Camp Arcanum

by Josef Matulich

  * * * * *

  Michael and Eleazar rushed the ER’s exterior doors with Brenwyn propped up between them. The blast of warm air from inside caught Michael in the face, and he couldn’t avoid twitching at another invisible touch. He was at the edge of a screaming fit after everything he’d seen last night. Not only the destruction of the camp and Marc being beaten to a pulp by the Damned Thing, but also Brenwyn while she was fighting it. At the height of her ritual, he was sure he saw her eyes turn silver and sparks fly from her fingertips. The total alien insanity of those few moments would probably come back to him in his nightmares. He once again wished that he’d never read Lovecraft.

  Now, Brenwyn just looked wrung out from the magickal ritual, and her eyes were red from crying. Only Eleazar looked to be his normal self. He had the emotional resilience of a cockroach.

  As they passed through the inner automatic doors, Eleazar scanned the industrial green room.

  “The intake desk is over this way,” Eleazar pointed out. “C’mon, milady.”

  “You have been here before?” Brenwyn asked.

  “I’m not sure, but I’ve been in so many other hospitals before and they’re all built on pretty much the same plan,” Eleazar explained. “Rennies, you know, are always injuring themselves: falling off things, cutting each other with swords, setting themselves on fire.”

  “I know all about that,” Brenwyn said as she scanned a directory sign. “There!”

  Brenwyn hurried to the desk where an imposing looking clerk pored over her paperwork behind a glass barrier.

  “Excuse me, is he . . . Marc Sindri,” she stammered. “Do you have any word about him yet?”

  “Are you family?” the woman with the “Vivian” name tag asked in a disinterested voice.

  Eleazar pushed his way between the two women.

  “No, but I have his medical power of attorney, your grace.” Eleazar unfolded a creased piece of paper from his wallet. “I have the documents right here on my person.”

  “You carry that with you?” Michael asked. He was sure he had copies of Marc’s and Eleazar’s papers, but filed away in a storage box under his bed.

  “Why, of course,” Eleazar said. “It’s a bleedin’ miracle that he’s been hospitalized only once this year.”

  Brenwyn extended her hand over the low glass barrier to touch the clerk’s.

  “Could you please just let me know if Marc is alive?”

  Vivian seemed to melt at that.

  “I’ll get a doctor to come out and talk to you as soon as I can.”

  With a pat on Brenwyn’s hand, Vivian passed through the door behind her. Eleazar pointed out a row of vacant pleather chairs across the room. Michael tried to not think too much on what Brenwyn had just done.

  “Come and sit down, milady,” Eleazar invited. “I’m sure they’ll be able to find us.”

  As they made their way to their seats, Michael assessed other occupants of the waiting room. Though they were all ages and races, most looked like refugees from some unknown war zone.

  “You think?” Michael muttered. “We’re the only ones that don’t look like extras from ‘The Grapes of Wrath.’”

  One irritable old woman stared at Michael with total disapproval. As she sneered, he could see she was missing a third of her teeth. Michael squirmed and turned sideways in his seat to look directly at Brenwyn and Eleazar.

  “You really don’t know anything about Marc’s condition?” Eleazar asked her. “I always thought you knew what God had for breakfast.”

  “I am too close to this,” Brenwyn sighed. “All I can see are my worst fears. I will have to wait for news the same as you two would.”

  Michael leaned forward, though he didn’t have the nerve to put his hand on her shoulder.

  “We’re here beside you all the way,” he said. “If it gets to be too much for you, Eleazar will do something stupid to raise your spirits.”

  “T’would be my pleasure, milady,” Eleazar said, bowing as low as he could while still seated. The pleather seat made a rude noise.

  Brenwyn took each of their hands and squeezed them tight.

  “I know you two will be looking out for me,” she said with a tired smile. “Thank you.”

  With her hand on his, Michael felt a rush of love and confusion, with just an aftertaste of terror, a mix of emotions he’d only felt since he’d come here to Arcanum.

  * * * * *

  Brenwyn was again at Camp Arcanum in the aftermath of the demon’s attack. She was apart from it, though, watching as from a distance above the ground. Marc lay twisted on the ground with Michael and Eleazar standing beside him. A dark-skinned man in a doctor’s white coat came out of the darkness and stopped a short distance away from them. He took a few notes on the clipboard he held while making no effort to aid Marc. With no sign of emotion, the man in the white coat walked past Marc’s motionless body towards the light where Brenwyn waited for him.

  A tiny shudder went through her body as her eyes opened fully and re-focused. She stood and stretched, stepping away from the bank of chairs where Michael and Eleazar slept. The sunlight streaming through the windows of the emergency room waiting room told her it was mid-morning, several hours since they had first come here.

  An Indian man, dark-skinned and black-haired except for the grey at his temples, came out of the ER and consulted with the latest clerk on duty at Vivian’s post. When finished, the man in the white coat stepped out into the middle of the waiting room. Recognizing him as the man from her dream, Brenwyn was already walking in his direction.

  “Sindri? Marc Sindri?” The man’s accent confirmed her impression of an education in England. His name, “M. Prakesh,” was stitched above the breast pocket of his lab coat.

  “Is he all right, doctor?” she asked. “What can you tell me?”

  Prakesh looked her over carefully.

  “And you are?”

  “I’m Brenwyn, his . . .” It was always so embarrassing to try to explain her and Marc’s relationship. “Significant other. He doesn’t have any family.”

  “I’m sorry, but privacy regulations are most stringent,” Prakesh stated. “Unless you have a properly signed release—”

  Brenwyn laid a hand on Prakesh’s arm and smiled up at him. You can trust me, she thought, with all the power she could muster.

  “The man who has his power of attorney, Eleazar, has filled out all the proper forms,” she urged. “You can trust me.”

  It couldn’t hurt to tell him that twice, she thought.

  Prakesh looked at her cagily and then his features softened.

  “I see. Well, we have him stabilized, but he is still in very serious condition.” Brenwyn could tell he was giving her the layman’s version. “He is no longer bleeding internally, but he did lose over a liter of blood. He’s lucky to be alive.

  “I know. Do you know anything else yet?” Brenwyn needed more than a pat on the head and a wait and see. “Just before he passed out, Marc said he could not feel his legs.”

  Brenwyn could tell that Prakesh did not like delivering bad news, especially when he did not have all the facts.

  “His charts show he was not responding to standard stimuli,” he said with studied neutrality. “We’ll need to run him through a battery of tests to know the full extent of his injuries.”

  “But he is out of danger now?” Brenwyn needed to hear a definitive answer on that point, if nothing else.

  “Barring complications, but his condition is still very delicate,” Prakesh warned.

  “I understand,” Brenwyn said. “When can I see him?”

  Prakesh frowned at her, thinking of her unrealistic expectations.

  “He will be sedated for his pain. I don’t think he will—”

  “I need to see him,” Brenwyn said earnestly. “Can I just go back for a moment?”

  “He is actually in the recovery unit upstairs,” Prakesh stated. “He’ll be transferred to the SICU in two or three hours. Once he’s se
ttled in, you may see him.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  She laid a hand on his arm, projecting her best attempt at “warm and fuzzy” thoughts.

  “You are welcome, miss.” Prakesh smiled in response to her gesture. “Now, if you will excuse me?”

  Brenwyn nodded and smiled.

  Dr. Prakesh nodded minutely in satisfaction, turned on his heel, and returned to the ER.

  Brenwyn exhaled deeply, in what felt like the first time in twelve hours. She returned to her seat and gently shook Michael and Eleazar awake.

  “Wake up,” she beamed. “It is a beautiful morning.”

  Michael’s eyelids unpasted themselves slowly as he straightened out of his contorted sleeping position.

  “Whaaa?”

  Eleazar lifted his head from his chest and was instantly alert.

  “I was just resting my eyes for a moment, milady,” he said quickly. “I swear.”

  “Gentlemen,” she said, “he is going to make it.”

  Michael was instantly awake. Both he and Eleazar were overjoyed.

  “Huzzah!” Eleazar stage-whispered to avoid waking the other waiting room guests.

  “That’s fantastic!” Michael said in the same hushed tone. “Do they know yet—you know?”

  “The doctor was content just to keep him from bleeding to death,” she replied. “Everything else, we’ll have to take one day at a time.”

  “So, when do we get to see him?” Michael asked.

  Eleazar poked him in the ribs and glowered.

  “Okay, so when do you get to see him?” Michael rephrased. “We can wait. Honest.”

  “They’re transferring him to the SICU,” Brenwyn said. “It should take two or three hours.”

  Eleazar shook his head and clucked his tongue.

  “Milady, I assure you it will take longer than that. It takes five hours to move a body fifty feet in a hospital.”

  “Are the logistics that bad?” Michael asked.

  “Sticky floors, methinks.”

  Brenwyn giggled in spite of herself.

  “You two might want to visit Marc separately,” Brenwyn said. “Otherwise, he might laugh himself into a coma.”

  Eleazar put a thoughtful finger to his lips.

  “That does seem to be a noble goal to attempt.”

  “I’m taking away your rubber chicken,” Michael said as he worked the kinks of his neck.

  “You have a few hours to work out your best material. I think I—” Brenwyn stopped mid-sentence. A grim but familiar influence impinged on her sunny state of mind. Though it had been years since he had made an appearance, she should have expected him this morning on top of everything else.

  “If you will both excuse me,” Brenwyn said as she drew herself up to her full height. “I have something to which I must attend.”

  Brenwyn turned and walked slowly to the automatic doors. With arms crossed under her breasts, she stood waiting for the interloper. Sgt. Throckmorton blew through the double doors on a chill breeze, just as expected. The tall, black man had a few crow’s feet and grey hairs, but little else had changed in the last eight years. He was still as gaunt as a scarecrow, hard as steel and as welcome as the plague. Throckmorton looked down upon her from his height of six feet with a humorless expression.

  “Miss Czarnecky,” he said politely.

  “Sergeant Throckmorton,” she replied with false cheer. “I trust you have had a better night than I?”

  He surveyed the waiting room with quick motions of his eyes.

  “May we speak someplace in private?”

  “I would rather not,” she said. “A very dear friend has just come out of surgery and I would like to wait here for word.”

  “I know about Mr. Sindri,” he said. “I was at ‘Camp Arcanum’ earlier this morning. We need to talk, about him and you and Jeremiah Stone.”

  Sgt. Throckmorton took her by an elbow and urged Brenwyn to a side door.

  * * * * *

  “Sergeant Throckmorton?” Michael asked with rising concern.

  “Must be the local constabulary,” Eleazar said.

  “He mentioned Jeremiah,” Michael said with an involuntary shiver. “I wish I knew what he wanted.”

  Eleazar watched the stranger whisking Brenwyn away without so much as a “By-Your-Leave.” After her bizarre behavior, Eleazar was sure no one would begrudge him and Michael a little conservative eavesdropping.

  Eleazar held up a stethoscope he had just acquired.

  “Funny thing,” Eleazar drawled. “Someone just left one of these lying around.”

  Chapter 24

  On Consecrated Ground

  SGT. THROCKMORTON GUIDED BRENWYN down the hallway to a quiet corner where a faux stained-glass window pierced the wall. A small engraved sign between the window and the door declared this to be the hospital chapel, donated by the Gunderson family. The sergeant opened the door to reveal a tiny, beige room, with beige padded benches and a minuscule altar and cross. The light from the window washed pastel colors across the bland little room. He gestured for her to enter and closed the door behind them.

  He watched her warily, as he expected her to have some negative reaction to Christian artifacts, perhaps even burst into flames. Brenwyn could tell from his thoughts that he was a man whose primary emotion was suspicion. Since their first meeting, he had also gained a mild acceptance of phenomena beyond normal physics.

  “Do you feel safer on consecrated ground?” she asked smugly.

  “I need privacy, that’s all.” He settled onto a seat opposite Brenwyn.

  “You have me all to yourself.” She spread her skirts and sat down on the pale bench as if having tea with the Queen.

  Throckmorton sighed and pulled his notepad from his jacket pad.

  “Ms. Czarnecky,” he said evenly, “you remember we’ve gone through this before.”

  “You sell yourself short, Sergeant, if you think anyone could forget an interview with you.” She topped that off with a coquettish smile, but Throckmorton did not rise to the bait.

  “Nine years ago,” he continued, “you were here with an Allison Sprenger, aka ‘Firebird.’ She also was an ex-girlfriend of Jeremiah Stone’s.” He paused for effect there. “She nearly drowned in her bathtub—while taking a shower.”

  “She always was a clumsy child.”

  “And then there was a Calvin Hodgkiss—‘Emrys Caledonius’—the ‘High Priest’ in your coven.”

  It sounded to Brenwyn as if he were reading off charges before a hanging at Salem.

  “You sound very disapproving.” All the playfulness left Brenwyn’s voice. “Even if I am not a proper Southern Baptist, I always understood I was free to practice my own religion in this country.”

  “My feelings about your coven have nothing to do with this,” he said, though his feelings were evident even to someone who could not hear his thoughts. “You have come in to various hospitals with a long line of freak accidents: Hodgkiss, mauled by a bear—in the outskirts of Cleveland. Kiyoshi Tayama, pecked to death by a ‘murder of crows,’ as you said in your statement.”

  “The inquest said it had to be chickens.”

  He went on with no acknowledgement of her little jibe. Throckmorton had no sense of humor.

  “There’s a black cloud following you,” Throckmorton urged, “and I’d bet my life it’s Jeremiah Stone.”

  “You should really talk to the Darke County Sheriff if you think there has been a crime.” She refused to be pulled into his little crusade when it would probably result in his death.

  “Latchke’s on the end of somebody’s leash,” he said with open disgust.

  “As are you, Sgt. Throckmorton,” Brenwyn countered. “What happens with all of your investigations?”

  “They get buried, as you well know. The Stone family has deep pockets.”

  “So there is no point in my talking to you at all.” Brenwyn started to rise from her seat. “May I go now?”

  Throckmor
ton stopped her with a hand to her wrist.

  “Are you going to simply walk away?” he asked. “He just put your boyfriend in a wheelchair. Can you live with letting that slime get away with it?”

  She calmly removed his fingers from her arm, though she might have been just as happy simply removing his fingers.

  “Up until now, you were trying to implicate me in these deaths,” she said. “You even accused me of being the head of a satanic cult. That is not the way to gain the cooperation of a nice Wiccan girl.”

  Throckmorton threw up his hands.

  “Fine, I was wrong,” he snapped. “I apologize. Now I need your help. You must have some way to stop this maniac.”

  Brenwyn had been dealing with Jeremiah for over a decade with full knowledge of what he was and she had no sound plan for doing that. All she could do was to get as many innocents out of his way, even Throckmorton.

  “You saw the camp, did you not?” she asked. “Can you do that kind of damage?” Looking too carefully at his situation threw Throckmorton’s mind into turmoil. At least that kept him quiet. “Jeremiah Stone is a spoiled, dangerous child and no one can stop him but himself.”

  Throckmorton rose to his feet slowly. After a moment, he spoke up again, but very quietly:

  “So, you won’t do anything to help?”

  “You do not know the terrible price for fighting him on his own terms,” Brenwyn said. “I am not afraid of him, but what I might become. It is best to simply let him destroy himself.”

  The most important thing she had learned at Musetta’s knee, or unlearned after her time with Jeremiah, was the Rule of Three: Any effort, especially magickal, returned three-fold to the sender. The negative power required to overthrow Jeremiah times three might rival a nuclear cataclysm when come to roost.

  Throckmorton pulled a business card from his jacket and handed it to Brenwyn with obvious irritation.

  “When you get tired of losing friends, give me a call.”

  “When there is a point in your being involved, Sergeant, I shall,” she said sweetly.