“I am Azrael,” the answer rumbles.
I repeat the name in my head. Azrael. It sounds familiar, but at the moment I can’t pin down exactly why. “So, the razor belongs to you?”
“It is mine.”
“What about Madeline? Do you belong to her?”
“I don’t belong. Once the sword was taken from its cradle, I knew.”
Ah. The box had kept the Cleave hidden from this thing’s radar. Score another one for Madeline, she’d nailed it about the box shielding the blade. “And if you get it back, you’ll leave town?”
“Yes. Once I have my sword, I will go. Not before. I know you want their safety,” here it ticks its arm, gesturing towards the town, “but you will serve them best by finding me sword.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you will die. Others will die. Many will die. All will die. And I will take my sword unto the world. Give me my sword. Heed me.” It backs away from the circle of light, fading into the night. I stare into the darkness for another minute, but it doesn’t put in another appearance. After a short time, I pull the Barrett back inside and close the window.
“Jamie!” I shout, rising. The board floats in from the kitchen.
What the hell was that?
“A monster.” I put the Barrett back in its rack. “It called itself Azrael. Does that mean anything to you?”
The chalk sags. He’s thinking. After a moment it perks back up. Azrael is synonymic with the Angel of Death in Sikh, Hebrew and Islamic theology.
“Angel of Death?”
The chalk flies again, but this time he isn’t writing. The lines blur together into a rough sketch of a thick figure, round of shoulder with a hooded face. I quickly recognize the classic silhouette, so much like the shadowy hulk that had just been at my window. He adds a caption, though it isn’t really necessary.
The Grim Reaper.
“You’re telling me that that thing out there is the Grim Reaper? I mean, the real thing?”
Assuming that is what it says it is, then it’s the basis of the legend and mythology of the Grim Reaper, yes.
“If it is telling the truth, then what’s its story?”
It was his job to cut the soul free from the body at the moment of death.
I point to the drawing. “That’s a scythe. This thing said it was looking for its sword.”
Legends get distorted over time. Or maybe once it was a scythe and it changed along the way.
I think about that as I walk into the kitchen. I pour a glass of orange juice, then almost drop it as realization hits.
“The sword. That’s what he used to cut the soul free?”
According to legend.
“Then we know what the Cleave does. Azrael wouldn’t be so hell bent on getting it if it wasn’t the real thing. I don’t think it would make that kind of mistake. The Cleave will cut the soul out of a living person.”
Makes sense.
“Jamie, that box that Remy got. What about a claw? Would that have fit in it?”
The chalk floats as he ponders. Would probably fit if it included part of the demon’s arm. They’re a couple sizes up from human.
“Enough room to fit a human hand inside, though, right?”
Unless he’s a giant. Why? You have your thinking face on.
I set the juice on the table and push the glass away. “I know what Remy’s plan is.”
Ten
“It’s always been about Susan with him,” I say. “Ever since she died, all he’s thought about is how to bring her back. That’s why he left the Aegis, not because of his back. He knew he’d be getting into areas of magic they don’t allow there.”
Necromancy. He wants to raise her from the dead.
“Exactly. Thing is, he knows that’s a lot harder than most people realize. Most people, including magic users, think it’s as simple as the movies show. You chant a spell or cut a goat’s throat and the person comes back. Really, there’s a hell of a lot more to it, and it’s all extremely dangerous. That’s why the living dead are so rare.”
There’s one right here in town, remember? The zombie PI.
“He’s a special case. And even so, that’s not what Remy wants. He doesn’t want Susan back as a zombie or a revenant. He wants her back, whole and alive.”
True resurrection is impossible though.
I nod, reassessing my opinion of Jamie. If he (or she, dammit, I keep forgetting that I don’t even know the ghost’s correct gender), had been a layman before he died, he wouldn’t know things like that. The fact that he does means he has actual knowledge, not just what he’s able to glean from whatever source he uses to get my information.
“Normally, yes. But if I’m right, he can use the Cleave to actually do it. Bring Susan fully back to life.”
You said the Cleave cuts a soul free from the body.
“Right, but what if it’s held in the claw of a demon? A claw that twists the very nature of whatever it touches?”
The chalk hovers over the board as the ghost mulls it over. Hold on a minute. You think it’ll put her soul back in her body?
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that nothing is impossible.”
I’ve never heard of anything like that.
“I’ve never heard of anything like the Cleave in the first place, but it makes sense if everything I’ve heard about it is true.”
Seems harmless enough then. Why not just let him have it?
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because it doesn’t belong to him?”
I don’t mean forever. Once you get it, let him use it before you give it back to Madeline.
I think it over. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’d have to ask Madeline what she thinks first.”
You’re a coldhearted bastard. You know all he wants in life is to get her back. You could help him do that at no cost.
“There’s always a cost, Jamie,” I say. “The only question that’s ever important is whether you are willing to pay it or not.” I rise from the table with a groan and trudge to the bedroom to get dressed. My legs feel heavy, and my back suffers the strain of each step. Aftereffects of the tea. Or maybe just the years of wear and tear building up. I throw on a clean pair of jeans, a pair of running shoes and a nondescript black t-shirt. The jeans aren’t especially comfortable in the Louisiana humidity, but I found out long ago that denim is surprisingly effective protection against all manner of things, from sunburn to mosquito bites to small claws to road rash. I stuff my holster into my belt, cover it with my shirt and grab my keys.
Where are you going?
“To the horse’s mouth,” I answer.
I pause at my door, taking a moment to survey the landscape. There’s no sign of Azrael, and the night seems to have come back to life with the normal chorus of semi-rural wildlife. Somewhere close by a bullfrog is sounding his call, crickets are performing their nightly chorus, and I catch the swift, subtle motion of bats in the air overhead and I can hear the thing in the forest whiffling through the wood. All is as it should be. When the angel, or reaper, or whatever the hell it might be is around the very world itself seems to die out around it. With the normal things out again I feel safe, or at least as safe as I can feel given what’s happening in this town. I take the steps in one bound and hop in my Jeep.
It’s quarter after nine before I reach Danaher’s house. He lives across town from me, pretty much as far away as you can get and still be within the town’s limits. He had the house before I moved here, so I can’t say positively that he chose to move there for that reason, but there is often a hidden purpose in coincidence. His property is large enough to hold a medium sized shopping mall. God only knows how much a plot that large costs, but I doubt he’d had any trouble paying for it.
To reach the house is a trip unto itself, down a winding driveway that should count as its own road. The path is lined with thick rows of palmetto trees, with fleeting glimpses of manicured grounds just beyond. Sometimes I think I could see things
dancing between the trees, too fleeting to see with certainty in the chasing gleam of my headlights. I force myself to pay attention to the road.
The house is appropriately ornate, given Remy’s standing in the local financial circle. Two stories, with a wide porch wrapping the first floor and thick wooden shutters on all the windows. Two lamps of wrought iron cast away the darkness around the front door, the light throwing shadows across the two stone samurai golems, identical to the ones in his office, that are standing sentinel on either side of the door. Unbelievably, the effect makes them seem all the more menacing. I wonder if they are the same ones I met earlier, or if they are part of a set. They can’t have been easy to transport.
A circular driveway pools in the front of the house. I park the Jeep and walk up on the porch, casually passing Remy’s guardians and sitting on a wicker bench. I sit back, watching the rising arc of the horned moon climbing through the trees, and wait. I only have to wait a couple of minutes.
The front door opens with a soft creak. Remy, in slacks and shirt unbuttoned at the neck, rolls out and stops next to me, sharing my view of the trees.
“I hate it when you come here,” he says quietly. “Every time you cross my wards you short them out completely. It took an hour for me to reset the ones in my office. These will probably take twice that long.”
“I’ve kept my distance.”
“I know you have,” he says with a sigh. “How did you know I’d be here?”
“There’s no place else you’d be right now. You’ve got a plan, and it’s close to being finished. You’re close to the end, and you don’t keep your best tools in your office.”
He says nothing. I take that as an agreement. “You came off pretty heavy-handed back at your office. What was that about?”
He makes a noncommittal twitch of one shoulder. “Appearances, mostly. Miss Jameson does like spreading rumors on my behalf. That, and some personal stress blowing out.”
We sit in silence for a time. When it becomes clear that he isn’t going to break it, I plunge ahead.
“Do you really think you can do it?”
“Do what?”
“Don’t play games, Remy. You’re planning on using the Cleave and the demon’s claw to rejoin Susan’s soul with her body.”
The crown of the moon peeks through the leaves. He regards it with a thoughtful expression. “Sometimes I forget you’re not as oblivious as the rest of these…sheep.”
“Thanks, I think. Do you think it will work?”
“I’ve been working on this for years, Ian. I’ve spent every hour since that night figuring out the laws of life and how they can be bent or broken. I know more about the boundaries of death than any man or woman on Earth. Yes, it will work. I can bring her back. As long as I get my hands on the Cleave. Which, I suppose, is why you’re here.”
“I can’t let you have it,” I say. “It has an owner, and I promised to return it to her. You know I won’t go back on my word.”
“Yes, yes. You and your stubbornness.” A vicious scowl drapes over his face. “If you weren’t so bullheaded Susan might still be with me. Oh, I know, there’s no way to be sure. The monster might have killed her anyway. The only reason I never killed you is because I don’t know for certain either way. But believe me now, Ian. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will stop me from bringing her back to me. If you try, I’ll kill you. And I won’t bring you back.”
I bite back a retort. I know pain when I hear it, and desperation. He’s thigh deep in both of them. Instead, I throw him a curve.
“How long would it take?”
The scowl evaporates as quickly as it had formed. “What?”
“Bringing her back. How long would the process take?”
Now he looks suspicious. “Once the Cleave is in my hand, less than an hour.”
I exhale slowly as I stand. “I won’t let you have the Cleave,” I say. He starts to reply but I cut him off. “I will, however, stop by for a visit on my way to deliver it to its owner. Maybe spend an hour with an old friend before delivering it to its rightful owner.”
He stares up at me with confusion and disbelief as he struggles to believe what he heard.
“You’d do that?”
“I don’t blame myself for her death, Remy. But she died protecting me. I’ll help, if I can. Provided that I get my hands on the Cleave before anything else.”
I can see the turmoil he’s feeling. So many years he’s been grieving and seething at the same time, and now the bedrock he’d built his pain on has taken a hit. He wants to believe me. Whether he can bring himself to do it is going to be another matter. Finally, he holds out his hand. I take it without hesitation. After a moment I drop his hand, quit the porch and get in my Jeep.
“I’ll leave the light on,” he says from his wheelchair.
“You do that,” I reply. I start the engine and begin the long trek back down his driveway.
Part Two
“Saints have never flourished in these parts.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“The Hound of the Baskervilles”
Prologue, Part Two
Consciousness forced itself upon me. I didn’t want it. I was much more comfortable without it, but I wasn’t given a choice in the matter. Well, that was fine. I apparently had to wake up, but that didn’t mean I had to be graceful about it. I wrenched my eyes open with a physical effort and was rewarded with a spinning room. Vertigo overwhelmed me for a moment. I couldn’t focus, couldn’t think. I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing, slowing my heart rate enough for me to take another shot at seeing. My eyes opened a bit more easily than before, and this time I managed to make out metal bed rails, heard the incessant beeping of an empty IV drip.
Hospital. I was in a hospital.
I groaned as my stomach churned, boiling acidly. When I tried to move my left arm felt unnaturally heavy. With an effort I focused on it and saw that it was swathed in bandages from elbow to palm until it was as thick as the arm of a couch. A clear tube ran from the IV monitor into the mass of gauze.
I squinted at the window. It was light out, but not very. It had been dark when I lost consciousness. How long was I out?
“Ian DeLong,” a vaporous voice murmured.
I wrestled my head around. Through the haze I saw a man standing at my bedside. He seemed immensely tall from my vantage, bald and cadaverously thin, with skin the color of old milk and close-cropped hair that looked like dull metal shavings. He was dressed in a faded smoky three-piece, with a matching thin tie against an old-looking white shirt. He looked as if he’d stepped whole from the reel of a 1930’s film reel. The only color he presented was his sunglasses, a warm sepia tone.
“You’ve been suffering from a rather severe fever for the past three days,” he said. It seemed that he put no effort into his speech, as if the words formed themselves from air leaking from his chest. “Your body is working hard to fight the infection. And it seems to be winning.”
I tried to speak anyway, choked on my own dry throat, and finally managed to croak, “Doctor?”
“No. I am not a doctor. If you need a point of reference, you may call me Mr. Pale.”
I closed my eyes. Conversation of any kind held no interest for me. My body urged me to let it lapse back into its fevered sleep, and I was more than willing to oblige. But sleep was not so easily found. Three days’ worth of sleep and a chatty stranger made sleep an impossibility.
“You are remarkable, Ian,” the enigmatic Mr. Pale breathed. “You can’t possibly know what you have done.”
“Done? What…”
“You fended Oliver off. Single handed. It’s absolutely extraordinary.”
“Who’s Oliver?”
“Oliver Reon. The man that you fought in the restaurant,” a new voice said. I hadn’t noticed the second man before. He was standing on the opposite side of the bed from Mr. Pale, tall, with a solid coif of black hair. He was older than I was, but not by much, maybe in his early thirtie
s. He filled out a simple, black-on-black suit with an intense musculature, and the look of concentration as he focused on me was disconcerting.
I felt a sudden wave of strength. Minor enough, but in my weakened state it felt superhuman. I tried to rise, but the man who called himself Pale easily pressed me back down with one palm. Either I was still weak as a kitten, or he was stronger than he had any right to be. “Wasn’t a man.”
“I’m afraid it was,” another voice said. I wrestled my head around. Sitting on the foot of the bed was a woman. She was of an age with the man, with a natural, understated beauty that showed quiet strength inside. She was dressed for the woods, a blue denim shirt unbuttoned over a green tee. She had clear, healthy skin and thick sandy hair, and spoke with a soft voice.
“You mean that thing was a person? Its name is Oliver?”
“Oliver is a member of the Salteaux Indian tribe, born near Michigan. He moved to Louisiana when he was eighteen in an attempt to escape his family’s curse,” she said. “He failed, unfortunately. It’s an inherited syndrome, so he could never have outrun it. But he held on for over a year now, trying hard to control his appetites.”
“This is Remy and Susan Danaher,” Mr. Pale said. “They are from Oliver’s adopted home town in Louisiana. Oliver was managing his condition on his own until a week ago, when he managed to slip past their magical supervision.”
My eyes opened on their own volition. “What kind of supervision?”
He gave me an indulgent smile. “I think you heard me.”
I took a deep breath, wincing at the pain in my side. “Magic?”
“You don’t believe in magic.”
“I’m sorry, but no. Not since I learned about Santa Claus.”
“We saw the scene,” Remy Danaher said. “You shot him, right?”
I nodded. “I hit him seven times, and once with a shotgun.”
“But he wasn’t hurt.”
In the light of day, it wasn’t easy to face it. I felt the fool even thinking it, but I had to admit it if only to myself. Those moments were frozen in my mind, probably forever. I nodded.
Swim Like Hell: A Visit to Superstition Bay Page 11