Black City Demon

by Richard A. Knaak

  There hadn’t been much time for me to consider Joseph. I should’ve felt guilty, at least for Barnaby’s sake, but Saint Boniface was of more immediate importance to me.

  I slipped out of Claryce’s apartment. Not at all to my surprise, a long, lanky, four-legged form slipped out of the shadows nearby to join me.

  “Thought you were staying all cozy in the Wills,” I muttered to Fetch.

  He swallowed. Something the size of a rat slid down his gullet. “I got hungry.”

  “Of course. I’m heading to Saint Boniface.”

  “Without Mistress Claryce?”

  A clever one, that Fetch. “Barnaby’s bringing the Packard. He’ll be here shortly.”

  Fetch wagged his tail.

  The weather would’ve been much for any normal human, but as usual, the eternal heat of the dragon kept me warm. He said nothing, just made certain I was toasty. Still, I didn’t trust his obliging nature. He was up to something. I was certain of it.

  Of course, he was always up to something.

  Barnaby drove up. A short distance behind him, I saw another Packard pull up with longer lines and a few more miles on it. All that could be seen of the second driver was a newsboy cap and turned-up coat collar that obscured the face.

  “I trust I didn’t keep you waiting?” Barnaby asked as he climbed out.

  “As usual, you managed somehow to get here faster. You’re a regular Peter DePaolo.”

  “Thank you, but I don’t think I’ll be entering the Indy Five Hundred too soon. Not with my stiff joints.” The brief moment of levity faded away. “Master—Nick—do be careful. I don’t know where you’d be heading at this time of night in this weather, but I’d guess it’s not pleasant and it’s something to do with my Joseph.”

  I wasn’t sure of the connection to Joseph, but he was probably right. “Thanks for the concern, Barnaby. Don’t worry. I’m resilient. You know that.”

  “Resilient, but not invincible. You are, if I may say so, a very mortal saint.”

  I decided to change the subject. “Who’s your ride? That’s definitely not your Runabout, and that’s certainly not ‘Des’ O’Reilly.” Something that’d been bothering me a bit, since I’d helped his friend out with a “ghost” problem during Oberon’s return, finally came to the surface. “Or is it Bobbie like you slipped when I first met him?”

  “You caught that.” He looked sheepish. “I knew I’d done that, but hoped you were too occupied.” A sigh. “The driver is just one of my mechanics. He just thinks we’re delivering a car to a special client. Nothing to fear from him. As for Des . . . his real name’s ‘Bobbie’ O’Hanrahan, but he hasn’t used it since . . . since Harrison was shot.”

  “Harrison?” The name meant something to me, but I couldn’t say just what.

  Barnaby grimaced. “Mayor Carter Harrison Sr., Nick.”

  Mayor Carter Harrison Sr. Five-time leader of Chicago. His son’d gone on to do the same, but when one spoke of Mayor Harrison, he or she spoke about the father. Harrison Sr. had been assassinated just into that fifth term, supposedly by a man who believed the mayor’d let him down on a promise of a position in the administration.

  I knew a little more about the assassin, a man named Prendergast, but only because, like the Leopold and Loeb kidnapping case last year, he’d been for a time represented by a much younger Clarence Darrow. Darrow hadn’t known of me during the Prendergast trial, but in the process of dealing with the secret Feirie elements of the Leopold and Loeb case, I’d gone through the lawyer’s older files. At the time, something about Prendergast had caught my attention, but I couldn’t recall what it was other than it had to do with his supposed madness.

  “All right,” I finally replied. “What’s Bobbie O’Hanrahan got to do with the assassination that’d make him stay in hiding for decades?”

  “You won’t find his name on anything official since nothing could be proved, but there was those that marked him as the assassin’s cohort. They were drinking buddies, that’s all. Bobbie—Des—wasn’t involved in what Prendergast did, but the senior Harrison, he had a lot of influential friends, not to mention some kids with long memories. When Junior became mayor, there were suddenly cops all over the place again—cops off duty—looking for any trace of ‘Bobbie’ even though it’d been nearly twenty years. They didn’t find him, but now it’s only ten years since Junior left office, so there’s still danger.”

  It didn’t surprise me that even Barnaby’s most innocuous-looking friend could have a troubled past. I sometimes wondered if the Gate drew such together. Either way, I didn’t see it as being of any significance to what we were going through right now—

  Then, I remembered just when Mayor Harrison’d been assassinated.

  The year 1893. Only a couple of days before the end of the exposition.

  I really wanted just once to believe in coincidence. I wanted to . . . but failed again.

  Trying not to grit my teeth, I asked, “And Des had nothing to do with your . . . dabblings?”

  He was quick and, as I read it, honest in his answer. “None.”

  I made a mental note to look up the assassination, Prendergast . . . and Barnaby’s suddenly intriguing friend. First, though, I had to get to Saint Boniface. That meant dropping the subject of Des O’Reilly—or Bobbie O’Hanrahan—until things got calmer. “Thanks for patching up the Packard.”

  “Thank you for Joseph.”

  I thought I’d gotten the much better end of the deal, but held back out of respect for Barnaby. With a nod, I left him for the Packard. As he turned, I watched him head to the other vehicle and its well-wrapped driver. There was nothing to hint that his companion was anything other than someone wanting to keep warm, but I couldn’t help abruptly wondering if I should check and see whether Barnaby’d begun dabbling in the arts again. For the first time in six years, he’d seen some spark, however unsettling, in his son. I prayed I was wrong, but I suspected that he was hoping to capitalize on the effects of the Frost Moon’s wake in order to bring his son back to his full faculties.

  Fetch was already in the Packard. As I climbed inside, I asked, “You have any idea just how long we still have to worry about the wake?”

  “Nay, Master Nicholas! It would take one with a fast mind for intricate calculation! Oberon himself gathered five wise ones centuries ago just to see when the next Frost Moon itself would take place in Feirie! Calculating the strength and length of the wake after would be a task very few could handle, especially alone.”

  I started the Packard. “A very analytical mind?”

  “Couldn’t be a flat tire or a dumb Dora, no sir!”

  “No. I suppose not.” As I drove off, I considered the type of mind he’d suggested. I’d delved enough into these matters over the centuries to appreciate just how complex such calculations could be. I knew Fetch wasn’t exaggerating.

  However, I also knew one mind that’d been more than capable of calculating something as tricky as the Frost Moon’s influence during and after. One of very clever if twisted beliefs.

  Joseph, of course.

  It was still dark when we neared Saint Boniface. I took out my pocket watch and checked the time. More than three hours until sunrise . . . or at least a lessening of the darkness.

  I pulled over near the same spot I’d used when visiting Clarissa’s grave. Saint Boniface was closed, of course, but that didn’t matter to us. I climbed over the fence, then waited for Fetch to leap after me. After a short debate with myself, I left Her Lady’s gift in its safe place, then headed toward her grave. Fetch faithfully followed, proving that no one’d yet dealt with the earlier intrusion by Feirie. This part of the cemetery was still tainted.

  There was no reason to think that Clarissa’s last resting place had anything to do with the enigmatic message I might only have imagined I’d been given by Michael. For all I knew, I was on a wild goose chase.

  The wind howled as I bent by Clarissa’s stone. I thought about some of the others I�
�d buried before. Clara, who lay interred in New York. Clouette, who hadn’t been permitted a burial because there’d been no body ever recovered from the Moselle River.

  It had never been lost on me that all the names followed a pattern, with some having more similarities than others. Thinking of Clouette made me look up in the direction of the other stone, the one belonging to the incarnation I’d never known.

  I left Clarissa for Claudette. With each step, I hoped her ghost might reappear and tell me what, if any, purpose she had in remaining.

  “What are you doing back here, Georgius?”

  Diocles. Punctual as usual. “Following a possible lead. From a maybe saint.”

  “The archangel?” Diocles spoke with some awe whenever Michael was brought up. As a deathbed convert, he had a bit more reverence for things than I did, even after centuries condemned to haunt yours truly.

  “The maybe something,” I retorted quietly. There was no point in asking him to leave, so I did my best to ignore him, however fruitless that’d been in the past.

  Kneeling by Claudette’s grave, I tried to imagine her as I’d seen her that brief time. It wasn’t hard to picture her face; it was always a close variation of the same face. Instead, I focused on the details of her clothes to add to the strength of my image.

  Still nothing happened. Exhaling, I touched the stone in silent apology to Claudette.

  Fetch let out a low, almost imperceptible growl.

  I looked up . . . to see a tall, strongly built figure near one of the other graves. There was just enough illumination from a nearby lamp to enable me to make out a Negro maybe a few years older than Lincoln the horn player and dressed as neatly as someone going to church. By my judgment, his coat was too thin for the weather. He also had a bowler hat in his hands and was eyeing a larger headstone shaped like a cross.

  To the best of my knowledge, he’d not been there a few moments ago. I supposed I could’ve missed him, but even if I had, Fetch had strong hearing.

  “Stay here,” I whispered to Fetch. Standing, I quietly and calmly approached the figure. If he wasn’t another ghost, he had a lot of explaining to do.

  I’d barely gotten halfway to him when he looked over his shoulder at me.

  “Greetings, sir,” he commented in a deep, smooth voice. “You gave me a bit of a start.”

  He didn’t look at all startled. “Didn’t expect to see anyone here,” I answered. “You know that the cemetery’s not open.”

  That earned me a slight nod. “Makes it nice and quiet to visit loved ones, my father would say.”

  “Your father . . . name of Michael?”

  “Yes, sir. You know him?”

  “Depends. Is he a shoeshine custodian for the police?” I shouldn’t have been so flippant in a cemetery, but I was growing tired of whatever game was being played on me by the maybe saint.

  “Father’s had a number of occupations over time, but yes.”

  “So, where is he? Wasn’t he supposed to come here with you? A mutual friend said so.”

  “I’m here, sir.”

  Not the clear answer I wanted. I tried to remember what I’d been told by “Michael” the first time we’d met. “You the son studying at the Institute?”

  “No, sir. I did my studying overseas. The three hundred sixty-ninth. Harlem Hellfighters.”

  I knew about the 369th, which’d consisted mainly of Negros and Puerto Ricans. They’d fought on the front lines as long as, if not longer than, many other regiments. I’d met a few of the survivors at the jazz clubs on the South Side. They’d been a pretty medaled regiment.

  “So you were a soldier.” I thrust a hand out. “My name’s Nick. Yours?”

  And, of course, he didn’t disappoint me. “Michael. Named after my father.”

  “‘Michael.’” I decided not to play any more games. “Saint Michael, is it?”

  He laughed. “If I’m a saint, so are you, sir! I’ve seen a lot of things no saint should see! Wish I could turn back time and change that. You’d think a saint could do such a thing, wouldn’t you?”

  Apparently I wasn’t being blunt enough. “Are you or are you not Saint Michael the archangel?”

  Instead of answering, he knelt down by the cross. “You’d think a saint could also protect those around him, but that’s not possible. All he can do is the best he can and pray it’s enough.” He brushed dead weeds from the headstone. “Shame how they don’t keep things up the way they used to. Sometimes, I wonder that the dead just don’t get up and walk away out of dismay.”

  “Listen, Michael—”

  Chuckling at his own comment, he glanced past me. “Hmmph. Looks like one already did!”

  I quickly followed his gaze . . . and then quietly swore.

  Sure enough, by the time I looked back, Michael was nowhere to be found.

  I ignored the dragon’s own sarcastic laugh as I took a peek at the headstone. It wasn’t some fallen fighter from the 369th, but instead that of another soldier lost during the Civil War. The German surname was in keeping with Saint Boniface’s origins—the cemetery had opened in the midst of the war, which meant this was one of the first burials—but there was nothing else to hint at why this particular grave should mean anything. Of course, Michael’d always been considered the ultimate soldier, so maybe he’d kept an eye on this poor devil.

  If so, he hadn’t evidently done the man much good . . . which didn’t ultimately bode well for me.

  Only when I turned back did I realize that Fetch had never budged from where he’d been when Michael’d first appeared. His tail hung between his legs, and his ears twitched in a sign of wariness.

  “You see him vanish?” I asked.

  “Nay, Master Nicholas. I blinked . . . and ye were alone.”

  “Yeah.” I was only half paying attention. What he’d said toward the end suddenly made some sense when I looked past Fetch. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten the empty grave; it was just that I hadn’t put it high on my list, what with everything else. I certainly hadn’t forgotten the Wyld I’d battle here. Now, though, I understood that perhaps that encounter had had something to do with the events surrounding the Frost Moon’s wake.

  There was no sign anyone’d seen to the grave since I’d fallen into it. That bothered me. I hadn’t had a chance to see if there’d been any story in the Trib about grave robbing, but even if there hadn’t been, I would’ve expected them to at least cover it up. Instead, it was still open. I could only think that maybe the weather’d prevented that from being done.

  Maybe.

  There was nothing in the grave but the same piles of loose dirt left by the struggle. I didn’t know what I’d thought I’d seen. Something.

  And so, that left only the tombstone. Of course.

  There wasn’t much in the way of weeds in front of this one, but there was some ice and snow. I could still see enough to be puzzled by the fact that there wasn’t any date. Just a name, with a symbol below it. I didn’t care about the symbol. Instead, I made a fist and slammed at the hardened snow over the rest of the front. The icy mix gave with a very satisfactory cracking sound.

  I brushed aside the rest . . . and although time had for some reason weathered this stone more than the others, enough remained legible for me to read. I couldn’t say I was at all surprised by the name on it.

  Dr. Alexander Bond.

  I quickly uncovered the rest of the face. The damage to the symbol was worse. I thought it looked like some sort of creature. A serpent, maybe, or—

  “The Beast’s risen. The castle stands again. The stronger the wake, the stronger both become. . . .”

  A shiver ran through me. I knew that voice . . . but she should’ve been safe and asleep in her bed in her apartment far from here. Not behind me.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Fetch. Fetch, clearly ignorant of the voice.

  “I’m so sorry . . .” the speaker softly added in the voice that sounded exactly like Claryce’s.

  I t
wisted around . . . and stared through her.

  A tear coursed down Claudette’s cheek. She gazed down at me in what I understood was fear . . . for me. “I’m so sorry . . . I tried. I tried, Nick.”

  She faded away.

  CHAPTER 16

  He answered on the first ring. I was both grateful and furious for that. Grateful I didn’t have to hunt him down and furious at all he’d hidden from me.

  “This is Kravayik.”

  I was back in the house. Seeing my mood after Saint Boniface, Fetch’d had the wisdom to jump out of the Packard as soon as we neared his home territory. As for Claryce, by now there was a good chance she’d woken up and found me gone. There’d either be a phone call or a visit, neither of which I was prepared for just yet. Right now, I could only focus on the voice on the other side of the line. “No kidding! How long’ve you been back at Holy Name?”

  A pause. “Barely an hour, Master Nicholas.”

  “Anything from your hunt?” I knew he hadn’t just gone for a walk after leaving us.

  “No.”

  I tried a hunch. “Did you go back to where the Beast used to have his lair?”

  “Yes. There is nothing.”

  “It doesn’t look like it did back during the exposition?”

  “No.”

  That crushed one theory. I’d been almost certain that whatever magic Bond yielded had enabled him to recreate H. H. Holmes’s Murder Castle.

  Thinking of the maze, another question came to mind. “Kravayik. I was trapped in a maze in some building. There was an elf. One of Oberon’s supporters. He was being used to feed whatever spell was taking place. There was another husk there, and I’ve seen an eviscerated corpse. What’s really going on, and does it have to do with this Lysander?”

  He didn’t answer at first. I could imagine his mind calculating just exactly what to tell me and how to relate it. I’d dealt with Feirie minds for sixteen centuries, so he knew I was ready for whatever convoluted tale he intended.

  And that, I guess, was why when Kravayik answered, he spoke as plainly as I could imagine one of his kind able to manage. “I do not know Lysander’s part in this, but I do not believe either of these you mention were him. Lysander would not so easily become prey. If anything, I suspect that the one you mentioned was a fool named Polythemus.”