by Frank Hurt
She shook her head, forcing herself to laugh at her paranoid reaction to the pheasant. Given who she was about to interrogate she would forgive herself for being so wary.
The private landfill was a steep gully populated by generations of old appliances and furniture, tires and tree branches. Tall, dry thistles tugged at her jacket sleeves and bit through her pant legs, trying in futility to prevent her from descending into the steep-sloped pit. The cow path she followed cut down into the sandy soil where an old bed frame laid half-buried among broken glass bottles. She remembered using the rusty, steel frame as a ladder to climb out, even as she used it now to climb down. The shards of curved Coke-bottle glass weren’t created by vandals or nature, but from the supernatural response of three angry spirits as they drove her from their graves.
It took some minutes to search through the tall thistle, but finally she found the disturbed clay and sand soil that Anna and Boniface had excavated three months back. The shallow graves laid near the base of a heap of rusted woven wire. The last time she had attempted this interrogation, she riled up her suspects enough that she almost didn’t make it back out of the steep gully. Those glass bottles had been aimed at her. It was pure luck that none of them connected with her head.
But this time, she had an ace up her sleeve. She inhaled deeply, breathing in calm, dry air. She dismissed the otherworldly static electricity which tickled at the hairs of her arms and neck. Right, be confident. Time to wake the dead.
“Doug, Matty, Josh. Show yourselves, you miserable arseholes.”
The response was instantaneous and severe. Wind rose up from the ground, lifting sand and gravel with it. The stack of rusty woven wire trembled and shook. For a moment she worried that she had overplayed her hand.
She shielded her eyes and shouted, “Douglas Demorrett. Matthew Boxrud. Josh Stockert. You boys will behave and obey me. Quit this mess now!”
As though a switch had been flipped, the supernatural wind ceased. Debris fell to the ground. Pebbles and sand particles obeyed gravity. As the lingering dust cleared, three apparitions presented themselves: a crow, a buzzard, and a dark-haired man. Each of them were monochrome hues of unnatural, transparent blue. None of them had eyes.
The vulture hissed at her from its perch atop a rusted-out wringer washing machine.
The crow flapped its wings and uttered its vulgarity. “Cunt!”
“There’ll be no more of that either.” Ember pointed at the crow and then the buzzard as though she was addressing misbehaved children rather than violent spirits. “Doug, Josh. You will answer me in English and you will not insult me with your juvenile slurs. Is that understood?”
To her amusement, the two ghost-birds both responded with a grudging, “yes.”
Ember coughed once, waving the dust from her face. “Right. That’s much better.”
“What d’ya want now, bitch?” The dark-haired man sleeved in tattoos floated forward, his arms crossed before his semi-transparent chest. “Ya didn’t get enough of us last time?”
She shook her head. Sand sprinkled from her blonde locks, peppering her shoulders. “The same goes for you, Matty Boxrud. You will not be rude and you will answer my questions. Oh, and if you try spitting on me again or hurling rubbish—literal or figurative—I’ll show you just how little I care about your comfort in the afterlife.”
The apparition opened his mouth, saying nothing but a grunt of acquiescence.
The crow squawked and watched her with its glowing, empty eye sockets. “How’re you...forcing us to obey like this? How d’ya know our full names?”
“Well Doug,” Ember allowed herself a cocky smirk as she casually dusted her blouse with a hand. “Funny you should ask that because both of those items are related. There’s power in names, and especially so when spoken to a ghost using his full name. Maybe you can think of it as being little marionettes. I tell you to dance, you will bloody dance.”
The turkey buzzard’s neck swayed from side to side. “Marionettes?”
“She means we’re her puppets, Josh,” Doug answered with a tone of sullen defeat. “Now she knows our names, we’re stuck doing what she says.”
“Very good!” Ember clapped her hands. “We’re catching on! Nicely done, students. You get a gold star, Doug.”
She had never seen a crow scowl before.
“Right. So now that we have an understanding, I’m going to ask you some questions and this time you’re going to answer me, fully and honestly. Yeah?”
The three ghosts grudgingly agreed.
Ember clasped her hands together, her smile broadening. She made no attempt at concealing her patronizing tone. “Very good! First question: who is the man you work for, this Mister B? What’s his real name?”
None of the ghosts responded.
She narrowed her gaze. “You three will answer me with immediate effect. Who is Mister B?”
The human-shaped spirit shrugged. “We dunno anymore than ya do.”
The two bird-ghosts nodded. The crow squawked before answering, “we know as much as you.”
“How can that be? You don’t know who you were working for?” She felt her heart sink. “Can you tell me what he looks like at least?”
“We can’t,” the crow said. “We never met him.”
“You never met him?”
“Never. Everything was over the phone. Mister B would give us a job, and when we were done, well, he paid us.”
Ember pinched the bridge of her nose as she squeezed her eyes shut. “Can you at least tell me what he sounded like?”
“He sounded...important,” Doug said.
“Yar, someone important,” Matty agreed. “Someone who meant business. Like someone high up at the embassy.”
“He worked at the embassy? You’re sure of that?”
Matty floated through the charred remains of an electric range, his fingers reaching for the stove’s dials but unable to interact. “Yar. I dunno, maybe. He just sounded like he might be someone important. Like maybe a general—”
“—or an admiral,” Josh’s long vulture neck bobbed up and down.
“Yar, maybe an admiral!” Matty said.
“You dummies,” Doug squawked. “There aren’t any admirals in North Dakota. What d’ya think, there’s a navy on Lake Sakakawea? Battleships in case Canada decides to invade?”
Ember tilted her head back and sighed at the cirrus clouds in a periwinkle sky. “There aren’t any generals at the embassy, either. Druwish society isn’t organized like that. How can you arseholes not be aware of this?”
The three ghosts grumbled.
“You said Mister B hired you to do jobs for him. What sort of jobs?”
“Usually he’d have us tail someone,” Doug said. “Keep an eye on ‘em, report back to him. Things like that.”
Ember chewed on her bottom lip. “You did more than just follow me. You were going to kidnap me, to bring me in to him. Have you ever done that with anyone else?”
Matty gave up on his attempts at playing with the stove to answer. “No, you were the first.”
“First and last,” Ember flashed a humorless grin. “That job didn’t turn out very well for you three, now did it? You kind of screwed that one up as I recall.”
A trickle of loose sand gave way from the steep ravine, raining dust. Static electricity snapped between coiled rolls of rusty woven wire, crackling with invisible energy. Ember swallowed as the hairs on her neck stood again. Maybe I’d best not overplay my hand.
She cleared her throat. “Right. So no clue as to Mister B’s identity. Can you at least tell me who the Cook is?”
“I don’t know any cooks,” Doug answered.
Matty and Josh admitted the same.
“The cook,” she repeated. “At the rest stop near Devils Lake. Where you attacked me. Josh, you mentioned you had to visit a cook.”
The crow squawked a laugh, “the cook! Now you’re the real dummy.”
She didn’t like where this was going. �
��Watch it, birdbrain. Who is this cook?”
“Not who,” Doug continued laughing. “What. We make crystal.”
“Wait, doesn’t that make us the cooks?” Matty called out from inside the stove. “Yar, we’re the cooks, really.”
“Huh, I guess you’re right.” The ghostly crow cocked its head, “we’re the cooks you’re lookin’ for.”
“Crystal?” Ember frowned. “You mean...methamphetamine? You three geniuses ran a meth operation?”
The crow squawked.
The mage absorbed this new information, considered how she might use it to her advantage. “Right. So when you said you needed to check on the cook, you weren’t talking about visiting someone; you were talking about your cooking operation. Your laboratory. Where’s this laboratory located?”
“It’s in Divide County,” Doug answered. “We hid our cook in an old trailer house at an abandoned farmstead.”
Ember clicked her ballpoint and scribbled onto a notepad. “What’s the street address?”
“There’s no address. No roads in. I can tell you how to get there as the crow flies.” Doug squawked at his own joke.
“Hilarious,” she said dryly. Ember jotted the directions he provided. They were all based on landmarks visible only from the air. It wouldn’t be an easy place to find. “Northwest of McGregor on an unmarked road? Am I even going to be able to find this?” She got the impression that even with her forcing them to divulge directions, they were only giving her as much as they had to.
She left without thanking them nor saying farewell. Though the three Changeling ghosts answered all of her questions, Ember couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe she hadn’t asked all the right questions. What is it they aren’t telling me?
11
A Small Price to Pay
Political influence is a lot like mana: the closer you are to the source, the greater your power.
Just as the Director of Wellness positioned himself as the right-hand-man to the Viceroy, so too the site of the Parker Building had been selected for its proximity atop the only known Ley Line in North America.
Elton Higginbotham traced the zaffre-colored gemstone ring on his left ring finger. It wasn’t an attractive-looking piece of jewelry by any means; the stone itself looked like blue crystal and the goldsmith who forged the ring made the clasps oversized in an attempt to ensure the priceless Leystone could never become dislodged.
Still, the Leystone ring harbored beauty recognizable to those who knew what it contained. The energy positively hummed when Elton glided his finger over the stone’s edges. It all but sang to him, the mana stored within.
The Director of Wellness leaned into the black mesh high-back chair. It was an ultra-modern, ergonomically correct addition completely out of place in the traditional style office the Viceroy kept. The walls of the office were paneled with polished mahogany and matching shelves. Every piece of furniture bore the details of old-world craftsmanship. Aside from the chair in which he sat, nothing in the corner office on the Eighth Floor had been mass-produced. The woodwork bore few knots and the carpentry revealed fewer flaws.
It was symbolic, in a way, of a quaint time when people cared about the quality of their work. It was a time that had come and gone, but a time which Elton remembered well. One which he still belonged to.
Now, everything was made of particle board and veneer—plastic veneer, at that. Nothing was built to last. Only cheaply made and quickly discarded. Only the institutions would stand the test of time, and even then only when men like him stepped up to take the reins.
The Viceroy’s office—both the position and physical manifestation—were not things which Elton necessarily wanted for himself. At least not yet.
Right now, he knew it was useful to be part of the machine. There would come a time later where he would rise up and take over. Then, he would be in the position to enact his vision for Druwish society the way he intended it to be. He would get there, even if he had to tear the whole goddamn thing down to do it.
But for now, he would play the role of number two. He would be the good lieutenant, as he had these past hundred years. Elton Higginbotham was nothing if not patient.
The phone on the immaculate executive desk rang. It was too early in the day for anyone else to have arrived in the office. Too early for anyone to call the direct line to the Viceroy’s phone unless it was preordained. Elton let the ring chime a third time before he picked up the receiver. Balancing it against his ear, he cleared his throat and flashed a toothy grin. “Viceroy Roth’s office, how may I direct your call?”
“Funny, Elton. I was starting to wonder if you weren’t going to pick up. I trust you’re enjoying my Aeron?”
“It’s okay. It’s not like Geoff will be using your space while you’re away this week.” Elton leaned back in the expensive chair and placed his heels on the edge of the desk—an action he knew the Viceroy would never have done. It would have been too great a risk to take, the threat of marring the ornate woodwork.
“Things are proceeding as planned?”
“Certainly. Not to worry, Will. The wheels are in motion.” Elton toyed with the filigree knob of the narrowest top drawer of the desk. The drawer slid open and he found a gold-handled letter opener within. He used its sharp edge to clean his fingernails. “A nudge here, a push there. Things will go from quiet to cacophony before anyone realizes what’s happening.”
William Roth sounded anxious. “I need this escalation taken care of within the week. Before I return. I can’t be associated with this mess if we’re to maintain leverage with the High Council.”
“I understand, Will.” Elton leaned his head from one shoulder to the other, cracking his neck in the process. He absently hoped the sound would transfer into the phone receiver. His gaze went to an old sepia photo hanging on the wall. It was an image of Minot’s city founders posed in front of the site of the Parker Building. It was a construction ceremony for the laying of the building’s cornerstone. The Viceroy was dangerously sentimental, hiding evidence in plain sight like that.
Elton said, “by this time next week I expect we’ll be planning the musician’s funeral. You’ll be back in time to attend it and denounce the outlaws—and of course to bring stability back to the colony.”
“Good,” Viceroy Roth said. “It’s almost a pity we have to kill him off.”
“That’s what we’ve been grooming him for,” Elton pointed out.
“Yes. Yes, it is. I’ll admit I anticipate I’ll miss seeing the buffoon around the embassy when he’s gone. He has a certain quirky charm about him, in a way.”
“If you say so, Will.” Elton glanced back at the sepia photo. “You’re far more sentimental I am about such things. Personally, I think of him as just another asset to be spent when required. And it’s required.”
“Agreed.” The Viceroy’s voice faded for a moment before returning on the telephone line. “Listen, I’ve got afternoon tea to get to here. I’ll check in again with you later this week.”
“Ooh, tea time,” Elton snorted. “How decadent, Will.”
“You know how seriously they take their tea. The Wrights are hosting members of the Council at their estate tonight, as a special honor to Yours Truly. This is how we get things done in high society, Elton.”
“In high society, right. And it’s a happy accident that you’ll be gallivanting with the Druw world’s most cultured governing officials and nobility just as mayhem unfolds in the colony, all in your absence.”
“Puppet shows don’t happen by accident. You of all people know this, Elton.”
The Director of Wellness chuckled as he tipped the receiver back onto its base, breaking the connection. He continued cleaning his fingernails with the letter opener. He said to himself, “this week’s puppet show will be a particularly violent one.” He couldn’t help but grin.
His attention was drawn to a vibration in his jacket pocket. Elton retrieved his cell phone and tapped the green button. He answered
simply, “yes?”
“It’s Curt. We’re here, waiting for you. It’s Tuesday.”
Elton had nearly forgotten. He offered the explanation reflexively. “Of course it is. I had to tend to business. I’ll be down shortly.”
He rubbed the letter opener against his sleeve until it shined, and then held it up to his face. The smooth, silver blade served as a mirror, reflecting an image that hadn’t changed much in a century. He admired the familiar, icy eyes looking back at him until he noted the faint wrinkles pinching at their outer edges. Elton grumbled, “crow’s feet. Yes, it’s time again.”
Elton hooked his thumb around a leather medical bag on his way out of the Viceroy’s office. He rode the elevator from the Eighth Floor to the basement of the Parker Building. Stepping off at the floor which held the clinic that he oversaw, the Ley Line’s energy was already appreciably stronger, the mana detectable to his senses. He unlocked the security door to the sub-basement with his key card, verifying that the heavy steel contraption clicked shut before he proceeded down the curving stone staircase. The air took on a damp, swamp-like scent.
“Elton?” A tired voice challenged unseen around the bend below.
“No, Bartholomew, it’s the Ghost of Christmas Past.” Elton flashed his shark-grin as he rounded the corner to find the Director of External Relations. Curtis paced circles behind him, his arms crossed.
“Just the three of us this time,” Bartholomew said. “We can’t unlock this without you.”
“Good ol’ Bartholomew, always stating the obvious.” Elton maintained his superficial grin. “What would we do without your Analytic prowess?”
The Ley Line hummed with energy. Even with the Suppression Device installed, its mana was palpable, especially at this proximity. It made Elton feel powerful—even more powerful than usual.
The bronze archway of the Suppression Device was etched with Celtic symbols. The symbols may have looked decorative to the unknowing, but Elton knew of the spell embedded within the metal. It was a dark magic, an ancient magic. He was among those present when the device was forged and installed in secret. One of the few who weren’t then sacrificed to keep the secret.