by G A Chase
“Where, or when, the paranormal artifacts are stashed isn’t important. They’re secured even from me. I can’t help you.”
Colin wasn’t so easily dissuaded. “Fine. Give me the controls for the building.”
The swamp witch portioned out power to Colin’s high-rise like a parent worried about the utility bill. The World Trade Center, however, had a static charge that would rival the swamp witch’s hurricane.
“Go up to the old restaurant on the roof,” Luther said. “The controls that activate the rotation of the circular room also harness the building’s power.”
Colin hoisted the duffle bag over his shoulder like a dockworker and headed back to the elevator. A familiar feeling of smug satisfaction threatened to bring a smile to his face. He didn’t actually want Luther’s objects. He just needed to know they were in the building in some form.
The elevator opened to the expansive circular room. Though lower than his penthouse office, it still commanded an impressive view of the city. He hauled the bag to a conference table and carefully removed the contents. The time spent matching up each sculpture to the corresponding journal had been arduous. He never had been a great scholar. Deciphering Marie’s codes had been one of the most painful mental experiences of his life, but that day’s events would make the effort worth the struggle.
With the eight sculptures lining the table like a board of directors awaiting their orders, he proceeded to the journals. Each described the person imprisoned and the spell that had been used. Though he’d suffered the same fate, he couldn’t care less about the first three-quarters of each journal. He flipped one journal at a time to the section about utilizing the trapped energy.
Though education had never interested him, understanding the fundamentals of power—be it economic, political, or electrical—had been the defining objective of his life. “Eight sculptures, and four arms to the building. The old swamp witch might be out to get me, but fate seems to be smiling on me.”
The first challenge was getting four of the crudely carved heads out to the roof of the four projections of the building. He made notations of the four points of the compass on the journals so he’d remember which fetish went to which book. When the room started spinning, it would be hard to keep track of who was who out there.
The heavy sliding door probably hadn’t been opened since Katrina. Once he had it separated from the sill, he forced his iron walking cane into the gap and pried the rusty hurricane-proof door open. Wind whipped around the building as if the old witch were trying to suck him up like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. “You don’t dare kill me.”
Though the tempest continued, he knew she’d never let him out of her realm. Death was an escape she’d denied him more than once. The wind might be an inconvenience, but it wasn’t the threat she might have once imagined.
Just the same, he only took one sculpture out at a time. He might not get batted off the building, but dropping one of the totems would mean wasting valuable time retrieving it. When he had all four positioned at the building’s edges, he returned to the comfort of the glassed-in room. The other four sculptures would have an easier time of it, sitting next to the windows and facing their brethren, but they would also be funneling far more energy through their delicate glass spirit jars. Whatever past sins had caused Marie to isolate the souls in the totems were about to be atoned for through electric and paranormal shock.
Colin consulted the eight ledgers and spoke the garbled words that had no meaning to him. Incantations might work to open the doorways to the totems, but that didn’t mean he needed to understand how they worked.
The utility closet behind the stationary circular stage that took up the center of the old restaurant was more interesting. Though at one time the small control room had probably been little more than a bank of levers, Luther had made numerous modifications to direct the harnessed energy to his secret vaults. Being old-school, the man preferred manual controls to computers, which could so easily be hacked. The room reminded Colin of a locomotive’s engineer cabin.
“Four arms, four banks of controls.” The main levers reached from the center of the consoles to the floor. He pulled each up to the ceiling. They locked into their harnesses with loud thuds that shook the building. “That should change the direction of the power to the vaults to this room.”
Next came the myriad of dials. To maintain the ideal environment that would keep the magical objects from overheating or in some way gaining strength, Luther had built an impressive array of controls. Colin turned each one to full strength.
Finally, he turned to the original 1960s console meant to control the room’s rotation. Using the energy stored up from the storm, he started spinning the circular room at the top of the building. Like a metaphysical turbine, the rotation drew power from the hidden objects and sent that energy to the voodoo fetishes in the room and then, in turn, out to their mates on the roof.
As his paranormal turbine came up to speed, he checked the flight pattern of his bats. Though the bank was still a part of their route, increasingly it was just another beacon and not the central hub.
He rushed back to Marie’s journals. The final four incantations would open the totems on the roof and release their energy into the paranormal streams.
* * *
Myles had never had a dog. Growing up, he’d always wanted one, but between changing schools every time his family moved and people thinking he was slightly crazy because of his psychometric abilities—or “daydreaming,” as his parents described his flights of fantasy—the time had never been right. With Doughnut Hole at his side, he wondered if his life would have been far more normal if his parents had given in to his continuous requests.
Doughnut Hole put his front paws on the partition of the speakeasy as if he wanted to be Myles’s first customer. “Not now, boy. I need to be ready for Kendell. Keep an eye out front. Me and the band are counting on you for protection.”
The playful hellhound gave him a cheerful bark before heading to the front of the club.
With Doughnut Hole in place as guardian, Myles relaxed his mind to free his thoughts. He experienced the usual mad dash of ideas that shot off like fireworks no longer constrained in their tubes. Instead of following their directions, he imagined himself a kid lying on the grass, watching the display. Once the ideas played out, he grew peaceful in mind and spirit.
In his mind, he heard Kendell singing “Come Together.” As she reached the chorus, the band in the next room joined in. He experienced the same light-headed bemusement he’d felt the first time he stepped into a house of mirrors. The guardians of all seven gates stared back at him as if they were his reflections. A giddy excitement swept through him, and as everyone started giggling, he realized the feeling wasn’t his alone. Kendell nearly lost the lyrics, but then Polly and the girls covered for her as they always did for each other.
He felt Baron Samedi activate his end of the ceremony. Behind each of the guardians, another mirrorlike reality appeared. Though each person remained unchanged, the worlds they knew came into focus, taking the place of the dark-funhouse settings. Turning his back to look at his own life might break the spell, so Myles stayed still, but behind Kendell, he saw their apartment, Cheesecake, and even the black Lhasa apso puppy that would come to live with them. He nearly teared up to see Doughnut Hole as his true self again.
Myles remembered why he hated carnivals. In every lovely reality that was home to each guardian, Colin Malveaux stepped out of the shadows like an evil clown intent on killing the merrymakers.
“Everyone remain at your gates.” Myles knew enough about Malveaux’s tricks to know when he was being conned. “He can’t have passed by all of us.”
“So you think he’s trying to put us off our guard?” Polly asked.
Though Myles didn’t always see eye to eye with Polly, he appreciated that she had a clear head in emergencies. “He’s found a way to inject his presence into the formation of the gates. He wants us to believe
we’ve already lost. He’s bluffing.”
Lynn gave in to her emotions. “How do you know? With all of us spread out, he might have stolen Baron Samedi’s cane again. We could all be springing our own traps. I don’t want to get stuck in hell forever. The doors are open. All we have to do is turn away from each other and jump through them. Even if it turns him loose, at least we’ll be in our realities to combat him.”
“No.” Sanguine’s voice echoed around the house of spiritual mirrors. “If any of us turns away, we’ll all be lost. The seven gates only work if we’re all in this together. No weak links.”
“She’s right,” Kendell said. “The cage only works if all the bars are in place. Either we have him imprisoned, or we run the risk of him being in charge of us.”
“Then what do we do?” Serephine’s plaintive cry made everyone turn to her.
Mary calmed the child. “Be brave, little one. We’re all in this together. You will never be alone.”
Serephine’s brother put his arm over her shoulders and pulled her close. “Father no longer has any power. Remember how he used to trick one of us into confessing to something we did by acting like the other one had already told him? This is just another of his stupid ruses.”
The scared child’s mother, Miss Fleur, was oddly quiet. Myles turned to her. “And what do you have to say? You knew a part of him better than any of us.”
“He’s cunning but not all that smart. Look again. He’s not really in our realities.”
Myles focused on the convent behind the old woman in drab attire. Colin Malveaux stood in the cloistered garden, but he looked like a cheap green-screen camera trick. The light that fell to the right of the plants and buildings illuminated him from the front. “He’s still here, though. And none of us would dare make a move to go after him. If we close the gates now, we’ll never be sure he hasn’t planted a hidden way to sneak through our defenses.”
Lynn, still panicking, said, “But with all of us here, who’s going to save us?”
“We’ll have to rely on the dogs. They saved us once. They can do it again.” Scraper’s calm voice reminded Myles of her bass playing: strong, confident, and unyielding.
Minerva, who always backed up her rhythm-section bandmate, said, “Everyone, call the pups.”
Doughnut Hole and Cheesecake were the easiest to entice, but Cupcake and Muffin Top weren’t far behind. Unfortunately, instead of the ferocious beasts everyone expected, Cheesecake appeared as her fluffy, lazy self and her puppies as the adorable balls of fur no one could resist.
Colin’s sadistic laugh echoed from all of the mirror realities. “Those yappy dogs are the best you can throw at me? They’re not even worth crushing with my cane.”
The threat to Doughnut Hole nearly made Myles lose contact with the other guardians. “Touch one curly black hair on my puppy’s head, and I’ll end you once and for all.”
“That goes for all the dogs,” Kendell added.
Of course she was right, but the bond Myles felt for Doughnut Hole was overshadowing his connection to the other animals.
“The fact remains. You’ve got no person—or animal—to challenge me. I’m curious. What are you going to do next?”
If force of will had any impact, Colin would have found himself in dire circumstances. As it was, Myles was as curious as Colin. He could only think of one last being who didn’t currently share their predicament. He looked into the mirror displaying Sanguine Delarosa. Blood of the rose.
She made eye contact and gave him a half nod of understanding. This was her grandmother’s realm. If anyone could reach the old swamp witch while staying in contact with all the other guardians, it would be the one given the name of a true Wiccan descendant.
* * *
From Sanguine’s earliest education in the mystical arts, she knew never to break a spiritual circle. She also knew reality did, in fact, play favorites. Only fools thought life was impartial. The time had passed for her grandmother to sit on the sidelines. She needed to take control of her creation.
Unfortunately, telepathy hadn’t been Sanguine’s strongest subject. Speaking over mental pathways seemed too much like ventriloquism, and she was never sure who was the bigger dummy.
Grandma, I need you.
The well-remembered face smiled from the shadows of the worn chair reflected in an inconspicuous mirror. The old woman at least had the good sense to show up as Sanguine remembered her and not at an age that would have made them look like sisters. Her blue-gray blind eyes never fooled Sanguine. The woman could see better than anyone. She just used her inner awareness of people. What can I do for you, my dear one?
Colin is on the loose. Sanguine had to keep her responses as short as possible to avoid moving her lips and giving the secret communication away.
Light sparkled in the old dead eyes like lightning flashing between the clouds. The comparison was driven home when Sanguine noticed the skies darkening, not only in the various mirrors but also the hell realm around her.
Colin stormed out of the shadows like a kid who’d had his toys taken away. “That’s not fair. Time moves forward. You can’t reconjure the hurricane.”
Agnes Delarosa wasn’t a witch to be trifled with. “I allowed time to move forward when you learned something. I had hoped that by having other people around, you might show some signs of remorse. Instead, you decided to play the devil. Not only have you learned nothing, but you’ve grown more callous as well. Like attracts like. The energy beams you’ve created by playing with your little paranormal Erector Set have called forth the energy of the storm. The old World Trade Center building might be impressive, but nothing stands in the way of a hurricane.”
With all of the various window-mirrors into reality, it wasn’t hard to make out the battle that raged around the high-rise. Bolts of electricity emanated from the voodoo totems, only to be met by lightning strikes from the hurricane that formed up around the structure. The storm’s rotation made Sanguine dizzy, not because of its speed but because of its direction. Time is moving backward.
Sanguine turned to Kendell. “Quick, we need to finish the ceremony. We don’t have much time.”
The singer stretched out her arms. Her song sounded like it was being ripped from her heart. Everyone joined in just as the skies cleared.
“What the hell just happened?” Lynn asked.
“My grandmother turned time around to trap Colin in his realm. Once she turned the clock back a few minutes, Colin, the storm, and everything moved back beyond our reach.”
“So is it over now?” Minerva asked. “Did we form the seven gates?”
Sanguine couldn’t bring herself to be the one to break the circle. The band, however, had no such reservations. Rather than waiting for a verdict from someone who knew—namely Sanguine or Kendell—the girls split from the mirrors so fast it was as if they’d heard an ice cream truck.
Kendell was a little more respectful of their interdimensional guests. “Miss Fleur, Serephine, and Antoine, I want to thank you for your support. We couldn’t have managed the seven gates without you. And Mary—”
“You don’t even need to say it, dear. I will always be here for you no matter the dimension. Now, I suspect you have some work to do in order to find your way home. Please don’t let me keep you. When you do return to your reality, you can be sure of a hot meal on my side of the river.”
The sentimentality got to Kendell. “I love you all so very much.”
17
Kendell sat on the steps of Scratch and Sniff, enjoying the afternoon sunlight on her face. From the stationary cloud formations that dotted the sky, she knew time was once again at a standstill, but at least it was daylight and no longer late evening.
Cheesecake had been the first to reach her. She sat watch next to Kendell. The wolf was panting. Her ears hung low as they did when the Lhasa apso version of herself was overly tired.
“We’ll be home soon, girl. Then you and your puppies can have a nice long nap on the
couch.” She imagined how heavenly it would be to join them.
The bus with Myles, Doughnut Hole, and the band pulled up, and moments later, Kendell heard the yapping of Muffin Top from one end of the street and Cupcake from the other. Everyone—human and canine—looked drained.
Polly was first out of the sliding door, but instead of rushing to see Kendell, she started down the street toward Muffin Top. The two met a few houses from Scratch and Sniff. The bandleader knelt on the brick sidewalk, hugged the hellhound, and wiped the animal’s nose.
“What’s that about?” Kendell asked.
Lynn returned from fetching Cupcake. “I guess you haven’t seen the pups in a while. Colin must have gotten a lick in from his cane to the side of Muffin Top’s head. From the way she acted during your ordeal at the warehouse, nothing seems broken, but there’s a scar on her jaw that will probably be a lifelong reminder of her adventure in hell.”
Kendell began reconsidering letting Colin remain in his hell. Some actions were out of bounds, and hurting a dog—no matter how threatening—was number one on that list. “I’m going to kill that dog molester.”
Minerva leaned out the driver’s side window of her VW. “Not if Polly gets to him first. I think you may have already found Muffin Top’s new mama, once Cheesecake says it’s all right of course.”
Lynn sat on the bottom step and kept her arm around Cupcake. “If it’s not too much to ask, I’d like to look after this little love.”
Myles didn’t say anything, but the bond between a boy and his dog was unmistakable. The tenderness prevented Kendell from making a snarky comment at his expense. “Then it’s settled. Every pup has a home. Now all we need to do is get there.”