempting to push through the now virtually solid wall of darkness it was leaving in its wake.
Freya stood quickly. The hearth was almost entirely black, but she could still make out Rusty’s tortured face in the petrifying gloom. Up until this point his eyes had held only resignation in grim recognition of his fate, a man at the mercy of family tradition and runaway power. And as much as Freya connected with him in that feeling of dutiful obligation, a small part of her had hated him for living his life that way, for mirroring her own acquiescence to fate and circumstance. Now though, at the most improbable time, she saw in his look not compliance with the inevitability of his imminent death but defiance. As the blue-white flames of the goblin fire died, an equally powerful fire had caught hold in Rusty’s soul.
Freya could see his hand nearly at the margin between his lodge and the hearth. She knew if he could just feel the lightness of the air there, he, just as she had done moments before, could muster the strength to escape. Not knowing what else to do, Freya made a tight fist and drew back her elbow. Then, she launched her knuckles forward and into the dense blackness of the hearth. Her hand almost immediately came to a stop but she pushed it forward, tensing all the muscles in her shoulder and core until the tips of her fingers found Rusty’s outstretched hand. She grabbed ahold and pulled.
For a few agonizing moments nothing happened; then, with a disturbing sucking noise, the darkness let go of Rusty, discharging him inelegantly onto the floor. He nearly toppled onto Freya who had been thrown backward with the abrupt retrograde momentum his sudden expulsion had created.
They both lay there for a few moments, side by side, their chests heaving. It took Freya awhile to realize that still clutched in her left hand was the queen’s horn, a brilliant blue souvenir of the last mad hour of her life. Happy tears sprung to her eyes and she smiled. She wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she had a feeling that wasn’t how the story had been meant to play out. A plot twist. It was exactly what she needed.
Enoch folded his arms tightly over his chest as he cowered in a grimy alcove near the entrance to the Vestiges Club. It was a bleak October night and unseasonably cool. He sighed and his breath turned into clouds of vapor that mingled with the smoke from his cigarette. He took another drag, inhaling deeply, holding it down in his chest for several long moments. He tapped the ashes away and checked the time on his cell phone. It was eight o’clock. Another minute and Travis would be late.
As Ophidia’s chief steward it was his job to procure her meals when she was at the club, and she had made a special request for Travis. It had been surprisingly easy to convince the Parnassus barista to meet him. Enoch had tracked him down at the café, and it was clear the guy remembered Ophidia. Vividly. At the mere mention of her name Travis had started untying his barista’s apron, ready to abandon his shift to meet her. He had seemed disappointed when Enoch told him they wouldn’t be departing then and there. Just in case, Enoch had thrown something in about her being a gallery owner interested in new talent. He had noticed all the art on the café walls had Travis’s name on it. It’d be nice for the kid to think his art was getting noticed before Ophidia made him her dinner. Happy souls are sweet souls, after all, and he thought Ophidia had been feasting on one too many dark and brooding types lately.
Enoch took one last drag of his cigarette before flicking it to the ground and crushing it into the cracked pavement with the toe of his John Varvatos boot. He was starting to get that itchy feeling under his skin. The longer this jerk took, the harder it was going to be to save him for Ophidia.
He heard Travis’s footfalls before he saw his shadowy form approaching out of the gathering mist. Enoch sighed and rubbed his hands together. He smelled good, this Travis, like talent and potential and youth. The itch under his skin prickled annoyingly. He tried to ignore its persistent signal that dinner was right around the corner. Ophidia wouldn’t be happy with him if he ate the kid he was supposed to be providing for her, and he didn’t want to get fired. He’d just gotten promoted. Being a soul steward was a big deal, and he was becoming accustomed to all the extra attention he got when he told people he provided first-class souls to the most powerful demons in Seattle.
“Enoch, hi.” Travis’s voice seemed thin in the murky night. “Man, am I glad to see you. This area of town freaks me out. Are you sure we’re in the right spot?”
Enoch composed his features into what he hoped was a reasonable facsimile of reserved interest while he pushed the demon pacing just below his skin as far down into the black pit of his viscera as possible. It was time for this deadly dinner date to begin.
“Of course we are, hon. It’s not supposed to look like anything special. That’s how they keep the riffraff out. Now, come closer. Let me take a look at you. I have to make sure you’re not a mess or they won’t let us in and then there go your chances at seeing Ophidia again. Maybe scoring a big time gallery show.”
Travis stepped forward into the noxious yellow light of a lamp affixed to the brick wall.
“There’s a good boy. Do me a little spin,” Enoch said.
Travis cocked an eyebrow, wondering if he was serious.
Enoch was growing impatient. He didn’t want to face the consequences if he was late with Ophidia’s dinner, and with fresh meat this close he was struggling to maintain the thin veneer that disguised his true nature.
The tension choked the affectation from his words. “Don’t give me that look. This place is the real deal. I can’t have you as my guest unless you meet certain standards. That’s how the game is played. Understand?”
Enoch was sure Travis heard the edge in his voice, maybe even perceived his heightened anxiety in the tightness of his smile, but he turned around slowly in the gloom like a jewel box ballerina anyway. It made Enoch squirm. Ophidia must be in the mood for the human equivalent of veal. It was one of Enoch’s favorite flavors as well. Something about the way the ambition suffused the tender, most succulent parts of an aspiring youth. The demon inside shifted dangerously and Enoch quickly refocused himself on Travis’s attire.
He wore skinny jeans and a black blazer, clearly cheap knock offs of designer brands, and the red bow tie around his neck was satin not silk. But in the half-light of the club he thought the kid might pass.
“Alright, I guess you’ll do.” Enoch shrugged.
“Oh good!” Travis said. “I’ve been agonizing about what to wear.”
“I’m sure you have.” Enoch meant for the comment to be encouraging but it came out more snidely than he would have liked. “Let’s get going. It�
�s getting late.”
Enoch turned sharply and opened the grimy metal door set into a deep recess of the crumbling warehouse. He stepped inside, and held the door for Travis who hung back apprehensively.
“Come on in, sweetie,” Enoch said with a grand flourish of his hand. “We have business to attend to. The Vestiges Club awaits.”
Travis seemed to gather his courage and strode into the decaying café with as much bravado as he could manage. Enoch slung a casual arm over his shoulders and led him through the dingy coffee shop. The only light in the dark windowless space came from a row of three ancient pendant lamps shaped like overgrown and upturned censers. They might once have been quite elegant, but their purplish stained glass was grimy, and masses of cobwebs hung like filthy cotton candy from the intricate metal detailing that attached lamp to ceiling.
The rest of the space was a clutter of mismatched tables and chairs strewn about the bowed and creaky floorboards haphazardly. The place was deserted except for the gaunt barman behind the ancient oak counter and a miserable wretch, easily overlooked, crouched in a threadbare armchair in the darkest corner of the dismal space. The man stared vacantly down at the ground, fingers digging into the ragged upholstery.
Enoch glanced at the lost soul. He’d seen many people like him. They called them dregs. The Vestiges Club was a like a drug, and its high was well known to a surprising variety of Seattleites who had earned their membership through a rigorous vetting process that ensured the new member’s absolute discretion and the club’s continued exclusivity. It was one of the few places where the inhabitants of the real world and the Verge met openly. But strange things happened to humans who spent too much time in the company of daydreams and nightmares.
At first it was fun and exhilarating, a chance to live out fantasies and desires that would be impossible to pursue in real life. But you had to remember to leave, to return to reality. Otherwise, you might become like that sad living skeleton in the corner, a wasted junkie addicted to an ephemeral world of imagination. Humans could only be among that many inhabitants of the Verge for so long before the evanescence of a realm built from stories ate away their connections to reality. The descent into madness for these people was swift and permanent.
Enoch looked away. No time for philosophizing now.
“Good evening, Mordecai.” Enoch greeted the bartender, dipping his head in a quick bow.
“Evening,” the man replied, his voice a deep baritone.
“Can I have the key?” Enoch asked.
“Depends. What’s the deal with him?” Mordecai said, thrusting his stubbled chin in Travis’s direction.
“He’s here as my guest. We have business with the lovely Mistress Ophidia.”
Mordecai eyed the pale student warily from beneath his heavy brow. The poor kid was nervous as all hell, but he was trying hard not to show it. The skeletal man’s piercing eyes weren’t exactly putting him at ease.
Seemingly satisfied, Mordecai grunted unceremoniously and reached under the counter. When he righted himself, he held what looked like a lowercase letter m in his hand. The last leg of the letter extended down and then up in a rounded arc capped by a triangle, like a curved arrow.
“Hey, that’s my sign,” Travis said.
Enoch looked down at the heavy metal symbol in his hand. It was a dark graphite color and studded with opal cabochons.
“Oh, you’re a Scorpio?” Enoch asked.
“Yeah, my birthday is next week.”
“Well, happy birthday.” Enoch couldn’t even feign a smile. This was one hell of a birthday present. “C’mon, we need to go. Ophidia doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
They walked to the back of the café where a nondescript door stood slightly ajar. Enoch pushed it the rest of the way open and stepped through. Travis followed hesitantly behind him. The pair entered a brick courtyard surrounded on all sides by a crumbling arcade. Their shoes clipped noisily in the empty space, the echoes making it hard to tell just how many pairs of feet were advancing across the misty close. The effect was always unnerving, as though someone might be directly behind you or a few paces ahead, hiding in the shadows of the arched porch. Enoch was used to it by now, but he could tell Travis was spooked.
“Enoch, where the fuck are you taking me?” Travis whispered.
“It’s just a little ways ahead. See that?” Enoch gestured toward a doorway with a gate that looked like it might have been modeled on a medieval portcullis. The wide crisscrossed iron bars created a threatening checkerboard across the pitch-blackness beyond.
“Jesus Christ, this better be worth it,” Travis said. “When you said we were meeting this woman for drinks, I had envisioned something a little more, you know, normal.”
“Normal doesn’t get you a gallery show,” Enoch said. “Just stay close and keep quiet. Understand?”
“This is messed up,” Travis mumbled under his breath, but he nodded his head and edged a little closer to his guide.
When they reached the heavy gate, Enoch grasped the metal key that Mordecai had given him with both hands. A solid vertical plate ran down the center of the metal grid. It was divided into twelve squares and each quadrant contained a single astrological symbol identical in style to the one Enoch held. About three quarters of the way down was an empty square with the outline of the m-with-arrow design that symbolized the darkest sign of the zodiac. Enoch reached out and carefully placed the key into the hollow. With a sharp click it slid perfectly into place. A series of metallic snaps and clunks indicated the workings of some kind of elaborate mechanical system unlocking, and the vertical panel containing the now-complete zodiac slid up and out of view into the rough-hewn wooden mantel above. Then the two halves of the portcullis parted, each retreating into a hidden pocket worked discreetly into the wall.
Travis’s eyes were wide and his mouth agape. The look on his face was a mixture of awe and terror. Enoch had felt the same sense of bewilderment the first time he’d been invited to the Club and seen the elaborate entryway, but he hoped he’d appeared slightly more sophisticated than this poor rube. He had to admit that even now the gate made his pulse race just a bit. It was dramatic, certainly, hinting at the excesses just beyond, but it was also practical.
The inhabitants of the Verge were wary of humanity. They understood the fickleness of the human heart and the contrivances the mind will come up with to justify capricious actions carried out courtesy of the primitive firings of the ancient amygdala. Hence the secrecy of the club, the carefully controlled membership and the heightened security. But once you gained admittance, the Vestiges Club repaid a member’s perseverance and promises in kind. After all it was a place where fiction rubbed sensually against reality; the tension was erotic, exciting and well worth the effort and the dangers.
He grabbed hold of Travis’s arm in a gesture that was part tender, part commanding and led him down the narrow brick hallway beyond the gate. The floor here was composed of irregular travertine tiles of deep, marbled gray, like a stormy sky. The walls on both sides were rugged oxblood bricks. The only light seeped through the cracks and crevices of a slatted wooden ceiling casting angular swaths of light across their path and creating jagged patches of murky darkness.
The effect was subtly luxe and more than a little threatening. It suited the Vestiges Club perfectly.
A pulsing rhythm filled the air as Enoch strode confidently through the tight space, ushering the young artist down the hall and out onto a wide landing. Travis inhaled sharply, and the corners of Enoch’s mouth curled gently up at the edges in a faint but genuine smile. They stood at the summit of a magnificent staircase that rivaled the Opera Garnier’s grand escalier in sheer lavishness. The stairs were bone-white marble with lacy veins of black crystal that seemed to float over the steps like a gossamer spider web. On either side was a substantial onyx railing from which sprouted elaborate candelabras each aglow with the light of more than a dozen dripping tapers.
The scene on the sprawling
floor below was magnetic. The pulsing rhythm from the hallway had blossomed into the hypnotic beat of a driving bass with edgy, echoing overtones. In the middle of the space a tiered stage rose like a grim wedding cake from the cobwebbed floor. On it dancers writhed by themselves or together, their bodies twisting and throbbing in mesmerizing harmony. On the topmost tier a single dancer pulsated, her body a study in elegant agony as two figures held each of her wrists, bright red pools forming at the sides of their greedy mouths. From the ceiling just above her a wickedly shimmering chandelier glittered in the dusky light. Enoch had been told it was made from the bones of a great serpent, and it was easy to imagine the twisting vortex of ribs and spine crowning the room having once supported the flesh of some great monster.
Below the dancers, a motley crew of humans and creatures gathered. Dressed in what might best be described as decaying finery, they appeared gracefully feral like attendees of some Belle Epoque ball corrupted by the vicissitudes of the opium den. Among them strode vampires and demons of all sorts along with humans who delighted in the beautiful danger of nightmares come to life. Everywhere there was leather, lace, skin and ribbons, dark jewels and sleek fur. The place vibrated with a kind of wild intensity held only minimally in check by a semblance of decorum left in place more for atmospheric contrast than any real effort at restraint.
Enoch’s contact high faltered when his eye fell upon the red velvet screens lining the edges of the room that cordoned off the private tables from the rest of the club. Called carapaces, the spaces were reserved for Vestiges Club VIPs. And it was in the largest one that he knew the most powerful demon in Seattle now sat. She had a reputation for impatience and ruthlessness that he didn’t want to test. He knew with one swipe of her powerful claws he would be dead. He also knew that if she was in the mood to be a spectator she could simply command the amassed demons to do the dirty work for her while she watched. He knew because he’d seen her do it before. It was why the club stewards were so highly paid.
On the Verge Page 11
