Shaman

by Chloe Garner

  “Point-blank truth, then. I need to know how many more days you’re going to make it. You’re fading fast. So I need you to tell me how you feel. Point blank.”

  “I just want to die,” he said. “This is all stupid. All this… stuff you’re doing. It isn’t going to work, and we just keep getting our hopes up over and over again. I just want it to be over.”

  Samantha nodded, watching the cracks in the sidewalk disappear under her feet. By habit, she never stepped on them. Not superstition, just habit. Something from childhood she had never outgrown.

  “I’m not going to let you die any earlier than I can put it off,” she said.

  “It hurts you, too, doesn’t it?” Sam asked. She nodded, but she was pretty sure he couldn’t see her.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s stupid. You should have just let me die. My mistakes. My results. You shouldn’t be suffering for that.”

  She smiled grimly.

  “You assume that this is worse than you being dead,” she said.

  “I assume I’m going to die, either way,” he answered. She sighed. “I’m not wrong, am I?”

  “You’re probably right.” She shifted the crutches under her arms. “But if I didn’t fight for it, I’d regret it the rest of my life. I’ll heal, or I won’t, but having to live with that regret would be worse,” she said, leaving off the part that she hadn’t actually committed herself to breaking off at the last minute. She hadn’t thought about it actively, but she had never made a decision, either. It was on the list of things to be decided later.

  “My neck hurts. My back hurts. Breathing is more trouble than it’s worth. I go to bed at night hoping that this is it. I won’t wake up this time.”

  “Jason needs you,” she said.

  “Don’t you think I know that?” he asked, anger flaring and subsiding in the space of the few words. “You’re going to abandon him, I’ll be dead. He’ll be dead in the space of a year. Today or tomorrow doesn’t change anything.”

  “I think he’d disagree.”

  “Of course he would. He thinks he’s immortal.”

  “I mean about today or tomorrow not making a difference.”

  “Oh. Well. I’m not going to kill myself, if that’s what you’re hinting at.”

  “That’s something, at least,” she said. They walked on, their shadows growing longer as the sun reached the horizon.

  “Your angeltongue is impressive,” she said. “You have a gift for it.”

  “Not that it will matter for long,” he said, then paused. “It’s pretty.”

  “It is.”

  “Anadidd’na anu’dd,” she said.

  “Anadidd’na anu’dd.”

  “Anadidd’na anan’ae.”

  “Anadidd’na anan’ae.”

  “O’na anu’dd.”

  “O’na anu’dd.”

  “Lahn.”

  He looked at her.

  “Lahn.”

  “Led’dd.”

  He furrowed his brow.

  “L-E-D-mark-D-D,” Samantha spelled. “Led’dd.”

  “Led’dd.”

  She nodded.

  “What does it mean?”

  “It’s special, like eloi. It’s called the shepherd’s oath. It translates ‘I will find you’.”

  “Led’dd,” he said, nodding. “I will find you.”

  “It can also translate ‘you are mine’,” she said. “They mean the same thing, in angeltongue. Well, ‘you are mine’ has multiple meanings, and one of them is the same as ‘I will find you’.”

  He nodded. She stopped and turned to face him. She put her hand up to his face, ignoring the screaming instinct to whip her arm back behind her back, and put her thumb to his brow.

  “Lahn led’dd,” she said softly. She waited. “Yes?”

  He nodded.

  “I understand.”

  She nodded at him, swallowing hard, then turned to continue along a route around the block that they had established the first few nights. It was more than she had meant to promise, but she meant it. It had just occurred to her, and she had to do it.

  In her pocket, her thumb felt sticky. She rubbed it against the fabric inside her pocket, but it didn’t get any better. She would ask Jason to help when they got back to the house. She tried to ignore it. They walked.

  Jason was standing on the front porch when they got back.

  “I’m a genius,” he said.

  “Figure something out?” Samantha asked.

  “It’s a kid,” he said. “It’s about a kid.”

  “Okay.”

  “He died in a flash flood outside of town about a year ago. He was playing with his friend, the kid who got hit by the car, when woman-with-baby was supposed to be watching them. Man-on-ladder drove by, and remembered seeing hit-by-car standing on the side of a drainage ditch, but he didn’t stop. He was quoted by the paper as saying he didn’t think a little boy should have been playing there. Bad parents. Dead kid’s father found them. Hit-by-car was standing next to the water, his son was nowhere to be seen. He went in after him, anyway, and they both drowned.”

  “We’ve got a dybbuk,” Sam said. Jason dropped his arms and stared at him.

  “You’ve got nothing to say all day, and then when I figure it out, you go and steal my thunder? Seriously, man.”

  “You didn’t tell me what dybbuks were,” Samantha said.

  “Angry ghost who possesses someone to settle a score,” Sam said.

  “Larry is possessed?”

  Sam looked at Jason.

  “Looks like. Do you want to talk him down?”

  Jason raised an eyebrow.

  “Because you’re such a ray of sunshine.”

  “Talk him down?”

  “Dybbuks get ghost therapy. Either you talk them out of getting revenge or they finish avenging wrongs. Either way, they normally go away of their own free will,” Jason said.

  “Are there any other likely targets?” Samantha asked.

  “He went after a guy who happened to drive by. No telling who else he might blame for his son drowning. Municipal workers for not putting up signs? The neighbors for not keeping an eye out? Other kids who didn’t invite his son and hit-by-car to play, instead? We need to talk him out. Fast.”

  “Your empathy is stunning,” Samantha said.

  “What?”

  “Maybe I should take this one, instead?” she asked.

  “Have you ever talked a dybbuk down? I thought your strategy was stab first, ask questions later,” Jason said.

  “Well, have you?” Samantha asked. Jason opened his mouth, then reconsidered.

  “Well, no, actually. Sam usually does it.”

  They stood and looked at each other.

  “This is awesome,” Samantha said.

  “I’m going to go light up the grill,” Jason said.

  “I’m going to go lay down,” Sam answered.

  “Are you going to eat?” Samantha asked. He shrugged.

  “If I’m asleep, you can wake me up.”

  He left, and Jason motioned for Samantha to follow him.

  “He seems better,” he said.

  “Not a lot, but some,” Samantha said, looking at her thumb. The sticky feeling was spreading. She held out her hand.

  “Help?”

  “You accidentally touch him or something?” he teased, putting a hand inside his shirt to use it to wipe her hand clean. She jerked away.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. She stared at her hand.

  “It spread,” she said. Her other fingertips had begun to tingle, as she paid attention, and the entire surface of her thumb felt cold, as if it were wet. She shook it once, frantically, then smelled her hand and turned her face away. Rotting fruit, still in the too-sweet stage. Jason was watching her.

  “I’m next,” she said.

  “It’s in your head,” he said. She shook her head, still staring at her hand.

  “No.” She looked at him. “It’s close,” she said
. “Whatever is going to happen, it’s going to be over soon.”

  She left him still arguing with her and went upstairs to go through everything in her bag to see if anything might strike an idea.

  Nothing did.

  <><><>

  Samantha held the stone from Anna’s rock garden in her hand, driving heat into it. Sam lay on the floor, bare-chested, knees bent, watching her. She spoke the opening words of the incantation as the stone grew hot to the touch, then handed him the bowl of liquid.

  “Drink,” she said. Most people couldn’t swallow without sitting up, but he was practiced at it, at this point. She set the stone on his chest and traced a sequence of symbols in the air. He started at first at the heat from the rock, then lay patiently as she completed the ritual. Her hand hung still in the air before the last symbol. This one was it. The symbol for life. A well-balanced spell to counteract all manner of soul illnesses, with a central focus point… This one was it. She finished the last symbol and he closed his eyes.

  Nothing changed.

  He smiled and opened his eyes.

  “That actually wasn’t unpleasant,” he said.

  “It didn’t work,” she answered. He shook his head.

  “Did you actually expect it to, this time?”

  “I kinda did,” she said. He sighed and motioned at the rock. She picked it up, looking at it in her hand for a moment.

  “I admire your optimism,” he said, putting his shirt on and going to sit on his bed. “Are we done?”

  “Yeah, we’re done.”

  He hadn’t been asleep when Jason had announced that the steaks were done. Nor had he eaten. Samantha couldn’t tell for sure if her eyes were lying to her, or if he had lost weight. Neither he nor Jason carried any extra fat; he was digesting his own muscles, if he was. He lay down on his bed.

  “Good night.”

  “Do you want me to stay?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Do you want to be alone?”

  “I don’t care.”

  She finished picking up the pieces from the spell and looked at him. He ran his hands through his hair.

  “Go,” he said to the ceiling. “Sleep if you can. We’ll deal with the dybbuk in the morning. It’s something to do.”

  “You should talk to Jason,” she said.

  “What about?” Sam asked.

  “Anything. Everything. Anything you haven’t said that you probably should.”

  “Is it that time?” he asked. She shook her head.

  “I don’t know.”

  He put his arm over his eyes.

  “I think you’ll know,” he said. “Not tonight. Tomorrow morning, I’ll still be here.”

  “Okay,” she said, unconvinced. “Good night.”

  <><><>

  She didn’t sleep. She got out of bed around three, her entire hand sticky and gross, and went downstairs. Sam was sitting at the kitchen table, staring off into space. She sat down across from him and stared the other way. Neither one of them spoke.

  <><><>

  Anna answered the door the next morning.

  “Sam,” she said. “I’m glad to see you. How are you?”

  “We needed to talk to Larry again,” she said.

  “I thought you said you…” she paused. “That surprises me.”

  Samantha looked back at Jason and plunged on before he could butt in.

  “We’re worried there’s something wrong with him. That something is using him to cause the deaths of people he’s around,” she said. Anna opened the door all the way and stepped aside to let them in.

  “You bought that?” Jason asked. “I mean, it’s true, but… I bet her fifty bucks you’d slam the door in our face.”

  “I’m not the only one who thinks there’s something wrong,” Anna said. “I’ll take any allies I can get, even if they show up at my door as strangers.”

  “Thank you,” Samantha said. “Can you tell us where he is?”

  “Out back,” Anna said. “We were having coffee.”

  In the end, they had agreed that Jason was the best candidate to talk the ghost out of its murder spree, though Samantha remained skeptical that that was even possible, so they let Jason take the lead following Anna out the back door onto the porch, Sam and Samantha taking stations to quarter the back yard as effectively as possible, in case something went wrong. Samantha propped her crutches against the door, walking carefully on her cast. She needed to be able to move.

  “Look who’s here,” Anna said, sitting on a bench next to Larry. Larry grinned and stood to shake Jason’s hand.

  “You want to go look at the property today?” he asked. “I can pull a survey on our way and we can talk about homesite locations.”

  “Actually,” Jason said slowly, sitting on a bench to face him, “I’m here to talk to Raul.”

  Larry’s face turned wooden.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “We know what happened, Raul,” Jason said. “And that you’re angry about it.”

  “Raul Vicario?” Anna asked.

  “Get out of my house,” Larry said.

  “Killing more people isn’t going to bring your son back,” Jason said. Larry leapt to his feet, grabbing Jason by his jacket and tossing him over the bench to the rock path behind it.

  “They don’t deserve to live,” he said, jumping over the bench and standing over Jason. “Leave this house. Now. Or I’ll kill you, too.”

  Spit foamed at the corners of his mouth as he pointed.

  “I’m sorry your son died,” Jason said, sitting up. Samantha edged toward Anna, making sure she could get the woman out if Larry-slash-Raul got angrier. “It was an accident. You have to let go and move on. Staying here isn’t going to make anything better.”

  Larry picked him up and dragged him, heels scuffing the rocks as Jason tried to get his feet back under him, to the glass door of the house.

  “Leave my sight. Now,” he said, shoving Jason against the door so hard that the glass broke. He tossed Jason into the house and turned to look at Sam and Samantha. He pointed at Anna.

  “Take her, too. I don’t want to look at her face any more.”

  Anna made the sign of the cross and ran over to stand next to Samantha.

  “Go,” Larry bellowed.

  “We’ll be back,” Samantha whispered as she took Anna’s arm and guided her over to the house. “We just need to get you out of here, first.”

  “Don’t hurt him,” Anna said. “That isn’t him.”

  “I know. We know,” Samantha said. They stepped through the door to find Jason picking himself up from where he had slammed into the far wall.

  “Everyone in one piece?” he asked.

  “Except you,” Samantha told him.

  “Get her out to the car,” he said.

  “Regroup. You’re coming, too,” Samantha said. He rubbed the back of his head and nodded.

  “Okay, yeah, so maybe that didn’t go so good.”

  They made it out to the Cruiser and Anna turned.

  “Raul Vicario?” she asked. Samantha nodded.

  “We think he possessed your husband to take revenge on the people who let his son die,” she said. “We don’t think Larry actually has anything to do with it.”

  She shook her head.

  “No, Raul would never do something like that. That sounded like Maria, his wife.”

  Samantha looked at Jason.

  “Wife?” Sam asked. Anna nodded.

  “She killed herself three months after Raul and Antonio died.”

  “Mentally unstable mother of dead boy,” Sam said. “You missed that?”

  “None of the articles mentioned her,” Jason said.

  “They were estranged,” Anna said. “She only decided she still loved Raul after he died.”

  “So what do we do, now?” Samantha asked.

  “Clearly I’m not going to talk her out of killing more people,” Jason said.

  “Ann
a, where were they buried?” Sam asked.

  “There’s a local cemetery,” Anna said. “It’s not far from here.”

  Jason grinned and rubbed the back of his head.

  “We’re going to summon an Ibbur,” he said. Sam nodded.

  “We’re going to summon an Ibbur.”

  <><><>

  The trio of graves was tragic. They stood quietly for a moment, then Jason turned to Sam.

  “You got this?” he asked. Samantha frowned.

  “Got what?”

  “We have to summon the husband. He’ll take out his wife,” Jason said, then held up a hand toward Anna, “without hurting Larry.”

  “No,” Samantha said. “No way I’m letting either of you summon a spirit.”

  “Why not?” Jason asked. Samantha glanced at Anna, but the woman seemed to be holding her own just fine.

  “Nine in ten, you pull a parasitic demon by mistake. Nineteen in twenty. I’ll do it. Take a step back.”

  The three of them formed a circle around her, and Samantha reached back in her memory for a clean summoning spell. She added a few pieces to make sure to strip any truly persistent parasite; it took her about twenty minutes to complete, and she found herself standing in front of a slim Hispanic man of middling height.

  “We need your help,” Jason said.

  “Who is he talking to?” Anna asked. Samantha pulled a fragment of black glass out of her bag and handed it to her.

  “Why?” Raul asked.

  “You don’t know what your wife is doing?” Jason asked. Raul shook his head. “She’s killing everyone she thinks was partially responsible for your son’s death.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Raul asked. Jason stepped around Samantha.

  “You know what to do,” Jason said. Raul bowed his head and de-solidified into a gray mist that slowly absorbed itself into Jason’s body. Jason dropped his head, then lifted it and looked at Samantha.

  “Take me,” he said. She licked her lips and nodded.

  “I’ll need the keys out of your pocket,” she said.

  <><><>

  They got back to Anna’s home, and Samantha looked at her.

  “Do you want to stay here? I can come get you when it’s all over.”

  Anna shook her head.

  “I want to see.”

  Samantha nodded.

  “Stay behind me. I’ll get you out if something goes wrong, but I need to be able to reach you.”