The Dark Communion (The Midnight Defenders)

by Joey Ruff

  “The Bogey,” I said, remembering. “Tell me about him. Who is it?”

  She took a deep breath. “His name is Brom.”

  Brom. I knew the name. Lorelei had mentioned him before. He was one of the Bogeys she’d known from years ago.

  “Are you helping him?”

  She shook her head. “Brom is dark, Jono, and we have an agreement. You know I don’t take sides.”

  I trusted Lorelei when she told me this stuff, trusted that she would uphold the agreement we’d made. She was one of the oldest and most powerful of her kind, and she had a certain amount of knowledge about the mystical and arcane that even Huxley would have to be impressed with, things like tantric sex magic. What we sealed our agreement with was more powerful than a kiss.

  I nodded at her. “Okay. You’re neutral in this. What did Brom want from you?”

  “Knowledge of the ritual. He came to me months ago. He had heard of it, but he lacked the specifics. I gave him that information.”

  “He’s using it to build an army.”

  She laughed, a sound like the tinkling of bells. “No. He uses the ritual to feed.”

  “The tramps. And Ape’s uncle.”

  “He calls them his children. They are his hands and feet, allowing him to be many places at once, collecting those that he feeds upon.”

  “He’s eating like a fucking king,” I said. I’d never heard of anything this large scale. Bogeys were powerful, but they weren’t typically that clever. “So is he using the Dark Communion to control them?”

  She gave me a curious look. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Then how is he doing it, Lori? I spoke to Brom, through one of his vessels, his…children.”

  “That is…not possible.” Her pretty face wrinkled in confusion. “They are designed as worker bees to collect pollen and bring it back to the hive. Unless…” Suddenly, her eyes grew wide. “A long time ago, Brom found himself in possession of an object of great power. I know not if the object was taken from him or if he simply lost it, but he spent the centuries searching for it again. I thought it lost to him still, but it sounds like he found it again.”

  “What object?”

  “The Ring of Solomon.”

  “King Solomon?” I stammered. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

  In the Bible, Solomon was a Jewish king known for his wisdom and his seven hundred wives, all from different lands. Over time, these women turned his heart from his God to the gods of their people and introduced him to the mystic arts. Somehow, he acquired a ring which bound the will of a living creature to its bearer, and with the use of his grimoires, or Keys, he was able to summon and trap demons.

  Lorelei nodded and said simply, “When the demon Astaroth, who was enslaved to the ring, managed to trick Solomon into removing it, the ring found its way to Brom for a time.”

  “And now Brom’s managed to nab it back,” I continued. It all made sense. “He’s using the ring to bind people to it, working through them, forcing them to undergo the Dark Communion. He feeds on their emotions, and the tramps feed on the flesh, completing the ritual.”

  “The Dark Communion weakens their willpower and further binds them to Brom.”

  “Why did you keep this from me?”

  “It was bigger than you. I wanted to protect you.”

  “From what?!”

  “From being controlled as well.”

  “You can’t control me. What makes you think he can?”

  “This is older magic. Sirens work on suggestion, manipulating emotions already felt. Your friend, for example, did not want to be here, so it was not hard to make him go away. But…Brom can take the unwilling and make them his puppets. I cannot…” She took a deep breath, and I could tell she was fighting back tears. Her voice was shaky when she said, “I cannot lose you like that.”

  “You don’t get to do that. Keep things from me, tell me what’s good for me!”

  “I did it to protect you.”

  “You’re working against me. You gave him what he needed to tear apart families all over this city, Lori. Fuck! Ape’s uncle is dead because of you!”

  “Jono,” she said, pleading. It was strange to see someone as powerful as she was wounded and hurt by something as simple as words. “I could not know what he was using it for…”

  “We’re taking him down.”

  “He will kill you.”

  “I’m better than that. Are you going to help us?”

  She shook her head. “I am bound by the pact we made. I must remain neutral.”

  “Too late for that.”

  “Regardless of how it looks,” she said. “I have not directly helped him. I have given him as much as I gave you.”

  I shook my head. She bowed hers.

  I could see the glisten in the corners of her eyes. “I want you to get out,” she said.

  “Tell me where he is.”

  “I cannot.”

  “Tell me. Lori. Tell me.”

  “I. Cannot.” She still wouldn’t look at me. “I feel your anger welling up inside. I am so hungry. The passion and my need threaten to overtake me. If you stay…”

  “Just tell me where he is, and I’m gone.”

  “I don’t know!” Her voice was more of a growl, and it made the walls shake. Her head shot up at me. Her eyes snapped open, milky white and vacant, and she gnashed her teeth together as her breath grew heavier.

  “Jono,” she said. “GET. OUT. NOW.”

  30

  The air became electric again as Lorelei stood from her chair, her nails dug into the wood of her desk. She panted heavily, and her bone-white eyes fastened on to me.

  “Jono,” she said quietly, her voice sounded strained and husky. Then in little more than a whisper, she managed to say, “Run.”

  I stood from my chair and backed up until my back found the wall. Beyond that, my legs didn’t work. I pleaded with them, but they remained fixed to where they were.

  Lorelei was majestic and terrifying, like a funnel cloud plucking hundred-year-old oaks from the ground by their roots, and I couldn’t look away. Her face almost glowed, and so much energy surrounded her, radiated off of her, that for a moment I stopped breathing.

  I’d never been struck by lightning, but had read accounts, the way the static builds in the air, thick and heavy, in the final seconds before the flash of heat and light sears through the sky. Even strands of hair began to hover around her head, and my entire body tingled and prickled in a feeling both completely uncomfortable and welcomed at the same time. My heart beat faster.

  No lightning was about to strike. The tension that clung to the walls and licked at my skin was purely sexual, and there was no doubting her passion, as the intoxicating, buttery-vanilla scent of her wet desire drifted across the room.

  Her red fingernails raked across the front of her shirt, shredding it to tatters. Her chest heaved with intense, labored breaths, and her breasts seemed to riot against the baby-pink, lace bra.

  I took a step forward, and my breath caught at the sight of her half-naked figure. She held her hands out toward me, and all I could think was to be held, cradled, suckled.

  Behind me, the door opened, but it didn’t matter.

  In that moment, I didn’t see Lorelei, the Siren, didn’t see her as a supernatural threat. All I saw was Lori, my Lori, and the lust and desire that I’d pent up inside for so long craved to be set free. She didn’t have the ability to compel me like other men, but I realized that the hold she did have on me was far greater than I’d thought prior.

  As she moved around the desk, she cast off the remnants of her blouse and moved to unclasp her bra, whispered, “Jono, come to me.”

  I took another step forward and reached for her.

  But before I could touch her, something grabbed me firmly from behind and tore me from the room. Lorelei hissed in anger, grabbed for me, but I was too far away.

  There was a loud clack and a slamming thud as we broke through
the front doors of the club and out into the sunlight, the fresh air bringing a new alertness to my clouded mind.

  What the fuck?

  Outside, I felt the cold air against my skin and then a sharp, abrupt pain as I was thrown against the side of the Lamborghini and deflected hard onto the ground. I noticed for the first time that my shirt was halfway drawn over my head, and my jacket was gone.

  I struggled to pull my shirt back down and blinked up at the bald head, neat goatee and over-flexed physique of Victor. He stood like a titan over top of me, blocking out the sun. It was even colder in his shadow.

  “You cause trouble, Swyftt,” he spat. “Don’t come back here again.”

  My head spun and I was a bit dazed, trying to piece together what had just happened. I felt the tightness in my jeans and the accompanying pain of restraint, and slowly my thoughts began to filter back.

  Ape was beside me, and he put a hand on my shoulder. “Have a good time?”

  “Looks like I was about to.”

  “She would have killed you without thinking twice,” Victor said. “I wouldn’t have been sorry for that, but it would have destroyed her. She feels something for you that I don’t understand, and the guilt would have been too much for her.” He turned away from us and took a couple of steps back to the bar. Then looked back at me over his shoulder and said, “Get the fuck out of here, Swyftt.”

  “You can’t keep me away.”

  “Protecting her,” he said faintly, as he continued to walk, his voice barely heard. “Also means from herself.”

  I could feel the charge of emotion passing, the blood deflating from my penis. I looked over at Ape.

  He laughed uncomfortably. “Are you going to be okay?”

  I nodded. “A boner’s the only problem that goes away if you ignore it.”

  “That should be your catchphrase.” He pulled himself to his feet and held a hand down to me. I took it and he pulled me up.

  “I’m going to get t-shirts made.”

  “Was it worth it?”

  “I’m feeling a little blue. If you know what I mean.”

  “That’s easily solved,” he said as he got into the driver’s seat.

  “Not by you, you homo.” I crossed to my side of the sports car. “Where the fuck’s my jacket?”

  He shrugged as he started the engine. “Ask your bff inside.”

  I didn’t remember taking it off. “Dammit. That was brand new, too.”

  “Maybe you can actually buy the next one.”

  “I’m broke, remember. I still owe you owe rent.”

  He laughed and pulled out on to the highway, headed back into town. “Where to now?”

  “Fuck if I know. We know the who, the what, the how, even fucking the why. All we need to complete this puzzle is the where.”

  “She didn’t know?”

  I shook my head. “She might have. I think I just pissed her off and threw her into a frenzy before she could share with the class.”

  “Of course you did. It’s too bad nobody else knows this Bogey.”

  “Right. Too fucking bad.”

  I lapsed into silence, combing my thoughts, not so much with a fine-toothed comb as with a farmer’s plow. I was exhausted, and the single image of a half-naked Siren still danced through my head.

  “Can I pick your brain?” Ape asked.

  “It’ll be painful. I’ve got nothing.” I closed my eyes and sank back against the seat, aiming my face skyward. My whole body quivered, my bollocks ached, and my brain needed a reboot. “I need some coffee. I can’t operate like this. I can’t think. I’m shutting down. It’s like trying to do brain surgery with an ice pick and a carnival mallet.”

  “Coffee,” he agreed. “I could use a cup, too.” He glanced over at me. “Then where?”

  I shrugged. “Just go home. It’s not even lunchtime yet. I’ll get a quick nap and maybe take another look at the kid’s journal.” I sat up in my chair suddenly, nearly slamming my head into the low ceiling.

  “What?”

  “Someone else did know him. Brom, through your unc…through Dewey, knew Adam Gables. He took the kid someplace called Elensal, to see the dragons.”

  “Dragons?” he asked. “They’re all but extinct. If there are any, they aren’t around here.”

  “I know that.”

  “But Adam’s missing. What good does it do anyway?”

  “His brother, Eric, said the kid liked to draw pictures. He always drew dragons, and after he supposedly went to this Elensal place, his drawings changed. Eric said they looked more real, uh…scarier.”

  “But we can’t get to Adam.”

  “No, but if I can get my hands on one of those fucking pictures…”

  I pulled out Eric’s journal, which had the kid’s number in it, took Ape’s phone, and dialed. After three rings, the boy answered. “Hello?”

  “Eric. Good, you’re home. This is Swyftt.”

  “Mr. Swyftt?” he said. “Do you…I mean, how’s…the investigation going?”

  “Better than I thought. Look, we’re on our way to your house. I’ve got something to talk with you about. I just needed to make sure you were in. We’ll see you in a few.”

  “Great! Yeah. Of course.” His voice raised almost to a squeal at one point. “Great. I mean, I’ll see you soon. Thank you.”

  I smiled, hung up on him, and gave Ape the address. “Really?” Ape said.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “That’s by the retirement home.” His voice caught a little in his throat, but he pushed past it.

  “He lives a couple of blocks from Adam’s school.” It fit. “I’m starting to think Arthur disappeared more than just the once. Just the last time, he didn’t come back.”

  Ape glanced over at me. “He was catatonic, Jono. He was confined to a wheelchair.”

  “Normally. Sure. But what about when Brom was possessing him? What about when he was hi-jacking little girls from their windows at night, beating the shit out of us in sporting good stores?” I shook my head. “It fits. He would leave the retirement home, come down the hill to the school and talk with Adam. He’d known him for weeks before he disappeared.”

  “That would make it about the time they found Arthur in the basement of the home, when he’d had his stroke.”

  “So what caused the stroke? Brom?”

  “How would Brom get inside a retirement home crawling with people?” Suddenly, his mouth drew taut, his eyes grew wide. “The grate.”

  “The Great…Brom, Master of Illusions?”

  He rolled his eyes and looked at me sternly. “Can you focus?”

  “It’s hard when you start spouting off about magicians.”

  “You know damn well I’m not talking about magicians. In the basement, when they found him, he was lying next to a small grate in the floor. The nurse said it went to the sewer.”

  “Okay.”

  “The house we found Julie Easter,” he continued, “you knocked over that stack of pallets and underneath was a hole…”

  “Into the sewer. We thought that’s how he was getting in and out of the house.”

  “I pulled a sample of black gunk from the grate and tested it. It was mud and ash,” he said. “Ash as if from half a city burning and then being buried in urban growth and forgotten.”

  I blinked wide at him. “He’s in the fucking Underground.”

  Ape nodded. “Makes sense. Most of those tunnels don’t appear on any maps. They’re completely unexplored. Everything fits.”

  “Except for the dragons.”

  “Trust me. There aren’t any dragons.”

  “But if there are you’ll feel like an idiot.”

  “No matter what we find, you’ll find a way to try and make me feel like an idiot, Jono. It’s what you do.”

  I wasn’t sure how to take that. “Well, regardless, the Underground’s a big place. If this Elensal is down there, we’ll never find it unless we have a better clue.”

  “You’re about
to get one,” he said. “We’re here.”

  I stepped out of the car into a quiet neighborhood, lots of tall trees that in warmer weather would have carried a full, heavy load of green leaves and blanketed the street and houses in a deep, rich shade. In the chill autumn air, the only effect of the sun’s rays through the naked limbs were the ominous, skeletal shadows that played across the sidewalk and comfortably modest, one-story houses.

  We strode up the walk, and I rapped once on the front door before it pulled open and Eric Gables stood waiting in a pair of baggy sweatpants and a loose, vintage Bart Simpson t-shirt.

  “Eric,” I said with a nod. “This is my partner, Ay…Terry.”

  The kid looked at him for a moment, quite puzzled, I guessed, by what he was looking at. Here I was introducing him to a man, but what he saw before him was Bobo the Detective Chimp. Ape shrugged it off and extended his hand in greeting.

  Eric took the proffered hand, smiled brightly, and said, “Come on in.”

  The house smell old, like a thrift store, combined with the heady perfume of chronic cigarette smoke. He closed the door behind us, said, “I wasn’t expecting a call. I didn’t even know if you’d decided to take the case or not.”

  “I said I’d see what I could do, right.”

  He looked at Ape then, making eye contact this time – apparently getting used to him – and asked, “So are you helping him find my brother?”

  “More or less,” Ape said. “We’ve had some breakthroughs in the case in the last twenty-four hours.”

  “That’s amazing,” he said. The way he kept looking at us with those big, dopey, doe-like, saucer eyes, the way his voice bounced around like a Mexican agave-snorting gymnast, I didn’t know if the kid had drank a twelve-pack of energy drinks with his cereal or if he was just really looking forward to seeing us. It occurred to me then that his life had been so dark and fleeting for weeks now, the fact that I had called at all gave him more hope than he knew what to do with. If he’d been saving his sunny disposition for a rainy day, well sonny Jim, it was fucking pouring outside.

  “Do you want to meet my mom?” he asked. “I can try to wake her…”

  “It’s not necessary.”