“I can’t help you.” I grabbed the familiar cross resting on my chest. It dug into my palm, and by now it should have scorched the flesh. But of course God didn’t even bother doing that nowadays. The form on the windshield faded, and I released a breath.
The streets teemed with life: people with umbrellas intermingled at a pedestrian crossing, while commuters and buses competed for a path through the maze of peak-hour city traffic. Gathering dusk and a downpour had mustered the crowd to a chilly intersection. The traffic light diffused through the rain, showering the dashboard with blood red, and the engine throbbed beneath my feet. My eyes watched the road—the black soulless ice glaring straight back at me.
Shoppers and workers hurried home. To eat and rest beneath the covers, toes tucked in, warm and comfortable. Doors latched and children safe, their books and games locked away.
The rain pounded on the pavement, trammeling like the echo of drums.
My mind drifted back to the past, memories rising to the surface. Back to the entry of my parents’ house where my older sister’s jeans hung on the circular stairs, inviting me to cross the threshold and discover why seventeen-year-old Jocelyn had discarded them on the banister. Our mother had crumbled beneath my sister’s requests for videos and chocolate and had left her alone in the house. Jocelyn was probably up there with her boyfriend, messing around with the slack-mouthed drummer who watched her like she was his favorite eye candy. The greenish tinge to her face that morning had tricked our parents into letting her skip school. The conniving bitch got away with murder while I always ended up disappointing everyone. Not quite as elegant, not quite as smart, nowhere near as believable in my efforts to show interest in other people.
I spat a curse that would have earned a look of fury from my mother and skipped upstairs, running my fingers over the jeans before poking them over the side of the banister so that Jocelyn would have a hard time finding them. Those extra seconds of searching might get her caught.
In the hallway, Jocelyn’s door filled my vision. I pushed it open, just enough to peer through a gap in the paneled wood. The dried, powdery scent of orange jessamine floated on dust motes. A slice of light shone from the bay window across the carpet. A bed, unmade, lay like an invitation, as white as Jocelyn’s lies. Pillows were gathered up on the padded headboard, cool rectangles resting against a navy leather surface.
The drums beat louder.
The bathroom was halfway concealed by the adjoining door. Inside, the sound of Jocelyn and her boyfriend lingering, touching. The truth was I was jealous of what she symbolized—her smooth red hair and perfect features—and the way she moved through life unapologetically, her attention focused on acting and heading east. Whereas I would probably end up a bored civil servant in local government, buried beneath mounds of forms and paper clips.
Drip.
Water trickled from the spout of the gold dolphin tap, the last drop quivering like silver drool. The hair rose on the back of my neck, but I stood still, transfixed.
I heard a murmur, a muffled scream. My sister’s artist fingers with their long nails lifted from the water and gripped the thick lip of the tub, staining the smooth expanse. At first I thought she’d painted her hand in nail polish. Thick trails of blood-red water dripped to the floor, running in rivulets across the tiles and down the drain. My hand lifted in response, pressing the door wide and the scene froze in a terrible tableau.
Plop.
A huge shape shifted in the mirror and a silver saw blade flashed in the light. Dark hands clasped the disk, the arms long and curved and raised as if in prayer. My mouth opened wide, ready to cry out. The razor-edged blade twirled and lowered in a movement so fast it was a blur.
Jocelyn’s fingers twitched and her back arched, flowing hair trailing like waterweed over the edge of the tub. Crimson sprays of blood hit the white tiles. A tiny noise escaped my throat. I stepped back, eyes darting everywhere, my head filled with a buzzing noise.
“Glory be to Thee, O Lord Abaddon,” a man chanted.
Run. Run. Run.
My sister’s voice screamed in my head and for once I obeyed. I turned, dashing into my room, floorboards silent against the blood thumping in my ears.
“Where are you, Victoria?” The voice was rough and gravelly. Wind whistled in the background, a thousand drums reverberated in the echo, along with my sister’s whisper.
Hide.
I slid beneath the draped covers of my bed, trembling. A sob rose and escaped. How did he know my name? My arm pressed against a sharp edge. I panicked, thinking the intruder waited there, taunting me, only realizing at the last moment that it was the book I’d purchased from the antiquarian store last week.
Please play with me, Jocelyn. The torn binding admonished me, reminding me of several nights before. I’d taped a triangle on the floor and begged my sister to join me, leading her by the hand into the inner circle, our shoulders hunched close enough for the scent of rosemary to waft from her hair. For once Jocelyn agreed to go along with the game, her eyes filled with something like pity, angering me more than her usual contempt.
I’d droned meaningless Latin from the book, the stench of cremated nail clippings, urine, and crushed snail shells burning my nostrils. “Powers that be, show my future love to me,” I’d chanted. Nothing happened. I folded a small piece of red silk and placed it in the silver cup along with petals that I’d stitched together in nine jagged lines. “By the power of fire, I command thee.” I picked up a black candle and poured wax into the cup.
Jocelyn was smiling but I could tell she’d lost interest. Her gaze drifted to the bedroom door.
“Stupid bastards,” I’d said, reluctant to let her go. “Useless pathetic entities, rotting in hell. What do you know about life—or power, for that matter?”
The silk caught fire, a burning conflagration that sparked onto the rug. Black eyes materialized on the wall, pupils narrowed to tiny pinpricks. They glanced over Jocelyn’s face and body, then flicked to mine. Smoke swirled and a triangular face appeared like ink seeping into litmus paper. Tiny writing marched down the wall, the undecipherable wedges and squiggles chipping the plaster. Jocelyn careened out of the room, screaming. And later our parents grounded me for playing a stupid trick and causing trouble. The stains reappeared no matter how many times I scrubbed and scrubbed.
“I hope you enjoy living with the results for a few days,” my mother said. “Serves you right for being so destructive. You know how sensitive Jocelyn is.”
She wouldn’t listen to the truth, and I wasn’t surprised. The woman had never liked me, and she took Jocelyn’s side in every argument.
“Come out. Come out. Wherever you are,” he said in a singsong voice. “You know I’ll find you.” Deeper, huskier: a guttural growl.
My hand rested over my mouth, hiding a broken whisper. “Jocelyn. I’m sorry. Help me.”
Wisps of black vapor curled around my bedroom door and I trembled, hiding in the darkest corner. The cloud took the shape of a goat and peeked beneath the dangling quilt, finding me under the bed. My sneakers dug into the wooden boards, and I let loose a full-throttled scream, throwing my weight back—but the smoke followed, sticking to my body like boiling tar.
The substance divided, some cascading into my mouth and nose, bringing the taste of rot and decay, while more coiled around my neck, forming a solid chain. The smoke thickened in my throat to an oily consistency, drowning my sobs. An arm dropped from the bed, reaching for the end of the fetter. My shoes squealed as he dragged me out kicking and gasping.
A creature with dark skin covered in flashing glyphs lay on my bed, completely naked. His grin exaggerated the distorted, irregular-shaped skull, a macabre parody of a human face, with horns flowing back from a widow’s peak.
“My summoner. Well met.” He opened my mouth with a sharp claw attached to a cloven hoof, splitting my lip. A long gold chain rasped out of my throat. He kissed the chain and placed it around my neck.
The con
striction in my chest eased and I wheezed, choking and inhaling a convulsive breath filled with the scent of wild animal.
He licked his hoof and pointed to the wall. “An entrance to the Underworld. But you’ll need to earn it first.”
Flames danced in his black eyes as he invaded my thoughts, giving cold comfort with a tender stroke of claw against cheek. The sinking sun sent needle rays through the glass, tingeing his skin with an umber glow.
“Let me go.”
“You called me.” He smiled, both coy and modest at the same time. “Thus entering into negotiations. Your sister’s soul awaits a decision. What shall the arrangement be?” He placed a black claw on his lip, as if thinking.
I lay bare before his gaze, his fetid stench diving down into my lungs. My hoarse cries overshadowed the grind of car tires spitting gravel on the driveway. The front door slammed as someone walked into the house and the creature shifted his focus to the greasy saw blade held in his left hand, the edges smeared with Jocelyn’s blood.
“Pretty child.” He cupped my cheek. “Come now. Make a choice. You? Or shall I take your sister?”
Mother suddenly called out for Jocelyn. She’d found the jeans. Her footsteps pattered up the stairs, on the landing now.
“Shall I remove your mother as well?” He bent down and whispered in my ear. “Imagine life with just your father. Sweet pecks from his mustached lip. You’ll get anything you want with both women gone. I’ll even give you an ability to make things more interesting. Eternal life? Telepathy? What about the ability to foresee the future or manipulate your mundane world? All for two silly women who can’t understand what it’s like to be you. Such a clever girl, my Victoria.”
No. No. No.
My sister’s face darkened the windscreen. Her lips mouthed the words, Save me.
My mother’s discordant screams tortured my ears.
Drip.
I licked wet lips, tasting salt. The car engine revved.
Stop this. There’s nothing you can do to change things. Eternal life was the deal.
The satyr’s voice joined the others in my head, the faint sound of drums and piped music prickling my skin.
My hands with their scarred wrists came off the steering wheel, hiding my adult tears. The tires of my car peeled rubber as I accelerated across the intersection.
And for just a moment the blaring horns, tearing metal, and iron-rich blood filling my mouth tasted like freedom.
Layin’ A Brodie
By J.S. Reinhardt
Keith received the e-mail simultaneously at every one of his addresses at 1:13 in the afternoon on a Friday. The message was brief and worded in such a way that he couldn’t help being interested. His job was to find news after all, to stay plugged in to the goings on of society. It was more than his job; it was his calling.
Nothing like this had ever come through his inbox, though.
The e-mails were all the same: four simple lines and a name. When he had his tech guys trace the address they came up short. The sender was good. Even the Nigerian scammers couldn’t hide their trail as well as this guy had, which made the allure of his story even stronger.
The name alone wormed its way into his every waking moment. The sender referred to himself as Penelope of Mantineia’s son. Keith did some research and discovered that Odysseus’s so-called faithful wife had spent a lot of time on her back, legs spread, while her hubby was out and about. Her son could be anyone.
The body of the e-mails though . . . those words sat in Keith’s head like a smoldering coal. They crawled up and down his spine and sparked in his brain. Those words would not leave him alone until he met their author and found out whether or not his suspicions were accurate—which is what he eventually decided to do.
On the other side of the worn wooden door—a door he traveled twenty-four hundred miles to stand in front of, the last thirty of which were on the back of a mule with a hand-drawn map to guide him because the locals didn’t venture into these hills (they said so before calling a blessing of Allah over him)—dwelled the sender of that cryptic e-mail.
He knocked three times, and when the door slowly creaked open the smell that wafted out was one of an animal’s den. His head swam, and before he could right himself, the ground rushed up. Maybe it was the altitude, or maybe last night’s aushe sarka had been slightly off. Or maybe it was the fact that this was really happening—he was meeting the sender of the message, and what he had feared looked to be true . . .
***
“Mr. Lantain.”
The voice was distant, drawn out, and cloudy like he was hearing it from the other side of a wet towel.
“Mr. Lantain, wake up.”
Keith’s head felt like a wet towel, actually. Cold and heavy. He could smell exotic spices and something cooking. The world drifted back to him. He was in Afghanistan, here to interview the man who’d sent him the e-mail. Keith opened his eyes and the back of his head grew its own freight train pulse.
“You mustn’t move right now, Mr. Lantain. You struck your head when you passed out.”
“What?” Keith scooted back on the bed. The pounding tempo sped up inside his skull. He was in a small shack, darkness barely held back by the glow of a fire. A kettle steamed in the hearth. The coals fluttered, undulating as he stared into them. The voice came from the shadows beyond a small table.
“Sometimes the altitude gets to people. Sometimes, my appearance.” The man stepped forward into the flickering light, and Keith’s breath stopped short in his chest. He was not fully a man.
Closing his eyes, Keith focused on his breath. Under the smell of the stew and its strong spices sat that stale animal stench, like a city zoo on a hot summer day.
When he opened his eyes again, the man-thing was lighting a large candle in the center of the rough-hewn table. Keith recognized what the creature was.
“You’re a satyr?” The words came out like someone else’s.
“Not just any satyr or faun, Mr. Lantain. I am All, the one you surely know of as Pan.”
“The son of Penelope of Mantineia.”
“That is correct.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t ask that you believe in me, Mr. Lantain. I only wish that you hear the story I have to tell. That is why I wrote you.”
“Are you telling me that you, Pan, an ancient Greek god of the forest, now lives in the mountains of Afghanistan and uses the Internet?”
“I am the god of the forest, Mr. Lantain, get that straight. As for the e-mails, I simply hired a young boy from the village at the base of this valley to send them. He brings me the supplies I need, as well as runs errands for me.”
“If you’re the god of the forest, why are you living in these bleak mountains?”
“Something powerful is hunting me and no forest on earth is safe because of it. Simple as that. I’ve been hidden here for some time and I cannot return to the fields and forests of Greece, and thus I’m afraid this place will be the end of me. That is why I summoned you here. I am dying, Mr. Lantain.”
“What, are you going to sacrifice me, make stew from my meat? How is it that I, a mere mortal, can help you, a god?”
The beast laughed so loud the small windows rattled. “I’m beyond the benefit of sacrifice now. You can help me, Mr. Lantain, by listening to the story I have to tell and sharing it. The story is the tale of your kind. Perhaps knowing the truth will allow you to gain control of your own fate once again. I’m afraid it may be too late for you, though. Far too late.”
Keith thought about what the e-mail had said as he pulled the printed text from the chest pocket of his jacket, unfolding it in the dim light. He didn’t need to see it to recite the message:
I know what has gone wrong with civilization. I was there when it happened. Come to the village of Keshem where the tribe of Persians called Afghans live. I have a story to tell you.
Mr. Roman Faunus
“Yes, and here you are.” Pan stood up and walked
to the kettle, his hooves thumping in the dry dirt of the shack’s floor. Pulling a small bowl from above the mantle, he ladled some of the aromatic stew into it. “You must eat this and finish the bowl. It will heal your injury. Then, you will sleep.”
“I shouldn’t sleep. I shouldn’t even be lying down.” He tried to get up and the pressure in his head pushed against the back of his eyes. Keith settled into a sitting position. “So tell me this story.”
“Only after you finish the stew.” The goat man handed Keith the bowl. “By morning you’ll be fine. Eat, please, Mr. Lantain. Then rest.”
Keith was hungry after all, his stomach reminded him. He dipped a large wooden spoon into the bowl and began to eat. It was spicy, the vegetables perfectly done, and the aroma made the throbbing in his head slow. He wished there was meat in it, goat meat, but considering the chef that didn’t seem appropriate. Keith laughed. “This is really good, what is it? I’ve spent time here and I’ve never had this kind of stew before.”
“It is an old recipe, Mr. Lantain.” The goat man smiled, his teeth peeking out from behind his wiry Billy Goat’s Gruff goatee.
Keith shook his head. “Shouldn’t you have horns?”
The beast lowered his head and parted the shaggy hair. “Just like these, I imagine?”
Two small horns, curled like those of a ram, were there just above the pointed ears. Pan shook out his black hair and all was hidden again.
It seemed this creature was, at least, a satyr. Whether or not it was Pan still remained to be seen.
Keith shrugged. “I thought they’d be larger.”
The two laughed and Keith scooped out the last of the vegetables, then finished the dregs. “That was really good, um, Roman?”
“Roman was just a clue for you, Mr. Lantain, one you seemed to have overlooked. I’ve told you my name.” The goat man walked over and took the bowl and spoon from him.
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