by J. P. Sloan
Adrastos snapped his head toward me.
I smirked. “Yep. Figured that out, too. You want the real kicker? This isn’t some foreign cabal. The people setting fire to the Presidium come from inside your own organization.”
Wexler released a disbelieving cackle. “That’s ridiculous.”
Adrastos squinted at me. “The L’Enfantines?”
I nodded.
Wexler shot Adrastos a quizzical stare.
He explained, “It’s been a source of puerile speculation for decades, whether the L’Enfantines had survived the purge of 1812. Our first purge, in fact. Cheeky irony that they should disguise their first attacks on our assets as another purge.”
Wexler’s lips tightened. “The L’Enfantines, Joe?”
“Jefferson decided they couldn’t be trusted to behave themselves.” He turned to me. “He was the first Ipsissimus, you know. And the last to attempt to hold the office alongside the office of the President. He was the one who had removed Pierre L’Enfant from the plan.”
“Replaced him with Ellicott,” I said. “Someone more keeping with the Qabala, and by virtue, the ancient Egyptian tradition.”
“It was, in fact, tradition that forced L’Enfant from our number,” Adrastos corrected with a lifted finger. “The double pentacle? Preposterous. One to siphon power from the mythical North, and another to draw from his homeland. He was a progressive in name only. You must understand, at the time, leaning on the European seats of power was utterly anathema to the Founders, Jefferson in particular.”
Wexler interrupted, “You’re not suggesting the Jeffersonians are involved with this?”
Adrastos gave a curt shake of his head. “They’ve long since faded into history.”
“As had the L’Enfantines, or so we thought,” she countered.
Adrastos chuckled. “Übermenschen from Hyperborea, Deborah? Please. You see, Mister Lake? Even among our number, mad rumors steal away our reason.”
Wexler stiffened, then folded her arms and leaned against the wall, seemingly resolved to exit the conversation.
I asked, “How many nodes have they corrupted?”
“All but one.”
I sucked in a breath. “They’re that close? How could you let things get this far?”
“They have access to our internal conversations,” he suggested. “They’ve enjoyed a long space of anonymity. We are, as it seems, only human.”
“Well, cat’s out of the proverbial bag now,” I said. “They know I’m on your payroll.”
“Indeed, but that was always a likelihood.”
“But now you have a name.”
He lifted a brow over his wire frames.
I continued, “Brandon Carruthers. He’s the one who left the half-cast summoning circle that killed Julian. He’s the one who made the niding pole that took out Frater Zeno’s lodge. If the L’Enfantines have an active specialist, he’s your man.”
“I have never heard of this Brandon Carruthers,” Adrastos muttered before looking to Wexler.
Wexler simply shrugged.
“Well, he’s clearly a student of Goetia,” I offered. “If you don’t have a list of known Goetics, then perhaps there are people I can talk to.”
“Do so. In the meantime, they have eliminated all but one of the nodes. There are layers to the privilege of information within our group, as you may well be aware. The last known Ellicott Node is not general knowledge. This is very much intentional, for precisely this sort of reason.”
“You’re betting they won’t find it?”
“I’m wagering they will, specifically due to the fact that I’m having Deborah leak the information discretely. Should they attack, we will be ready for them, and we will know where the loyalties of key Presidium members truly lie.”
I followed his train of thought, and didn’t care for where it led. “So, you’re basically done with me, is what you’re saying?”
“To the contrary. I expect you to be there, waiting for them. We intend to drop the ax directly onto their necks. You’re the ax.”
I stared at Adrastos, whose unflappable demeanor won the moment’s tug-of-war.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “Where’s the last node?”
“Marshall, Virginia. Old schoolhouse, now home to the Fauqier County Living History Museum. It’s an old school house built just prior to the war for independence, when the town was known as Salem.”
“Cute. I’ll need a way to contact you. A manner more immediate than getting checked into Intensive Care.”
“Deborah?”
Wexler sighed, then reached into her purse to produce a tiny silver case. She snapped it open to produce a business card. Before handing it over, she brandished it in the air.
“I’ll have you know, only members of the Fifth Order and higher have ever received one of these cards.”
She held it out.
As I took it, I responded, “Am I supposed to find that flattering?”
Her eyes hardened.
I addressed the two of them as I returned to the door. “This is on you. You know that, right? The entire mess. All the lives lost. You people let shit slip, and we’re the ones paying for it. I’m not going to forget this.”
“I’m sure you won’t,” Adrastos replied.
“Yeah. I guess this détente is a fragile thing.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” he said. “It could be enduring.”
I ran a hand alongside my face. I was exhausted. This entire day had punched me in the chest and pulled my will to continue out through the gaping wound.
I left them behind, skirting out of the emergency room doors and into the fading light of sunset to call a cab.
When I got home, I closed the door neatly behind me, settled my keys into the bowl on the front table with the tips of my fingers so they wouldn’t make too much racket, then turned to my sideboard. If ever there was cause for a drink, this was it. Julian deserved that much.
I reached inside and dug deep for the last bit of my Glenrothes ‘87. I’d saved it for some good news, but at that moment I realized a spot of whiskey this choice was better spent in honor of the passing of a good friend.
A brother, really.
I poured the last bit into one of my leaded crystal lowballs, and held it up to my lamp, gazing at the deep amber rays of reflected light.
A knot filled my stomach, and my fingers clamped hard against the glass. I lifted it to my lips, but they wouldn’t part. The smell of the scotch, usually such a soothing swirl of vapor, felt acrid in my nostrils.
The callous that had numbed my grief faded in an instant, and with a primal growl, I twisted and hurled my glass against the far wall. The crystal shattered, spraying the foyer with the last of the Glenrothes.
I dropped to a crouch and jerked out more bottles. Scotch, bourbon, gin. One by one, I hoisted the bottles over my head and smashed them down against my floor. The bottom of my pants soaked up the spirits as the glass pelted my arms, and even the bottom of my chin.
I screamed. I sucked in heavy breaths, and continued screaming.
I moved on to the wine. Reds. Whites. Sake. Everything in the sideboard, everything that had brought me comfort… it all had to die. I threw the bottles almost randomly, covering wall after wall. The sofa. The chair. My writing desk. The room filled with a putrid bouquet of alcohols, and my stomach lurched.
Finally, as I doubled over panting, I gripped the last bottle. The very last one.
I picked it up with a trembling hand, willing strength into my arm.
But I stopped.
The feel of the thin netting covering the bottom of the bottle caught my attention. It was the Gideon Reserva.
Emil’s sherry.
I took a moment to catch my breath, easing the bottle back down onto the sideboard.
This wasn’t a bottle that comforted me. It was a painful memory. It was the reminder of how far I had fallen from Emil’s dream, his plan for me. I was to be his salvation, and I couldn’t
even save Julian.
Or Ches.
Or anyone.
Well, if Emil’s magnum opus was to become his ultimate failure, then it seemed time to make that failure as complete as I could.
I straightened my spine and ran my hands along the front of my shirt. Tiny droplets of blood had erupted along my forearms where glass had nicked it.
I turned toward the hallway, my shoes sloshing through spilled wine, and trod with wet footsteps toward the basement door. I pulled it open, and took the first steps down to the basement. The bulb snapped to life with an odd eagerness. Perhaps that was my imagination.
The shadows writhing in the corner of my eye were certainly not my imagination. They were hungry. And agitated.
I spun around, and stared at the spot I thought I saw them, and lifted fists.
The entire room hummed with energy. Something new, something vicious.
And it was coming entirely from me…
…and leading to the cabinet.
I pulled my keys from my pocket, found the tiny brass bastard belonging to the Library, and unlocked the cabinet doors.
They swung open, pouring the intoxicating scent of ancient parchments, pressed leather and cedar over my face.
he fall into the inhuman ferocity within Emil’s Netherwork tomes was brain-spinning. I had slipped into an unprecedented resonance with the malicious intent held within the books. I felt welcomed by it. Within minutes, I was drawn into texts I had always avoided when attempting to catalog the contents of the cabinet. Dark tomes of killing magic. I was astounded at the relative ease of the Netherwork. No need to contrive elaborate fail safes and checks. No need to squeeze blood from a stone in order to power the curses.
They had their own power source.
I didn’t sleep, nor was I aware of when the sun rose. Exhaustion never took me, or rather it had long since taken me and I’d learned to ignore it. I discovered new curse vehicles, objects to be wielded in battle. Tiny needle-spangled packets of pre-prepared conjuration and mortification. They weren’t quite as sweeping or elegant as the slow-burn curse that took months of preparation, but they seemed useful in a scrap against, say, chaos magicians.
I even ran across the old text I had used to craft the curse doll that had killed Osterhaus. An odd nostalgia filled the same pit that had once brimmed with bile when considering these books. It felt like home.
My phone rang upstairs, pulling me out of a book of late Macedonian blood rites. I climbed the stairs, my legs remarkably weak, as I mused on the nature of the Netherwork I had been studying. Even for the quantum jump of power and relative ease of assembly, these workings exacted specific material requirements, and a high price for casting.
The requirements were almost always some horrific laundry list of reagents, often involving human corporea. Not to mention the vitae from the victim. It was a limiting factor for Netherworkers of hermetic traditions. One must acquire a piece of the target in order to align the energy to that target. Other traditions allowed for longer range castings… traditions such as Stregheria. But these fell in the arena of Nature magic, and were impossible to adequately focus. Easier to curse an entire field of crops than to curse the farmer, himself.
And the high casting price? That was simple enough. Casting a Netherwork curse was a damnable offense. One paid for Netherwork by putting a lien on one’s soul. This lien was held by the Dark Choir, and as Felix Parrish attested, their bookkeeping was staggeringly thorough.
But I had no soul. At least, it wasn’t resident in my body. I knew I could execute a curse with my soul disembodied… I’d done it to Osterhaus. But as Father Mark put it, that was an act of defense, not only of myself but of the other souls he was prepared to sell overseas.
My present mission, however, wasn’t so noble. I wanted Carruthers and all of the L’Enfantines to pay for Julian. Perhaps “wanted” wasn’t the most accurate term. It was a fundamental consequence of what they had done, the equal but opposite reaction the Cosmos demanded of them.
And I would be the force of nature that rained it down upon them.
I didn’t catch the call before it rolled to voice mail, but I could see by the caller ID that it was Ben. Seemed he had been calling me most of the morning. And morning had long since passed. It was almost noon.
Ben.
Shit. I had to break the news to him and the rest of the staff. There was an entire business at the tavern that hinged on Julian’s direction. I wasn’t prepared to step into his shoes. I had no idea how to run a bar. I moved upstairs to shower and change, wondering if I wouldn’t have to close down Light Street Tavern.
When I arrived at the tavern, Ben rushed me, face flushed.
“Where the hell ya been, son?” he blustered. “Cops been coming in all morning.”
I took a quick look around. The tavern was empty save for one day-drinker at the bar, hunkered over his glass of whatever.
“Ben? A word.”
He crossed his arms, but finally relented and followed me into Julian’s office.
I broke the news to Ben as plainly as I could, leaving out any details about the esoteric circumstances of his death. I left it as a sudden heart attack.
He nodded profusely, as if forcing his chin to accept the situation would convince his brain to follow suit. He took a seat in front of Julian’s desk and reached for a stack of papers.
“There’s… we have more people starting today.”
I put a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “We have to discuss the future of this place.”
He shrugged off my hand. “The future is we have new kitchen staff, and I have to get them trained by dinner service. Where’s the goddamn resumes? We got manager applications online, and he files them somewhere.”
Ben stood up so quick the chair slapped the wall behind him. He swept around the back of the desk, pulling open the desk drawers.
“Maybe he didn’t print them out, yet,” Ben grumbled. “He usually does. Said he hates reading anything on a computer.”
“Ben?”
He held up a hand. “Not now.”
“We have to have this conversation.”
Ben exhaled and dropped into Julian’s chair. “We’re not shutting down.”
“I can’t suddenly be here. I have a lot of shit to deal with.”
“Then go deal with it, son. It won’t change anything here.”
“I don’t know if I can ever be here. I’m… in a different place.”
He squinted. “Look. I’m going to focus on today. I’m going to get us a kitchen manager, and we’re going to get the new menu served, and we’re going to move on to tomorrow. That’s what I’m going to do.” He sighed. “Then, when I’m not fighting to keep this joint running, I’ll get a loan and buy you out.”
“Ben…”
“I got nothing socked back, Dorian. This ain’t some hobby. Ain’t some retirement job. This is all I got, and I need this to live.”
He turned back to the computer and wiggled the mouse until the screen flickered to life.
I nodded as he began clicking through Julian’s files, swearing under his breath.
Leaving Ben to his work, I moved back into the tavern, stepping behind the bar to shoot myself some water from the bar gun.
“Don’t react,” the day-drinker said, his head still hung low. “Act as if you don’t know me.”
I leaned down to view his face. I didn’t recognize him at first, by virtue of a haircut and the fact that he wasn’t wearing his glasses.
“Zeno?” I whispered.
He held out a hand, gripping his glass of what also appeared to be water.
“Quietly. They’re watching this place.”
I nodded and moved aside a couple steps, pulling a newspaper from behind the bar and setting it down to pretend to read it.
“Where have you been?” I whispered.
“Hiding from absolutely everyone.”
“Taking a risk showing up here, then.”
He swiveled away from
me slightly, head tilting to check the hallway leading to Julian’s office. “I heard about Bright.”
“From whom?”
“Brown. He called me last night.”
I turned the page of the newspaper, and shifted a little closer. “You sure he can be trusted?”
“He’s equally as unpleasant as I am. It’s the ones who smile and promise a brighter future whom I’m sure are ready to shoot me in the back of the head.”
“Fair enough.”
“Brown kept me close in case he needed my services. Seems the Ipsissimus has done the same with you.”
I sneered. “We’re all just assets to them.”
“Do you know what’s happening?” Zeno asked, briefly looking up at me. “To the Presidium.”
“Yes, and I think Brown does, too.”
“If he does, he hasn’t told me.” He looked away again, taking a sip of water. “I visited Brandon’s workspace this morning. Where Bright died?”
I balled a fist. “I take it you know Brandon Carruthers?”
He continued, “I know all the Goetics in America. But him, in particular. He was a founding member of our Lodge. An erratic practitioner. He left after six months, and I lost track of him. Until recently, when I was forced to seek out any friendly faces. So I found his workspace.” He took a sip of water. “Seems ‘erratic’ is being charitable.”
“Learn anything useful?”
“There wasn’t much left to read, but I saw enough to recognize the rank and choir of demon he summoned. None of that is particularly helpful to you, since it’s not the same circle Brandon cast to attack the Presidium nodes.”
I straightened up, abandoning the pretense of reading the newspaper.
“Now, how do you know about that?”
“I may have lost my students,” he replied, “but I still have eyes and ears on the other side. I can tell you the following. The sigils on the walls at each of the node sites were not Goetic. They were instructions left for the enslaved to dismantle the nodes.”
