Sorcerer

by Greg F. Gifune

  “Jeff, is that you?” Mr. Hope asked.

  “Something terrible has happened!”

  “Calm down. What’s going on?”

  “Wychek’s dead,” he said, blurting the words but trying to keep his voice down due to the amount of people passing by. “He’s dead.”

  “I want to be certain I heard you correctly. Would you repeat that please?”

  “Wychek. Is. Dead.”

  “Dead, you say?”

  Jeff wiped rainwater from his face with his free hand, looked out at the street and pressed the phone tighter against his ear. “Yes,” he hissed. “He threw himself out a fucking window.”

  “Excellent work, Jeff.”

  “What?” Jeff spun back against the building. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “You’ve successfully completed your first negotiation. Unfortunately, I just don’t see it working out for you here at International Facilitator, Inc. Your lack of enthusiasm in this situation clearly shows you don’t possess what it takes to become a permanent member of our team.”

  “A man is dead!”

  “Yes, how marvelous. Be that as it may, I’m afraid I’ll have to terminate your employment with us, effective immediately. However, I am a man of my word, Jeff, and I do plan to live up to my end of our bargain. You will be paid for your efforts today, as promised, and the compensation will grant you what you asked for, financial independence. Meet me at the offices and payment will be arranged.”

  “I don’t want your money, I want answers!”

  “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”

  The line clicked and disconnected.

  “Mr. Hope? Mr. Hope!” Jeff snapped his phone shut and tried to clear his mind. He was soaked to the bone and his heart was crashing against his chest with such force he was afraid he might actually be having a heart attack. He slumped against the building, and despite his trembling hands, managed to flip open his phone and hit redial.

  “The number you have reached is not in service,” a pleasant recorded voice announced. “Please check the number and try again.”

  Jeff closed the phone and dropped it into his coat pocket as he fought back tears of anger, shock, frustration and disbelief. “This isn’t…this can’t be happening.”

  He turned, and there on the corner, watching him through the rain, was Ernie Graham.

  -10-

  If the sight of Jeff hurrying in his direction alarmed him, Ernie Graham showed no signs of it as he stood statue-still in the downpour. When Jeff was within reach, he grabbed Graham’s arm and squeezed tight, not sure if he’d intended to hurt him or if he was only hanging on for dear life. “You,” he snarled. “What do you know about these people?”

  He stared at him dully. “What people?”

  “Don’t fuck with me.” Jeff turned and started them both down the street, hand still clamped on Graham’s arm. “You told me to stay away from Jessica Bell. You said you heard things, saw things, knew things.”

  “You’re hurting my arm.”

  “Tough shit, start talking.”

  “Where are we going?”

  As they reached the first alley they’d come to, his question was answered. About halfway through, Jeff spun him around and pushed him against the wall. Ernie slammed the bricks, grimaced and began to cough.

  “It didn’t have to be you!” Graham said. “It could’ve been somebody else!”

  “What does that mean?”

  He doubled over and coughed harder until he hacked up a big ball of phlegm. “It didn’t have to be you,” he said again, spitting it out. “You could’ve been kinder to me, you—”

  “I tried to be kind to you.”

  “No,” he said, wiping his mouth, “you tried to get rid of me.”

  “What do you have to do with all this?”

  “Your wife, she was kind to me. Eden was kind. Eden is kind.”

  “I told you to leave my wife out of it. Eden has nothing to do with this.”

  He laughed, his chest gurgling. “Wouldn’t you say she’s your life?”

  Jeff hadn’t expected the question, and it took him a moment to answer it. “Yes, of course.”

  “Then she has everything to do with it.”

  “She doesn’t even know anything’s happened.”

  He nodded in agreement. “And she never will.”

  “Tell me what you know.” Jeff raised his fists. “Or so help me I’ll beat it out of you.”

  “I’m not the one you need answers from. Talk to Hope.”

  “Who is he? Who is he really?”

  “I don’t know.” Ernie’s bloodshot eyes blinked rapidly in the rain. “I only know he’s using magic…black magic…whole lot of black magic.”

  “You can’t really believe that.”

  “You’ll believe it soon enough.” He smiled his brown-toothed smile.

  Jeff brought his hands to his head, ran them through his drenched hair.

  “Could be you already do,” Ernie went on, “but you’re just too scared to admit it.”

  “What do you mean when you say it didn’t have to be me?”

  “You’ll understand…eventually.”

  “No,” Jeff said, lunging for his throat and pinning him back against the alley wall. “No, you’re gonna tell me now.”

  Ernie struggled to break free but couldn’t. “You’re choking me, I—I can’t breathe!”

  “Tell me what you meant, you fuck!”

  “You should’ve stayed away from them like I told you,” he said, gagging. “If you did they would’ve found somebody else and none of this would’ve touched you or your life.”

  “How are you involved in this? Are you in on this with them?” He choked him even harder. “Are you one of them?”

  “No,” he gasped.

  Jeff released him. Ernie’s legs gave out and he slid slowly to the ground, finally plopping down on his behind in the middle of a puddle. He crawled onto his hands and knees and struggled to get up but didn’t seem to have the strength. The rain kept coming, pounding them down. “I’m just a man,” he said, weeping suddenly. “I made some mistakes but I’m a good person. Why do I have to live like some piece of trash in the street? I don’t deserve this. I never hurt anyone. What did I ever do to anybody? What did I ever do to you?”

  Ashamed, Jeff looked away.

  He punched the ground, splashing at the puddle with his fist as his body bucked with emotion. “No one gives you anything in this life! You have to take it! Even if you don’t want to, there’s no other way! Life leaves us no choice but to rip it away from somebody else so we can have ours! It’s the nature of things, our nature!”

  “No. It’s a lie someone like Foster Hope relies on us believing, because without it he’s powerless.” Jeff stumbled away, head spinning.

  When he reached the mouth of the alley, he looked back. Ernie Graham was on his knees, head back and hands reaching for the sky as if to grab hold of something only he could see, some sliver of peace and salvation perhaps, promised by veiled and forgotten gods no longer believed in, safely hidden away in storm clouds and concealed by a relentless rain.

  * * * *

  Nothing seemed real anymore. The world took no particular notice. It just kept churning, bustling all around him as he moved through the city streets, another lost soul barely cognizant of the driving rain. All he could think about was Foster Hope, those horrible emerald eyes, the white hair, the lined face, the big false teeth, and then he’d fade to black and Steven Wychek would take his place, terrified but surrendered to the inevitable as he launched himself through the plastic-covered window and plummeted to the alley below.

  The brownstone…

  Jeff stood across the street. If they’d already vacated the building he certainly wouldn’t have been surprised. He’d actually expected to find it empty. Regardless, he’d been drawn there. He’d dismissed his desire to simply return home or go to Eden’s office and take her out of there and explain to her what
was happening and why together they needed to leave the city and go somewhere else, to put this madness behind them like the bad dream it was and move on with their lives. They’d find jobs, a safe place to live in a quiet little town, maybe have a couple kids and have real lives, real love…peace…

  He crossed the street, climbed the steps and tried the door. It opened.

  Once inside, he continued on to the reception area, his eyes slowly adjusting to the lack of light and bringing everything into eventual focus. The sound of rain softened, but the same annoying dripping sound echoed along the hallway. It smelled musty and old here, as if nothing alive had moved within these walls in a very long time. Rather than going into the meeting room, this time he followed the hall to the rear of the building instead.

  Like a tunnel, the dark hallway turned and emptied into a large open room that looked almost like some sort of old ballroom. It was large, with high ceilings, no interior walls, old hardwood floors, plaster walls and a ceiling marred with age and littered with spider web cracks. Void of furniture, it was completely empty but for someone kneeling in the center of the room, rocking slowly in the shadows. He couldn’t be sure if it was a man or woman, as they were wrapped from head-to-toe in a sheer dark cloak, like an ancient burial shroud.

  Jeff remained in the doorway. The person’s whispers, the cadence like prayers or chants, bled across the open space, but they seemed unaware of his presence. Even when the familiar clacking sound of heels hitting the floor broke the silence and Jessica Bell entered the room from a door on the far wall, the person continued rocking, head bowed and undeterred.

  As she crossed the room in her business suit, towing a suitcase on wheels behind her, he saw her nude and atop him in the hotel room, her breasts wet with perspiration, her hair a tangled mess, her legs tight against his hips as she bucked and rode him, her hands pressed flat against his chest and her eyes wild and alive and burning with the crazed passion and fire of a woman possessed.

  She stopped a few feet from him, looking almost pleased to see him. “Jeff,” she said, “what are you doing here?”

  “What do you think I’m doing here?”

  Jessica smiled, and he felt himself stir. “Same as the others, looking for answers you won’t find, not here anyway.”

  “Why do you do these things to people?” He struggled even now to resist her, but the woman dripped sex. Disgust filled him. There, with the lust. “Why are you a part of this?”

  “Like the card says, we’re just facilitators.”

  “Of what?”

  “Human frailty.”

  “But why?”

  “Why not?”

  “What do you possibly gain from all this?”

  Her arrogance resembled that of any great predator, one completely confident in its invulnerability. “You can’t figure out if you want to fuck me or kill me with your bare hands,” she purred. “Deep down, you want to do both. Don’t let it tear you up. Truth is neither of us can help it. A mouse to cheese or a moth to flame, it’s no different. It’s the way we’re wired.”

  “Does that help you sleep at night?”

  “I suppose it would if I slept at all.”

  Jeff ignored his fear and motioned to the shrouded person with his chin. “Who is that?”

  “Doesn’t matter, aren’t you here to see Mr. Hope?”

  He nodded.

  She cocked her head toward the far side of the room and the door she’d come through. “Afraid I can’t stay, got a plane to catch. Things to do, people to see. Business is booming. But then, our business is always booming.” Jessica winked, strolled by him then stopped. “If it makes you feel any better,” she said without looking back, “it was never really about you.”

  The sound of her footfalls and the plastic suitcase wheels rolling along the floor resumed then grew fainter until they too fell silent, as if absorbed by the building itself. All that remained was whispers and the incessant dripping.

  Jeff walked across the large, open, windowless room, taking a wide path around the shrouded figure. But when he was within reach, the woman—he could tell now that it was female—jerked her head up from prayer. The cloak slipped free of her head and fell down around her neck, revealing a hideously pale and sunken face, the skin so withered it seemed nearly mummified. Where her eyes should’ve been were two empty black sockets, remnants of blood and fluid still staining her cheeks like war paint. Horrified, Jeff took a step back.

  The woman’s lips—thin, taut and bloodless—parted and her whispers became a frail voice. “Is someone there?”

  It was impossible to tell how old she was, but the woman was more than likely middle-aged. Or had been…

  “Are you there?” she asked, hands reaching out in darkness. “I can…I can hear someone…please… won’t you help me?”

  Jeff swallowed. Hard. “I don’t know what to do.”

  The woman’s head swiveled back and forth, trying to pinpoint the exact location of his voice. “Please, they’ve left me here and I don’t know what’s happening. There’s been some sort of mistake, I…I’ve been praying but...”

  Jeff brought a trembling hand to his mouth. A pair of black glasses with unusually thick lenses lay at the woman’s feet. “Ms. Gill?”

  “Yes,” she said, nodding furiously. “Do I...Do I know you?”

  “What has he done to you?”

  “I don’t know, but I can’t see. Please…” Her withered hands reached for him again, the fingernails torn free and the skin beneath sewn closed with thick leather-like thread. The far door creaked as it opened slightly. Jeff and the woman both turned toward the sound, but she began to groan in horror as she fell to her side and curled into a fetal position. “No, oh—oh no—don’t…”

  A scratchy sound echoed through the room from just beyond the door, a stylus dropped into the groove of an old record album. A keyboard intro was followed by a haunting guitar riff, and as the eerie vocals kicked in, Jeff realized someone was blasting Iron Butterfly’s classic rock epic In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

  Jeff headed straight for it, stopping just before the cracked door. He reached out and pushed, swinging the door open wider. The music, deafening now, spilled out from a turntable and stereo system inside the narrow room. Standing in the shadows was the tall man. Dressed in the same black suit, white shirt and skinny black tie, he seemed oblivious to Jeff’s presence, stood pencil-straight and swung his long arms up and down to the beat of the song, above his head then down behind his back in slow arcing motions, snapping his fingers and lolling his back and forth as if his neck had broken. The look of abject sorrow he’d had prior was gone, replaced with a blank, emotionless expression. Eyes closed, he continued to dance, arms swinging. Jeff noticed a desk against the wall to the man’s right, a cloth spread out across the top upon which numerous items had been placed. A closer look revealed a neat row of various medical utensils and instruments of torture and mutilation. Most were pristine and shiny silver, but a few were stained with blood and other fluids, as well as small chunks and slivers of what was probably human flesh.

  Sitting just beyond the tall man, in the far corner of the room, was Foster Hope. The old man was slumped in a rickety wooden chair; head bowed and chin touching his chest as if in sleep. He too seemed oblivious to Jeff’s presence. Though he wore the same suit and tie, this time he looked different.

  Hope’s hands, resting in his lap, now resembled those in Jeff’s dream, the manicured fingernails replaced with long, thick, bone-white talons that seemed better suited to the paws of a large jungle cat than the hands of a human being. His white hair was a bit mussed but it wasn’t until he slowly raised his head and turned to Jeff that the other changes became evident as well.

  “Christ Jesus,” Jeff whispered.

  The old man’s eyes were no longer a brilliant emerald. The lenses had been removed and all that remained were solid black orbs, moist, inhuman, disturbing inky pools. His lips parted and curled up into a hideous smile, the large false t
eeth gone, replaced by bloody, diseased gums he slurped at with a black and forked reptilian tongue.

  Jeff felt his legs give out but he caught the edge of the desk at the last moment and leaned onto it, preventing himself from collapsing to the floor. Mind reeling, he stared at Foster Hope, wanting to turn away but unable to, his vision blurring and becoming watery.

  Just off the room was a bathroom, the door open. Propped across a shelf above a large sink was a human head, eyes gouged out, mouth slashed wide into a freakish and Joker-like grin. Several others lay in a heap on the dirty tile floor. Blood plopped in a slow, steady rhythm from scraps of flesh that had once been a neck down into the sink, and though the music made it impossible to hear, Jeff now knew the source of the incessant dripping.

  Everything in his being told him to run, but his body refused to respond. Shaking, he held tight to the desk until his vision slowly returned to normal.

  The tall man fell still. After a moment he noticed Jeff for the first time. Eyes never leaving him, he lifted the arm from the record and the music stopped. The dripping sound returned as he rolled the instruments up in the cloth, tucked them under his arm then strode back out into the large room. The shrouded woman began to scream, and as Jeff looked back over his shoulder he saw the tall man dragging her by her hair across the floor and out into the hallway. He put his hands to his ears and fell across the desk. “Stop it, for—for Christ’s sake, stop it!”

  The screams grew softer and were eventually silenced. Foster Hope sat grinning and staring at him with his onyx eyes throughout.

  Jeff struggled back to his feet, clinging desperately to whatever scraps of sanity he could still claim, and saw that somehow the old man had returned to his previous state. Perhaps he’d never really changed at all. Or perhaps Jeff had only really seen Foster Hope as he truly was for that one horrifying instant.

  “So good to see you again, Jeff,” the old man said. He rose from his chair and closed the bathroom door, emerald eyes sparkling as he smiled brightly.