Magic Times

by Harvey Click

  “Your father’s dead?” she said. “Did you tell Hatty about him?”

  “Nope. I tried to tell Holly, but she started calling him names and I wanted to bust her in the mouth. I took care of him damn near all by myself the last couple years, ‘cause whenever he tried to do anything he couldn’t breathe at all. It wasn’t easy. For a while it looked like he was getting better, he was getting up and getting ‘round a little. Told me he felt better. Then three weeks ago he coughed up blood in his sleep and choked on it.”

  Emily touched his arm and said, “It’s all right.”

  “No, it ain’t all right,” he said. “I probably coulda saved him if I’d sat him up. But it was my birthday and I got into some liquor and was passed out like a rock.”

  “It’s all right, you can cry,” she said.

  His chest was heaving and his throat felt tight like a fist. He wanted to wipe his wet face, but he couldn’t remember if his bandana or Rue’s panties were in this pair of jeans.

  “I ain’t crying,” he said.

  It was dark now, all the purple turned to black behind the library, and the air was getting chilly.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Jason walked Emily to her apartment. She lived several blocks northeast of campus, and though he wanted to walk with her his feet seemed to want to walk in the opposite direction. He had to struggle with them to stay beside her.

  When they reached her place she squeezed his hand and gave him a serious-looking smile, and as soon as she went inside he felt a powerful wave of anxiety. He was supposed to be someplace else and he knew he was late and he thought he might be punished for being late.

  Someplace else, but where? Now his feet were heading south on Indianola Avenue, nearly running. Drew’s apartment was that direction, but he knew Drew’s apartment wasn’t where his feet wanted to go.

  Rue’s house, he thought. I gotta go there and I’m late and she’s gonna be sore.

  But why? He didn’t want to see Rue ever again.

  He forced his feet to stop and stood dizzily on the sidewalk, tottering a little and feeling nauseated. He knew the nausea would pass only if he continued to her house. He started walking again, a bit more slowly now, forcing his feet not to run though they wanted to, and the nausea eased.

  It always seemed easier walking toward her house than away. Walking toward her house was the easiest thing in the world, and though he didn’t want to see her he quickened his pace.

  The night air was cooling quickly, and he felt cold. He zipped his jacket, turned up his collar, and walked even faster. The question “What is home?” kept running through his head, and he kept trying to answer it. It’s a place where you can put all your weapons aside and unfold yourself like…like something.

  Up ahead he saw the old junk lady with her cart coming toward him, and as she drew closer he could hear her singing:

  Oh, my sweet Peter’s dead and gone,

  and a good kind man at that!

  I’d fix him up a cup a tea

  and taters cooked in fat.

  I seen him through the best a times

  and magic times they was,

  when two was one and one was three—

  now all but one is dust.

  My bones is tired achin’ sticks,

  there’s spooks inside my head.

  I hears them moanin’ out my name—

  I belong amongst the dead.

  He didn’t have time for the old woman tonight and tried to rush past her, but she turned her shopping cart sideways and blocked the sidewalk.

  “Hey there, boy, I reckernize you,” she said. “ ‘Cept yeh ain’t the same boy what yeh useta be. I see Beelzebub in your face.”

  “Ain’t got time,” he said.

  He stepped onto the grassy berm and tried to move past her, but she blocked his path with her smelly little body. She stared at his face and he stared at hers. Her wrinkles were deep and so were her gray eyes, so deep he couldn’t easily look away.

  “Where yeh racin’ off to in such a Godawful hurry anyhow?” she asked.

  “Home.”

  She looked in his eyes, and he wasn’t able to look away.

  “No, I don’t think you’s goin’ home,” she said. “I think you’s headin’ into darkness.” She rummaged around in her cart and pulled out an old flashlight. “You’s gone to need this,” she said.

  “No thanks.”

  She switched it on, and it gave off a feeble glow. “Batteries still good,” she said. “It only cost a quarter. Anybody can afford twenty-five cents.”

  “I don’t need it. I told you I’m going home.”

  She fixed him with her old gray eyes and said, “Boy, with that crazy devil look in your eyes I be plum surprised if yeh even know where your home is.”

  She shined the flashlight into his eyes, and though the beam was dim it seemed to set off an explosion inside his head.

  He stood there dizzy and tottering, and the whole phone conversation came back to him. Rue had said, “What is home?’ and he had answered, “It’s a place where you can put all your weapons aside and unfold yourself like a blanket and trust that no one will ever cause you any harm.” Rue had said, “You’re thinking that you want to come back here and stay here forever and let Rue take care of you in any way she wants,” and then she had ordered him to come home before sunset. He even remembered the part when she told him that he wouldn’t remember the call.

  He felt strong and free, and he wanted to laugh out loud. For the first time in a very long time, he felt bigger and more powerful than the forces that were trying to push him around.

  He reached in his pocket and handed some change to the old woman. “I don’t need no flashlight no more, but you can have this anyhow,” he said.

  “Thank yeh, boy.”

  He had already walked several blocks past Drew’s street, so he turned around. He wondered if the old woman was some sort of witch as well, and then he wondered if Rue really was. Was there really magic for those with eyes to see it, or was it all imagination mixed with coincidence and fear?

  Rue’s spells don’t work on me no more ‘cause I don’t believe in them no more, he thought. She don’t have no special powers. She’s just some crazy chick who tried to kill Drew—but Drew ain’t dead, and I ain’t doing what she wants, not ever again.

  The night breeze no longer felt cold but pleasantly cool, and now his feet were happy to go any direction he told them. He came to Drew’s street and turned onto it, anticipating with pleasure telling him how he had cracked Rue’s pass-phrase.

  He was about half a block from Drew’s apartment when someone stepped out of a parked Volkswagen beetle and came swiftly up behind him.

  “Get in the car,” Rue said.

  Jason didn’t turn around because he didn’t want to see her eyes. Maybe she didn’t have any special powers, but he still didn’t want to look at them.

  “You don’t worry me,” he said. “Your spells don’t work on me no more.”

  “Then maybe this will work,” she said, and she pressed the muzzle of a gun against his spine.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “You drive,” Rue said. She opened the passenger door and stood beside it with her gun aimed at him until he got in at the driver’s side. Then she got in herself and said, “The key’s in the ignition.”

  He turned it, and the car lurched forward and hit the car parked in front—she had left it in first gear, and he hadn’t put in the clutch.

  “One more stunt like that and I shoot,” she said.

  The Volkswagen had stalled, so he pushed in the clutch, started it again, and pulled onto the street.

  She told him to turn left into an alley just ahead. “This gun’s just a .22 caliber, so it won’t make much more noise than a backfire,” she said. “The bullet is tiny, but it will kill you just as dead as a big one.”

  Jason recognized the gun. It was a Ruger Mark II. His father used to own one just like it before he sold all his stuff,
and Jason had spent many happy hours shooting countless empty cans with it. He knew when the safety was off, you needed to keep your finger outside the trigger guard until you were ready to shoot because it didn’t take much more than a breath to set off the trigger. He saw that the safety was off and Rue’s finger was inside the guard, right against the trigger.

  He drove slowly and tried to avoid bumps.

  “If I shoot you nobody will know,” she said. “I’ll just grab the steering wheel, shove your body out, and go on my merry way.”

  He had heard somewhere that a .22-caliber bullet had enough power to pierce the skull but not enough power to exit it, so the tiny bullet would race around the inside circumference of the cranium, turning the brain into scrambled eggs.

  “This won’t do you no good,” he said. “Drew already burned his book.”

  “So what?” she said. “I don’t want Drew’s stupid book.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “I want you,” she said.

  She had the butt of the gun resting on her leg so it was low enough no one could see it, not that there was anyone walking around in the alley to see anything. The muzzle was less than two feet away from him and aimed directly at his side, just a few inches below his armpit, and he could almost feel the tiny red-hot bullet slicing through his ribs.

  “Turn left up here, and then jog right,” she said.

  “If you don’t want his book, then why’d you poison him?” he asked.

  “Because he learned a few things about me that offended his delicate sensibilities, so he decided to do everything in his power to keep you away from me. And if I let you slip away, then I’m sure he’d continue trying to keep others away from me. Once Drew gets his mind set on something, he doesn’t let go. Turn right here.”

  He turned. So far they’d been sticking to alleys and quiet little streets. Now they were on a small side street heading west, and soon they would have to cross High Street. He wondered what Conan would do. Conan always got himself out of terrible fixes, but then he’d never had to face a gun with a hair trigger.

  They came to High Street and had to wait at a light. A group of drunk male students crossed the intersection in front of the Volkswagen. They were yelling at some drunk female students across the street, and Jason knew if Rue shot him right now, probably none of them would even notice.

  The light changed. He crossed High Street and when they got to the first side street she told him to turn south. It was a small street with no traffic, no pedestrians, no witnesses.

  He thought if he suddenly opened the door and jumped out while the car was still moving, maybe he could duck behind a parked car before she could get a bullet in him. Or maybe not. Surely even Conan would bide his time, wait for the right opportunity, and this didn’t look like much of an opportunity.

  “Drew knows what you’re up to,” he said. “He ain’t gonna let you get by with this.”

  “I’ll take care of Drew in a little while. He doesn’t have anyone to protect him now.”

  “That’s what you think,” he said. “He’s got an armed guard staying with him ‘round the clock. That guard’ll be out looking for me pretty soon with a couple a his friends. They all got guns a lot bigger than that pea-shooter you’re holding.”

  She told him to shut up and turn right. Soon they were nearing her street, but she told him to drive past it to the alley that ran behind her house.

  He regretted he hadn’t made his move at the High Street intersection, which now seemed like a much better opportunity than it had at the time. He drove slowly down the narrow alley, thinking maybe if he slammed on the brakes really hard she’d be thrown off balance and he could grab the gun—but more likely the sudden jostling would jar her finger against the trigger.

  “Pull into the garage,” she said.

  She pressed the button on a remote control clipped to the Volkswagen’s sun visor, and the garage door slowly ascended. He pulled in and the door slowly descended behind them, leaving them in near darkness. It looked like the perfect place for a murder.

  “Shut off the car, get out slowly, and put your hands on top of your head,” she said. “No sudden moves.”

  He did as told. Her back yard was a wilderness of tall bushy herbs enclosed by a privacy fence, and she followed him along the narrow pathway through the plants that led to the back stoop. She tossed a key at his feet and told him to unlock the back door. She followed him through the dark kitchen and told him to open the door that led to the basement.

  “There’s a light switch to your right,” she said. “Turn it on and go down the steps slowly.”

  The basement light was a dim yellow glow that barely illuminated the steep wooden steps. The air smelled sour and moldy as he descended into the crumbling cavern. He saw the usual basement stuff, furnace, water heater, washer and dryer, utility sink, and a large pool of black water in one corner left over from yesterday’s rain. Against one wall some decrepit wooden shelves held bottles and jars of witchy-looking powders and potions.

  In the center of the floor was a wooden dining room table covered with a black cloth. It sat inside a large white circle drawn on the floor with what looked like chalk. A star had been drawn inside the circle, its five points touching the perimeter, and straight lines connecting one point to another intersected beneath the table.

  Rue took a white robe from a hook on the damp wall and tossed it to him. “Take off your clothes and put this on,” she said.

  He did as told. It looked like an altar boy’s robe sewn from a sheet.

  “Lie down on the altar,” she said, and again he did as told.

  Standing at the far end of the table, or altar as she called it, she leaned down and brought something up from the floor—a leather strap tied to the table leg by a loop of rope. She placed the strap on the table near his left foot and stepped back with the Ruger aimed at his balls.

  “Buckle it on tight,” she said.

  Jason knew his opportunities were running out. Once he was strapped to the table, there probably wouldn’t be any left. But he didn’t see any opportunity now either. She was standing well out of reach, and if he tried to spring off the table he’d be filled with four or five bullets before his feet hit the floor.

  The strap was a dog collar strong enough to secure a rabid Rottweiler, the leather an inch wide and plenty thick. The short rope that looped around the table leg passed through the sturdy steel ring on the collar that was meant to attach a leash. It was sturdy rope and looked to be securely tied.

  He buckled the collar around his ankle. “Tighter,” she said. Because his ankle wasn’t as thick as a Rottweiler’s neck, she had drilled some extra holes in the leather. He moved the tongue of the buckle to the next hole, and now the strap was tight enough to hurt.

  When both his ankles were secured, she moved to the other end of the table and slid another strap up the chair leg for his right wrist. His final wrist she buckled herself while using her other hand to aim the Ruger at his head the whole time.

  Now his opportunities were nil. He jerked the straps as hard as he could, but they were obviously too strong to break and so were the ropes.

  Rue stepped out of the chalk circle and placed the gun on a shelf beside her potions. “Nobody can hear you if you scream,” she said. “I soundproofed the basement windows with egg cartons, and these walls are solid concrete a foot thick.

  “But I don’t want you to scream or even whisper, because it will disturb my concentration. If you utter a single word, I’ll shove a rubber ball in your mouth. It’ll be uncomfortable, and you’ll only be able to breathe through your nose. If you prefer to maintain voluntary silence, nod your head.”

  He nodded his head.

  She disappeared into the back of the basement behind his head and reappeared carrying two black candlesticks about three feet tall with thick black candles stuck in them. She placed them inside the circle near his table and then brought two more. There was a gap in the chalk circle abo
ut three feet wide, and Jason noticed she was careful to step through it whenever she entered or exited the circle, as if it was a doorway.

  She returned with more candlesticks, placing them in a circle just inside the chalk circle, and when she was done there were thirteen. Next she placed a big metal brazier outside the circle near the wall he was facing. She undressed, leaving her clothes in a heap on the floor next to his, and donned a black robe that had been hanging on the wall.

  She reentered the circle, using the doorway-gap again, and stood over him holding a small suitcase.

  “Jason, you’ve been my lover, and soon you’ll be my sacrifice, and then you’ll be my apostle,” she said. “You’ll speak of me to the denizens of Underworld and prepare my way. Because of the things you’ll tell them, even those souls in the darkest corners of Underworld will hear of my deeds, so I’ll already be feared and honored when I join you there. Three apostles have gone before you, and you’ll be my fourth.”

  She opened the small suitcase and held it near his face. It contained three shrunken heads dangling from little hooks by their hair. Jason remembered Mingo saying that three young men had gone missing, one with bright red hair, one with long black hair, one with brown hair, and those were the colors he saw.

  “One is named Mark, one Matthew, and one John,” Rue said with a rueful smile. “I’m disappointed your name isn’t Luke, but life rarely offers such perfection.”

  She shut the suitcase and put it on the floor.

  “You’ll be my apostle not because you love me, because I know you don’t,” she said. “You’ll be my apostle in Underworld because when you’re dead the time for deception is gone, and then you can say nothing but the truth. Therefore I want you to know the true story of Rue, the Gospel of Rue.

  “Tell them I’ve always been a seeker of the truth. Even as a child I sought the pure light of truth in darkness. Lucifer is the light that invigorates darkness. Tell them I learned this when I was only thirteen years old.