The Curse Servant (The Dark Choir Book 2)

by Sloan, J. P.

  “I’m afraid I’m nowhere near the area. I’m in Baltimore.”

  “Then best of luck.”

  “Wait! I mean, Monday? You can meet face-to-face, is what you’re saying?”

  “Twelve to one. I’m having lunch at the Green Tree on Columbia. That’s west side. Be there or don’t, your call.”

  She hung up.

  The entire conversation was unnervingly familiar. Her palpable sense of suspicion, her churlish brevity. It was like talking to Emil.

  Two things were clear to me by the time I returned to my work space. The first being that Gillette had made some powerful enemies in her lifetime. Her encompassing paranoia was obviously defensive. She had learned hard lessons in her years of Netherwork, and probably had become increasingly defensive as time progressed.

  And the second? I was going to have to book a flight to Portland if I wanted any useful information from Gillette. Last minute plane tickets weren’t cheap, and my bank account wasn’t as flush as I liked. I had traded the feast-or-famine income of a private hex peddler to the steady-yet-meager income from Julian. It kept the coffee flowing in the mornings, but unexpected expenses weren’t as easy to absorb as they once were.

  Carmody must have known how uncooperative Gillette would be. Collateral, indeed.

  Once again, I was faced with an open day. It was a little late to go to the café. I suspected Ches would still be working, but it would be busy with the lunch rush soon enough, and she wouldn’t be able to chat. By the time I envisioned Edgar sitting on my shoulder with a pitchfork urging me to go anyway, I resolved to find some work.

  I pulled up my Hit List for the week, the list of business contacts from voice mail and email which I had to pore through every Monday. Here it was Friday, and I had yet to touch it. One benefit to working on salary for Julian was that I could be more discerning in whom I took on for hexes and charms. After weeding out the bitter divorcees and jilted cheaters, I landed on the name Ari Leibnitz. I gave Mr. Leibnitz a call and made a lunch date.

  I drove past the café on my way into downtown, and spotted Ches hauling out a serving tray of salads into the outdoor seating. Her curly chestnut hair was pinned up over her ears, and spilled down the back of her head. That was all I really caught before I had to slam on the brakes to keep from bumping into the Cadillac in front of me. I was immeasurably grateful Edgar wasn’t there to see that.

  The food carts down Baltimore Avenue were belching out the savory fumes of barbeque and Thai and whatever else the brilliant bastards inside those trucks were concocting. Men and women in business suits spilled out of the skyscrapers, rushing into vicious lines for their thirty minute fix, each peeling away with a take-out box of pure guilt and eyeing one another in their secret pact of culinary misgiving. Ari Leibnitz found me as I took a place in the barbeque line. He was a portly fellow, about five-five, with very thick glasses and about the most laughable comb-over I’d seen since London.

  “Mister Lake?”

  “The one and only. Mr. Leibnitz, I presume?”

  He nodded bashfully.

  “How did you spot me?” I asked, more than half-interested as I hadn’t described myself to him.

  “We’ve met. I didn’t say anything on the phone, but we spoke once at an event. In March?”

  I vaguely remembered attending a fund-raiser in March for Sullivan to placate Julian. But I was reasonably certain he wasn’t high enough on anyone’s food chain to merit notice from the Presidium.

  “I see. So you need a hex?”

  Leibnitz ducked his head and looked side-to-side. “Should we…?”

  “Don’t sweat it, Mr. Leibnitz. We’re not selling state secrets, here.” He stood stiffly next to me as I advanced in line. “Lunch is on me. You like pulled pork?”

  He gave me an uncomfortable look, and I took the hint. Stepping out of line, I ushered him aside to a shaded ledge of a concrete planter well away from the lunch rush.

  “Listen, you need to understand a few things,” I began as he dusted off the concrete and took a seat beside me. “What I do is perfectly legal. Most people don’t even believe in what I do. Ask the average pencil-pusher in one of these buildings, and they’d tell you you’re throwing your money down a rat hole. Snake oil, they’d say. There’s no such thing as magic.”

  “But is there?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? You obviously believe in magic. Enough to call me, at least.”

  “I talked to someone. They mentioned your name.”

  “Sounds about right. I don’t advertise. Everything I do is on referral. Who dropped my name, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “I… wouldn’t be comfortable with that.”

  “Fair enough. But you’re nervous, and I wanted you to know there’s nothing illegal or even unethical in the services I offer.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You hex people.”

  “Right. I don’t suppose you’re fully aware of what, exactly, a hex is?”

  “A curse?”

  “Wrong. That’s something totally different. Curses are damage. Pure and simple, they’re hatred turned into lasting, permanent damage. And they’re powered by dark forces. A hex, on the other hand, is an engineered consequence. You may or may not believe in karma, but I power all of my workings on it. See, I believe there’s a Cosmos, and maybe not so much an intelligence, but a sheer force of Nature that governs it. A set of principles. A person lives a life that’s selfless and beneficial to the Cosmos, that person gains upon himself a certain… let’s call it gravity. A person goes the other way? Let’s just say the Cosmos has something in store for that person. So what I do is tap into karmic gravity. If someone does you wrong, I coax the Cosmos into delivering their karma ahead of schedule.”

  “Do you sell curses as well?”

  I squinted. “No.”

  That was technically accurate. I had never actually sold a Nether Curse. In fact, I had only ever fired one curse in my entire life, and I was damn lucky the Presidium hadn’t dropped my body into the Chesapeake Bay for it.

  “How do we proceed with this hex, then?” he asked.

  “Right. Well, there are ways of doing this. A hex is a consequence. He does A, then B happens in response. And there’s an exit strategy. When this person decides to stop hurting you, the hex goes away. It’s clean. It’s fair. It’s legal. And you’re not compelled to believe me at all. All you have to do is pay the fee. I do the rest.”

  Leibnitz released a tense breath and rubbed the folds on the back of his neck.

  “That’s actually a relief.”

  “So who’s the particular thorn in your side?”

  “His name is Jacobs.” He left it at that.

  “And?”

  “He just made partner.”

  “Lawyer?”

  He looked up at the skyscraper behind us. A large bronze plaque spelled “Grey & Lisle” just above the rows of glass doors at street level. I had heard the name before, mostly on sponsor banners at local events. They were one of the big tower firms on the East Coast, but beyond that I knew very little.

  “And you were in line to be partner?”

  “Oh no. No, I’m just… no.”

  “Okay?”

  “I’m a certified accountant. And as such, I was made privy to certain inaccuracies.”

  “Inaccuracies? I’m thinking in the whirlwind world of accounting and corporate law those aren’t exactly business builders?”

  “You’d be surprised. No, these were internal errors. Only, they weren’t errors. They were quite intentional, and my purpose is to report these.”

  “To Mr. Jacobs?”

  “No. To the senior partners. It was Jacobs who created the parallel ledger.”

  “Okay, you lost me.”

  He waved his hands in front of his face. “Don’t worry about the details. If you don’t need them, you won’t want them.”

  “Fair enough.”

&n
bsp; “The point is he defended himself, and won.”

  “You lost your job?”

  “Heavens no. But he made partner shortly after.”

  “And?”

  “And that’s it.”

  Holy crap, this guy was actually gunning for justice. “You just want it brought to light?”

  “He’s a bad man, Mister Lake. Just trust me. He shouldn’t win. He just shouldn’t win.”

  I gave Leibnitz a long look and felt humble. “Sounds like we can do business, Ari.”

  “Good. What’s your price?”

  “Five thousand.”

  “Done. What do you need?”

  “Well, I need a piece of Jacobs.” He blanched a little. “Don’t worry. I mean a piece of his energy. His person. Hair is good. Blood is better.” I didn’t mention that my typical marital infidelity clients tended to provide semen.

  “I think I can do that.”

  “Great. Call me when you have whatever you have, and I’ll arrange a pickup. Something like this can be a one-day turnaround.”

  Leibnitz seemed almost excited by the time we parted company. The meeting was good for me. I had grown considerably more jaded within my own practice in the past six months. I’d almost forgotten there were people out there who needed real help. And even then, this particular accountant wasn’t looking for help or revenge as much as a real sense of justice. It felt like a good hot shower.

  sually my morning safari for presentable clothes off the floor of my bedroom put me in a rock-chewing mood by the time coffee became reality. Perhaps it was that emotional deliverance, that shining ray of celestial caffeine brought to me each morning at the café that painted Francesca as my saving angel? More likely I was succumbing to my life-long habit of prescribing ideals to otherwise mortal women, but it usually felt somewhat religious.

  This morning, however, I wasn’t in a foul mood. I wasn’t even brooding. The sky was clear. The chill of morning air had yet to melt under the heat of the Mid-Atlantic summer sun, and Ches had her hair up in a ponytail again.

  I was still flying a bit from my meeting with Leibnitz the day before. This was more than simple comfort with my practice. This felt righteous. I had a solid lead on finding a way to reacquire my soul, at least as solid as I had seen in the past half-year. Not to mention the party on Saturday. Aside from the ever-present sense of impending doom that usually haunted the periphery of my consciousness, it was a pretty good morning.

  Ches eyed me from inside the café as I took my usual seat out underneath the canvas awning, tipping my feet up on the black wrought-iron balusters separating the eating area from the sidewalk. She emerged from the café with my usual, a large cup of Americano with a tiny pot of half-and-half. She shook her head with a grin.

  “You look chipper this morning,” she chimed as she set my coffee down on the iron table.

  “I had a good week.”

  She sighed and leaned against the aluminum pole holding up this side of the awning. “I’m jealous.”

  “Problems?”

  “My brother.”

  “Again?”

  “Yeah. I know, I know. He’s going to lose his kids if he doesn’t do something.”

  About a week ago, Ches started opening up details of her family life when it was just me and her in the mornings. Her life was like a primer in vetting hexcraft customers. I had almost a dozen ways mapped out in my head to keep her brother from losing his kids in the divorce. But I wasn’t going to bring it up at the café. It was my Holy of Holies, and I wasn’t going to drag the Life inside.

  “But that’s him, right? I mean, you’re doing okay.”

  She shrugged. “I suppose. Fall semester is going to make my budget suck out loud. Not looking forward to that.”

  “Cutting your hours?”

  “Still working mornings, though,” she muttered, her eyebrow lifting ever so slightly.

  My heart slapped a quick beat against my sternum. I knew that comment was directed at me. She was dropping hints lately that she could be interested in something beyond our usual morning coffee small talk. I was getting really bad at pretending not to notice.

  It could have been the coffee, which was extra strong that morning. It could have been the sunshine, or my unusual optimism of the moment. Hell, it could have been some kind of alignment of Venus and Jupiter. Whatever it was, I started talking without thinking.

  “I’m having a party Saturday after the game. Some friends of mine are coming over. I’m going to cook something I’ll pretend is a family recipe, and they’re going to pretend they like it.”

  She grinned. “You have friends?”

  “Baffling as it may sound. So, anyway, here’s the part where I stumble over myself trying to invite you to come over while looking cool and disaffected.”

  “Disaffected?”

  “You know. Aloof? Manly?”

  “I don’t think that’s what disaffected means.”

  “Oh?”

  “I think it means pissed off and dissatisfied.”

  “Ah. Not exactly what I was going for.”

  She crossed her arms and shot me a sharp grin. “How about smarmy and disingenuous? Because you pretty much got that nailed.”

  “You coming or not?”

  “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “Well, you could have just said so.” I took a long sip of coffee and wondered what was wrong with me. “If I could possibly be more awkward, you’ll let me know. Right?”

  “What time?”

  “Oh, any time.” Ugh. Any time? “I mean, I’ll be home all day, but everyone else will be coming over after the game. It’s kind of hard to tell when baseball games end, from what I gather.”

  “Okay. Well, I’m just going to go with six o’clock. That work?”

  “Sure.”

  “And home is?”

  “Hmm?”

  She snickered. “Your address?”

  I sat for an uncomfortable moment, my jaw unwilling to move. I had avoided this particular collision of my professional and private lives to date. It took effort to will the words into sound.

  “Ten twenty-four Amity Street. It’s just around the corner.”

  Someone inside the café barked at her, and she pulled herself away from the pole with a sniffle.

  “It’s a date.”

  Ches stepped inside, leaving my bewildered face mug-deep in coffee. It was. It was totally a date. How did this even happen?

  I mumbled, “Fine, Edgar. We’ll play it your way,” before unfolding the paper and trying to ground myself again.

  A brown envelope slipped out onto my lap. I jostled my coffee, managing not to spill it all over my khakis. The envelope had no address. It was blank, light, simply bound by one of those string-and-wheel gizmos that were all the rage with the Baby Boomers. I felt the envelope for any strange lumps or devices, and once I was satisfied the only danger its contents posed were in the form of paper, I unwound the string and opened it.

  Within the envelope I found five glossy photos of Julian and myself guiding a disheveled and panicky Amy Mancuso to his car.

  What was this, a warning? I remembered the blue Chrysler that sped away from the adjoining parking lot. It must have been a private investigator, possibly one of Sooner’s political gravediggers. The election season was just gaining real speed. The yard signs and billboards were already up. The first of the television ads would be airing soon. And as much as Sooner liked to bill himself as a responsible alternative to Sullivan, a man free of political entrenchment… he was, in truth, the puppet of Joey McHenry.

  I had dealt with McHenry once before, and I was very certain he didn’t relish that particular experience. Nevertheless, he was an industry magnate. I was a hermetic practitioner. In any fair scheme of things, our two worlds shouldn’t have ever intersected. But they had. They intersected in the person of Julian Bright.

  I thumbed through the photos, trying to keep them well hidden in my lap. They were clear. Our faces were clear, at any r
ate. As was Ms. Mancuso’s expression of fear and confusion. If these photos were removed from any sensible context, they could prove devastating to Sullivan’s reelection campaign. Questions would be asked, and we didn’t have any real answers. Sullivan would have to ask Julian who I was. I had met the Mayor once before, but I was positive he wouldn’t remember me. For all he knew, I was a grass-roots organizer, whatever that meant. Being a devout Catholic, Sullivan wouldn’t hear “hex crafter” and “payroll” in the same sentence with any kind of joy. Julian would have to come clean, and it would cost him his job. It would be embarrassing for me, but nothing I couldn’t overcome. No, this wasn’t meant for me. This was meant for Julian.

  So why was it slipped into my morning paper?

  “Can I bring anything?”

  I sucked in a breath and slid the sports section over the envelope as Ches rounded my shoulder.

  “I’m good,” I replied waving my coffee in front of my face.

  “No, I mean your party. Do you want me to bring anything?”

  “Nah. I’ve got it covered. Family recipe, remember?”

  She put a hand on my shoulder and stood there, looking at it. It was the first time she had ever actually touched me.

  “I’ll have you know I’m completely rearranging my social calendar for this, so your family recipe had better be dynamite.”

  “You have a social calendar?”

  “Yeah. It’s a Post-it on my fridge that says ‘Get a Life.’“

  I tried to laugh, but my mind was on the photos in my lap.

  And I was having such a good morning.

  tried to call Julian when I got home, but his voice mail announced he had taken a day trip to North Carolina with the Mayor. I left a simple “It’s Dorian; call me” message and leaned back in my chair at the roll top desk overlooking Amity. I had to make a decision, and quickly. Less for Julian’s benefit, but more for the virtue that I was letting politics derail my search for my soul.

  Or was it the other way around?

  I knew how Julian would answer that question. I needed to reevaluate my priorities. The steady income was nice. Unspeakably nice. I had taken care of substantial unfinished business in my personal and professional life thanks to Julian’s monthly checks. I’d cleared my debts. I’d installed the steel door to my basement. I’d even managed to fully update the rental properties that had gone neglected for far too long. My tenants seemed happy, especially Abraham Carter, my superintendent. When old Abe stopped showing up at my stoop with his hat in his hand about some damned busted air unit or a leaking gutter, I knew I had finally achieved the level of passably acceptable landlord.