Tainted Blood

by DC Malone

  “Duly noted,” I said in all sincerity. “I guess I didn’t think about it from all angles. I’ll let you know what I learn from here on out.” I stuck out my hand for him to shake. “Partners again?”

  He looked at it like it was coated in slime. “Funny.”

  “I thought so.”

  “You know, Meredith, before you came along, my life was comfortable and boring. Just like I like it. I’m beginning to think your true gift isn’t Necromancy. You’re a chaos magnet.”

  I shrugged but didn’t offer a rebuttal. I was pretty sure he was right.

  “We still have surprisingly little to go on,” I said. “Your calls turned up only warnings, and my vision did little more than confirm what Maggie already told me.”

  “And relieve you of your breakfast.”

  “And that.”

  It was hard to even imagine being at more of a standstill on a case. Not only had Mark and Maggie vanished without a trace, but there were actual forces at work that were actively insuring we didn’t get any traction going on this thing. Forces that had a lot more resources than I did.

  “There may yet be something we could try…” Hiram began.

  “So, you’re holding out on me this time?”

  “No, it’s just unorthodox.” He wore a grimace that said his Dramamine was fading fast or that I wasn’t going to like what he was about to suggest.

  “Lay it on me. We don’t exactly have an abundance of options to work with.”

  He hesitated.

  “Jeez, Hiram, how much am I going to hate this?”

  “Let’s just say it’s a good thing I brought extra Dramamine.”

  Chapter 10

  I never really had any phobias. But all through my school days, when I was being shuffled between foster homes or managing to stay put in one place through a solid handful of months, there would inevitably come those proving moments, be they on the playground or around the lunch table in the cafeteria, when some boy, usually named Ham or Gunner, who would put that concept to the test.

  It probably happened to all the kids, but at the time it felt like it was only me. I was the weird girl, and usually the new girl, who sat alone in my corner or at the edge of the table. The perfect target to be singled out and made example of.

  And all the way from elementary school to junior high, that meant trials in three, sometimes overlapping, categories: fear, embarrassment, and disgust.

  Those boys had been persistent, but they had lacked imagination. In the early years, it was usually spiders or worms, typically dropped unceremoniously on my desk or head. But later that graduated to pet snakes and more elaborate forms of intimidation.

  It never mattered what the game was. It always ended in the same way. The spiders, snakes, or worms became my pets, always to be named and cooed over in front of the disappointed bullies. And any of the rougher intimidators had their no-no zones introduced to the business end of my chunky boots.

  I had little time for bullies, and through trial and error, they eventually gave me a wide berth as well.

  And so, I never encountered a fear that I found all-consuming. Something that would wake me in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, causing me to fling the lights on and flip the TV to some gentle comedy.

  Apparently, though, the human brain isn’t content to leave well enough alone. That would be too easy. Everything has to constantly be in flux in that great gray ball of jelly, and what was once perfectly acceptable isn’t necessarily going to be that way in a year. Or in a week.

  Before I left Boston, I must have ridden on an elevator half a dozen times most days of the week. No problem, it’s what you do. I’d had elevators get stuck between floors more times than I could count. That was a nuisance and a waste of time, but certainly no cause for panic.

  One particular day, though. Just one time. The stars aligned and the little electrical signals in my brain decided it was time for me to pay attention, to really notice what was going on around me. And so, on that fateful elevator trip to some floor of some building I can’t even remember anymore, my senses were keyed into hyper mode.

  And, of course, the elevator got stuck. But, more than that, the lights also failed. I was alone, blind and sealed in a vertical coffin with only the sounds of my rapidly quickening breaths for company.

  It had all worked out, of course. Some emergency backup lighting had kicked on within a few minutes, and the elevator was back on its way soon after that. But that handful of minutes had been enough. That was the moment it all changed, that something snapped into place in my brain that hadn’t been there before. A new fear that would stay with me, likely to the end of my days.

  Oddly enough, my fear wasn’t of elevators. Maybe some incredibly lazy part of my mind knew how inconvenient that fear would be in the city. No, my fear was more primordial than that. It was a fear of small dark places. Of caves and crevasses. Of being trapped in the blackness with no control and no power.

  So, all of that is a roundabout way of saying that when Hiram thought I wouldn’t like what he was asking me to do, he didn’t know the half of it.

  “It’s… a coffin,” I said.

  We were standing in front of an open rental storage unit, on the end of a long row of identical units. It was already past dusk, and the bruise-colored sky pressed down on us like a low ceiling, making the snaking buildings look like ancient subway trains left to rot.

  “Well, in a manner of speaking.” Hiram moved inside the storage unit and pulled open the polished wooden lid of the coffin that occupied the center of the small chamber. “I like to think of it as a sensory deprivation chamber.”

  “Think of it any way you like,” I replied. “It’s a coffin. There are even little brass handles for the pallbearers to hold it by…”

  Hiram shrugged. “I got it at a discount, and it has always served its purpose admirably. And you have to admit, it’s a perfect fit for our… field of interest.”

  “If you say so.” I walked around to look at the coffin from the other side. It was roughly seven feet long, maybe two and a half feet wide, and was made of a pale blonde wood. Hiram had placed it in the middle of the storage room, up on a long slab table.

  The storage room itself was set up like something between a laboratory and a library. Each of the three walls was lined with shelves that housed a hodgepodge of dusty tomes, unlabeled bottles and containers, and a wide array of yellowed newspapers and magazines. A small desk and chair sat in the corner between two of the shelves.

  The place definitely had a story behind it, but right then I was too fixated on the coffin to bother asking.

  “It’s quite simple—” Hiram began.

  “Then you do it.”

  “I would, gladly. But you’re the one with the connection to the creature. You have already seen with its eyes, so there is a very good chance you can do it again.”

  “But what’s the point? I literally just did this a few hours ago, and it told us nothing we didn’t already know.” I hovered my hand just over the coffin’s shiny surface, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to touch it.

  “You saw what that thing saw,” Hiram explained. “If this works, you will see what it is seeing now. Not past tense. You may be able to determine where it is and what it’s doing. Who it’s with… The possibilities are endless.”

  “If this works?”

  “Well, we are kind of breaking new ground here. The vision has only ever been used to see with the eyes of the dead, so past tense is kind of a given. But your vision earlier shows that you have some kind of a connection to this living thing. With my guidance, we may be able to home in on the thing’s present instead of its past.”

  “What if it is dead?” I asked. “What if that was why my vision from earlier worked? Maybe the thing got hit by a car this morning. We don’t actually know.”

  Hiram considered. “That’s a good point. We are working from an assumption. But if it is dead, then we’re only out of a little time. That’s a
pretty good tradeoff, in my opinion.”

  That was easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one being asked to climb into a coffin in some shady-looking storage building.

  “Why can’t you just blindfold me like before? It’s the same thing… without all the terror and traumatizing.”

  “Have you learned nothing from me?”

  “I try not to…”

  Hiram huffed. “A significant portion of channeling our gifts comes down to intent—to having our mind and spirit lined up in just such a way as to achieve our purpose. So, what you perceive as pageantry and trappings is actually a way of focusing the lens, so to speak.”

  “You’re setting the mood?”

  “If you like. But it’s more than that. The state of your mind is probably the most important aspect when communing with the Source. Lying in your musty old apartment is hardly the way to achieve your most heightened state.”

  “Yeah, but what if that heightened state you’re going on about is me having a panic attack inside this pine box of yours?”

  “You won’t be locked in, I assure you. And any mental agitation you might experience may work to your benefit. Adrenaline will enhance your senses, which in turn could strengthen your connection to the Source.”

  I tried to come up with an alternative, some other course that might bring us the information we needed. Like before, I drew a blank. The case was at a standstill, and if I didn’t do this, we might as well give the whole thing up now.

  “Okay…”

  “Splendid!” Hiram clapped his hands together. “Do you need help… or can you get in there by yourself?”

  Part of me wanted to make him help me just so he’d have to touch me. It was petty, but the thought of him feeling even half as bad as I was about to was more than a little appealing. Still, I shook my head and slowly climbed in.

  “Just so,” Hiram said, watching me lie down. “I’ll get the door.”

  He rolled down the large metal door at the front of the room and secured a small latch at the bottom when he had finished.

  “Now then, I’ll light some candles and get the lights lowered. You can close the lid when you’re ready.”

  “Alright, give me a second to get used to this thing.” Even with the lid wide open, my heart was just about to pound out of my chest. The thought of lowering the heavy, suffocating thing down over me wasn’t something I was ready to consider just yet.

  Hiram scratched a match to life and held it to the wick of a squat white pillar candle. “If you like, you can test it out a little first. Close it for a moment and then open it back up. I promise it doesn’t lock.”

  I pulled down the lid a few inches. The wood gave up a tired groan. “If this gets stuck, even for a second, I’m gonna climb out of here and do things to you with that candle that will haunt your dreams.”

  Hiram placed the lit candle on one of the shelves and struck a match to light another. “I don’t doubt it. Now, quit stalling. At this rate, the creature will have died of natural causes before we can determine its location.”

  One last jolt of panic tried to force me out of the coffin, but I managed to shove it aside and pull the lid down over me. The moment the coffin was closed, and the light was squeezed out of the thing’s tiny interior, my entire body went cold. I counted my breaths as the terror washed over me like a wave of ice water.

  Chapter 11

  “Can you hear me in there?” Hiram’s muffled and far-away voice only just pierced the darkness. And my terror.

  I knew the darkness couldn’t hurt me, that I could lift the lid at any time and glimpse the comforting light on the other side. But some other part of me also knew that the darkness was a physical thing, like inky black waters locked up under the stone prison of a long-forgotten cave. Those waters threatened to snake through my firmly pressed lips and slither down into my lungs, taking over everything I thought was me and replacing it with death. Or something worse.

  “Barely,” I yelled back. I forced myself to ignore the quaver in my voice.

  “Good. That’s just what I wanted. My voice will act as a guide, but we don’t want it taking focus away from your vision. Let me know when you have gathered yourself, and we will begin.”

  If we were waiting for me to gather myself, we’d have been there all night. The interior of the coffin had an overwhelming odor like old, musty cloth and sweet wood. The stench threatened to push the air out of my lungs, and it felt like there wasn’t nearly enough room in the box for the oxygen I needed to replace it.

  “I’m ready.” I wasn’t. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Very well,” Hiram replied. “Start with the meditation I taught you. Focus all of your will and attention.”

  I forced away the image of dirt being shoveled down on top of me and brought the meditation image to my mind—a single bright orb of light reflecting off a calm, dark sea that spread out forever in all directions.

  I willed the light to move closer to me, or maybe it willed me to move closer to it. There was room for interpretation.

  As I breathed in, the orb grew in size and intensity. As I let go of my breath, the light flickered and became smaller. I tried to let go of myself. There was only the breath, the light, and the unending sea.

  No, that wasn’t all. There was something more. Something that wasn’t there a moment before, and something I hadn’t willed into existence. Twin orbs, shining with intent far out in the darkness.

  “What?” I hadn’t meant to speak, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the orbs were somehow watching me. This wasn’t part of the meditation.

  “Is everything alright, Meredith?” Hiram’s voice sounded farther away than before.

  “I think so.” My voice didn’t sound any calmer than I felt.

  In my mind’s eye, I turned my attention back to my focusing light and began the breathing process again. The other orbs were probably just representations of my distraction, something conjured by my anxiety.

  “When your will is focused and your mind is clear,” Hiram said, “I will help you reach out toward the thing that you seek.”

  I counted out ten more long breaths as I watched the light orb grow and shrink to my rhythm. At ten, I felt as calm and focused as I was ever likely to inside of a claustrophobic death box.

  “Okay, let’s get start—” My perspective suddenly swung away from the familiar light orb, and I was once again staring at the twin orbs in the distance.

  Only they weren’t in the distance at all. My concept of space was skewed entirely. The two glinting lights were much smaller and much closer than I had realized. As I watched, they inched closer until they were directly in front of me.

  They weren’t orbs or lights at all. I was certain they were eyes. And they were staring right at me—right into me.

  I flung my own eyes open, hoping to dispel the imagined specter in front of me, but the inside of the coffin was no brighter than the insides of my eyelids had been. The two eyes remained there in front of me, unblinking.

  I moved to shove open the coffin lid, but my arms wouldn’t cooperate. They were locked down beside my body like identical lumps of lead.

  I tried to buck my body and tried to scream for Hiram. I tried everything. But no part of my body was my own, and nothing I did had the slightest impact. I was not only trapped inside the coffin but I was also trapped inside my own body.

  The sound of my heart hammering in my ears was like the bass thud of a tribal war drum. That sound and the sparkling, jewel-like eyes were my whole world, and it felt like that world wouldn’t last much longer as I quickly descended into terror and madness.

  I railed within my prison body. I would either break free or have a stroke trying.

  Stop.

  At first, I thought it was Hiram’s voice. But no, I could still vaguely hear him going on about my vision, as though I wasn’t about to have a psychotic break inside his coffin. The voice that spoke sounded to be much nearer, and more real than the background pr
attling of Hiram.

  My curiosity got the momentary upper hand on my terror. I still couldn’t speak, so I formed the words in my mind and pushed them out toward the eyes.

  What are you? Maybe who are you would have been more polite, but fear had a way of cutting through everyday niceties.

  Stop. The voice was stern and masculine, and it seemed to come from all directions at once. I was certain I had never heard the voice before.

  Stop what? What are you? I still didn’t know for sure if the creature the eyes belonged to could understand me, but I had a feeling it could. It was somehow responsible for my lack of control, which meant it was in my head.

  The voice didn’t reply to my questions, but slowly the dark space around the eyes in front of me began to lighten and take shape. Where seconds before there was only emptiness, now pale, translucent flesh began to form in the shape of a face.

  It wasn’t a monster. It was a man.

  His skin was unlined and as pale as moonlight, and his eyes were like smoothed chunks of obsidian, gleaming with a kind of dark intelligence. Long, dark hair framed his face on both sides, making him look a little like an elf. His features seemed youthful but also marked with the sharp dignity of age. I couldn’t tell if he was in his twenties or sixties.

  “You will stop, Mrs. Bale.” He spoke with his mouth this time. His lips formed the words with the precision of someone who had mastered the language many years ago, but he had none of the carelessness of a native speaker.

  “Stop what?” I was startled by the sudden sound of my voice. I guessed that little part of the game was over now.

  “This warning is a courtesy. A kindness. Few others would warrant such consideration. Heed it, for there will not come another.”