The Fissure King

by Rachel Pollack

  The fires all flashed high then burned out at the same moment. Even as he lay on the dark cold dirt Jack realized he could not feel the card on his body.

  Too exhausted to drive further than the next cheap hotel, Jack got home the next day. The moment he stepped in the house Layla ran up and grabbed his arms. "Did you do something?" she asked, "Did it work?"

  Nervously, Jack said, "I did something. But we won't know. Not for a while."

  Layla pulled back from him. "No," she said. "You were supposed to fix this. I can't stand it anymore." Jack looked past her to see his daughter on the wooden stairs to the bedrooms. She was wearing a too tight halter top and too short miniskirt, and spike-heeled sandals—everything her mother would have forbidden if Layla wasn't afraid of her. She raised her middle finger toward her mother, and then clumsily walked upstairs with an exaggerated sway of her narrow hips. They'd reached a dangerous stage, Jack thought. The poltergeist wasn't Genie but she wanted to believe it was. She liked the power.

  Jack spent the night on the couch. When his wife told him she wanted to be alone he did not contest it.

  He slept late, woken finally by the sound of his wife's voice, high and tight as she shouted at her daughter. Jack ran into the kitchen. The date was March 9th, 2005.

  The first thing Jack saw was his wife, dressed in a blue sweat suit, shouting at their daughter, who was laughing as she leaned back against the doorway to the dining room. Eugenia wore a red dress and her old faded black Mary Janes. And then Jack ignored them, suddenly focused on everything else he saw in the kitchen. Iron pots. Large ladles. Knives.

  Eugenia said, in a singsong taunt, "Good morning, Daddy. Mommy seems all upset about something."

  Jack ignored her. "Layla," he said, trying to keep his voice even, "what are you doing?"

  "I'm making lunch!" his wife shouted. "I'm making lunch—for my family—in my own fucking kitchen."

  Jack said, "We agreed—"

  "No! You agreed. You gave the order. The great Jack Shade the Traveler. I won't live like this any more. My husband and my daughter don't get to boss me around in my own kitchen."

  Jack turned to Eugenia. In that same steady voice he said, "Genie, I need to talk to your mother. Please leave the kitchen."

  His daughter laughed. "Whatever," she said, and moved from the doorway. Then, "Nah, I think I'll stay," and she went back to where she'd been standing. "This is too much fun."

  Layla said, "Goddamn it, do what your father says. I don't care what thing you've got inside you. You're fourteen years old and he's your father. If he tells you to do something you do it."

  "Please," Jack said. Later he would wonder if he'd been speaking to his wife, his daughter, or the "thing." It didn't matter. None of them was listening.

  A pot flew past Jack's head to hit the wall opposite the stove. Hot tomato sauce spilled down to cover a framed photo of the three of them at Disneyland when Eugenia was seven.

  Layla screamed. Eugenia jumped up and down and clapped her hands. "Good one!" she said. "Let's see what else we can do."

  "Genie!" Jack cried. "This isn't you. You can fight it."

  "Why?" she said. "It's fun."

  Then the knives started. They came at Jack, all different sizes, end over end or straight toward him. He flailed his arms like a windmill, spraying blood even as he batted most of them away. It was the smaller ones that got through his defense. Two small paring knives and a long-tined fork caught his right jaw and the side of his neck.

  And then it was over. Jack was on his knees, his left hand pressed against his neck to stanch the blood. He saw his daughter first. She stood frozen in the doorway, ludicrous in her cheerful red dress, her mouth open but unable to make a sound. He looked at her for a long time, afraid to turn his head. When he finally did he saw his wife, and there she was, his beloved Layla, on the floor in a thick puddle of blood. The vegetable cleaver that lay next to her had cut right through her jugular. He crawled over to her and cradled her empty body.

  "Daddy," Eugenia whispered. "I didn't—it wasn't—"

  "I know, baby," Jack said. "It wasn't you. It's not your fault."

  Eugenia said, "Help me. I don't think I can hold it." The knives had begun to swirl around her legs, a few inches from the floor.

  "I know," Jack said again. His voice wet, he called out, "I, Jack Shade, invoke my vow. I demand payment!"

  "Daddy?" Eugenia said. "What are you doing?"

  Ignoring her, Jack said, "Take her somewhere. Somewhere safe, where she can't hurt anyone."

  For months afterward Jack would wonder—did he want what happened? Was he trying to punish her? He would lie in bed and try to bring back that exact moment. He could never decide.

  A door appeared in the room. Stone, unmarked. "Oh my God" Jack whispered. Then, "No! That wasn't what I meant."

  Eugenia just stood there, looking up at the door that somehow stood taller than the room. Jack called out "Genie. Get away from it. You don't have to go there." But she didn't move, and neither did her father, though he fought to get up against an invisible hand that pressed him to the floor, even as he yelled to his daughter to run.

  The door swung open, and Jack heard the Forest before he saw it—wind first, then voices, swirls of hushed voices. As it opened wider, so that his daughter stood framed in clouds of trees, Jack tried once more to move, but now he couldn't even speak, not to tell Eugenia to fight, not to try once more to take back his vow. He could only watch as his daughter walked, robot-like, into the world of whispers.

  And then the door closed, and a moment later vanished, and he was all alone, Jack Shade with his dead wife in his arms—Johnny Lonesome, on the floor of a kitchen covered in blood.

  2

  The Queen of Eyes

  Jack Shade stood with a glass of Laphroaig single malt and looked out the window of his room in the Hôtel de Rêve Noire, the small Art Deco building on 35th Street where he'd lived for the past seven years. Down below, people were hurrying through the streets, clutching their coats against their bodies to shield them from the gusts of wet November wind as New York prepared for yet another "freak" storm. In the press and on TV, people argued over whether it was global warming or just unlucky coincidence, and what, if anything, should be done about it. Jack didn't know much about climate change. What he did know was that this particular string of storms came out of a really bad contract a foolish magus had signed half a century ago, up the Hudson in Tarrytown. How naïve did a wizard have to be to make a compact with a storm elemental?

  Jack sipped his whisky. Right now NYTAS, the New York Travelers Aid Society, of which he was officially a member, would be gathered down by South Street Seaport, chanting, casting spells, laying down sigils and vêvés, in other words, doing whatever they could to protect the city. Jack knew he should be there. Arthur Canton, the current Chief of NYTAS, considered Jack a weak link and blamed him for how ineffective their configurations seemed to be, how the city still got flooded and houses still got blown down.

  Callous Jack, they called him. The nickname originated in a knife fight Jack had gotten into outside the Bronx Gate of Paradise (every borough had a gate, with two on Staten Island). The name had stuck beyond its origin, and now the New York Travelers used it whenever Jack refused to help them.

  It wasn't true, of course, the idea that Jack didn't care. The fact is, every Traveler has limited resources for this sort of thing, and if Jack was going to take on the role of Fairweather Johnny and become a weather witch, he had to choose—give his small energy to help spread what little protection NYTAS could muster for the whole city, or focus everything he had on guarding the hotel.

  Travelers don't take much to witchery. They might struggle with elementals, or the endless visitors from Above or Below that seemed to find our world so fascinating, but they didn't like to mess with such things as hurricanes or droughts. With every storm,
Jack waited until it was nearly on them, telling himself that this time it would be okay to join the others. Sometimes he even got everything ready to go help. But then he would always remember the year a blizzard had shattered the windows on three floors of the building's north side, and how Irene Yao, the hotel's owner, had just stood and stared at the smashed Hepplewhite chairs, the ruined Mantegna print, the stained rugs. And then he would sigh, realize he was stalling by constantly checking the Traveler meta-weather app on his iPad, and just head up to the roof to guard the Rêve Noire.

  So now Johnny Witchboy had cast his protective net over the hotel, and was back in his suite drinking whisky , and thinking he might go wander among the crowds stocking up on batteries and candles. He felt a slight brush against his right leg and looked down to see the subtle red glow of Ray, his fox spirit companion. Jack raised his glass in a toast. "We did our best," he said, "Let's hope it works." Ray sat back on his haunches and dipped his head. Spirit foxes come in various forms, but Ray was a Fox of the Morning, a solar emanation, useful for weather work, and he'd been with Jack when Jack had been doing his work up on the roof. "Thanks," Jack said, and took a drink.

  Ray vanished as a soft knock came at the door of Jack's suite. Oh hell, Jack thought. He knew that sound. "Miss Yao," he said as he opened the door, and there she was, in a pale lavender wool dress and gray, low-heeled pumps, her smooth, almost translucent face carefully without expression as she held out the silver tray with the cream-colored business card. "Mr. Shade," she said. It was only Miss Yao and Mr. Shade when she brought the card.

  There were four lines on the card: John Shade, followed by Traveler, then Hôtel de Rêve Noire, New York, and finally the black horse head knight from the Staunton chess designs.

  Jack picked up the card. "Thank you, Miss Yao," he said. "Who have I got this time?" Due to a self-inflicted bad bargain that only made a tragedy worse, Jack Shade could not refuse any client who came to him with his business card.

  "A woman. Mid-forties, I would say. She looks . . . suburban. Like a soccer mom, if one still uses that expression." Jack nodded. Irene's voice was never less than elegant, with hints of her long-ago operatic career, but Jack knew her well enough to catch the worry under the surface. He doubted she knew much about what he did, what "Traveler" meant, but he suspected it was more than she pretended.

  "Did she give her name?" Jack asked.

  "Yes. Sarah Strand." She hesitated, then said "This is foolish, perhaps—she certainly sounded genuine when she said it—but I had the oddest sensation that the name was fake."

  "An alias?"

  "I'm not sure. More as if she indeed uses that name, yet somehow it is not entirely who she is." She looked down. "I'm sorry, I'm being anxious. And interfering in your business, which is worse."

  Jack smiled. "Not at all. But I guess there's only one way to find out. Is she in the office?"

  "Yes, of course."

  Jack nodded to her. "Thank you, Miss Yao."

  "Good luck, Mr. Shade."

  Jack's office, a converted guest room on the second floor, had no computer or other office equipment, nothing more than an old library table and three red leather chairs. Jack used to keep a decanter of water on the table, with two of Miss Yao's crystal goblets, something for nervous clients to do with their hands, but even more, a chance to work an alignment if he might need to search the client's memories. After a recent incident, however, with a man named William Barlow, Jack no longer trusted such tricks. If a client's throat got dry, he or she could always get a drink from the bathroom.

  Sarah Strand, or whoever she was, sat on the far side of the table, facing the door, her hands in her lap holding the clasp of a nondescript black leather purse, something she might have bought at any suburban mall. Jack guessed you could say the same for her tan pants suit, and tailored white blouse open at the neck, and her dark red synthetic wool coat draped over a chair. Her face was somewhat square but not enough to make her look heavier than her hundred twenty-five pounds or so. Her brown hair was neck length and cut in layers to try to give it more body than it actually had. She wore no wedding or engagement ring, but her right pinkie held a small but good quality sapphire in a simple gold setting. Jack wondered if it had belonged to some relative.

  "Mr. Shade?" she said, half rising until Jack waved her down again.

  "I'm Jack Shade," he said, and took the chair opposite her.

  "I'm Sarah Strand. Thank you for seeing me." When Jack said nothing, she took a breath and went on. "It's about my mother, Mr. Shade. She's missing and I'm very worried about her."

  Jack stared at her a moment. Not his kind of case, but then, she did have his card. "How long has she been gone?"

  "It's only three days, and yes, I know that's not very long, and maybe you're thinking she probably just wanted to get away by herself for some reason. But it's not like her. We're very close, she would tell me."

  "Does your mother live with you?"

  "No, but her house is only a mile or so away. We see each other all the time."

  "And where exactly is that?"

  Sarah Strand's eyes darted to the side a moment. The question bothered her for some reason, though it seemed harmless enough to Jack. She said, "We both live just outside a small town upstate. Gold River."

  Jack's eyes narrowed a moment. He did know that name, though he could not remember how. Ray appeared on the table top. He stared at Sarah Strand, or rather her hands, still holding the clasp of her purse. Ms. Strand, of course, took no notice, and a moment later Ray vanished.

  Jack said "Perhaps you'd better tell me your mother's name."

  "Oh, of course," she said, but there was the slightest hesitation. "Margaret Strand."

  Jack took out a small black notepad and a retractable Japanese fountain pen from the jacket's side pocket and wrote down Margaret Strand. Gold River, NY (??) He said, "Does she live alone?"

  "Yes."

  "How about you?"

  "I have a daughter. Julie. She's fifteen."

  Dangerous age, Jack thought. Just a year older than his daughter Eugenia had been when a poltergeist entered her. He noticed that Sarah hadn't mentioned any men. Could the Strand women be Matriscas, mage-women who took male lovers only to get pregnant, making sure they only gave birth to girls? Was that why Ms. Strand had come to him rather than the cops or a regular P.I.? But wouldn't a Matrisca go to a female Traveler? And Sarah didn't look much like a sorceress.

  He said "Ms. Strand, do you mind telling me how you got my card?"

  "My mother had it. Years, I guess. It was propped up against a small netsuke carving of a frog."

  Despite himself, Jack's eyebrows shot up. How did this Margaret Strand know about that? Jack's involuntary service with the Council of Frogs was something he never told anyone. He wrote CF? on his pad, then said, "Have you spoken to the police?"

  "No. They wouldn't—they wouldn't understand."

  "How about the hospitals? I don't want to alarm you, but perhaps your mother was in an accident."

  She stared down at her hands, and something stirred in Jack's spine. Hands, he thought, but couldn't make the connection

  "No," she said. "It can't—I would know if something happened to her. If she was—" She looked up at him. "Believe me, Mr. Shade—I would know."

  Jack turned his business card over in his hands. He couldn't refuse her if she really wanted him, but he could try to make her understand it was pointless. "I'm sorry, Ms. Strand, but I don't really see what I can do for you. I don't know what impression your mother gave you, but I'm not a detective. And I'm afraid that's what you need. I wouldn't even know where to start with a missing person case."

  She sighed. "Mr. Shade," she said, "I'm afraid I haven't been entirely honest with you. Margaret Strand is not my mother's real name. Well, it is, it's the name on her driver's license, the name on her checkbook. But it's not
actually who she is. Her true name, Mr. Shade, is Margarita Mariq Nliana Hand."

  Jack jumped to his feet, knocking the chair over behind him. "Holy shit!" he said. "Your mother is the Queen of Eyes!"

  Jack had met the Queen once, on a California beach just before dawn.

  After all his years as a Traveler, after the poltergeist killed his wife and got his daughter banished to the Forest of Souls, after he came close to losing himself in the Ibis Casino, Jack had thought he'd seen everything. Implacable Jack, some called him. But it wasn't until he met the Queen that Jack understood what it meant to see at all.

  It was right after the Sibyl War, the battle between oracular email services that Jack got stuck adjudicating. Jack hadn't wanted to be involved. These things always ended badly, he told himself. Hermaphrodite Teiresias having to tell Zeus and Hera whether men or women enjoyed sex more—Paris of Troy having to judge a goddess beauty pageant—disasters no matter which side you picked. So he'd really wanted to say no, and in fact, no one had come with his card that time, so theoretically he could have, but the case had come from COLE, the Committee Of Linear Explanation, and they didn't need his card. Jack owed them.

  After Layla's death, and Eugenia's disappearance into the Forest, Jack had had no choice but to contact COLE to cover it all up so he wouldn't have to tell any Normal Police what had happened to Mr. Shade's family, and where did he get that very nasty cut down the right side of his jaw? So when the Shadow Man stood in Jack's bedroom and told him the Committee would very much appreciate it if Mr. Shade would act as judge in the conflict between Ghostmail and Jinn-net, what could Jack do? Luckily he'd managed to survive the experience, suggesting that the two systems each launch an IPO and let the market decide. Grateful to not have his insides boiling, or his eyes turned to cockroaches, Jack had left the Night Castle, the Travelers' hostel on the coast just south of San Jose, and decided to take a walk along the Secret Beach.