by Leod D. Fitz
“The point, Simon?”
“Well, for starters I can tell you that the guys you're hunting were originally Roman soldiers.”
“Great. How does that help?”
“For one thing it raises the question: what's a roman soldier doing keeping a journal in Greek?”
“They didn't speak Greek in Rome?”
“Well, yes, but only the upper class. See, Alexander the Great was big on making Greek the universal language of his empire, right? So, when the Romans started spreading all over the place, all of the old texts were in Greek, but there was no reason for the typical peasant or soldier to read old texts. That was the domain of the wealthy and powerful. That tells us that this guy was part of the upper crust. The differences between the average man and the wealthy is actually— “
Oh god, he was babbling. Time to get him refocused. “That’s fascinating, it really is, but how is it useful?”
My brother rolled his eyes. “Look, are you going to interrupt every ten seconds?”
I sighed and signaled for him to continue.
“Thank you. Like I said, Roman soldiers. They were, apparently, part of the same legion. Now, the guy makes several references to a beast. More than that, however, a chained beast. He talks about it in passing, not a lot of specifics, but he talks about the compulsions laid on him by the chained beast. That in and of itself isn't that helpful, but he also talks about dreams he has of returning to the mountain where he met the beast and removing its chains. It's a recurring dream, every night for over a thousand years. The author travels a lot, and wherever he happens to be, he has this intense dream of traveling from there, across oceans, over mountains, etc, etc, back to the mountain. Now, like I said, he has the dream every night, so he doesn't mention it too often, but I was able to put together all of the references and triangulate where the mountain is.”
“Really? That might be useful.”
“More importantly,” he continued, pointedly ignoring my interruption, “once I knew the mountain in question, I was able to do some digging into its history. It shows up in a dozen different myths going back for pretty much as long as people have lived in that part of the world. The oldest myths I found center around the creation of the mountain. Apparently, it's not a mountain at all: it's a burial mound.”
I raised an eyebrow.
Simon grinned wildly. “I know, right? The details of the story have changed over the millennia, mostly when new religions or cultures move in. The long and short of it, though, is this: there was a terrible king, or demon, or wizard. He killed, raped, pillaged, forced people to worship him, and/or made himself into something more than human. Or less than human. He came into possession of dark magics, or the names of demons, or a coven of witches. Whatever he encountered, they provided him with the knowledge of an ancient ritual, which, of course, he performed. Some versions say it required the sacrifice of pretty much all of his people, other versions say he killed and devoured his own children. Whatever the details, all of the legends agree on the outcome: he became a true immortal. He started a new religion with himself as god and began expanding his power, brutally murdering anyone who stood in his way.”
“Why is it that in all of these stories the people who run empires have to go around brutally murdering everybody?” I queried. “You never hear about the dear, sweet kings and queens who loved their people and tried to make the world better for everybody.”
“Of course not. People don't rise to power by being sweet and kind, Walter. They rise to power by stepping on all of the sweet and kind people around them. Plus, kind happy monarchs just don’t make as good of stories as lunatics and psychopaths.”
I considered that for a moment, then gave a grim nod of acknowledgment.
“Anyhow,” my brother continued, “something had to be done, so a neighboring kingdom went to war with him, then another, and another, until soldiers from all over the world were pouring in. After years, or decades, or centuries, he was finally defeated. But nobody could figure out how to kill him. So they had a great blacksmith create unbreakable chains and unpickable locks, and they chained the immortal to some kind of special rock with either a hundred, a thousand, or possibly just twelve chains. Then they built a mountain around him to contain his evil. Now, the important thing is, each of the chains has its own lock, each of the locks has its own key, and each of the keys was given to one of the soldiers from one of the armies that had come to battle him, and in that way, the keys were spread across the known world.”
“Those are the keys that they're looking for.”
My brother nodded. “That's my guess, yes.”
I opened my mouth to ask more about the keys when something occurred to me. “Wait… but the diary was talking about the mountain, not the tomb, so he probably wasn’t part of the army that helped entomb the… whatever they entombed, right?”
“You mean the chaining of the beast? Yeah, that happened in... I don't know, time immemorial. The guy who wrote the diary turned up centuries later. Maybe millennia. See the locals, they knew to stay away from the mountain. The stories might have shifted over the centuries, but the tone of them sort of stayed the course. 'Stay away.'”
“One would imagine.”
“Anyhow, I looked into the Roman soldiers next. I had two pieces of information, the where: the mountain, and the when: the time period when Rome was sending legions out that way. Based on that, I started combing through some databases looking for stories and legends that fit.”
“You can do that?”
Simon grinned. “If you've slept with the right archivist, you'd be surprised what you can do. She sent me a collection of stories, which I perused, and I came up with one that looks like a perfect fit.”
I nodded. “Fantastic.”
Simon opened his mouth to speak, but it turned into a long yawn. Simon shook his head vigorously. “Sorry, got kind of caught up in all of this.”
I nodded. “I appreciate it.”
“So, the story was written by a couple of the locals. They don't have all of the details, but they tell the story of this little legion of Romans, hell and gone from home, who pick a fight with one of the local badasses. They get the ever-living shit beaten out of them. Pretty much a slaughter. The last couple of legionnaires are being chased down so that the guy they pissed off can have them tortured to death. They're running and running, hounded by the enemy, finally they stumble across this mountain, and they find a cave to hide in. Whether they didn't know about the legends that surrounded it, or didn't believe them, who knows, but they hid there. Surprise, surprise, the guys hunting them stop short of chasing them in. They surround the area and wait. They figure, you know, if they don't die in the caves, they'll be out soon enough.”
“Sure.”
“Well, they were right. The next day, around daybreak, the last couple Romans emerge. And they fucking slaughter the guys waiting for them. And not just those guys. They head back to the local badass who just killed the rest of the legion. They kill him. They kill his family. They kill his soldiers, servants and slaves. They kill his friends, his neighbors. They kill EVERYBODY. Well, not everybody, obviously, otherwise who could have written the story? But they kill everyone associated with the guy they got in a fight with. And then they leave.”
I nodded. “Okay. Good info. Now all I have to do is figure out how I can possibly use it.”
“Okay? I just spent, like, thirty hours looking all of this shit up and I get an 'okay?' How about, maybe, a thank you?”
“Oh, right.” I clapped my brother on the shoulder. “Thanks, buddy.”
Simon glowered at me.
“Thanks a bunch?”
My brother rolled his eyes, which I took to be his way of saying 'you're welcome.'
“Okay, I guess I'll take the notebook back, then.”
“Are you kidding? I'm barely halfway through it. And there's a lot of stuff that I have read that I still need to figure out the context for. I mean, seriously, I piece
d all of that together from maybe a half a dozen sections that I managed to connect on account of being so fucking brilliant. There's so much more still in there.”
I stared at my brother suspiciously for a moment. “You want to translate a copy so you can give it to mom next year on her birthday, don't you?”
Simon grinned. “It's a perfect gift, man! You know how much she loves old diaries and crazy shit like this!”
I sighed. “Fine, but try to pick up the pace. I'm probably going to have to give that back to its owner soon.”
Simon nodded and I headed for the door.
“Oh, there was one other thing.”
I turned back.
“He drew a sketch of what the keys look like.”
I blinked. “He drew a... you didn't think to open with that?” I hurried back over to where Simon was sitting. “Show me!”
My brother raised an eyebrow but flipped through to a page he'd marked with a small post-it marker.
It was obviously of an older design. There was nothing on the end to attach it to any kind of ring, just a flat metal piece to make it easier to turn. The head of the key, however, was ornate to the point of artwork. Whatever it opened had to have the most intricate locking mechanism I'd ever seen. The metal had been separated into what looked like threads which wound and braided together in intricate patterns, leaving small circular gaps within the middle of it. The threads themselves poked out, ending in small clumps and groupings reminiscent of the teeth you would see in a normal key.
It was actually rather beautiful, and, I suspected, would be absurdly difficult to reproduce accurately.
“You ever seen one of these before?” my brother asked.
“No. Pretty sure I'd remember that.”
“Well, if you do spot one, probably best to leave it be.”
I nodded.
Chapter 9
Back at the funeral home I took another lap around the place. Still no chimeras.
I relaxed for a moment, before it occurred to me that this might be a reason to worry more. They hadn't had any trouble finding out where I lived, how was it taking them this long to show up at my place of business? If I really had the key, wouldn't they want to see if I had it hidden at work somewhere? Especially since I owned the place?
But, whatever the reason, the nose never lies. I was sleeping in relative safety. I made sure that all of my doors had coffins in front of them before I headed to my office to take care of some paperwork. Before I got started, I checked my messages. There was one from a woman whose father was on his deathbed and one from some local politician who wanted me to know how much they supported small businesses.
“Tonight. The motel. Bring blood.”
Sherry's voice.
The machine informed me that the call had come in around five forty-five. I glanced at the clock: it was just after seven.
She hadn't given me a specific time. Typical Sherry.
I couldn’t be as thorough as our last encounter. Thankfully I still had the mattress and plastic sheeting in the back of the truck. I ran out the front door, locking the place up behind me before I raced to the truck and made a beeline for the butcher’s shop, keeping my fingers crossed that he was open today. Like so many self-employed men, the butcher kept odd hours. Thankfully the light was on when I pulled up, and I still had enough money in my pocket for a quarter gallon.
She'd bitch, of course. It was pig's blood and she was sick of pig's blood, but she’d be twice as pissed if I showed up with nothing.
In the parking lot of the motel, to my surprise, I caught Sherry's scent. She'd actually beaten me to the place! I parked and ran around to the back of the truck to pull out the folded plastic. If she was already here, we probably weren’t going to take the time to pull all the furniture out of the way, but if we put the plastic down we’d be able to contain most of the mess.
She answered the door wearing nothing but a scowl. “What the fuck took you so god damned long!”
I grinned. “Fuck you, too, bitch.”
Twenty minutes later we lay side by side. I was gasping. Sherry was propped up on an elbow watching me.
“That was amazing,” I said after a bit.
Sherry shrugged. “It was okay.” She glanced down. “We tore up the plastic a bit.”
“No problem. I can lick the stains out.”
She raised an eyebrow. “If you can lick it up, why do you bother covering everything up?”
I sighed. “Because blood has a way of getting places. It sinks into cracks and crevices, between the molding and the wall. Plus, I don't particularly like licking carpeting at a no-tell motel.”
Sherry grinned. “Really? Because you acted like you enjoyed it.”
I chuckled.
“You brought pig's blood again,” she complained.
“Yeah, it's the easiest kind to get on short notice.”
She pursed her lips in annoyance. “I think I need to start getting human blood into me. I think it'll help with my stomach ache.”
“That's still going on?”
She nodded, rubbing a hand over her gut. “It's getting worse.”
Well, that wasn't good.
“I think Gregor is trying to kill me, again,” I informed her, hoping that a change in subject would get her mind off of her discomfort.
Sherry snorted. “I'm not surprised. Not the way Aldred has been egging him on about the whole thing.”
I blinked. “I'm sorry, egging him on?”
“Oh yeah. Aldred's been chomping at the bit to cut Gregor into tiny pieces, but he has to do it just right, otherwise, you know, he loses face over the whole thing. Only Gregor has been too careful. So Aldred's spent the last couple of months making fun of him for being outwitted by a shiteater. Basically, Gregor has to kill you off in order to regain his reputation. As long as you're alive, it's proof that he’s incompetent.”
I groaned and rubbed my face. “Fan-fucking-tastic. You couldn't have told me this last week or last month or something?”
“Why? Because it's my responsibility to protect you?”
I couldn't think of any response to that which didn't involve screaming obscenities.
I took a deep, calming breath, and let it out slowly.
“So how'd you get set up?” she asked in a tone of mild curiosity.
“He told someone I had something that they wanted.”
“Yeah? What?”
“Some old key.”
“A key?”
There was something in Sherry's tone that seemed... off. I glanced up. Her expression was more serious than it had been when my life and death were the only considerations.
“What's wrong?”
“A few days ago there was this thing about a key. A rumor going around the house. Somebody gave Aldred this important artifact. A key. He was trying to figure out how to get rid of it.”
“Did Gregor give it to him?”
Sherry snorted. “Of course not. That’d be gauche and obvious.”
I nodded. “Okay. He must've just found out about it. He points the chimeras at me and hopes that in the course of killing me off they think to look into Aldred... no, he wouldn't trust something like that to chance. He'll have something set up, some way to be certain that they'll draw a line between me and Aldred. So, they kill me, thus restoring his reputation, and then go after Aldred. Maybe they kill him, maybe he kills them. Either way, Gregor comes out ahead.”
Sherry nodded. “It's a bit on the simple side, as plans go, but Gregor was never one to over-complicate things.”
“What if Aldred just gave them the key?” I suggested. “Then they'd have no reason to kill me or go after him.”
Sherry made a face. “Just give it away? Not a chance. It's obviously valuable. He might be convinced to sell it or exchange it, but giving it away would be like acknowledging that he's scared of someone. That they could take it from him with force.”
“All right. An exchange then,” I murmured. “I'll see if I can't s
et something up.”
Sherry lay down next to me, resting her head on my chest. “With everything going on, I'm surprised you were willing to take the time for a rendezvous.”
I chuckled. “Honestly, I was afraid that if I turned you down once, you'd never call me again.”
Sherry rose back into view, staring at me with piercing eyes. “What do you mean, 'turn me down?' You contacted me.”
I blinked at her. “What? No I didn't. I mean, hell, even if I'd wanted to, you told me not to call you except in an emergency.”
The neckbiter's eyes grew wide. “You're telling me you didn't leave that message?”
I sprang to my feet so fast that I knocked Sherry off the bed.
This was a setup. We'd been tricked. But who even knew about our arrangement?
I skittered across the room and flipped off the light, then sank down and sniffed at the air coming in from under the door.
“Shit,” I growled as I grabbed my slacks from off the floor and rolled onto my back to pull them on.
“What's wrong?” Sherry shouted, gathering her clothes. “Who's out there?”
I resisted the urge to reprimand her for yelling, electing to grind my teeth instead. She’d alerted them that we knew they were there. No way around that now.
I heard a low chuckling from outside. Then a familiar voice. “Looks like they figured it out.”
The giant. There was at least one other scent out there, but the giant was standing too close for me to identify the fainter odor.
Why hadn’t they attacked us mid coitus? Oh, wait, they were probably hoping we’d go at it a couple of times, like we usually did, then they could burst in when we were both worn out and preoccupied.
Had he been close enough to overhear our conversation, too? Probably not. Sherry and I had practically been whispering, and with the noisy AC going he'd need some impressive hearing just to have known that we were talking.
