The Curse Servant (The Dark Choir Book 2)

by Sloan, J. P.

  “I never doubted that.”

  “You know,” Wexler continued in a softer tone, “if you could suspend your paranoia for a moment, you might see our purpose here. The Presidium was born out of the Enlightenment. Europe was emerging from a thousand years of religious war and the destruction of knowledge. It was a breeding ground for the Cabals to manipulate the Church, thrones, entire nations. Look what that produced. It may seem simple enough to reduce us to a kind of fascist umbrella, but the alternative could have been further ruin. Or the chaos you find on the West Coast.”

  I pounded the rest of the champagne. “Guess I’m just more worried about a little girl than world history.”

  Wexler lifted her brow. The corner of her mouth lifted slightly as she took my glass. “Reginald will see you back to his car.”

  She stepped out of the room as Reginald held the door for her. Once out of sight, Reginald produced the black hood again. I held up my hands and stood still as he cinched it over my chin and led me back down the stairs.

  The long, silent ride back to Baltimore gave me plenty of time to think about my situation. I had smart decisions available me, and I had the decisions that I actually wanted to make. Mostly out of spite. It would be smart to take McHenry’s offer, sell the properties, bank the cash, and simplify my life. It would be smart to call Julian, politely inform him I would no longer be involved in the campaign, and watch the election results in the Fall from my living room without worrying about the Presidium bushwhacking me in parking lots. It might have even been smart to let the Swains take Elle to the psychiatrist since every rational mind kept arriving at that same conclusion.

  But McHenry wanted me to roll over. That was his goal here, not necessarily acquiring my properties. He was buying a victory with that offer. And I knew the families living in my properties. Okay, I didn’t really know them that well, but I had put the effort into making their homes an enjoyable place to live.

  The Presidium had no right to thumb me like that. They had the ability, sure. No one could argue that. But that didn’t mean it was right. I wasn’t affecting the campaign with my hermetic practice. If I turned Sullivan’s ear, it was by the force of my argument. And Wexler dodged me when I mentioned McHenry had a practitioner on his payroll. I was getting squeezed, and I suspected the Presidium had some skin in this race.

  And when it came to Elle, I simply couldn’t accept this was schizophrenia. I had no proof, no sense of what this thing even was, and all of my efforts to remove it had failed horribly. But that didn’t mean I was wrong. I just didn’t have the solution yet.

  Smart decisions versus right decisions. Why did it always seem to come down to that dichotomy?

  Reginald released me at my car and sped away without a word. I eased into the Audi and sat at the wheel, questioning my next move. Which side of the coin would I choose? Smart? Right? It was exactly this kind of night when I used to head for the Club and forget everything for an hour or two. Alas, that was no longer an option. I could have tried the Blue Moon Diner, but it would just remind me of what could have been. I couldn’t even really think about the Swain’s house at that point without it conjuring the image of Elle’s other-worldly stare and the smell of piss and puke in her room.

  So I just went home and collapsed. I needed to clear my head. Making decisions while exhausted and brutalized rarely turned out well for me.

  I woke up to my phone ringing. I hated early morning calls. No one ever called with good news before breakfast.

  Checking the call, my stomach dropped.

  “Hey, Edgar.”

  “Dorian?” His voice was yet more ragged and weak. “We have a problem.”

  “What happened?”

  “Elle’s gone.”

  hat do you mean gone?”

  “Found her window busted out. She ran out in the middle of the night.”

  “Fuck. I mean, how? Wasn’t she tied down?”

  “Yeah, I just… look. I know Wren kind of shut things down, but I need your help, man.”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  It was a good thing the Maryland State Troopers weren’t clocking on I-70. I made record time making it to Frederick, and when I pulled up in front of the shop, I didn’t see Wren’s Jeep in the alley.

  I stepped inside the shop and found Edgar looming in the back by the reagents counter.

  “Edgar?”

  “Thanks for coming, Dorian.”

  “I’m going to rent a room in Frederick pretty soon. How did this happen?”

  He stepped around the counter and the rows of old wooden drawers lining the back wall to lead me up the stairs and down the hall to Elle’s room. Her window, a tiny two foot by three foot thing in aluminum framing, had been busted out. Tremendous force had been exerted to bend the metal mullions outward. Tiny smears of blood lined the jagged metal remaining in the hole in the wall.

  “Jesus, Edgar. You didn’t hear this?”

  “Wren says I snore.”

  “Yeah, but―”

  “She says she could get murdered next to me and I’d never wake up.”

  It was the kind of remark we usually laughed about, but not today.

  I spotted the jute ropes lying in neat circles on Elle’s dresser.

  “She managed her way out of your knots.”

  “No. I untied her.”

  “Really?”

  “She’s my daughter, man. And she was getting pretty tired. She didn’t even eat last night. I didn’t think it was going to be a problem.”

  I put a hand on his shoulder. “Of course you didn’t. You’re dense.”

  He sniffled and gave me half a smirk.

  “Did you two call the police?”

  “No way,” he retorted, moving back out of the room. “She has rope burns on her wrists. She’s wearing a night shirt covered in puke. You heard the way she’s talking. We’d have a child protective services nightmare on our hands.”

  “Yeah, but is that more or less important than finding her at this point?”

  Edgar blanched as the corner of his eye twitched. “I sent Wren out looking for her. Then I called you.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Follow me.”

  He led me back down the stairs to his reagents counter. He stopped by the large solid cedar door in the wall behind his counter and unwound a small length of gray wool yarn wrapped around the door knob. His magic lock. I was convinced there was nothing magic about it, but there was no convincing Edgar.

  What lie behind that door, however, was nothing short of nightmarish magic. Edgar’s collection. I had Emil’s Library; Edgar had his collection of cursed objects. That was Edgar’s real calling. He was a Collector, born into the business by way of his father who had started the entire shop as a front for the magical wares trade. Edgar had inherited the shop from his father, but had transformed it into more of a final resting place for cursed items than a marketplace.

  “Edgar? What are you getting out of there?”

  “We don’t have time to deal with the cops, or Wren. Wait here.” He disappeared into the room, clicking on a light that seemed to offer exactly zero illumination. After a couple minutes, he returned with a black shoe box in his hands. He set the box on the glass counter and reached underneath for a pair of rubber gloves.

  I took a step forward and watched as he reached with gloved hands and removed the shoebox lid. Inside the box lay an exquisitely crafted gold wire spiral at the end of a long silver chain.

  “What is that, a pendulum?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Belonged to Gregori of Belarus.”

  “No shit? Isn’t he the one they actually hanged inside a church?”

  “Found it in a bazaar in Istanbul six years ago.”

  “You positively must take me with you on one of these trips.”

  Edgar pulled off one glove and reached into his pocket to produce a tiny tissue with a blossom of a dark red smear.

  “Elle’s?” I asked.

  “Got it from t
he window.”

  “Edgar. This pendulum? Cursed, right? I mean, Gregori the Bastard was a notorious Netherworker.”

  “Yeah, I know. Buzzkill, right?”

  “Point being if you use this―”

  “I damn myself.”

  “I can’t speak for you or Wren or your kids, Edgar, but I’d call that one steep God damn price to pay.”

  Edgar looked up at me wearily. “Don’t care, man. I have to find her. I have to find her quick, before the cops do.”

  “I get that. I just…” I couldn’t complete the thought. I didn’t have kids. I had no idea what he was going through as father. As a practitioner, however, every ounce of my education was screaming to grab that shoebox and keep it away from Edgar’s fingers. “Let me do it, then.”

  “What?”

  “Me. I’ll do it. I’m better at scrying than you, anyway.”

  “I’m not going to let you do that, man.”

  “Why not? I mean, I don’t have a soul, do I?”

  He blinked at me and opened his mouth to respond, but words never came.

  “My soul’s out there in the Nether somewhere with God knows how much of the Dark Choir searching for it. I might as well be useful to you while I’m in this condition.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “You didn’t. I’m offering.”

  “No,” he grunted, pulling the box away. “Too risky.”

  “Edgar, if you use that pendulum, it’s a sure thing you’ll taint your soul. With me, there’s a chance it won’t do shit.”

  “Might not work. If the thing uses the curse as its power source, you won’t be able to make it work.”

  “That’s a gamble we can afford to take. Come on, we’re losing time.”

  Edgar tensed, and looked down at the pendulum. With a heavy sigh, he slid it back onto the counter in front of me.

  “Alright,” I sighed. “Never used a pendulum this old before. This should be interesting. Got a map of the city?”

  Edgar nodded and trotted off for a few minutes. I spent the time centering myself, and observing the old gilded tool. It was gorgeous, a delicate double-helix of gold wire wrapping around what appeared to be a piece of tiger’s eye. The orange striped stone seemed to shine with an unnatural luster. It was a well-loved tool.

  Edgar returned with a gas station quality map of Frederick. I reached out for the pendulum, and he stopped me. “You sure about this, man?”

  I answered by gripping the end of the silver chain and lifting it slowly from the box. There was definitely resident energy in that pendulum. Ants crawled up my fingers and along my wrist.

  “Feels funky.”

  Edgar handed the bloody tissue to me, and I tipped the pendulum onto the blood. I focused my personal energy onto the pendulum, and the ants swam up my arm and into my heart chakra. I re-routed the ants up to my Third Eye, and waited for that release, that twang when the connection is made.

  When the twang hit, it rang in my ears like a guitar string. I had never felt such a clear, obvious link with a scrying tool before. It was exhilarating.

  “Okay. Ready.”

  Edgar unfolded the city map along the glass counter, and I gave the pendulum a simple sway of my wrist, sending it rotating deosil. The damned thing actually swung a figure eight in mid-air and reversed its direction to widdershins.

  Edgar harumphed as it wound into tighter circles over the map. I felt a tug along the string and went with it. The connection was strong enough to physically pull my hand. And pull it did. East along the map, out of the downtown, past the aqueduct.

  Off the map.

  “The hell?” Edgar whispered.

  The pendulum tapped onto the glass of the display case, and the tug stopped.

  “She’s not in the city. Not even in the county.” I looked up at Edgar. “In for a penny. Got a state map?”

  “I have to check the Jeep.”

  I winced.

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Anything at all?”

  Edgar searched around the back of his shop, then hopped out from behind the map, leaving me holding onto Gregori’s pendulum, trying to maintain the connection. He returned with a notebook and a pencil. He sketched out a frankly horrible representation of the state of Maryland, put a star on Frederick, a large diamond toward the bottom middle with the letters “D.C.,” and a square by the bay with the letters “BWI.”

  “That work?” he muttered.

  “Let’s find out.”

  I dropped the pendulum toward the notebook, and somehow, some way, the chain broke from the weight in my fingers. The gold spiral fell onto the pad, the tip sticking in the direct center of the W in BWI.

  “Baltimore.”

  Edgar shook his head. “Don’t that just figure?”

  “How’d she get that far on foot?”

  “Probably not on foot.”

  I went to pick up the pendulum, but Edgar scooped it with his rubber gloved hand into the shoebox. With wary eyes, he gestured for me to release the hand weight. It was strangely difficult letting that little hunk of silver drop into the box, but when it was gone, so were the ants.

  “You okay?” he asked as he replaced the lid.

  “I think so.”

  Edgar fished a hunk of hematite from his pocket and tossed it to me. I held it in my scrying hand, rubbing my fingers along its smooth surface to cleanse out the energy as if it were snake venom.

  “Think she hitched a ride or something?” I asked, trying to sound normal.

  “Maybe. Maybe she boosted someone’s car.”

  “Does she even know how to drive?”

  He shrugged. “If she drove a damn car, Dorian, then I’m going to call that evidence to your theory.”

  He was right. Unusual knowledge was a typical sign of possession, and she was racking up points in that category.

  “Listen, we have to do this again. We need a Baltimore city map, hone in on where she is.”

  Edgar stepped away, clutching the box.

  “Edgar? What good is it doing us to know she’s in Baltimore? It’s kind of a big city.”

  “I know.”

  “So you agree?”

  “I don’t disagree.”

  “Well?”

  He stood solid.

  I felt an urge to grab the box. He was being stupid. We needed to get the pendulum out of the box. It was necessary. The pendulum was suffocating in there.

  A sharp burning pain lanced through my hand, and I dropped the hematite with a loud clack onto the glass counter. It was blazing hot!

  Edgar looked down at the hematite with one brow lifted. I was dumping an amazing amount of energy into that poor little stone.

  I took a deep breath and rubbed my hand on my shirt.

  “I think we need to take a moment,” I whispered.

  We stood on opposite sides of the counter, just staring at the shoebox. The silence was broken by my phone ringing, and we both nearly jumped out of our skins. I moved to the front of the shop and checked the number.

  My heart nearly stopped.

  “Ches?”

  Her voice, much stronger and more lucid than the last time I had heard it, replied, “Hey, Dorian.”

  “I… I’m glad you called.”

  “Figured.”

  “Wow. There’s basically a million things I want to talk about, but if you can believe it this is basically the worst possible time.”

  “Dorian?”

  “I really don’t want to put you off, but I have this problem with the Swains―”

  “Elle’s here.”

  I stood silent, staring out the front windows.

  Edgar stepped to my side, and I held up a hand for him to be still.

  “Dorian? Did you hear me?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Your place.”

  I turned slowly to Edgar and chose my words carefully. “And Elle’s there with you?”

  Edgar’s eyes grew wider than I had ever seen them
, and the blood rushed out of his face.

  “Yeah. I, uh… I think you need to come get her. She doesn’t look too hot.”

  “Yes. I mean… stay there. Please. I’m coming to get her.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Ches? Be careful. She isn’t herself.”

  “Understood.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there in forty.”

  I stared at my phone for several seconds before mustering the strength to hang up. I looked over to Edgar.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  I nodded. He left a note for Wren, and we took off.

  s I pulled into my alley, I spotted Ches sitting on my stoop. Elle was lying down behind her, resting her head on Ches’ bag. Edgar was out of the car before it stopped. He dropped to his knees on my first step, laying a cautious hand on Elle’s side.

  Ches stood up and whispered something to Edgar before turning to me.

  I met her halfway to the stoop, and froze in front of her, searching for anything to say that wouldn’t sound insane.

  “Hey,” was the best I could come up with.

  “Hey.”

  “What happened? How’d you find her?”

  “Found her here,” she replied, hanging her head a little. “I came by after my shift since I don’t have class. I was hoping to find you at home. I don’t know why I decided to walk over, to be honest. Guess she has a guardian angel or something.”

  “How is she?”

  “Pretty bad. Confused. Scared.”

  “Wait, what?”

  A tiny voice creaked from the bundle lying on my stoop. “Daddy?”

  Edgar sucked in a breath and moaned, falling onto Elle.

  “She’s back?”

  Ches nodded. “In and out.”

  “I should probably explain―”

  “I know what’s wrong with her. I recognized it. I mean, it was obvious to me when I saw her.”

  I stepped over to the stoop and crouched down. “Hey, kid.”

  Elle’s brow creased, and she reached up for Edgar.

  Edgar pulled her up into his lap and stroked her hair. “Found you.”