by Jason DeGray
“What do you want?” Jonas asked furiously. “How could you leave me like that? Do you have any idea what I’ve been through?”
“No, and I don’t care. Are you ready to be honest?”
“Certainly. Let’s be honest. Honestly, whatever information I possess is mine to do with as I please. I don’t owe you any of it.”
“Wrong. You owe me all of it. Like you said, we’re in this together, whether we like it or not.”
“Finally ready to play ball, I see. I’ll tell you what I know, but I won’t forget the debt.”
Wolf shrugged and elbowed his way into the room. “Start talking.”
Jonas shooed the woman out, tied his robe together and sat across from Wolf. “Most of the Purple Gates group had no idea what was going on. They strutted around like wannabe ghost busters, recording limitless hours of garbled static and video footage of them jumping at shadows. Only a select few, the inner circle, were involved in the summoning ritual and…” he trailed off uncomfortably.
“And what?”
Jonas struggled with what he was about to say. “Here’s the deal. The Purple Gates group hired me to interpret their book, but they were told to.”
“By who?”
“By the money behind the project. Do you realize how few actual magical grimoires remain? Do you know what it takes to recover a book like that?”
“No. I can’t say I ever got a hard-on for books full of old magic tricks.”
Jonas snorted disdainfully, but ignored the comment. “Suffice it to say, it’s a Herculean feat. And in today’s world, Herculean feats require Titan-sized portions of funding.”
“Who funded it, then?”
Jonas shrugged. “That’s the thing. Nobody really knew. They called themselves ‘Violet Shadows’.”
“So all you assholes just mooched off these Violet Shadows?”
“Yes and no. The Purple Gates group was well funded to begin with. Plenty of the members had money, but that money was mostly used to fund the innocuous passions of the group’s ghost hunting and semi-professional secular exorcisms. The Violet Shadows funded the real projects, the recovery of the potent artifacts and tomes. It was their money that supplied the secluded places where we could work the preliminary rituals and it was their money that silenced witnesses and confused your trail.”
“So without their money, you wouldn’t have been able to murder thirteen innocent men and women? Without this research, your friends would still be alive and we’d be whole. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“It wasn’t like that. They were the ones that decided to raise the Lord of Murder’s avatar, not me. I just found out how.”
It was the second time Jonas had used that word. “What’s an avatar?”
“An avatar is the physical embodiment of a spiritual entity, not to be confused with a manifestation, which is a spiritual entity’s representation in the physical world.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means when you take a spiritual being, like a demon, and stuff it into a physical body, voila! You have an avatar. A manifestation is what appears in the crafting circle when you summon a spirit. Each one has its particular manifestations but they are limited to what they can do in the physical realm. An avatar can roam freely and do as it pleases.”
“Why would you do this?”
“It makes them easier to handle—vulnerable, even. They are still capable of miraculous things, but at the same time, they are inhibited by the limitations of the physical world. And with the proper rituals, they can even be forced to serve as familiars.”
“And that’s what the Shadows wanted?”
Jonas nodded. “That’s what I think. They figured sticking the Lord of Murder in an old man’s body would give them a few years of service and make him easier to get rid of when the time came. I tried to tell them how insulting that would be to him, but they didn’t listen.” Jonas shrugged and lit a cigarette.
This had to be it. The Violet Shadows were trying to complete the ritual again. Only this time, they wanted to use a different body. One the Lord of Murder wouldn’t find insulting. Wolf knew if he found the Shadows, he’d find the Lord of Murder. “So no one knew who the Violet Shadows were?”
“No. They were supposedly public members of the group—you know, at all the meetings and intermingling and such, but they never gave away their positions. Only the Exalted Voice knew who they really were and I saw the Lord of Murder holding his head in its claws.”
“Then wouldn’t they have been among the victims?”
“I don’t think so. There were a few people in the inner circle I didn’t see that night. And some in the crafting circle I’d never seen before. I figured they swapped out for some stand-ins. I was actually going to use the knowledge to pressure them later.”
“Of course you were. What about Albert Caine?”
Jonas’ face soured. “Somehow he got wind of what we were doing and wanted in. But the guy has always been involved in dirty magic. He was too twisted, even for what we wanted to accomplish.”
“You know where he lives?”
“No. But I know he runs a paranormal investigation firm in town.”
“Where is it? We should pay him a visit.”
Jonas shook his head obstinately. “That’s dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. You want to break into a trickster’s space? Are you trying to get us killed?”
“You got any better ideas for leads?”
“No.” Jonas shrugged in resignation. “Fine. It’s your funeral. The name of the place is the New Mexico Institute for Paranormal Research. Downtown, just off central.”
“Atta boy. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 15
Tracy made sure Ragnar was sufficiently exhausted before sneaking out of the house into the moonlit night. She hurried through the forest to her ritual space—her most secret place—and met her father there. She was startled and threw her hands in front of her, the glyphs branded there glowing with an unearthly light.
“Easy, daughter. It’s just me.”
“Father? How did you find this place?”
David Red Deer smiled as only a father who knows his child better than they know themselves can smile. “You never liked to be indoors. Even as a child, it made you nervous, jittery. Not good for working medicine.”
“Yes, well…what is it you want?”
“To talk. Your petition in the meeting caused some problems.”
“I was bringing a concern to my people, a valid threat. And you say it’s caused problems? Good. It needs to. This is a big problem.”
“You did not bring the concern. The sacrilegious brute you call a husband did. You were just his voice.”
“Yes. Ragnar had the vision. But so what? That doesn’t make it any less true.”
“To us it does. We’ve listened to the white men before. Even in matters of spirit we conceded. And it cost us countless lives and almost obliterated our ways. There is nothing they can tell us to convince us otherwise now. We will return to the ways of the ancestors. This, and only this, will be our salvation. When we act on a vision, it will be because one of our own has been given it. Do you get it?”
“No,” Tracy snapped, fists clenched at her sides. She was stubborn when she was fighting for something she believed in. “Ragnar is true. His love is true. His visions are true.”
“He is a drunken fool! You, daughter. You are the truth. You are the hope of our people.” He took her hands, gently tracing the brands Ragnar had put there. “We have waited for the ancestors to return, to grant us their medicine once again. And they have. In you. That is where our faith lies. If we were in that kind of danger, the ancestors would’ve warned us. Through you. Not through some drunken white lout.”
“Ragnar—“
“Has his own demons. You make him greater than he is because you love him. He is chasing his death. And that’s why I hate him. Because that will only bring you pain. I love you too much to see you in pain. So pl
ease, tell him to leave before any more harm is done. He is the past, you are the future.”
Tracy pulled her hands away and pulled her father in for a hug. “You are wrong,” she whispered into his ear. “I love you, but you are wrong. The ways of the ancestors are the past. That’s why they are called the ways of the ancestors.”
She walked back to her house, head held high with determination. Ragnar was waiting for her on the porch surrounded by empty beer cans.
“Out for a late night walk?” he asked with a Cheshire cat smile. “Run into any deer out there?”
“Were you following me?”
“Why would I do that? I’m not the one keeping you prisoner here.”
“Fuck you,” she spat and stormed inside.
The sound of his booming laugh infuriated her all the more.
***
The NMIPR was closed when Wolf and Jonas arrived, as was the adjacent business. The place actually looked a little deserted with the shades drawn and the hot breeze blowing through the wooden boardwalk, kicking up dust like something out of an old western.
“Now that’s a tourist attraction,” Wolf said, noticing Petey sitting on his perch and the sign slung around his neck.
“Quit fooling around with the decorations! What are we looking for?” hissed Jonas uneasily. He was definitely uncomfortable being in another trickster’s space. He knew more than Wolf about the things left behind to guard them.
“Anything that looks like a clue,” said Wolf as he put his elbow through a pane of glass on the door and unlocked it. “Shall we?”
The interior, though remodeled, still held an air of antiquity. A definitive musty smell filled the waiting room and the small office behind, which was were Jonas and Wolf were headed. The office was jammed full of filing cabinets situated around a cluttered desk. Jonas immediately started rifling through the file cabinets. He cackled delightfully at what he found and started stuffing his pockets.
A small table with a chessboard sat in one corner. There was obviously a game in progress despite there being only one chair at the table. Wolf examined the game for a moment and moved White’s queen to D-4, effectively checkmating Black.
“Nice. I didn’t even see that,” said Jonas, peering over Wolf’s shoulder.
He shrugged. “My old man taught me how to play. It’s how he liked to get drunk.”
“How’s that?”
“Steadily, while playing chess. He claimed it kept him focused and calm.”
“Did it?”
“No. What’d you find?”
“A few magical trinkets. You never know when they’ll come in handy.”
“We aren’t here to rob the guy. We’re looking for clues. Get to it.” Wolf rifled through the papers on Albert’s desk. There was an impressive amount of case files as well as several articles cut out from newspapers and magazines. Behind the desk was a safe built into the wall. It had no lock, handle, or any other apparent means of opening it.
“Wow. I didn’t even know these things were still around,” said Jonas.
“What kind of safe doesn’t have a lock?”
“It does. Glyph lock. They were popular a few decades ago among the serious tricksters to protect valuable artifacts, grimoires, that sort of thing. Impossible to crack unless you have the glyph. And the glyph is always a personal mark. Good luck getting that.”
“Is it really that hard? Tracy has them burned into her hands.”
“That’s not her personal mark. Those are marks of power for getting the trick.” He took a turn looking through the contents of Albert’s desk and his eyes stuck on a torn scrap of paper. “Now that’s interesting.”
“What? What’d you find?”
Jonas showed the paper to Wolf. The name “Faye” and an address were written in messy handwriting.
“Who’s Faye?”
“I knew a Faye Robinson. She recruited me into the Purple Gates, actually. She was a banker in the real world, but this isn’t her address.”
“Yeah,” said Wolf. “This is smack dab in the middle of the War Zone.” The “War Zone” was the affectionate nickname of Albuquerque’s high crime area that just so happened to be where most of the city’s migrant population lived. It was the sight of most of the gangland disputes, as well as the violence brought in by outside organized crime and drug trafficking. It had since been renamed the “International Zone” for obvious infringements on political correctness.
“Let’s go check it out,” Wolf said.
“Yeah. Let’s. Anything to get the hell outta here. I feel like I’m being watched.”
As they snuck out of the waiting room and onto the wooden boardwalk a raspy, dusty voice croaked, “Thieves.”
Wolf and Jonas looked around, ready for battle, but saw no one. The entire shopping center was deserted.
“Must be nothing. Probably the wind,” Wolf said. “Let’s go.” He took a step off the porch and something grabbed his wrist. He looked down and saw Petey’s waxy hand gripping him tightly. “Jonas?”
“Guard dog. I tried to tell you something like this would happen.”
“Nothing’s happened yet. It’s just a wax dummy with an attitude.” Wolf hit Petey several times in the face, snapping brittle bones with audible cracking sounds, but the thing didn’t falter. It was then Wolf realized he wasn’t dealing with a dummy at all, but an actual human corpse covered in wax and made to look like one. “He’s alive!”
“He’s not alive. Just animated,” corrected Jonas. “Like a golem.”
Petey grasped Wolf’s neck in his iron fingers and began to choke the life out of him. “Thieves.”
“Whatever he is, he’s trying to kill me! Give back what you stole!”
Wolf tried everything to fight back: gouging out Petey’s eyes, kneeing him in the groin, and choking in return, but Petey would not be put off.
“It won’t matter. He kinda has a one track mind.”
“That’s not helping,” Wolf croaked. He pulled his gun and pistol-whipped Petey’s skull. Bits of wax and bone flew everywhere. The guardian’s head caved in and Wolf could see a black and purple mist swirling inside Petey’s hollowed out cranium. “Jonas! Fucking help me!”
But Jonas didn’t want to get near the conflict. He knew the tenacity of such animated creatures and how well they could dispatch problems quietly and relentlessly. He’d used them a few times himself. Besides, this was exactly the kind of situation he had been telling Wolf to prepare for. Wolf needed to figure it out on his own or die trying. It was the way of the tricksters. “I’d love to, but I can’t. Well, I suppose I could take a picture for you.”
Wolf’s quickly numbing mind searched frantically for a lifeline. One finally flashed in his mind’s eye as a symbol from Ragnar’s book. Wolf traced it on his attacker’s forehead and croaked the trigger word. The guardian’s head suddenly erupted in flame. Smoke billowed from its facial orifices and the rest of the body quickly caught fire. Petey fell to the ground, melting wax elongating its features grotesquely. The purple and black mist rose into the air, swirled around three times, and flew away.
“You’ve been practicing,” Jonas said and helped Wolf to his feet. “Not bad. Not bad at all.”
“Ever since the accident…I don’t really have to try. It just comes easily.”
“It’s in your blood now, Victor. You are a ruined man. We both are. And that kind of access to the trick comes with it.”
“You say that like it’s a good thing.” Wolf rubbed his sore neck. “C’mon, let’s get out of here before Caine shows up.”
***
The address from Caine’s office led Wolf and Jonas into a very unsavory part of the War Zone, if that were possible. Many houses and commercial buildings were spray painted and boarded up. The place looked like something from a novel about war-torn countries.
“There. That’s the place.” Jonas pointed to a derelict house covered in vines and a yard thick with overgrowth.
“Really? This is the mo
ney behind your magic?”
Jonas remained silent. As they approached the building, the empty street suddenly exploded with life. People milled around purposefully, like a flash mob waiting to dance, and only acted when the men crossed the street and stepped in the yard.
“Can’t have you going that way, vato,” slurred a young Hispanic man dressed like a gangster. Though the light on the street was poor, Wolf could tell there was something wrong with the boy. His bandana, covering his shaven head, was pulled low over one eye.
“It’s true,” hissed a skinny woman, clutching her side and limping horribly. “You can’t go that way.”
People continued to circle Jonas and Wolf until they were the center of the large crowd’s attention. The crowd consisted of people who looked better off dead than alive. Some of them had huge flaps of skin peeled away revealing glistening white bone; others had exposed rib cages or skulls. Still others were missing limbs or parts of their heads.
“I don’t like where this is going,” growled Wolf and pulled his gun.
“Put that thing away!” Jonas hissed frantically. When the crowd saw the firearm they began a low moan that escalated into a wild cacophony and descended on the trespassers with slow but deliberate malice.
Wolf opened fire. Bullets shredded the flesh of his attackers, but they didn’t slow. They swarmed him with renewed vigor. He felt like he was trapped in his nightmare and irrational fear set in. He barreled through the crowd, shoving people aside trying to find an end to it. The crowd kept closing in, tearing at Wolf’s clothes and skin, howling like blood-starved maniacs. He fell to his knees, the arms and legs of his attackers beating him mercilessly. His gun slipped from his grasp and was claimed by the vato.
The boy pressed the barrel against the back of Wolf’s bowed head and cocked the hammer. “Vaya con el diablo, puto.”
But before he could pull the trigger, the crowd suddenly stopped their assault en masse and melted away into the darkness. The gangster swore and tucked the gun into his belt before joining the rest. Jonas was on his knees in the middle of the street shaking and breathing heavily. Blood poured from several wounds. A glyph faded away in the air in front of him. “You stupid son of a bitch! You almost got us killed!” he yelled when he’d gathered his wits.