by G A Chase
Myles finally let go of Kendell’s hand. “When is anything we do ever enjoyable?”
Professor Yates was next to enter the crowded room. Kendell’s fear for Myles increased as the old man wired him up to the array of machinery. “Most of this equipment is so that I can keep an eye on how you’re doing physically, so if things get out of hand while you’re working on Colin, don’t try to hold in your reactions. If you find you have control over your body, clinch your fist, and I’ll dial up the power. Open your hand, and I’ll reduce the flow.”
Myles nodded and took a deep breath. “Let’s just get on with it.”
Kendell let herself give way to the smells and spells that Delphine used to prod her soul. Myles proved far braver at accepting the voodoo intrusions than she would have guessed. It wasn’t long before they were sharing their souls in the voodoo totem. Though only a part of her was in the genie bottle, with Myles fully in the spiritual plane, Kendell found it hard to focus on anything else.
Mentally, Myles pushed his cane forward. The world around Kendell exploded into a whirlwind of images. As a child, she’d dreaded the yearly viewing of The Wizard of Oz. Like Dorothy being sucked into the tornado, Kendell lost track of all that she held dear, with the exception of Myles. She kept her eyes open for the devil pedaling his bicycle in pursuit of her through the whirlwind.
* * *
In Colin’s history with Luther Noire, the secretive guardian of paranormal artifacts had been careful to dodge any specifics about what lay within his vaults. After locking Luther in his office, Colin’s first order of business had been to take a thorough inventory of everything he possessed. He’d hoped to find the equivalent of a paranormal brick that he could throw to break the barrier between life and hell. Though he hadn’t found what he sought, he did discover that the power to control each vault first ran through the twenty-third floor.
In a jail, the most secure area housed the most dangerous inmates. As the twenty-third was the least accessible floor in the World Trade Center, it had to be where Luther kept the most powerful objects. Even when Colin had command of the elevators, he’d never managed to stop on the concealed floor. He’d tried the stairs, but frustratingly, the door labeled “23” opened to Luther’s offices and not to the secured vaults.
The time has come for me to take charge, old man. Colin spread his coat and glided down the building, counting the floors during his descent. With a rap from his iron walking cane, he smashed a window that was supposed to be unbreakable. I am the devil, and this is my hell. No part of it is forbidden to me.
Once inside, he walked along the hallway and checked each of the vaults for stability. From the rusted doors and antique gauges, he knew the vaults predated the building.
His investigation wasn’t purely driven by curiosity. After figuring out that time wasn’t constant, he knew there had to be paranormal objects that affected that force of nature. His machine on the top floor proved such mechanisms were possible. What he’d created, however, was a rocket without a guidance system. He had used his pocket watch with the attached cufflink like a compass while blasting his time engine, but such crude attempts weren’t getting him closer to Kendell and too often resulted in meltdowns. He needed something more refined, and he didn’t have the patience or skill to design it himself. Time is the dimension you used to cool your vaults. It has to be.
The main power line ran into a vault that looked like every other rusted door along the hallway. It opened with a protest of squealing metal. This is it. All or nothing. The room was lined with metal storage shelves filled with wooden boxes. Wires ran from the ceiling to each row. By tracing the leads, he found the main junction box. Unlike all of the previous vaults he’d investigated, this one had clocks—both digital and analog—attached to each breaker that led out to the shelves. An old-fashioned white-faced school clock dictated the time to the hodge-podge of timepieces inside the junction box. The second hand moved forward, but the minutes were going in reverse.
He pulled out his pocket watch and the attached cufflink from his waistcoat. Compared to building his control room upstairs, attaching the wires from the main clock to his watch was simple. With the flip of a single lever up in his control room, he could transfer command of the vault from the school clock to his pocket watch.
He felt naked as he left the vault. His jury-rigged piece of jewelry was his only connection to Kendell and reality. If switching how the artifacts dealt with time—and throwing full power to the twenty-third floor—resulted in another meltdown, he’d become a castaway adrift in the middle of time’s ocean. If his plan worked, however, not only would he sync up to reality’s time, but he might also punch his way from hell back to life.
He just needed the nerve to throw the switch.
Colin stepped out the window and twirled in his long coat to return to the top floor, but when he arrived, he found he wasn’t alone. “I thought I banished you from hell, little bug.”
Sanguine sat on the circular roof like a sculpted angel on the gable of a church. “This hell doesn’t belong to you, so you have no authority to claim or banish anyone. This is my realm now, and I’m here to make sure you realize this hell is your incarceration, not your playroom. We can start by getting rid of that flying coat of yours.” She snapped her fingers. A murder of crows descended from the sky and ripped his long coat from his shoulders.
“You’re not the only one with little pets.” He too snapped his fingers, but his usually faithful bats had abandoned him.
“Guess I should have mentioned my first act was to reconcile with hell’s creatures, including your little winged rats.”
He’d been outmaneuvered. Being alone in hell had made him complacent, but he still had control of the World Trade Center. Sanguine might fancy herself as some kind of avenging angel, but that didn’t give her any power over his machinery.
“So what’s your plan? You just going to hover over me and make sure I’m suffering? You don’t have that kind of a sadistic nature. You’ll get bored within a week.”
“My grandmother believed letting you discover your hidden talents was useful in that she could take them away whenever she chose. She thought having something to do would distract you from trying to escape, but you and I know that hasn’t been the case. Under my rule, you won’t be discovering any supernatural abilities. You’ll just be a sad little man condemned to a lonely life.”
He marveled at her ability to read his darkest fear. “And what about you? As the jailor, are you going to accept the same fate?”
She stretched out her wings. “I never really cared for more than a handful of people. Though I’ll miss them, I’ll find enough to keep me occupied with my grandmother’s animals.”
“So you and I are just going to do battle for eternity? Me forever trying to get you to change your mind about letting me leave, and you tormenting me? Still sounds awfully boring, or was that your intention?”
She hopped down from the roof as easily as she would off a barstool. “Nope. I know you’re messing with time, obviously. I’m going to let you keep playing with it. Just realize once time exists as you remember, so does your inevitable death. And backing up the clock doesn’t take years off your age. I know. I checked.”
He spread his arms so she could see how he’d already aged. “Me getting older doesn’t seem to be a function of your grandmother’s stoppage of the clocks.”
She sighed as though he’d said something stupid. “You’re getting older because you expect to get older. But just like those clothes, if you try hard enough, you can mend the lines around your eyes and darken your gray hairs back to black. I would guess you probably already knew that. With time moving forward, the effects will be real and not just theater makeup. You will die of either old age or suicide.”
He leaned against the railing. “So if I fell, you’d let me die? You’re not like your grandmother. Why not just kill me yourself?”
“I made a promise—a couple of them actually—to let yo
u live. But no one said I had to keep you alive.”
Though she had a snarky attitude that reminded him of a teenager who thought she had all the answers, she wasn’t bad company, especially considering how long he’d gone between conversations. “You’re not concerned my spirit will infect all of humanity with my greed and lust for power? I seem to recall your grandmother setting this little jail cell up for me specifically so my soul wouldn’t return to the human continuum. She believed I was the manifestation of everything that was wrong about humanity.”
“Oh, I agree with everything she taught me. Your death isn’t the end of my adventure—it’s more like the beginning. Once you’re gone, I intend to travel back through time and erase every one of your deeds all the way back to when Archibald Malveaux was a little boy. Then, as he ages, he’ll find life isn’t quite as easy as he’d imagined.”
Her plan had a simplicity to it that he admired. Having his accomplishments systematically removed from history only to have him start over again as the perpetual pauper made him quiver inside. Fear wasn’t an emotion he embraced. With two hundred years of successes, in both life and death, he had developed the confidence to face any challenge with conviction. Having the ability to remove the basis of that iron will, however—now, that was true power.
“Instead of a guardian angel, you’ll be a demonic presence tripping me up at every turn. What’s to stop me from killing you first?”
She tilted her head as if she’d never considered the idea. “We both have friends in the afterlife. I suspect mine would allow me to continue my mission.”
“And if I find a way to escape?”
“You won’t.”
Apparently, she shared her grandmother’s fundamental failing.
“You’re overly confident,” he said.
She shrugged off the dig. “We’ll have plenty of time to find out.” Without waiting for his rejoinder, she ran to the edge of the building and jumped into the air. Her long white wings carried her high into the sky.
“I’m going to miss flying.” Though he still considered Kendell a worthier intellectual adversary, he couldn’t deny that Sanguine had found ways of cut him deeply.
* * *
Sanguine flew around the outskirts of the Quarter until she was certain Colin had returned to his science experiment. Once she saw the streetlights flicker, she landed on the roof of Saint Louis Cathedral. A man who’d amassed so much power would never bow down to a young woman. I’ll just bet you’re futzing with those knobs and levers like a little boy right now. You just go ahead. I’ll be right here, watching and waiting.
The sun and moon streaked across the sky like dogs chasing each other around the living room. The fact that time no longer moved slowly and deliberately was her first indication of Colin’s panic. She only had to wait until the days resumed their normal progression and he shut down his streetcars.
Hunger turned her stomach into a knot of pain. Her eyes stung from lack of sleep. As a spirit, she hadn’t endured the physical reactions to Colin’s time distortions, but now that she had her body with her, the effects were intolerable. She glided off the sharply angled roof to the cobblestone-paved promenade. He must be getting close.
The sooner Kendell’s totem showed up in Delphine’s shop, the sooner Sanguine could rescue her friend’s spirit and return to life, where she could get some rest. Though the walk was only a handful of blocks, her legs ached so badly from exhaustion that she considered spreading her wings. But she resisted the temptation to fly, figuring that stumbling would be less jarring than falling from the sky. She took a deep breath, hoping the oxygen would rejuvenate her muscles. Her one consolation was that if she was this beat, Colin had to be in worse shape. The distraction would dull him to the changes in his world while the rest of the team powered up their virtual-reality addition to hell.
Sanguine pushed open the door to Scratch and Sniff. Scents of perfume wafted out of the vacant space. She mentally ran through her list of chores again. First, drive Colin into action. Second, make sure Kendell and Myles arrive in hell, then notify the band. Finally, protect Kendell at all costs.
She leaned against the wall and watched Kendell and Myles materialize from the voodoo totem. Kendell put one hand on Myles’s shoulder and the other on the golden guitar pick atop the second totem. They shared a kiss, and he was gone.
Sanguine knew there wasn’t time for pleasantries. “We have to notify the band. There isn’t a moment to lose.”
Kendell didn’t turn from the totem. “You go. I’m staying here until Myles is safely out of this thing. I’m his only hope for rescue.”
* * *
Like most of his college friends, Myles had sampled enough mind-altering drugs to know the hallucinogens were more of a distraction to life than an answer. Those experiences paled in comparison to navigating a voodoo totem through interdimensional time and space. The displays of friends being transformed into members of every socioeconomic class he could imagine left him wondering who these people were. He’d thought he knew them. Polly as a CPA? Scraper as an aid worker in Africa? And what the hell, Charlie? I thought you would always be straight, dude. He was only spared from seeing Kendell undergo the transformations as she huddled in the totem with him.
But even that psychotic whirlwind into hell was favorable to being stuck in Baron Malveaux’s old totem. As opposed to the comfortable, though somewhat cramped, totem Delphine had set up for him and Kendell, the baron’s old prison cell reeked of tar and rotting flesh. Ghostly images of the women the baron had enslaved, impregnated, prostituted, and finally held against their will in Guinee floated out of the black goo that covered the walls. Their screams of anguish made it hard for Myles to think. I’ll bet that bastard didn’t even notice.
Myles felt along the cave-like hellhole for some hatch to Colin’s soul. He pulled his hand away from the wall. Black slime stuck to his finger and burned his skin. He watched in horror as the thick acid dissolved his flesh down to the bones. The reflex of balling his hand into a fist restored the flesh, though the pain remained. Agnes Delarosa had nothing on Marie Laveau when it came to designing hells. Good thing Sanguine hasn’t seen this place.
He probed the wall with his cane, hoping the acid wouldn’t destroy the loa’s gift. Green sparks emanated from the handle and filled the room with a blinding light that made him squeeze his eyes shut. Sure would have been nice if this thing had come with a user’s manual.
When he opened his eyes, he was no longer in Baron Malveaux’s version of hell. He stood in the middle of a dark, hardwood-paneled room. African, Haitian, and voodoo symbols were carved into the walls.
A black woman wearing a flowing kente-cloth dress and head scarf sat on a throne of gold. “Welcome, Myles.”
“You know me?”
Her eyes sparkled like sapphires. “I’ve been waiting for you. Sorry for the mix-up about your cane. My bad.”
“You’re Marie Laveau?”
“That I am. Unlike some dimensional architects, I keep an eye on what I’ve created.”
“And you know why I’m here?”
She pointed at the cane. “You’re here to fulfill that staff’s destiny. By instilling empathy in Colin Malveaux, you will give him the ability to see the error of his ways.”
Myles could feel the stone under the silver skull handle of the cane growing warm in his hand. “Um, actually I’m here to give Colin my psychometric skills so he’ll be able to see the virtual-reality overlay we’re creating for his hell.”
“Same thing. You’re able to read energy people have left behind because you don’t just understand people—you connect with them at a basic soul-wide level. You experience our universal connection. Archibald, Lincoln, and Colin did all they could to separate themselves from people. Only someone completely devoid of empathy could treat others as if they’re nothing more than his personal playthings.”
In spite of his paranormal ability—which he’d been told all his life was mere daydreaming and f
oolishness—Myles never considered himself all that special. “Why me?”
She shrugged. “I suppose you could ask that question about anyone’s life. Why did I become who I was and Archibald become Baron Malveaux?”
“But you worked at becoming the voodoo queen, and Baron Malveaux didn’t sit back and let evil come to him.”
Marie stared at Myles as if waiting for the answer to form in his mind.
“It’s not the same for me,” he continued. “I was never trying to be anyone.”
“Weren’t you? Do you really believe I was all about the title? My passion was understanding what lay beneath the surface layer of life. Tell me that same curiosity didn’t drive you to where you’re currently standing.”
He suspected the argument was one of those that could take a lifetime to work out. “I’m sorry I asked. What am I supposed to do?”
“The key is the women you saw in his totem.”
Myles knew enough of the baron’s past to figure out the poor souls had once lived elegant lives and had husbands and children before being turned into sex slaves by the baron’s greed and perversion. “I thought they’d all moved on to the deep waters. Please don’t tell me you’ve kept those lost souls prisoners just to torment Baron Malveaux.”
“Don’t worry. The work you and Kendell did saved them from the baron’s control. What you saw weren’t souls. They were the baron’s version of guilt. He couldn’t internalize what he’d done, so he created those images like a cave painter drawing on the walls. They don’t exist, but they are real to him.”
“So if I convince them they have value and that they aren’t just toys for him to use, that will create some connection in him for the people he abused? And in so doing, he’ll gain a modicum of empathy, which will allow him the psychometric vision needed to see what we’re projecting?” Myles hadn’t realized his task was going to be so hard.