by Ian Fortey
This close to the witch’s house, he could smell the abundance of magical energy around the place. The air tasted like parsnips and copper. It had made eating the poutine difficult. There had to be some aggressive spellcasting going on in the house. Mostly primal magic, but definitely some blood as well.
Once Dezzy was sure the witches were in the house and not coming back out again, he crept across the neighbor’s lawn, trying to avoid being seen.
There was an enchantment over the lawn of the house. It washed over him the moment he stepped into it. It made him feel like he just rolled across freshly mowed lawn. It was very earthy and alive. It was kinda nice, really. If he had more time, he’d probably sit and try to enjoy it for a moment. But he did not.
Dezzy crept between houses and went to the backyard of the witch’s home. The yard out back had a full garden and a few trees for shade. There was a small chain link fence that he hopped over easily.
The yard on the other side of the fence was different than it had been outside. The property was now massive. The neighboring houses were gone. There was only the witch’s house and a vast range of open land and gardens. Dezzy had not been aware that magical gardens were a thing, but he was definitely in one now.
Someone had been gardening recently, planting vegetables in a planter box. There was a hose and a variety of garden tools lying around. He pulled a small, black gardening trowel from a bed of yellow peppers. It was the closest thing to a weapon he could find. It would have to do.
The house looked the same from the back. No strange magic had been used to alter the form. Vincent was inside somewhere. He would trowel him out.
Dezzy slinked to the backdoor and looked in the window. There was a pantry full of jars, and then a coat room. Down a hallway he thought he might have caught a glimpse of a kitchen. No Vincent, though. And no witches. He kept moving.
On the far side of the door was a ground floor window and a basement window, set above a deep window well that had some dry leaves trapped in it. Dezzy crouched low and tried to see what was in the basement. But it was dark inside and the glass was reflecting light from outside back at him.
“Nefarious glass,” Dezzy said, fairly confident he had used the word correctly. He didn’t know if reflective surfaces often got in the way of heroes, but he wasn’t about to let this one stump him. He hopped down into the window well, awkwardly crouching down and lifting his hands to shield his view from the light.
His mouth filled with the taste of potatoes and mushrooms, and the smell of a forest floor. There was so much magic in the basement, it was leaking through the window.
“That has to be it, right?” Dezzy asked himself. He nodded his head, agreeing with his own assessment. Vincent had to be in the basement. It seemed very magicky.
He tried to pull at the side to open the window, but it wouldn’t move. He jammed the edge of the garden trowel against it for leverage, but it didn’t shift at all. The window was locked. Magic and locks together, he realized, was a brutal combination.
Dezzy stood up. The magical backyard offered a lot of privacy. No neighbors around meant it was very unlikely he’d be seen trying to break in. That seemed like a poor home security choice, but maybe not a lot of people tried to break into witch’s houses.
It occurred to Dezzy then that there was probably some kind of spell on the house itself. Something to prevented people from breaking in. If he were a witch, he definitely would have done that before making a magical garden. On the other hand, he never would have kidnapped Vincent, so he wasn’t sure his judgment on this matter was sound.
With a shrug, Dezzy pulled his t-shirt off and wrapped it around the blade of the trowel. He’d seen something like that in a movie once and if he couldn’t trust breaking and entering tips from a movie, then he wasn’t sure what he would do.
Crouching back down, he lifted the shirt-wrapped trowel and slammed the padded blade into the glass. It clicked with a dull thud. He did it again and the glass pane broke. The sound was muffled enough that he was sure no one had heard.
He smashed another chunk and then wedged the trowel into the hole, forcing more glass quietly into the window well. When the hole was large enough, he reached one arm in and unlocked the window, pushing it open. He was really good at breaking and entering.
Dezzy stuck his head in. The room was still black. The light from outside refused to penetrate beyond the edge of the window. There was no way that was a good thing.
He pushed his hand past the frame and watched it vanish. The darkness consumed it like he had just pushed it into a pool of oil. When he pulled his hand back out, it was fine. There was simply a light-proof shield of some kind concealing everything within. And that meant if he went in, he was literally going in blind. It also meant getting out might be hard.
Dezzy climbed out of the window well again. He paused to look through the backdoor window once more. There were still no witches in sight. Then he went back to the planter and grabbed the garden hose, dragging it back with him to the window well.
“Hey Vincent,” Dezzy whispered into the window. There was no reply. He leaned his face close to the opening, avoiding the black emptiness that filled the room. “Vincent, are you there?”
The basement was dead silent. With a deep breath, Dezzy turned around, lowering himself feet first through the window. It didn’t feel any different when he entered the darkness; he had no way to tell he was even inside it beyond looking at it. He kept his head out of the window for as long as he could, one hand clutching the garden hose and the other the trowel. Then he dropped into the basement.
There was no transition into darkness at all. One moment he was in a window looking outside and the next he was in a basement. It wasn’t exactly the same basement, but it was definitely a basement.
The window was not set into the wall. The hose was protruding through concrete. Grey, damp, dirty stone made up the floor, the walls, and the ceiling as far as he could see in every direction. There were no windows, and the light came from small barrels with fires burning at irregular intervals across the large, open space.
Dezzy pulled on the hose. It came through the wall simply enough. He reached back and his hand came up flat against the stony surface.
“Crap,” he muttered. The hose passed freely into the room, but he could not follow it back out. He had trapped himself in the basement.
Dezzy turned and looked around at the space he was in. The basement was larger than the house. It looked like a warehouse space. It was massive. But there were no support beams anywhere, no walls. It was just open and dim, lit by orange fires in cans. He couldn’t see the edges of the room, they just faded into the darkness in every direction.
He unwrapped his shirt from the trowel and shoved the garment into his back pocket. There were still shards of glass in the fabric, and he didn’t feel like cutting himself up. He was half naked, trapped in some kind of dungeon, and had a gardening tool. It was not the rescue he had anticipated.
“Vincent?” he said. He tried to stick to a whisper that was still loud enough to be heard.
“Come to kill me at last?” a voice asked. Dezzy turned to the sound, brandishing his trowel. He could see nothing.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
“Who indeed?” the voice replied with a little chuckle. It sounded like a man, but Dezzy couldn’t see anyone. He moved cautiously forward, towards one of the fire-filled barrels. A leg came into view, and then a body as he circled around the fire. Finally, a whole man, on the floor, with his back against the can.
The man was old. He looked like the oldest man Dezzy had ever seen in his life, and he had seen some old men. He had a long, tangled white beard and his clothes were soiled and dark with dirt and age. His feet were bare and black from soot. The nails, on his toes as well as his fingers, were far too long and dirty.
His eyes were the only thing about him that looked like they had life in them. His face had wrinkles upon w
rinkles behind the scraggly, dirty hair. But his eyes were blue and clear.
“You look like an Abenaki warrior I once knew. Are you him? Are you... No. You can’t be him, can you?”
“Not so much, man,” Dezzy said. “I’m not from around these parts.”
“Oh…” the old man began. He squinted in the orange firelight. “You’re cursed, then? Has Eloise cursed you as well?”
“Don’t think so. I mean, I hope not. Who’s Eloise?” Dezzy asked.
“She is... she is my mistake. My failing. My regret. I was a terrible man. Are you a terrible man?”
“Oh wow, man. That’s a deep existential thing. I guess that’s a value judgment for others,” Dezzy said. The old man’s mouth hung slack.
“I was so wrong. I was so wrong, you know. I would take it back. I would take it all back, but she won’t listen. I screamed until my voice died in my throat and she never came back.”
“How long have you been in here?” Dezzy asked. From the looks of the man, he’d not seen the sun in a very long time.
“Always. I am always here. It is my punishment. I would take it back, you know. I would. But I cannot. And she will not answer me.”
Tears welled in the old man’s eyes. His body had not moved at all. “What am I to do? I wouldn’t die. I want to die. But I cannot. Unless you have come to kill me. Please, tell me you have.”
The old man looked hopefully up at him. Dezzy grimaced and shook his head.
“I’m not really down with taking lives, man. I’ve seen too much of the other side for that.”
The man stared into his eyes. Dezzy couldn’t tell if he was comprehending what was being said or not.
“Then have you come for him?”
The old man turned his head. He looked into the shadows in the distance. Dezzy could see nothing.
“I came for my friend, Vincent. Is that him?”
“Vincent? Does he have a name? This is not a friend, sir. He is no one’s friend. He is an abomination, I think. Perhaps he is just my true nature.” He looked back at Dezzy then. “I think he is the Devil made flesh.”
As if to confirm the man’s words, a deep, low moan rose from the far shadows. It was the moan of someone who has experienced pain for too long to even scream in agony anymore.
Dezzy had heard every expression of pain that a mortal body could produce. As the Jeweled Scion, he had met those who had died of the most virulent forms of cancer, flesh-eating bacteria, horrible violence, fire, and every other terrible fate that could snuff out a life. He had met them as they came to him, and he had watched them as they endured their fates again and again, choosing the right or wrong path to follow beyond the Veil. He knew pain more than most ever could, at least from the outside. This moan was one of long-suffering trauma.
New pain was always novel. It was the hiss someone allowed to escape their lips when they accidentally sliced a finger while making dinner. But old pain left no room for surprised screams. Just mournful old moans.
When someone suffered a slow death, the pain grew old and familiar. Not in a way that allowed it to be ignored. Certainly not pain that a person got used to. But it was something endured. Pain expected, and pain hated. It was like an old enemy who never went away.
Pain had a way of bringing with it all kinds of darkness. Dezzy had seen those people beyond the Veil too many times. The ones who could not or would not accept the hand fate had dealt them. Some were scared, many were angry. And a few were hateful. Hate was always the worst in Dezzy’s eyes.
Fear was a life preserver and Dezzy understood it well. When he had become the Scion, he was terrified. Fear was what kept a rabbit from the jaws of a wolf, and it made sense. Anger also had its place. Anger was a motivator. Anger could evoke a need to right wrongs and bring about justice. Anger wasn’t always a monster. But hate was something else.
Never had Dezzy seen and felt hate with constructive purpose. Hate existed solely to destroy, and he had never seen evidence to the contrary. True hate scared him. And those who were wrapped in pain and hate were the most frightening of all. Because it stripped away all that which had once made them human.
Many souls passed beyond the Veil with anger or hate in their heart, but it was often fleeting. But there were some who held such negative emotions long enough into their journey to meet Dezzy. They were damaged in ways that the Prince was not able to repair. Or maybe he was not interested in repairing them. Regardless, they were the sorts who found their way to the darkest corners of the Void. Or even the Dimensional Rift, where Chaos beings welcomed them with open arms and open mouths. Dezzy did not like the hateful.
The moan sounded again, a guttural call that echoed through the endless basement. It was a sound full of pain and hate.
“No, I don’t think that’s Vincent,” Dezzy said quietly.
One of the distant fires at the edge of the darkest shadows began to flicker. The moan grew louder. The fire grew weaker. Soon it dimmed and fizzled from existence. The darkness crept over it like a thing alive, a hunter stalking its prey. Within moments, the fire canister was obscured from view behind the inky black shadows.
“Maybe we should go,” Dezzy suggested. The old man shook his head.
“There is nowhere to go. Have you not come to slay the beast?”
Dezzy held up the trowel in his hand. It had a hot pink handle, and the tip was rounded.
“Not really, man.”
“Then you are cursed. I weep for you, stranger. Because I can no longer weep for myself,” the old man said.
The moan rose in the distance. It sounded wet and rolled with a phlegmy clicking sound, like someone trying to clear their throat. Another of the fire pots fizzled and died as the shadows encroached closer to Dezzy and the man.
“Do you have a name, man?” Dezzy asked.
“She took my name from me,” the old man said. “I have nothing.”
“All right. Can I call you Axl?”
The old man blinked at him.
“Are you afraid of death?” the old man asked. Dezzy smiled.
“No, man. I was dead for decades. It was all right.”
“It is all I desire,” the old man whispered. “I am so tired, stranger. So tired.”
The moan became a howl, a frustrated cry, and then faded to a whimper. The shadows oozed onward. Dezzy turned around and saw the same was happening all around. The blackness surged towards them from all sides, slowly shrinking the circle of light.
“How long have you been here, Axl?”
“I had just returned from New York. They had captured and executed Jacob Leisler after his rebellion and I had visited my brother and his wife…” He stopped there, looking off into the shadows. The moan rang out again.
“Oh, so you’ve been here a while then,” Dezzy said. “Guess that means you don’t know how to get out of here.”
“There is no escape, stranger.”
“Dezzy, man. Call me Dezzy.”
“Dez-zy,” Axl said. “Are you real?”
“I ask myself that all the time, man.”
The moaning increased in volume. The swarm of black shadows drifted over the nearest of the fire canisters. The fire flickered in an unfelt breeze. It died down as though all the oxygen had been snuffed from the area and simply went out. One fire remained in the entire basement, the one on which Axl was leaning. The shadows circled closer, blocking the view of everything, just as when Dezzy had looked in through the window.
“He’ll be here soon,” Axl whispered. Dezzy tightened his grip on the trowel. At the edge of the nearest shadow, he caught sight of movement. Something just beyond the darkness. It slouched from view as he tried to focus.
When the moaning stopped, he could hear long, deep breaths that came with difficulty, like someone trying to breathe after a long run. The wetness was in the sound as well, the breathing of someone infected with a disease, wet lungs rattling and raspy as they struggled for air.
/> “The Devil, you say?” Dezzy asked. Axl sighed, letting his head slump against the fire can.
“The Prince of Darkness. The Father of Lies. The Great Deceiver.”
“My family don’t believe in the Devil. Of course, I did meet a demon once, so from a greater cosmology of the afterlife perspective, I’m not sure what to believe,” Dezzy said.
The earthy taste of the primal magic around him had slowly been overtaken by something else. At first, he thought it might be necromancy. There was a foulness to it, but as the shadows grew closer, it took on a more powerful taste. Acid and fire, like habanero peppers and boiled vinegar. Dezzy recognized it. It was the taste of the Dimensional Rift. It was Chaos magic.
“Wouldn’t want to run into a demon again, that’s for sure,” Dezzy said, mostly to himself.
A form came to the edge of the shadows as they rolled in closer. The edges were already dancing around the old man’s feet. Soon they had vanished from view.
The figure in the darkness stood like a man, but it was too dark to see any features. It looked like a gray shape on black canvas, nothing more. It was almost as tall as Dezzy, but hunched. One arm hung low to its side.
“Uh, hey, man. I’m just passing through here,” Dezzy said. “If you know the way out, I can just leave and—”
The moan ripped through the darkness. It was angry now. Angry and hateful and full of pain. The shadows crept up Dezzy’s legs. He looked down at Axl. The old man’s blue eyes glistened in the dying light of the fire. Tears streamed down his cheeks. Then blackness covered his face as though he sank in a pool of ink.
“Axl,” Dezzy exclaimed. He reached his hand for the man, but couldn’t feel him any longer.
The fire sputtered. Dezzy tried to calm his breathing. He could see the shadow rising up his body. It felt like nothing. There was no weight to it, no temperature. It was less a thing than an absence of things. The light went out. Dezzy was in pure, perfect darkness.
The basement was still and quiet. He could hear his own breathing. The sound of his pulse in his ears. There was nothing more.