by J. P. Sloan
“Deirdre!” I shouted. “Come on.”
Her breathing paused, then resumed with an intense renewal of panting.
“Reed?” I called out.
Malosi entered the room and helped me physically lift Deirdre off her bed. She nearly kept a tight ball posture as we hoisted her free of her comforter, her legs finally dropping to the ground by the time we reached the doorway.
Then the hallway.
And the front room.
But the spiraling energy followed us.
Malosi guided Deirdre to her couch before giving me a stern look.
“It’s not her bedroom.”
I nodded. “It’s her.”
Something had turned Deirdre into a vortex. What kind of cat-shaving lunatic magic was this?
“We can’t move her. It would be… well, it won’t work.”
“Gotcha,” I answered with several degrees of misery. I hunkered down on the couch beside Deirdre, trying to keep the maelstrom from my brain. “Hey. What’s going on with you? Can you tell us anything?”
She snapped her fingers about a dozen times, before pointing down to the coffee table.
Which was completely empty.
“There’s nothing there, Deirdre,” I muttered.
She shook her head and squealed again. I finally caught sight of her eyes. White, wild, panicked. It sent chills up my arms.
“What? What about the table?”
I slipped off the couch and ran my hands over the table, though I couldn’t tell much from the swirling energy all around us. However, I did spot a Sharpie lying on the floor beneath the table.
I crouched down to grab it, when I noticed some ink on the edge of the table’s valance. A few more inches closer to the floor, and I spotted more words scribbled on the underside of the table. With a quick stretch of my back, I flipped the table upside down and revealed more of the random letters to Malosi.
Malosi squinted and leaned forward.
“You got me,” he mumbled.
“You got both of us,” I answered, giving Deirdre a sympathetic glance.
I took photos of the bottom of the table with my phone as she rocked back and forth, gasping for air.
“She’s in Hell, Reed. There’s no way we can just leave her here.”
“You wanna bet?”
“How are we supposed to―”
“We’ll leave a note with the neighbors. Call an ambulance. Anything that keeps her physically safe. But we are not going to move her with us. You understand that, right? I’m not asking you. I’m telling you.”
I stiffened, but Malosi’s posture was stiffer.
“Okay,” I finally muttered. Turning to Deirdre, I added, “We’re going to find help for you.”
Her breathing eased, followed by a baleful weeping noise. She knew we were about to abandon her to this vortex. She knew she was doomed.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered as Malosi pulled me away. “We’re going to help you.”
He ushered me out through the front door, prying my fingers open as he closed it behind us. The hematite was impossibly hot. Red hot. It nearly burned my skin.
Malosi pocketed the hematite in his jacket, and gave me a brisk rub over the outsides of my arms. The surreality of the vortex inside that condo subsided, and I finally noticed where I was.
“Reed? What are you doing?”
“Grounding you.”
“Thanks, but it’s getting weird.”
He stopped, and nodded for the stairs.
“I’m calling 911,” I said as we began our descent.
“Negative. This isn’t an emergency. Let me look for the city desk. Less likely to record it.”
I waited by Malosi’s car while he phoned in a non-specific complaint on Deirdre’s condo, after which we made a discreet exit.
About fifteen minutes south of town, he finally asked, “Does this fall under your ‘too histrionic for the Presidium’ category?”
“Hell yes, it does.”
“Where now?” he asked, pulling us onto I-83 heading back for Baltimore.
“The tavern.”
I reached for my phone, and dialed home.
Ches answered, “That was quick.”
“Unfortunately.”
“Uh oh.”
“Yeah. You busy?”
A shuffling of papers, and she replied, “I’m definitely onto something, but I can’t be sure. It’s still a hunch.”
“Cool. Look, bring everything you got to the tavern.”
She sniffled. “What’s that mean?”
“Your research. Your books. Ricky. Everything.”
“What’s going on, Dorian? What’s wrong?”
“Deirdre’s been jinxed.”
Ches responded with a healthy silence.
I acknowledged her silence with a simple, “Yeah.”
“How?”
“Don’t know, but you see where I’m going with this. Right?”
“They can target people. Not just places.”
“It wasn’t retribution. It was prevention.”
“Okay. I’ll be there. But why Ricky?”
“He has a job to do. Guy’s gotta earn his paycheck, right?”
We drove back into Baltimore, and by the time we reached the tavern, Ches and Ricky were already there, lingering by the front bar. Big Ben was chatting them up, Ricky in particular… which was good to see, as I hadn’t broken the news to Ben just yet that Ricky was the new kitchen manager.
Ches hopped off her stool, a clutch of papers and a large brown tickler file under her arm. “So, jinxing a person?”
I lifted a finger and whispered, “Bring everything into the event room. I’ll be there in a second.”
She glanced from me to Malosi, whose face must have brimmed with gravity, as she gathered her materials without complaint.
I turned to Ricky and extended my hand.
“How’re you feeling today?”
With a smile, he responded, “Amazing. I think I might be over the hump.”
“Good to hear!” I turned to Malosi and nodded for the event room.
He took the hint and moved to follow Ches as I turned to the bar.
“Hey, Ben,” I called.
“Dorian,” he replied with considerable weight.
“So, Ricky? You’ve met Ben Setleigh. He’s my bar manager. And, well, he’s about as close to a Dad as I’ve allowed myself. So, you know… be nice.”
Ricky offered a hand to Ben with aplomb. Ben shook it, giving me a questioning lift of his brow.
“Ben, Ricky’s our new kitchen manager.”
Ben’s face lifted into a broad, beaming grin, and he clamped onto Ricky’s arm with his enormous paws vigorously.
“Well, Christ boys! Why didn’t you tell me?”
A shuffling from the hallway behind me added to the wall of noise. I turned to find Julian poking his head from his office, a clipboard tucked under his arm.
“Dorian?” He looked us over and grinned. “The gang’s all here.”
“Yep.” I grabbed Ricky and steered him around to face Julian. “I want you to meet Ricky Baker. He’s Ches’s brother.”
“Pleasure.” Julian shook his hand with ambivalence
I continued, “More importantly, he’s our new kitchen manager.”
Julian’s eyes shot open. “I’ll be damned. You actually did it.” His grin broadened. “Welcome to the Light Street Tavern, Ricky. We’re in dire need of your help.”
Ricky shoved his hands in his pockets. “Thanks.”
“Ben,” I called over my shoulder. “Why don’t you take him into the back. Show him what we got, and what needs unwrapping. Then he can sit down with Julian here and come up with a workforce plan.”
Ben clapped his meaty hands and ushered Ricky toward the under-utilized kitchen behind the bar.
Ricky gave Ches a look before disappearing into the back. Her shoulders were tight, practically hugging her ears.
“Ches? Reed? Why don’t you sp
read out in the event room. I’ll be with you in a second.”
Reed shuffled off for the event room immediately. Ches lingered just a second, watching after Ricky, then giving me a genial nod.
When they were gone, Julian settled his clipboard onto the bar, then stepped directly in front of me.
“We’re hiring him?” he asked.
“This is temporary. He’s on the back side of a detox, and if everything goes well, he’ll be home with his family by the beginning of next week.”
Julian nodded thoughtfully. “And if it doesn’t go well?”
“Then it might not be so temporary. At the very least, he’ll get us working on a kitchen staff before he leaves.”
“Okay.” He pointed at the event room. “What’s with the convention?”
“Working something big. Needed the space. Also, I wanted Ricky here sooner than later.”
Julian gathered his clipboard and turned for his office. “I’ll keep an eye on him. You two negotiate his pay yet?”
“Shit.”
He waved me off. “I’ll take care of it.”
I stepped through the event room doors to find Ches unpacking her dossier while Reed pulled tables together.
Ches asked, “So, you’re onto something?”
“Maybe,” I replied. “You got your tablet?”
She pulled her tablet from her purse and handed it over, fingers locking on it as I gripped it. “You break this, I’ll cut your thumbs off in your sleep.”
“Sounds fair,” I muttered.
“And don’t get too exploratory,” she jibed. “I have some particularly filthy porn on that thing.”
Malosi lifted his head.
“Right,” I grumbled as I looked for the maps app, pulling up the immediate area. I panned out until I could spot central Pennsylvania. “So, here we are. Baltimore, DC, most of Pennsylvania.”
“Okay?” Ches said.
I tapped a pin onto Gettysburg. “Earlier this week, we ran into a jinx here, in Gettysburg.”
Ches nodded. “Deirdre’s thing.”
I tapped the center of Baltimore. “And then, I was called in by Claye to investigate another jinx at the Enoch Pratt.”
“Same people, we’re assuming,” Ches offered.
I said, “Probably. I was assuming these were trial runs, like they were ramping up for one big hit somewhere.”
Ches cocked her head. “You’re thinking not?”
“Not so convinced, anymore.”
“So, what’s your point?” she asked.
“Right here, on Monday, we had this giant drama with Durning outing the Presidium. In the space of, like, two days we start seeing Netherworkers dropping off the map.”
She nodded. “The purge.”
“Again,” I muttered, “not so convinced, anymore.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I hate the way you say that.”
“I was talking with Reed in the car,” I added. “The Presidium doesn’t do drama. Never has. They hate drama with nuclear burning. When they take out the trash, they do it quietly. Which is what happened to Lillian Hsu. You remember that Netherworker I visited Friday? She got busted importing contraband fu dogs. Long story, ends with a bullet in her head.”
Ches ran a hand over her bangs. “So, that’s the Presidium’s work. What about Zeno? He had his hedge wardings delicately, elaborately pulled aside. Seems quiet, but the end result was that his own demon ended up tearing his students literally into pieces. That’s more message, less punishment.”
I replied, “I agree. It’s something totally different.” I pulled out my phone and brought up the photos I’d taken of the runes. “We found this inside a public art statue across the street from Zeno’s lodge. Dreadful piece of crap, but you see this post on the interior?”
“Yeah?” she said.
I zoomed in on the picture. “See those runes?”
“Yes.”
I held out a hand to Malosi, who offered, “It’s a niding pole.”
“What’s a niding pole?” she asked, squinting at the photo.
He elaborated, “Viking curse pole.”
“Boom,” I punctuated.
Ches gave us an amused smirk. “You two are so bromantic.”
“Don’t tell Edgar that,” I mumbled. “It’s well established we only have bromance for one another.”
Reed coughed. “For the record, I possess zero bromance for your ass.”
“Thing about a niding pole,” I continued, “is that it requires a specific distance from and orientation to the target. It’s technically a curse on your neighbor’s land, not your neighbor. Back in the day, that meant something. But it’s not discreet. It’s not particularly efficient. It takes a while for a niding pole to really get its transmission kicked into full ‘Fuck You’ gear. Why would the Presidium elect for that slow-burn, pants-you-in-public style of mischief?”
Ches shook her head slowly.
“I’ll tell you why,” I said. “Because it wasn’t the Presidium. It was someone else.”
She responded, “I’m following you, but this is totally different from the jinxes we’ve been dealing with.”
“True. Which isn’t to say they aren’t connected. Still, though, something niding poles and jinxes have in common is geomancy.”
Ches leaned back and frowned. “I didn’t think jinxes were geomantic. You said they’re chaos magic.”
“Right. But who was the first target? The client of a notable geomancer. And then the second target? A public library.”
“Point?” Ches asked.
“Wait for it… Third target.”
“There’s a third target?” she asked.
“That target being?” I pointed to Malosi.
He grumbled, “A geomancer.”
“A fucking geomancer!” I shouted.
Ches frowned. “Deirdre.”
I nodded. “Yes. It’s following her, like she was the exit wound itself.”
Ches frowned. “Where is she now?”
I answered, “In the tender mercies of County, I imagine. Whoever these people are, at first I was kind of game. You know? Giving the Presidium a nice and public black eye? But now they’re just pissing me off, and the fact the Presidium seems to want me sidelined just makes me want to dig harder.”
Malosi stepped around me and leaned in to look over Ches’s notes. “Sounds like you, all right. These are the glyphs from the library?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
Malosi studied them for a few seconds, then shook his head. “I got nothin’.”
“Me neither,” added Ches.
Malosi offered, “At least your geomancer friend was writing English.”
I snapped my fingers. “Yeah, that.” I pulled out my phone and swiped to the past few photos I took of her wall and underneath her coffee table, brandishing it for Ches to see. “That. Can’t make sense of it.”
“Random letters,” she muttered. “Looks like gibberish.”
“Agreed, but she was pointing to it, like it should have made sense.”
Malosi cocked his head and tried the word a couple ways. “Maybe we need a chaos magician to decode it?”
I shrugged. “Sounds reasonable. Also, incredibly dangerous.”
Ches took my phone and zoomed it in and out, flipping back and forth between photos. Finally she set the phone down on the table in front of her. “Guess I can dig into this, too. But are you really sure this is a jinx?”
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“Well, it’s too specific,” she said. “You told me that jinxes are random. Hard to target any specific thing or person.”
I nodded. “You’re not wrong. But it felt like a jinx. I mean, just like that daycare, only fresher.”
Malosi said, “Regardless, we’re dealing with chaoticians.”
“Right,” I replied. “The ones who hit the daycare and the downtown library. They did something to Deirdre, whatever it was. And probably are the ones responsible for Durning.
I think the Presidium is under attack from some spectacularly dangerous people.”
“People who use niding poles,” Malosi added.
“That’s right. And that’s our only solid lead, at the moment.”
He lifted a single brow. “How do you figure?”
“It’s public art,” I said. “Planned art. There’s a paper trail somewhere. And as fate would have it, we have an insider at City Hall.”
Ches smirked. “Yeah, but Julian’s out of the game. Isn’t he?”
“Not Julian,” I corrected. “Claye.”
I stepped out of the event room. Ben and Ricky were huddled over a tablet at the bar, discussing something I hoped had to do with getting the kitchen up and running.
Julian spotted me from the hallway. I motioned him to join me.
“How’s he sound?” I asked as Julian leaned against the wood-paneled wall beside me.
“Like he knows what he’s doing. I’m not as pessimistic as I thought I’d be.”
“That’s great news. Look, I need a favor.”
“What kind of favor?” he asked without a second’s pause.
“I need you to call Ronetta Claye. Get me a meeting. Like, tomorrow morning if possible.”
He turned to face me. “What are you doing in City Hall, Dorian?”
“I have a thing.”
“Yes. I figured you’d have a thing. What kind of thing brings you into City Hall, is the question I’m asking.”
“It’s part of this Durning debacle. And Turner, too. It’s all connected.”
Julian glared at me for a long, hot moment.
“What?” I mumbled.
“Why don’t you let me in on this?” he whispered, leaning in with a conspiratorial posture.
“This what?”
“This latest caper you’re on. You want to talk to Ronetta? Well, maybe I can help you on one of your investigations?”
I grinned. “Thanks, Julian. But I’d really prefer to keep you clear of this whole mess. Trust me, it’s going to get sticky. You’re already on the hook thanks to Durning’s drama bomb. Don’t want you any closer than you have to be.”
“I appreciate that, but I’m not a child. I’ve traded punches with the worst of the seedy political underbelly Baltimore could throw into the ring. I might not be some kind of wizard, or whatever you call yourself. But it sounds like you’re dealing with power brokers and Beltway insiders. I’ve been spinning that magic for a couple decades, now. Dorian? For once, I think you might actually need me.”
