Manic Monday: (Dane Monday 1)

by Dennis Liggio

  "Yeah, got that part," said Abby.

  "Let's talk about the historic person," said Dane.

  "Most of the writings from the era indicate Carmichael was a member of at least one of various secret societies at the time," said Alastair. "There were some ugly rumors at the end of his life, but that was the typical slander of those who don't understand. However, much of the modern occult community has reason to believe that Carmichael was a magus of some sort."

  "What reasons do they have?" said Dane. "Sounds like historic documents are vague."

  "There's a tremendous amount of occult symbology in his designs," said Alastair. "The sewer system is full of odd designs and extraneous tunnels. Carmichael's original blueprint for the tunnels is gone, and the city's current maps are missing a large amount of old tunnels. It's expected that if the original blueprint were found, there'd be significant patterns for occultists' eyes. The Terminus Hotel also lacks the original blueprint. Creditors called it over budget and bloated with extraneous designs - I believe that it is akin to the sewers and has a hidden purpose. I've only been the Terminus Hotel once, but something about the design felt different from typical architecture. However, I have not had a reason to revisit it to explore. But I believe as a magician and an architect, Carmichael found the melding of the two in his works essential."

  "And that's why we found the magic writing at Avalon's Hope!" said Dane.

  Alastair smiled and shook his head. "That's the one part I do not think was Carmichael's intention. While there may have been some of his usual occult in the architecture, I don't think the writing was his. It is not his known style and it doesn't make sense. Why trap yourself in one of your buildings? No, I believe the source of that writing is someone else. Namely, our old friend Victor Sargosso."

  "Victor Sargosso? Really?" said Dane.

  "Who's Victor Sargosso?" said Abby.

  "He was like the me of the 1920s and 1930s!" said Dane excitedly.

  "While I feel like that is a rather arrogant way to say it," said Alastair, "there's a great likelihood that is more true than false. Victor Sargosso was also an occultist among Avalon's high society. In addition to wooing many with his parlor tricks and hypnotism, he was often an outspoken critic of other magicians and budding scientists of questionable ethics. While we can't prove he did anything, often the newspapers' gossip section would note some harshly traded words or feud between Sargosso and the person in question, and a week later there'd be an account of their home or laboratory having a mysterious fire. It could be construed that Sargosso was stopping them."

  "Or he was a serial arsonist," said Abby.

  "A serial arsonist for justice!" said Dane.

  "Of course, we have no way of knowing for sure," said Alastair. "It's a theory, however. What's relevant to our discussion today is that Sargosso and Carmichael were known to have a feud shortly before Carmichael's disappearance. Supposedly Carmichael ranted at great length about how Sargosso 'undermined the values of all true men' and what a 'meddling charlatan' Sargosso was."

  "Meddling charlatan? That does sound like you, Dane," said Abby with a smile.

  "So you think it's Sargosso who wrote all the invisible text at the Avalon's Hope apartment?" said Dane.

  "There's an interesting quirk to the ritual, if I'm understanding it and the new writing correctly," said Alastair. "I don't believe that it alone would be enough to bind a living person, much less someone who had some occult power, which I expect Carmichael had. Instead it seems to key on the location having power over the victim. From what I've deciphered and referenced, the ritual requires a place of great emotional charge for the victim - one of the lines specifically calls out The place of his greatest failure."

  "And Avalon's Hope is Carmichael's greatest failure!" said Abby. "His model for the Avalon of the future, betrayed and belittled! It's probably where his fortunes began to change!"

  "Good going Victor Sargosso!" said Dane.

  "But that also means we can't do the same thing as Victor Sargosso," said Abby, the realization dawning on her. "Avalon's Hope is gone."

  "No wonder they wanted it destroyed," said Dane. "Alastair, were there any accounts of what magical powers Carmichael had?"

  Alastair shook his head. "He was part of societies and dabbled in magic, but there's no real indication of what he could do. It may have all been in his architecture. Most magicians are pretty harmless without Brass artifacts."

  "What about the statue?" said Dane.

  Alastair looked down to the statue on the desk in front of him. "It's Yage wood. Particularly the heartwood. Dense. A useful magical material for shaping and forming, but it's not nearly as magically conductive and useful as Avalon Brass. It would be very useful for getting someone out of a trap like Sargosso's and forming a new body, but not much else without alteration. Powerful, but limited. It carries quite a charge now."

  "Okay," said Dane, thoughts rushing through his brain. "Still not enough to know what Carmichael is doing. So let me ask you, Alastair. Say you're a villain."

  "I am most assuredly not a villain," said Alastair defensively.

  "I know, I know," said Dane. "But say you were. Say you wanted to destroy New Avalon. What's your play?"

  "I would have to do some research, see what is best suited for -"

  "No, no," interrupted Dane. "Off the top of your head. What's your play?"

  Alastair thought for a moment. "I'd open a rift in dimensions over the city. Someplace particularly infernal. Or perhaps I'd summon some archduke of Hell and possess some poor fool with it. Something like that. That's more my sort of thing. But I'm hardly Carmichael. I might be a traditionalist for this day and age, but I am hardly an architect from the 1920s."

  "Fair point," said Dane. "Just trying to get inspiration for what I'm going to do about Carmichael. That doesn't change my plan. Get into the hotel, figure out what's going on, confront Carmichael."

  "But how are we going to get into the building?" said Abby. "Not only do they have their own security, but I bet every officer in fifty miles is camped out around the building waiting for something to happen."

  "Oh, we're back to we?" said Dane. "So you're coming with me?"

  Abby said nothing, just nervously nodded. New Abby jumped up and down in victory.

  "You're right, though," said Dane. "I hope they're covering other contingencies in town too, but I agree it's going to be pretty hot around the hotel. Why hasn't Mad Doctor Romanov created some type of cloaking device I could liberate from his laboratory?"

  "Liberate? Is that the word you're using for it?" said Abby.

  "If I may, I believe I have the solution to your dilemma," said Alastair. "And it is available for a price."

  "What is it?" said Dane with a sigh.

  Alastair rose from his seat, walked over to a bookshelf and grabbed a wooden box. He sat down at his desk and placed it on the front edge of the desk near Dane. He removed the lid, revealing a shriveled gray object surrounded by packing material.

  "A Hand of Glory," said Alastair.

  "Really?" said Dane. "I've never seen one in person!"

  "What's a Hand of Glory?" asked Abby.

  "A Hand of Glory is a magical artifact," began Alastair, "created out of -"

  "A Hand of Glory lets you be invisible," said Dane, realizing Abby would not want to know what a Hand of Glory was made out of. Hands of Glory were candles rendered out of the flesh of a dead murderer placed in their shriveled, severed hand. "It's a candle that makes you unseen until it burns down."

  "According to myth, a Hand of Glory would render motionless all persons to whom it was presented," said Alastair, "and sometimes unlock all doors. A magic burglar's tool. But it actually just makes the holder invisible. I've guessed that the others are motionless because they can't see the burglar to stop them. Of course, that belies the source material for the object. Few burglars are willing to get the -"

  "It's pretty rare and hard to make," interrupted Dane, not wanting Alastai
r to reveal the true origin of the item.

  "It looks kinda like a monkey's paw," said Abby.

  "Actually -" started Alastair.

  "Yes, that's exactly it, a monkey's paw," said Dane.

  "That's kind of creepy," said Abby.

  "Right! Totally creepy. I mean, what's creepier than a monkey's paw?" said Dane.

  "Actually -" started Alastair again.

  "Nothing, right?" said Dane nervously. "So what do you want for this, Alastair?"

  "If you don't mind, this," said Alastair, using his hand to indicate the small statue from Avalon's Hope.

  "The statue?" said Dane. "Are you going to resurrect your own Carmichael?"

  "It intrigues me," said Alastair carefully. "I haven't encountered an artifact of this type before, so I would like to study it. It is of no use to you, correct?"

  "We can't use it to put Carmichael back in the box, can we?" said Dane.

  "The box blew up, remember?" said Abby.

  "She is correct," said Alastair. "And the statue would be used to remove Carmichael from his containment. Putting him in is a different ritual and I lack the materials for it at current time."

  "And this Hand of Glory works? For real?" said Dane.

  "If it fails and you make it back alive, I will give you a full refund," said Alastair with a smile.

  Dane shook his head. "That doesn't encourage faith. Oh, let's just do it anyway! It's the best option I have right now. Throw in some matches and you have a deal! I have an insane architect to thwart!"

  The Terminus Hotel

  A shadow was hanging over Old Avalon. The streets were almost empty. What few pedestrians Dane and Abby passed looked like they were possibly undercover law enforcement. This wasn't too surprising; if you worked or lived in Old Avalon and saw Carmichael's speech, you probably had decided to go see a movie elsewhere in town or picked today as the day to spend the night in a bed and breakfast just outside the Avalon basin.

  The air was tense as they passed through Old Avalon. The normally historic center of Avalon now felt like a ghost town, police vehicles were stashed down alleys and men with ear pieces were lounging in front of the tourist shops. Aside from the tourist gift shops and information centers, buildings in Old Avalon were some of the oldest in the metro area. Before the discovery of the mine, Avalon had just been a small town contained within the Old Avalon boundaries. When the mine brought a boom, the town expanded almost overnight. It could almost be said that New Avalon surrounded and swallowed Old Avalon. While the megalithic skyscrapers of glass and steel ruled Midtown, Old Avalon had older high rise buildings, a look more of stone and concrete. Outside of the Terminus Hotel, the buildings were tall but nothing like Midtown. Since the 1980s, historic preservation societies had descended on Old Avalon, injecting the area with money from affluent families looking to keep the traditional look of Avalon's heritage.

  There was a fair amount of police presence around the Mayor's mansion, but everyone's real destination was the Terminus Hotel at the center of Old Avalon. Its own marketing material, both in the 1920s and now, pitched it as the center of New Avalon itself, the axis on which Avalon revolved. After Carmichael's disappearance, it had been left incomplete and over budget. It was completed quickly and cheaply so it could be opened and some losses recouped. It had never become a huge success and the symbolic center of Avalon as it hoped to be. Now it did double duty as an opulent but outdated hotel and a well-protected historic site.

  Dane and Abby got a few looks as they walked toward the Terminus, but they were surprised at how those glances didn't linger. They expected to look wildly suspicious as they walked toward the hotel that supposedly housed terrorists. They realized why when they turned the corner and could finally see the hotel.

  "These people are idiots," said Abby.

  "They're just curious," said Dane.

  They had expected a large amount of police and government agencies. They had expected vehicles parked all over and a police cordon of the hotel. Those things were indeed there. But what Abby had now noticed with disappointment was that there was a crowd around the hotel. Not law enforcement. These were civilians. The police had even had to set up wooden barriers to keep the people away.

  Abby had expected to maybe see a few brave journalists pressing at the barrier for a story. But this was a much bigger crowd. It was full of onlookers, curious or fanatical, waiting see what exactly Carmichael did. They wanted to see his supposed death of Avalon up close. Abby wasn't sure if they were crazy or just wanted the experience of seeing it firsthand. But they weren't even the worst. There were also some of Avalon's doomsayers. She had seen them around before but was never sure if they were organized or not. For whatever reason, these unique residents of Avalon carried homemade signs saying that DOOM was nigh, always forecasting the end of the world. They were typically bearded and looked homeless, so nobody gave them any credence. They had shown up at the hotel probably because they wanted to be someplace where for once their predictions might be accurate.

  "That's going to be harder to get through," said Abby.

  "Once we're invisible, it won't matter," said Dane. "We'll just have to be good at dodging things! Have you ever played Frogger? It will be like Frogger!"

  Abby rolled her eyes. "Yes, I've played Frogger on my phone. This is nothing like Frogger."

  They pulled back around the corner, out of sight of the hotel and standing in front of a closed tourist gift shop. Dane pulled out the Hand of Glory.

  "I think this is as close as we're going to get," said Dane. "I mean, we could join the crowd and get up to the barrier, but then it's going to be real obvious when we light the Hand. I'm more inclined to start invisible and just find a gap to slip through."

  "How long does the Hand last?" said Abby.

  Dane looked down at the candle embedded in the mummified hand. "You know, I really have no idea. I should have asked Alastair."

  "So I'm guessing we need to pay really close attention to that candle," she said.

  "Right!" said Dane. "It also occurs to me that you haven't quite experienced magic yet! Just The Goggles and Alastair's cat. Both of those are really just parlor tricks compared to the cool stuff. Are you ready for your first dose of real magic?"

  Abby shrugged. "As ready as I'll ever be, I guess."

  "Then here we go!" He lit a match, then moved it close to the candle wick but then pulled it back before lighting. "Oh right. We need to both be holding this. From when I light it until we end it."

  "That's going to be awkward," said Abby, grabbing hold of part of the Hand with a little trepidation. It didn't feel that strange, it was more like a tree branch or a corn husk, but she was a little creeped out that she was touching a mummified monkey paw. She stepped closer to Dane. She looked at their reflections in the storefront mirror, and they looked like the most awkward couple ever huddled together around a shriveled hand.

  "Alright, show time!" said Dane.

  He lit the wick. It sparked for just a moment then the wick carried the flame. A strange tingling sensation washed over both of them. Nothing else happened. Dane waved the match in the air to put it out.

  Abby looked up at Dane and then herself. "Well that seems like a bust."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I can still see us. I can still see you."

  Dane shook his head. "That's not how it works. Otherwise it'd be kind of a crappy invisibility spell; we'd be tripping over everything since we couldn't see our arms and legs. This spell was originally for burglary. Thieves need to see what they're doing. Look over at our reflection."

  Abby looked at the storefront window again. Now she couldn't see Dane or herself at all - she could see the store across the street in the reflection. Keeping her own hand on the Hand of Glory, she leaned closer to the window, searching for any sign of herself.

  "Okay, I admit that's pretty amazing," she said.

  "It's magic!" said Dane enthusiastically.

  Invisibility was an odd exp
erience for Abby. On one hand, it was rather fun to walk around unnoticed. She no longer had suspicious looks from the police officers, nobody seemed to be checking her out, and they could easily dance by any guards without worrying. On the other hand, it could be annoying. She didn't realize how often people stepped aside out of courtesy, how often people altered their own routes not to collide with her, and how much people respected her bubble of personal space. She found that invisible people did a lot of dodging, a lot of stepping aside, and that at times you had to be a contortionist when you found someone had just blocked you into a small space because they didn't even know you were there.

  At first she worried about the Hand of Glory. She sometimes had trouble keeping a candle lit even as she walked across her apartment, so she figured all their bobbing and weaving, all their quick sprints and sudden stops would blow the candle out. But she found that whatever magic made it work also seemed to render it immune to breezes and general air flow. She guessed whichever magic burglars who had originally invented the Hand of Glory had taken such things into account.

  They found a place where the crowd was thin and there was a small break in the barrier. The problem was that there was a fairly beefy police officer standing there with his arms crossed. Generally Abby was very happy to see Avalon's finest around, as it made her feel safe, but this was one time she really wished they were less efficient. As her and Dane stood near the barrier, wordlessly waiting for an opportunity, Abby internally wished the guard away. She wasn't sure if it was her wishing or coincidental luck, but a few moments later, the officer's superior called him over to ask a question. It was only five feet away from the barrier; close enough that nobody could have snuck through the gap. Nobody visible, that is; Abby and Dane quickly slipped through and within ten steps found themselves beyond all the police.

  Now there was only the entrance plaza and the doors. The entrance plaza was where Carmichael had given his press conference and appeared to be the unofficial no-man's land between the police and those inside the hotel. Once through the barrier, there was no one between it and the hotel.