The Curse Mandate (The Dark Choir Book 3)

by J. P. Sloan

  “I get it.”

  A cardinal in a nearby tree began whistling its guts out. I searched the nearby treetops for the little guy. Adrastos lifted a crooked finger in the direction of a silver maple. Sure enough, there he was.

  “Magnificent creatures, aren’t they?” he whispered.

  “Loud creatures.”

  “They are proud. Unashamed.”

  I looked back over to Adrastos. “You have a goddamn deal.”

  He reached over with his hand. I gripped it gently, and he pulled it away before I could make sense of the cascading personal shielding washing over my wrist.

  Margarite ushered me back to the goons with the golf cart, and before long they had deposited me at the front gate.

  Reginald stepped out of the car to open Wexler’s door.

  “Mister Lake,” she chimed as she stepped out. “You seem troubled. Was he not what you expected?”

  “He was… shorter than I figured.”

  “Muscular dystrophy, in case you were wondering. So, have the two of you come to an arrangement?” she asked, chin dipping.

  She must have known what he was prepared to offer me. I wondered exactly what else she knew.

  “We have,” I answered.

  With a quick celebratory clap, she stepped back into the car. “Let’s be on our way, then. This property plays havoc with my sense of calm.”

  “Know how you feel.”

  I let myself into the car. Malosi glowered in the back seat. He gave me a stiff nod. I figured he wasn’t pleased with the circumstances, but I had expected at least the tiniest of debriefs. His jaw was tight, and his eyes remained set forward.

  His fingers tapped the seat between us. He was nervous. Had Wexler threatened him?

  To break the silence on our way back toward the beltway, Wexler turned on the local talk radio station. During a loud car commercial between breaks, I leaned over to Malosi.

  “You okay?” I whispered.

  “We’re wasting time.”

  “It’s not so bad,” I reassured him. “We have some new options, now.”

  Malosi shook his head. “You don’t get options with these people,” he answered with enough volume for those in the front seat to hear. “You lose options.”

  “Perhaps in the long term,” I countered. “Right now, we only have the one.”

  “So, we’re collaborators now?”

  “More like independent contractors.”

  Malosi sneered. “I’m going to have to make a phone call.”

  “I understand.”

  Wexler turned her head slightly, her lashes blinking furiously.

  I leaned forward. “What’s up?”

  She held up a hand to shush me, and turned up the radio.

  A reporter was describing a multiple alarm fire in Harper’s Ferry, WV. Several historical buildings were engulfed in flames. Seemed tragic, but Wexler’s prickly energy filling the car led me to believe something deeper was amiss.

  I gazed out the right-hand window at the trees that swept past us. Gazing northeast.

  Roughly toward Baltimore. And directly ahead would be Gettysburg.

  Where was Harper’s Ferry from that point? Northwest.

  “Hate to ask this, but can we make a stop? Harper’s Ferry is just west of here.”

  Wexler’s head swiveled toward the driver seat.

  “Reginald?” she muttered.

  He nodded.

  When we reached the split to either head east over D.C. or north toward the mountains, Reginald steered us north.

  Wexler twisted around to face me. “What do you expect to see in Harper’s Ferry, Mister Lake?”

  “Chaos.”

  he fire had been beaten back to the burning remains of a long, wood-sided warehouse on the river. Several colonial-era structures lay in smoldering ruin. The firefighters and local police had the area of immediate danger cordoned off, and a mob of local media trucks and onlookers had choked out most of the walkways nearby.

  I surveyed the town surrounding us. Low buildings huddled against the Potomac. It was claustrophobic, especially with the soot-choked air hanging in the valley.

  “We need to get higher,” I grumbled to Malosi.

  He shoved his way through some of the locals to catch a glimpse up and down the street.

  Wexler and Reginald stood across our lane, Wexler in deep conversation with someone wearing a fire department shield on his shirtsleeves.

  Malosi snapped his fingers and pointed two doors down at a three-story structure with a kind of tiki bar for a balcony. A steel fire escape laced up the side of the building. It wouldn’t be stealthy, but it would be direct.

  “Right,” I barked, winding my way toward Wexler.

  She broke from the fire official as he plunged back into the crowd.

  “It started here.” She gestured toward a hallowed out clutch of walls. “Harper’s Ferry Preservation Society. Old Miller’s Hall. Served as a kind of museum and set of offices… until now. They’re calling it old wiring, at the moment.”

  I asked, “Does this place have any meaning to you?” After a quick twist of her brow, I added, “To the organization.”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “How complete is that knowledge?”

  Her eyes narrowed, but I stood my ground.

  “As complete as the organization needs it to be. What are you getting at?”

  “Just a theory.”

  “Regarding?”

  With a sniffle, I replied, “Geomancy.”

  I turned and trotted after Malosi. We crossed the street and slipped into the alley between buildings with ease. He jumped up and gripped the bottom rung of the ladder. For the barest second, it wrestled against his weight before popping in a haze of rust, rattling down to within a few feet of the street.

  “After you,” I prodded.

  He hoisted himself up the ladder to the first deck with remarkable speed. I took considerably longer. After several minutes, we rounded the top loop-hooks onto the edge of the concrete coping along the roof. The flat roof sat a couple feet below the coping, and our feet crunched on the grit and broken glass spread around the corner. Seemed to be a popular drinking spot.

  Malosi scanned the immediate surroundings. Apart from a water tower behind us, we were the highest point on the block, and no one seemed to have taken notice of us.

  “Over there,” I called out, pointing back to the remains of the museum. “That square bit at the front.”

  “That’s where it started?”

  I nodded. “Old museum. Offices for the Preservation Society. Does Old Miller’s Hall mean anything to you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Yeah. Me neither. Nor to Wexler.”

  The sun took its first shade behind the ridge to our west, and long shadows slipped slowly up the street below us. The embers within the roped-off zone stood out against the black smoke. As the daylight dimmed, and the smoldering wreckage stood out more and more, a chill rushed up my arms.

  “You seeing that?” I whispered.

  Malosi nodded.

  “That’s what I was looking for. We have a goddamn pattern, Reed.”

  Between wafts of smoke, a dark red widdershins spiral flickered in angry waves of heat.

  “Another jinx,” he grumbled.

  “A nasty one, too. Anything strike you as odd about this series of jinxes?”

  “What?”

  “Colonial-era buildings. The daycare in Gettysburg. Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore. Now this. For chaos magicians, they’re being awful specific, don’t you think? They’re targeting buildings.”

  Malosi shook his head as he leaned against the coping. “You’re convinced this has something to do with the Presidium. But Wexler doesn’t know what this place is.”

  “Well, on one hand, she could be lying. On the other, the Presidium is a sprawling, multi-layered organization. I honestly think she’s in the dark.”

  “Yeah. She chatted me up like she was
nervous as shit. I don’t think she’s ever set foot inside those gates.”

  I smirked. “What the hell did you two talk about?”

  “Economics, mostly. Eurozone. Some football.”

  “She’s a Redskins fan, isn’t she?”

  “Figures, right?”

  We took even longer to descend the fire escape, due in large part to the gathering dusk. When we reunited with Wexler, Reginald already had the car fired up. She watched us with crossed arms.

  “Enjoy your climb?” she muttered.

  “It was educational.”

  “Do tell.”

  I nodded to the car. “Inside.”

  By the time we had crossed the Potomac and were back in Maryland, she pressed me again.

  “What was this about, Lake?”

  “I know what started the fire.”

  “I’m assuming it’s due to the flies in our current ointment,” she responded.

  I gave Malosi a grin. “Yeah, but do you know how?”

  “Arson would be my guess.”

  “It was a jinx.”

  Silence fell over the car.

  Yep. I had her on that one.

  My brain folded over and over with thoughts and suspicions as we returned to Baltimore. Wexler was on the phone when Reginald pulled up to the back of the tavern, so Malosi and I stepped out without ceremony. The car eased around our claustrophobic parking lot and back out onto Light Street.

  “So,” Malosi grumbled, “you got a plan, or what?”

  I froze.

  He nudged my shoulder before he followed my eyes to the figure lingering by our back door. An elderly man with a briefcase. A very dangerous man.

  Before he could bow up, I whispered, “You need to go inside.”

  Malosi grunted.

  I urged, “I’m serious, Reed.”

  “How many times you going to send me away when some freak shows up?”

  He wilted when I looked up at him. My eyes must have filled with the most convincing kind of panic, because he blanched a hair and trotted across the parking lot without further complaint.

  And as the back door closed behind him, I was left alone with Felix Parrish.

  He took neat steps across the broken asphalt, his shoes managing to clop against the surface despite the gravel. Parrish’s eyes were narrow, and his mouth pulled tight against his teeth.

  “I suppose I know why you’re here,” I began as he brushed some invisible lint from his sleeve. “You found it, didn’t you?”

  He drew his lips together in a reply that seemed to take longer to materialize than he had intended.

  “Your soul remains itinerate,” he finally stated. “But we are closer than ever to securing it.”

  “That so?”

  We stood in silence for a moment, as a garbage truck down the street clattered against a dumpster.

  Parrish straightened his shoulders. “I’ve come to offer you one last opportunity to profit from your situation. Your benefactor remains cooperative, for the moment.”

  “Still want me to re-sign that contract? Hmm. That’s interesting.”

  His brow lifted.

  I continued, “Because the last time we spoke, I was under the impression THAT was my last chance. And if you were as close to securing my soul as you claim you are, then you wouldn’t bother with this dog and pony show.” I ventured a step closer. “I’m guessing you’re getting pressure from this ‘benefactor,’ and it’s starting to worry you.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted.

  “You’re not afraid of me anymore. Good. That makes things easier.” He cleared his throat and turned to his left. “Your soul has been disembodied until recently, when it was secured by a third party. It is currently ensconced inside a vessel, and is moving across the country.”

  A chill sliced through my chest.

  He swiveled his head toward me. “I tell you this so that you comprehend how much we’ve learned in how short a time. Once this vessel is delivered to its final location, wherever that may be, we will move.”

  My voice came out a whisper. “Why bother with me, then?”

  “Because we’re concerned, frankly. Concerned about your well-being.”

  “I guess you know something I don’t.”

  He snickered. “Unimaginable volumes, Mister Lake.” He reached into his valise and produced a scroll, brandishing it across his elbow. “Sign now, and the consideration from your benefactor may see you through the days to come. It may even save your life.” He added with a squint. “And the lives of those close to you.”

  Something scurried in the shadows by the eve of the building beside the tavern. That familiar sense of doom, of the circling vultures, descended upon me once again.

  Parrish sighed. “It’s only a matter of time. Your soul remains tethered to this realm while you remain alive. Should that change, your soul will become considerably more portable. No one wants that to happen.”

  I swallowed, and it caught in my throat.

  “I’m… sorry, no.”

  He glared at me before jerking the scroll back and securing it in his valise. Parrish stared forward, then nodded once.

  “Better check your phone, Mister Lake.”

  He clopped along the parking lot, turning around one of the alleys I never really noticed before.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket. It had shut off, at some point. I didn’t remember turning it off. Probably some effect of Adrastos’s property wardings. When it finally booted up, I found nine missed calls… six from Ches and three from Julian.

  Not good.

  Before I could reach the back door, it swung open, Malosi consuming the frame.

  “You done?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. We have a problem.”

  en greeted me inside, his face more flushed than usual.

  “What’s going on?” I blurted as he rounded around the edge of the bar.

  “Ricky ran off.”

  I blinked. “What does that mean?”

  “It means he’s gone looking for something.”

  “Smack? How do you know?”

  “I know, son. I saw his face. He was at the edge.”

  “Ah, shit.”

  Malosi added, “Julian took Francesca to look for him.”

  “Goddamnit. He was so close.”

  Ben put a meaty hand on my shoulder. “He’s not gone yet.”

  I nodded.

  “Reed? You feel like lending a hand?”

  He moved for the front door. “He’s on foot, right?”

  Ben nodded.

  “I’ll work the block.”

  He dove out onto Light Street.

  Ben crossed his arms.

  I turned to him. “Any idea which direction Julian and Ches went?”

  “East, I think. He mentioned Pulaski Boulevard.”

  I nodded. “Well, I doubt he made it that far, to be honest.” My stomach knotted. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Ben gave my arm a firm squeeze and nodded.

  I got into the Audi and piloted through the darkening one-way blocks until I found myself at the intersection of the MLK. There was a series of overpasses where an aborted attempt to make a freeway into the heart of the city crossed over the MLK Expressway. Beneath the overpass sat a tiny shanty town of pup tents, mattresses, and the occasional thrown-out sofa that housed a community of homeless. I passed it every morning on my way in from Amity.

  More importantly, I knew Ricky had seen it on the way into town the past couple days.

  I parked under a streetlight at a gas station near the far corner, and navigated across the expressway to the shadow-choked concrete arches housing the clutch of homeless. The underside of the overpass crawled with hungry shadows, swarming behind the bug-clouded flood lights as I stepped underneath.

  There were four distinct groups of men and women. The first were what seemed to be an elderly married couple, huddled together on a brown-and-orange sofa missing most of its cushions.
The second were a group of younger men. They stifled their conversation as I approached, and disbanded before I could say anything. The second were a pair of men who asked me for changed. I gave each a twenty note.

  And at the far end, nearest the center median, was a sharp-eyed youth in a Rastafarian knit hat. He’d watched me ever since I’d parked, and as I handed out my cash, he nodded for me to approach.

  With a clearing of his throat, he asked, “You lookin’ for that white boy?”

  “Yes. I think I am.”

  He turned to stare down a lane between a parking garage and the teaching hospital.

  “Don’t think he’s wantin’ to live.”

  In a splash of green illumination from a nearby traffic light, I spotted a huddled mass at the base of the parking garage wall.

  “You sold him heroin?” I asked.

  “No, mon. But someone else did.” He turned to me. “If you’re savin’ him, you better be quick.”

  “Not sure I can,” I mumbled.

  “Ja works, mon.”

  He reached out to hand me a tiny leaflet. I took it carefully.

  It was a pamphlet on addiction with the address of a nearby church.

  I waggled the leaflet. “You think God cares, at this point?”

  He nodded, his eyes filled with a compelling intensity. “I know it.”

  “Okay, then.”

  I’d met true believers before. They scared me.

  But this fellow wasn’t the sword-edged conversion style of believer. His gravity was immense, but it was a drawing force. Not a pushing force.

  I nodded to him and moved to cross the street, noting that the shadows in the corners of the overpass had gone.

  Ricky sat hunched over, back against mossy concrete, head hung between his knees. I couldn’t tell if he was sober or even if he was conscious. I stood nearby for a moment, just watching him. Perhaps guarding him.

  I cleared my throat. “Can’t be comfortable there.”

  He slowly lifted his head. His eyes were red-rimmed, but aware.

  I added, “I’ll have you know everyone at the Light Street Tavern is combing the streets of Baltimore for you. That’s gotta mean something, right?”

  “Sorry,” he grumbled, hanging his head again.

  I paced a slow circle, then shoved my hands in my pockets.

  “Are you high?” I asked matter-of-factly.