Dark Arts

by Randolph Lalonde

  “You’re accusing a pillar of the community with something that would get him expelled from the Circle, you’re not even initiated,” replied the old man, turning pale.

  “You in on it?” Maxwell asked. “Interested in a little dark trading? Did you ask him to steal the book? Go looking in the library?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t get in my way, don’t get involved with this, I’m going to make sure everyone knows there was a thief in the library, who he was, and what he tried to steal. I don’t know your name yet, mate, but I could learn it easy enough. Start asking if you’ve had a run of good luck lately, wondering aloud if you’ve been fiddling with some darker business. That is, if you get in my way,” Maxwell said, pushing past him, noticing Gladys’ smile on his way through the kitchen door.

  Before anyone knew what was going on, he was on his bike, kicking the starter so hard. It started on the second try and he was down the road, rolling towards the crossroads. No one was on the dirt roads in that darkness, where the starry sky could barely be seen between the trees above, and his headlamp revealed only a precious oval in front of him. He didn’t want to take the time to retrieve his old edsel from the stand-to at the back of the barn, he wasn’t even sure if it would start after he’d been away on tour for months.

  He could feel the old remains of the chapel before they came into view, an old broken thing catching just enough light to stand out at the back of a field of graves. Maxwell got off his Harley, and kicked at the inner edge of a pothole forming in the middle of the crossroads. The sparse clouds obscuring the moon cleared momentarily, shedding silver light on his work before being obscured again.

  He had the feeling that eyes were on him, and he turned to look at the broken chapel. For the first time in his adult life he suspected that that feeling may be caused by something other than his imagination, and he pulled the small collapsible shovel from the inside of his jacket, staring at the building down the overgrown road as he screwed it together.

  He stabbed it into the hole, striking hard through gravel and piled the half shovel of gravel beside. He almost didn’t hear the sound of shoes stepping on gravel behind him. He whirled around, shovel in both hands.

  A smiling older gentleman held his hands up casually. Light seemed to cling to him just enough so Maxwell could make out all his features. “I come in peace,” he said in a comforting baritone voice. He straightened the front of his black suit and continued. “Just a friend taking a stroll in the moonlight.”

  Maxwell looked the man up and down. His hair was cut sensibly, styled perfectly, his eyes were a piercing blue, and the gentleman smiled easily. He looked robust, but not overweight, and his shoes were freshly polished. All ominous feelings about where he was, what he was doing, and that he could have evil eyes on him were gone. “Long way from the farm, didn’t hear a car roll up,” Maxwell said, lowering the shovel.

  “I’ve never ridden in one of those contraptions, my boy,” he said. “Always wanted to ride along on one of those though.” He gestured at the motorcycle. “I find it remarkable that someone like you, a man who spends most of his time doing things for other people rides on the back of a steel horse that can only carry one other person. The bus is more your kind of beast, or at least that’s what I would think.”

  “What do you know?” Maxwell asked, shoveling another load of dirt out of the hole and piling it to the side.

  “I know your father was afraid of this,” the gentleman said. “He had visions of you, making the ultimate sacrifice after a very short life of servitude. He wanted you to be powerful, to be reasonably self-serving. This one for all business you have with your band, he doesn’t like that, that’s not the path he wanted for you.”

  “Who are you?” Maxwell asked. “What could you know?”

  “I’m the one who can take your burden, Maxwell. I have made pretenders into masters, paupers into politicians, and musicians into masters. Samuel may have said something about me coming to make you an offer,” he replied.

  Maxwell stared at him for a moment, recalling the warning Samuel gave him about a demon, perhaps an Old One attached to the shard he was about to bury who could offer bargains. He reached out with the tip of his shovel and touched the man’s suit jacket, it moved like normal cloth. “Nope, you’re having me on, mate. Good one, almost had me with the whole ‘deal with the devil at the crossroads’ story coming true.”

  “You can touch me because I am manifest,” the gentleman said. “Not many people get to see this kind of power, some spend their entire lives trying to summon a spirit, or a demon who can appear in the flesh and they never get the privilege. Not so much as an eerie wisp of mist. You should see their faces when they die and make it to the other side, how they wish they didn’t waste so much time trying to get that kind of attention. I never get tired of their reaction.” He brushed the dirt off his suit jacket. “This is a miracle, boy.”

  Maxwell shook his head and dug a few more shovel loads of dirt out of his little hole, leaving them in a neat pile around it. The shovel was dropped to the side as he withdrew the shard from his coat pocket. He couldn’t help but notice his companion’s eyes widen at the sight of it. “Trying to trick me into giving you this by pulling the crossroads prank,” Maxwell said, holding the shard up. “Not even a fair attempt.”

  “I can prove that I am what I claim to be, Max,” the gentleman said.

  Maxwell dropped the shard into the hole and pulled the iron seal with three hands reaching towards the center on it from his pocket. He tried to begin the incantation, to pull a cream cup from his pocket, but could not move.

  “Let me show you a piece of your future, just a little piece of what awaits,” the gentleman said. He snapped his fingers.

  Bernie was at his side, a grin on his face. The sound of his band filled his ears, with the exception of the singer, they were playing Proud Mary. It was easy, they were having a good time playing a cover they’d done a hundred or more times. The lights heated the right side of his face, and there was no doubt that he was on a stage, filled with that incredible feeling that only came with the cheers of a full club and good band chemistry. A gunshot rang out, and the back of Bernie’s head exploded in a spray of blood, bone and other soft matter.

  By the time Bernie fell to the ground, Maxwell was somewhere else, the screams of the club goers far behind in terms of both time and distance. He was sitting in a diner, older. It had been eleven years since Bernie and Darren were gunned down, he hadn’t seen Miranda in just as long, and there was a sadness that went beyond a love lost or dead friends. There was something he could not do, or somewhere he could not go that haunted him, and that sorrow had grown old, become a thick crust atop everything he was like ill-fitted armor. Three old silver rings adorned his right hand, one was a sigil he knew, but the other two were alien to him.

  This was only a short stop, a break for a coffee and breakfast before he moved on down the road with no destination. The waitress, an older woman who offered him a smile as though she was trying to brighten his morning. “Here you go,” she said as she placed his plate of eggs, pancakes and bacon in front of him.

  “Thanks, luv,” he replied. His voice was lower, it sounded as though he had aged thirty years, not eleven. He caught his reflection in the napkin dispenser as he reached for the syrup and stopped. There was a thick scar from his top lip just past the bottom of his nose, and another crossing his right eyebrow onto his forehead. Those eyes were barely his, aged, sorrowful. A gaze that was a vibrant deep brown had become hollow and faded.

  He was about to turn the dispenser so he didn’t have to face himself looking back, when a blur of red and blue crossed behind him. Maxwell was on his feet and spinning on his heel in a second, facing a young woman in a gas station windbreaker. She slashed towards his throat with a steak knife, the strike coming so close that it nicked the collar of Maxwell’s leather jacket. He effortlessly picked up a chair, took several quick steps around his table and threw
it at her.

  The four legs tangled her long enough for him to step around then lunge forward, grabbing the forearm holding the knife. He ripped it from her hand. Maxwell put his hand on her forehead and said; “I command this spirit to depart. I invoke Sagiras, Keeper Of Tombs, Watcher On The Path, aid me in freeing this girl from the spirit possessing her. Protect her from intruders and keep her from harm. I call upon you to become her liberator, become her guardian.”

  By the time he finished, the young blonde gas attendant was on her knees, thrashing so wildly that it took both of Max’s hands to hold her head. “You can’t run forever, you whoreson! Everything you touch is tainted, the further you travel, the more you taint!” she screeched in her own voice and two others that did not belong to her.

  “Not her,” Maxwell said, feeling as though his chest and head was filling with energy, a kind of pressure that he recognized as the power Sagiras had given him more than once. He released it through his hands, bathing the young woman in light and illuminating the diner for several seconds.

  “I don’t know what I was doing,” the young woman said, tears beginning to run down her stunned face. “I’m sorry, Sir.”

  Maxwell picked her up off the floor and was about to comfort her when he saw a torrent of blood running down her inner thigh. The spirit knew its attempt would most likely fail like so many others, and cut her just so she’d be dead by the time it was finished. He’d failed to notice the blood on the floor during the fight, and while he concentrated to cleanse the girl. She fell back down, pale.

  “Rest easy, luv,” Maxwell said. The blood pooled around her. “Look at me.”

  “I’m light headed,” she said, her eyes closing.

  “I’ve called the police!” the waitress said.

  “Call an ambulance,” Maxwell said. “Stay here, luv. Try to keep those eyes open for me.” It was no use, the artery her possessor had cut spilled her lifeblood out onto the floor by the pint, and no amount of pressure could help.

  He knew they wouldn’t make it in time, judging from the trail of blood to the door, she was already bleeding before she came in. He had to leave. The spirits that followed him would not be kind to her soul if he was still there when it left her body. “Losun, I summon thee, and request you attend this soul. Take her in your hand, and take up your sword against those who would obstruct her on her journey to the Glade.”

  He rose and strode from the diner, aware that the girl was dead. The car he’d been nursing since Chicago, a rusty Oldsmobile, waited in the car lot. He’d have to buy another junker, steal another set of plates.

  The parking lot was gone in another step replaced by gravel under foot, and a dark night in the woods all around. He wasn’t back at the crossroads, he was older, it was another Gathering, twenty-one years later to the day, and there were only twenty-eight people in attendance. The lake that was once pure was stagnant and black. A great evil lurked there, and Maxwell stood on the shore with his great grandfather’s blade in one hand, and a lantern held high in the other. “I have no fear for you,” he said as a shadow as substantial and deadly as a lion rose from the still water. It was almost shapeless, drinking the yellow lantern light into its dark form.

  Maxwell’s throat was dry, his head pounded, and his heart was beating so fast it felt like it was trying to escape his ribcage. “You have called me, Weaver, and come to greet me alone,” it stated, rising to tower over Maxwell. Its words were expressed through a voice that sounded like the wet, slow ripping of flesh. “What is your offering?”

  “I offer my body as your vessel for seven days,” Maxwell said. “In trade for the soul you hold captive. Surrender her and I will allow you to use me then leave in peace.”

  “Peace is not my nature,” the thing replied.

  “Seven days, I get my meat back in working order, and Vanessa.”

  “No,” the Old One replied, its shadow form jerking as though taking amusement in the denial. “I get your body, your soul remains inside, I keep Vanessa while I own you, and then I leave you. You can have her and your body back in one cycle of the moon.”

  Maxwell dropped the sword on the sand, pulled one side of his jacket open to reveal a chest full of protective tattoos, and said; “Done.” He brought the hot iron lantern to his chest, braced himself, then touched the metal to two of the tattoos, scarring through the pigment.

  The summoned beast seized him the moment the seal on his chest was broken. It was as though he was being crushed and ripped through from the inside out at the same time, but his screams did not make it to his throat. Maxwell was no longer in control of his voice, or his body.

  VII

  Maxwell was on his knees back at the crossroads. He could still feel the echo of the previous moment’s anguish and his heart was racing. The hole was in front of him, the shard was back in his hand, and the dark woods were in front of him. The humid air of the night and reality of his bashed knees made him certain that he was back where he belonged, whether he had been mentally transported to three horrors or was somehow there in body, he couldn’t tell, but he was sure he’d returned.

  The gentleman helped him to his feet. “I’m often the bearer of bad news, but I’ve got to tell you: I’ve seen some hard roads ahead of people, but few have so many stops for pain and suffering as yours. It was hard to choose which horrific events to warn you about, I don’t envy you.”

  “Summoner rule number one,” Maxwell said, catching his breath and stepping away from the gentleman. “Dead things lie. Rule number two: Demons lie.”

  “I’ve never liked those. It’s not fair to us honest, hard working beings. I keep my business clean, Max. Don’t you want to hear my offer?”

  “That’s your thing,” Maxwell said. “You have to make the offer, then you let me decide and leave me be for a while.”

  “Exactly,” the gentleman said. “Hey, you’re good at this, have a real sense for what things from the other world want.”

  “So, out with it.”

  “All right. Road Craft, the way it is, is done. I can’t touch Zachary thanks to a little experimentation he did on the bus, so this part of the deal is contingent on you dropping him from the lineup. So, picture this. Miranda joins the band, you two fall in love – that has nothing to do with me, you just can’t change some things – and make music unlike anyone has ever heard. Cream meets Joan Jett, only even better. You go play that farewell gig, change none of your intentions, and that’s where your dream is made reality. Picture it, the disco era hold-outs, those big rock n’ roller suits, have a man in Sudbury, you know, visiting an aged Uncle, and he sees you as their savior. He doesn’t want the old Road Craft, he wants the new one with your firecracker of a lead singer, Miranda on the mic, and you leading with your guitar. One year later, you’re playing stadiums, and somehow you guys avoid the pitfalls of drugs and over doing it on alcohol. That’s not a promise I have made anyone else, but it’s easy with you lot, because you and your band will get along like the family you are, life on the road will be bliss, and everyone wants to work for you. Legends in just three albums and four years on the road. Everyone in Road Craft gets what they want, stardom, riches, a long career, and I ask that you brace yourself for what comes next. Miranda gets pregnant with a firecracker of a daughter, a beautiful creature with big brown eyes. The best of both of you in a bassinet. I’ll give her prodigious talent and creativity, just to sweeten the pot. Then, after you’ve seen her first steps, heard her first words, and you’ve known the real love of a family with Miranda, your road ends. You are fulfilled, Maxwell, spared the hellish life you are headed towards now, and all the people you love are spared the kind of suffering and death that makes even me shudder. Your clock stops at twenty-seven, and then your soul serves me for a century plus thirty-five years. It’ll be over like that,” the gentleman said, snapping his fingers. “Seven years of heaven on earth starting this Saturday night, and then a quick death, a short service, and you’re free again.”

  Maxwel
l could not help but stop and consider it. If he was willing to offer that much, there was more, he could press and get something else, but there were always long strings attached to such offers. The trade seemed too heavily in his favor. Maxwell looked to the gentleman, held up his silver amulet and asked; “Would my soul bear your mark forever?”

  “Well,” the gentleman said. “That’s an unavoidable consequence of selling your soul, yes, but you’d have full visitation privileges.”

  “I would serve for a hundred thirty five years, but never truly be free. I could not leave your sight without suffering and anguish.”

  “Now you’re just quoting your father’s second Grimoire, dirty. I would dismiss you when your time was up.”

  Maxwell steeled himself and pressed his hand to the gentleman’s cheek. It felt like moving stone, cold, and nothing like the flesh it appeared to be. “I seek only truth, the light of my ancestors illuminates you.”

  “You don’t have that kind of power,” the gentleman said.

  “I call Charles Foster to the crossroads,” Maxwell said with determination.

  His father stepped out from behind the gentleman, tall, in his long dark trench coat, loading his pipe. “You’ll answer his questions,” he said to the gentleman, who turned towards him slowly. He had a sharp British accent that was far more aristocratic than his son’s. “You’ll answer three of his questions honestly, then he’ll make the deal, or turn it down.”

  “I will,” the gentleman said, surprised, looking the specter of Maxwell’s father over carefully.

  Maxwell had difficulty pulling his gaze free of his father, who was calmly lighting his pipe. The smell of cedar tobacco smoke filled the air, a scent that followed his father around while he was alive. The mannerisms of the gentleman had changed completely, he was more interested in inspecting the ghost of his father than what Maxwell was saying, bending low to look at him from the bottom up, standing back to get a fuller look, and occasionally waving his hand through the apparition. This was an enchantment his father’s spirit was weaving to trap the gentleman in a distraction. Maxwell had read about it in stories that read more like fairy tales when he was young. “Ask your questions, Max, remember the rules.”