Wisdom's Grave 01 - Sworn to the Night

by Craig Schaefer

  One of the qliphoth, the construction worker in his bright orange safety vest, shambled over. He held up a printout from one of Savannah’s machines. It was an overhead shot of the city, black and white, crisscrossed with streaks of neon red and blossoms of flame.

  “This is a heat map of dimensional instability,” Savannah told him. “Occult residue builds up over time, creating points of stress. Places where the fabric of reality risks a fracture.”

  “And?” he asked.

  “And as of a few hours ago, when this snapshot was taken, your brownstone is one of the most magically active places in New York City. And these fracture marks are growing. Something is happening here, Mr. Roth. Something momentous.”

  “I haven’t even been home today,” he said. “I’ve been with you the whole time.”

  “Has Vanessa?”

  He frowned, thinking. He couldn’t remember her schedule at the university. It wasn’t like he’d ever had a reason to care.

  “Mr. Roth,” Savannah said, “these energy patterns are very similar to the eruption caused by Marie Reinhart when she was in close proximity to a late-stage ink addict. Suspiciously similar. And given your mention of an apparent connection between the two women…I may need to study your wife.”

  He shrugged. “Go for it.”

  “By ‘study,’” she said, “I mean ‘vivisect.’”

  “When you’re done with her, can you make it look like a murder?”

  She lifted her VR goggles and rested them on her forehead. They locked eyes with each other.

  “A murder?”

  “Yeah,” Richard said. “I’m just thinking ‘grief-stricken widower searches for answers’ makes a good headline. You have any idea how hard I’ve been trying to get her to kill herself? I’ll settle for an unsolved murder if I have to. Just warn me in advance so I can get a rock-solid alibi lined up.”

  “You do understand what ‘vivisection’ means, yes? Just to be clear. You realize that I’ll be dissecting your wife. While she’s alive and conscious. With no anesthetic.”

  “Your point being?”

  She put her headset back on, swiping at the air as she smiled.

  “My point being,” she said, “you are exactly the kind of assistant I enjoy working with. No sentiment, full efficiency. I was considering subjecting you to the qliphoth process, but you’re actually more useful with a complete brain.”

  “Well…thanks.” He eased away from the desk.

  “I’ll be pulling an all-nighter studying this data. You should sleep. You do require sleep at regular intervals to function, I’m assuming?”

  “I…yes.” Richard took another step backward. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I keep forgetting, you’re outer circle. There’s a surgery to fix that pesky ‘sleep’ thing and massively amplify your productivity. Very minor, easy to do—well, easy for me—and most of the Network’s upward movers have undergone the procedure. It does occasionally result in incurable insanity, but I’m prepared to have you take that risk.”

  Richard pointed to the double doors. “I’m going to leave now.”

  She didn’t reply. He was already forgotten, another blip in the endless wash of data.

  * * *

  Richard’s keys rattled in the front door of his West Village brownstone. He held his phone tucked against his shoulder as he let himself in.

  “I’m serious, Scottie, I’m not sure if we’re any better off with this nutcase. Almost thinking we should take our chances on our own and hope that—”

  He paused on the threshold. His .38 revolver, the one he kept in his nightstand, was sitting on the credenza by the door.

  “I gotta call you back.”

  He hung up and shut the door. Then he picked up the gun. He tilted it, squinting, like it was an artifact from another world. He hadn’t taken it from the nightstand in months. There was no reason for it to be down here at all, let alone sitting out in the open.

  “Vanessa?” he called out. “Are you home?”

  “In the dining room,” she said.

  He walked a few feet up the hall and stood in the open archway. Nessa stood there, waiting, utterly casual. She’d changed into a black turtleneck sweater and matching jeans, her lips adorned in that plum lipstick he hated, and a jaunty beret perched on her head.

  “What are you wearing?” he said. “You look like a fucking art-school student.”

  “I’ll be wearing what I like from now on, Richard. It’s part of my new regimen of therapy.”

  “New? What do you mean new?”

  “Oh, I’m done with Dr. Neidermyer.” She chuckled, one of her arms swaying at her side like a reed in the wind. “Life is done with Dr. Neidermyer. He told me everything, by the way. Before I graciously allowed him to die.”

  Richard’s grip tightened on the revolver.

  “You stole from me.” Her voice became a razor carved from ice. “You stole years of my life. You stole my inner fire and tried to snuff it out forever. Tonight I’m taking it back. And to think, this could have all been avoided if your mother had read you fairy tales.”

  “Fairy…” He shook his head. “What?”

  “Fairy tales exist to teach children the rules, Richard. For instance, mind the path. For instance, be courteous to strangers. For instance—and this one is very important—never, ever steal from a witch.”

  Richard’s eyes went wide. The gun raised an inch in his hand.

  “Vanessa.” His voice wavered. “What did you do?”

  “I picked up your dry cleaning. The shirt you came home in, from your business trip. The one with the bloodstain on the collar. I took it into my workroom and wove a little spell to find out who the blood belonged to.”

  He pursed his lips, silent.

  “Blood…sings to me now, Richard. Blood speaks. It whispers secrets in my ear. I saw her. The girl.”

  Vanessa’s eyes narrowed to murderous slits.

  “I saw what you did. How many women have you killed? I thought I was your only victim, but your hands are stained far bloodier than mine. You hid it well. Or maybe I just didn’t want to see the truth, what kind of a monster you really are.”

  “Vanessa, you’re…you’re not well. Okay? You’re hallucinating.”

  “My vision is crystal-clear. Did you ever read Hermann Hesse? ‘Whoever wishes to be born,’ he once wrote, ‘must destroy a world.’ I’ve always liked that line, though I’m not sure I really understood it until now. And back when I believed you loved me, before I knew you were trying to kill me…well, you were my world, weren’t you?”

  He raised the gun. His hand trembled as he aimed down the sights.

  “But I’m not going to kill you,” she told him. “Oh, I wanted to. And I had every intention, especially after I took care of Dr. Neidermyer. That was fun. But here’s the thing. I have a lover, Richard. Her name is Marie.”

  “Marie Reinhart? The cop?” His finger brushed against the trigger.

  “Mm-hmm.” Nessa folded her arms. Her plum lips curled into an eager smile. “And I will do anything for her. I’ll do anything to keep her safe. To make her happy. Marie wants to be a knight, and she wants to slay a dragon. And you…you’re the dragon she’s been hunting for, all this time. So I’m giving you to her. All wrapped up in a pretty bow.”

  A fist slammed against the front door, pounding fast.

  “Police,” shouted a muffled voice on the other side. “Open up!”

  * * *

  Marie had been walking up the stairs from the subway platform, springtime wind ruffling her ragged hair, moonlight in her eyes. That was when she got the phone call.

  “Hey, I just got off at your stop. I’ll be there in five min—”

  “Marie,” Nessa’s voice gasped. “He’s here. Richard came home early. He’s—he’s gone crazy!”

  “Can you get out of the house? Have you called 911?”

  She heard wood slamming, like angry fists battering a closed door.

  “I’m l
ocked in the closet. He’s trying to get at me. Please, Marie! He says he’s going to—”

  The line went dead.

  Marie broke into a run. She sprinted down the sidewalk, barreling through crowds of pedestrians. Horns blared as she raced across an intersection holding her shield high.

  Block after block, relentless, her feet pounded the pavement to the ferocious beat of her heart. Pain stitched along her side with every breath, spots in her vision, but she wouldn’t let it slow her down. She launched herself onto the brownstone’s porch, slamming the door with her shoulder, then hammering it with one hand while she drew her gun with the other.

  “Police,” she shouted, nearly breathless. “Open up!”

  * * *

  Richard looked between Nessa and the door, baffled.

  “You’re…you’re insane.”

  “Apparently I’m a sadist with a troubled childhood and insecurity issues to work through,” Nessa replied. “But I’m told that’s not considered an actual disorder, so I’d like to think of myself as ‘lovably quirky’ instead. Besides, you’re one to talk. You didn’t answer my question: how many victims have you murdered on your little ‘business trips’?”

  “You can’t prove a damn thing.”

  “You know, you almost broke Marie’s spirit. She fought so hard to save that girl, so hard. So I’m giving her a present. She doesn’t know it, but she needs this. She needs this even more than I do.”

  His trembling finger slowly tightened on the trigger. “Needs what?”

  “You’re right, I can’t prove anything, but that’s fine. Once you’re gone, I’m sure she’ll find all the evidence she needs to prove who you really are and what you’ve done. She’ll find closure. Peace in her heart. That’s what I want for her. I didn’t lure her here to arrest you, Richard. Marie needs to slay a dragon.”

  She raised her head high, let out an ear-piercing scream, and threw herself backward. The glass table cracked down the middle as she landed on it, buckling, breaking, crashing to the hardwood floor. She crashed down with it and sprawled, bleeding, in a spray of jagged glass shards.

  Marie’s heel slammed against the front door. The lock gave and the door burst open. She stood in the doorway with her service pistol in a two-hand grip.

  Richard whirled to face the sound, with the revolver in his hand and raised to fire.

  Marie emptied her gun.

  He staggered backward as round after round punched into his chest. Gunfire shredded his tailored suit, puffs of blood billowing like mushroom clouds.

  The final bullet punched a nickel-sized hole between his eyes. Richard Roth collapsed to the hallway floor, dead.

  Marie dashed into the house. She found Nessa, dazed and squirming in a spreading pool of blood, and knelt down beside her.

  “It’s okay, don’t try to move, I’m calling for help.” She pulled out her phone. “This is Detective Reinhart. I have an injured civilian, need a bus to my location now—”

  Nessa weakly took hold of Marie’s other hand. Squeezing it. She looked up at her with stars in her eyes. She had done it. It was over. She had delivered her dragon to this knight, this paladin, this holy crusader.

  Her knight.

  “You saved me,” Nessa whispered.

  Marie smiled. She ran her fingers gently through Nessa’s hair, picking out tiny bits of broken glass and tossing them aside.

  “I always will,” Marie told her. She leaned down to kiss Nessa’s forehead. “I promised.”

  Forty-Eight

  The ambulance whisked Nessa away, and the house filled with uniforms. They took pictures and measurements. Marie was barred from the scene the second the first car arrived. Out on the front steps, behind a cordon of tape, Captain Traynor took her badge and her gun.

  “You have to help me out here, Detective. You have to help yourself out here.”

  “Like I told you,” Marie said, “Detective Fisher and I spoke with Vanessa Roth as part of an earlier investigation, and I gave her my card.”

  “And when her husband attacked her, she called you instead of dialing 911.”

  “That’s correct. I can only assume she felt comfortable with me. We had a good rapport.”

  Traynor’s eyes bored into her like a pair of diamond-tipped drills.

  “And you just happened to be in the West Village why, exactly? Last I checked, you live in Queens, Detective.”

  “My tour was over, Captain. I was on my own time. I wanted to go to the Chelsea Market after work.” She nodded up the street. “It’s just north of here.”

  “So it’s a sheer coincidence that she called you and you were in the right place at the right time to intervene.”

  Marie curled her toes until they ached, using the pain to steady her breath and keep her voice even. She’d heard about people doing that to beat polygraph tests.

  “I go to the Chelsea Market once a week or so, sir. I like the pastries at Bar Suzette. My roommate can confirm that. So it was really a one-in-seven chance I’d be in the area.”

  “One in seven.” Traynor shook his head. “Detective Reinhart, if you were in my shoes, listening to the explanation you just gave me, how would you feel about it?”

  “I wouldn’t want to speculate, sir.”

  “Your last shoot was about as righteous as they come, and you still had to run the IAB gauntlet, you understand that? This one…this isn’t. You’re an off-duty cop in a place you have no business being, answering a call you shouldn’t have gotten, and you just gunned down one of the biggest real-estate developers in New York.”

  “In fairness, sir, he had a weapon. And I think maybe she called me because he’s one of the biggest developers in the city. She needed someone he couldn’t buy off.”

  Traynor leaned in, pitching his voice for her ears alone.

  “A weapon he never got a chance to fire. And you and I have both been on the force long enough to know how a gun can magically appear in a dead man’s hand.”

  Her eyes went hard. “Sir, if you’re accusing me of using a drop piece—”

  “I’m not accusing you of anything. I believe you’re a good cop, Marie. I know you are. But you need to sit down and have a long hard think about how this is gonna play once IAB gets involved and starts tearing your life open.”

  He pointed at the open door of the brownstone. An evidence tech circled Richard’s corpse, snapping pictures.

  “Because, this?” he said. “This raises questions.”

  Marie stared at the body, silent.

  “Go home, Detective. That’s an order.”

  * * *

  Detectives combed the brownstone. Securing the scene, studying every angle, documenting a death. Jefferson poked his head out of an open doorway.

  “Holy crap, have you seen this kitchen? They have a Viking Tuscany range. Viking Tuscany.”

  Helena Gorski walked past him, rolling her eyes. “Glad you’re focusing on the important details, partner. That’s some fine detective work.”

  She spotted Tony on the far end of the dining room, crouched beside the ruins of the glass table.

  “You talk to her?” she asked.

  Tony shook his head, looking haunted.

  “Probably for the best, at least until this shitstorm passes over.”

  “Lunch today,” he said, his voice distant as he walked through his memories. “We were just talking about…”

  She put a hand on her hip and frowned. “Talking about what?”

  Another headshake. “Nothing. It was nothing.”

  He headed outside to wait for the medical examiner.

  Ten minutes later, Helena was back. She tugged his sleeve.

  “I was checking the upstairs,” she murmured. “I gotta ask you something. You know I don’t like Marie. I’ve never liked her and I’ve never pretended to. But I respect her. And I respect you.”

  He gave her the side-eye.

  “Ask what you’ve gotta ask.”

  “Is your partner on the level, To
ny?”

  “Meaning?”

  She nodded to the door.

  He followed her up the steps to the second floor, the aged wood groaning under their shoes. Helena led him into Nessa’s workroom. He stared, bewildered, at her art. The half-finished menagerie of grotesques, the trammeled wings and bound, contorted arms.

  “Meaning that,” Helena said, pointing to a sketch on a standing easel.

  Three silhouettes danced wildly around a crackling bonfire. Clouds of smoke, sketched in charcoal, whirled up and became solid in the sky above. They took on the shape of two women, cradling each other close. A quiet and tender embrace.

  One, in profile with a black and wide-brimmed hat, her body shrouded in a cape of starry darkness, was clearly Vanessa Roth. And the mussy-haired woman in her arms, clad in steel plate-mail and wearing a sword on her hip, could only be Marie.

  “Fuck,” Tony breathed.

  Helena snapped a photograph.

  * * *

  Marie didn’t go home. She went to Mount Sinai. She gave her name at the hospital’s ER desk, sat down, and waited, stewing in her worries. Her thoughts jumbled around in her head, defying her to make sense of this. She knew she hadn’t done anything wrong. So why did it feel like she had?

  Two hours later a young man in green scrubs wandered over and said, “She can see you now.”

  Marie jumped to her feet.

  Nessa was in a private room, lying on her stomach in a narrow, railed bed. Her head turned toward the door and she gave Marie a tired smile.

  “Fifty-six stitches,” she said. “It wasn’t so bad.”

  The back of Nessa’s gown was open. Marie stood at her bedside and ran soft fingertips over patches of gauze and tape.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “I’m on the good drugs,” Nessa said. “They said I can go home in a couple of days. Maybe even tomorrow afternoon. Long cuts, but not deep ones. I’m going to have some scars. Is that okay?”

  Marie’s hand caressed Nessa’s cheek. “Yeah. I’ve got scars, too.”

  “I know,” Nessa murmured sleepily. “I’ve kissed them. Can you stay with me tonight?”

  “I wish I could. I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t be here with you. You know, because of the…the shooting.”