In the Stars I'll Find You

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “Worry not, Jonah. I knew this day would come when I selected you. Among all the children in the streets of Providence, in all the decades of my searching, you were the one I needed.”

  “You’ve been sick is all. Soon your health will return—”

  Gideon gripped Jonah’s wrists tighter and eyed the fire. “We’re not far now, Jonah. We’re close to setting them free. I knew from the moment I took up that knife that I would not be the one. But you! You may be different, do you hear me? And if it isn’t you, certainly the one you choose, so choose with care.” He released Jonah’s wrists and pulled his robe wider. “Now come…”

  Years ago, when they’d first performed this ritual, Jonah had been unable to comply with Gideon’s demands. To stab someone—no matter the rage he’d unleashed on Luther—was not something Jonah had brought himself to easily, but when Gideon closed his eyes, the feelings of rote ceremony returned, and Jonah thrust the knife deep into Gideon’s chest.

  He held the knife firmly in place, yet something had changed. This was vastly different than every other time they’d done this. He didn’t feel the trapped demon filling Gideon’s frame. He felt the opposite, Gideon’s soul slipping into the blade. In his panic, he withdrew the knife before Gideon’s final breath had passed. God’s breath, the knife had claimed Gideon’s soul such that both—demon and Jonah’s master—were contained within it.

  Jonah had known he would have to take the knife himself one day, but he wasn’t prepared to do so so soon. There was nothing for it, though. What needed to be done needed to be done. The slick blood upon the knife was beginning to vanish. Before it was fully gone, Jonah turned the knife and held it against his own chest. He felt the tip pressing through his cotton shirt, felt it pierce his skin, and with that he felt Gideon’s screaming soul, a torment given him gladly by the demon.

  Without another thought he pushed mightily upon the knife, the blade slipping deep into his own chest.

  The pain of it was like a hammer blow. Gideon and the demon were both infinitely more clear than before—it was the difference between lidded eyes on a lazy afternoon and staring wide-eyed at the sun. Jonah screamed, but he heard little, only the rush of his own blood, the laughing of the demon and its brethren who watched from within the fire. He was surprised by the level of power the demon yet wielded, but Jonah was not a man unprepared. Gideon had trained him well, for this was not so different from culling the souls from the condemned men in the cellar of the opera hall, except now the demon tried desperately to control him. It flayed at Jonah’s mind, trying to bend him to its will.

  But Jonah was ready for this as well. The same hatred that had been unleashed when he’d murdered Luther those many years ago blossomed once more. He unleashed it against the demon, and soon the twisted creature and Gideon both passed beyond the veil, leaving much behind, a power Jonah had never felt before.

  It was too much too handle at once, though, and Jonah soon fell into darkness.

  * * *

  Jonah watched as Caleb, Henry, Gilland, and Gideon’s other lieutenants carried the ornate casket slowly into the crypt. Many from Providence had come to witness these final rites. Most were simply curious what had happened to the man everyone whispered of—whispers only, for they dared not speak too loudly about a man who could draw the breath from them as they slept. Others had come to pay respects to Gideon’s successor, Jonah. And a few had come to watch as their mortal enemy was at last laid to rest. Edward Quinn was one such. The old constable had risen in the world. He was the mayor now, and he’d been arraying his policemen and constables for years to try to catch Gideon in his foul arts, but he’d managed little more than catching a few of Jonah’s crew. He’d also broken up the ring in the state prison that had supplied Gideon with bodies, but that had merely forced Jonah to make other arrangements with an asylum on the outskirts of Boston.

  When the ceremony was done—a fire and brimstone affair given by a Protestant priest who vanished the moment he’d finished delivering the sermon—the crowd began to disperse. Some came to shake Jonah’s hand, one man even bending down to kiss the onyx gemstone set into his burly gold ring. Last was Mayor Quinn. He stopped short of Jonah as the wind soughed through the winter-bare branches above them. “Had I known what would happen”—he sent a look over his shoulder where, beyond the crypts and graves, beyond the stone cemetery wall, the three peaked towers of Gideon’s estate could just be seen—“I would’ve gutted you instead of given you that scar.”

  The urge to touch the scar left by Quinn’s whip was nearly overwhelming, but Jonah resisted and stared placidly into Quinn’s eyes. “Why didn’t you follow me if you were so worried?”

  Quinn didn’t answer at first. A sound came from the crypt—Caleb and the others performing their own rituals before the crypt was sealed. “I ask myself the same question.” Quinn’s right hand twitched at his side. “Nearly every day I ask it, and the simple truth is I was a coward then.”

  “And you’re a coward no longer?”

  Quinn’s nostrils flared. His twitching hand touched the pocket of his long woolen coat. It was an awkward and tentative motion, as if he wanted to go further but couldn’t. Jonah could sense the steel hidden there—a loaded six-gun with a mother-of-pearl handle. He’d come here to kill Jonah, and he might have if Jonah hadn’t been prepared so well. Gideon had been able to see men, see into their souls, from the demons he’d consumed over the years. Gideon, when he’d passed through Jonah and beyond the veil, had given much of this knowledge to Jonah.

  Quinn’s fear radiated from him like heat. He struggled to throw off Jonah’s will and put his hand on the butt of the pistol. He wanted dearly to gun Jonah down in front of everyone, and he knew he had to do it here, where Jonah was weakest, and he had to do it now, when Jonah was still immature in his dark crafts.

  Just then Caleb exited the crypt and stood suddenly taller, watching the two of them and making himself ready to move. After a glance from Jonah, however, he relaxed.

  Quinn’s hand made it as far as the split in his coat, then it returned to his side and his eyes relaxed. He had a defeated look to him as he spoke the words, “Good day to you, Jonah. I’m saddened by your loss.”

  III

  Jonah sat in the chair by the fire, staring into its wavering depths, wondering, not for the first time, just how old this gateway might be. Gideon had been right those many years ago. Jonah could see more than just the minutes around him. He could see into the days ahead, even weeks sometimes, but what Gideon hadn’t said was how it also opened up the days of the distant past. As he looked into the fire now, he could see a barren hill, the very one upon which this mansion had been built. It showed a pristine land, well before man—red-skinned or white—had tread upon it, and he could feel the power that rested there. It was a place that had been waiting through the ages until there were those it could ensorcel into opening the paths to the demons beyond.

  Gideon had been right about another thing. The gateway had been close to crumbling when Gideon had passed. It remained close now, and Jonah wondered how much it would take. How many more times his failing body would need to take the knife from Caleb.

  He was growing old, a man well beyond his prime, a condition made worse by the draining rituals he performed at the behest of the demons. He knew he would soon need to choose a successor of his own. Caleb had been asking him to do so for years, and he’d recently grown more bold, disobeying Jonah and arranging on his own for the condemned to be brought and put under the knife.

  For years Jonah had continued to do the deed himself, but as time had worn on he’d become weaker, in body if not in mind, and he’d been forced to remain at the mansion as Caleb culled the souls and brought the knife home. There were days when Jonah felt ancient, days when he didn’t know if he could take another, but he was now well and truly trapped. The demons controlled him as much as he controlled them. He had power over man, but very little over himself, and almost none over the inevitable tear
ing of the veil between this world and the next.

  Rain pattered against the roof of the mansion. Flowed noisily down the gutters as lightning crashed. Caleb had been gone a long time, much longer than he should have, and that worried Jonah, for in recent days the vision gifted him by Gideon, once so clear, had become as unreliable as Jonah’s failing heart.

  The front door rattled open, the sound of the rain like meat thrown into a freshly hot skillet, and soon Caleb’s old, limping form led a young boy into the sitting room. He must have been nine, perhaps ten years old. “Since you won’t go see for yourself,” Caleb said as he scrubbed his stubbled chin and neck, waiting for Jonah to draw his own conclusions.

  Jonah stared at the boy, and his heart faltered. He coughed, his body folding forward. The boy was pure and bright, like the first clear rays of sunshine after the heavy rain of spring. He was exactly what Jonah needed, of course, someone pure who might be turned. It was this boy’s purity of heart that drew the demons forward. It was his corruption that would weaken the veil, as Jonah’s had, and Gideon’s before him. There was little doubt that this boy would break down those walls once and for all, but it only served to remind Jonah of what Gideon had done. He’d robbed Jonah—taken his childhood and his future and given it to the demons. Jonah had once been pure and full of hope as this child was, but that had been stolen as well, currency in this foul bargain.

  “His name is Lucas,” Caleb said.

  For some reason the fire raged hotter than Jonah could ever remember it. They knew, Jonah realized, and Caleb did as well. Caleb looked into the flames and smiled—at long last he’d found the one who would tear down the walls—and when he turned his eyes on Jonah once more, Jonah knew that Caleb would not allow him to ignore this boy, to say it was not yet time.

  “Come here, Lucas,” Jonah said, his voice scratchy from disuse.

  The boy didn’t move. His eyes were red, and there was an exhaustion about him that ran deeper than his fear, but there was more, something strange but oh-so-familiar. Jonah just needed to dig deeper to find it.

  Lucas hadn’t moved, so Jonah willed him forward, forced him to take one tentative step, then two, until he was standing directly before Jonah. Jonah took the boy’s hand in his own. He looked deeper into his soul than anyone else before him, and he remembered with crystal clarity standing like this before Gideon, before Luther had cut him for the first time. It was a memory hidden for decades by Gideon’s power, but he remembered now how exposed he’d felt then, and he knew that Gideon had seen in Jonah what Jonah was now seeing in this boy.

  Jonah’s hands shook. His mouth went dry and a strange lump formed in his throat. He wanted desperately to drop Lucas’s hand, to send him away if only to protect him, but he couldn’t let Caleb see how much it was affecting him.

  This boy was a conduit to another world—not the world of demons, but a world of brightness, of good. Be they angels or saints or divine beings—who knew the truth of it?—what was clear was that they were creatures of preservation and peace, not damnation and death. Lucas and others like him protected this world from demons, but they couldn’t do so if they were taken by the likes of Jonah and turned to a darker path.

  “Take him away,” Jonah said to Caleb. “He’s not ready.”

  Caleb considered Jonah’s words, then took Lucas by the shoulders and guided him toward the door. “Wait in the coach.” When Lucas had gone, and the front door had rattled home, Caleb returned and stood before Jonah, the fire playing over his face like armies on a battlefield. “You saw what I saw. He’s ready.”

  “Not yet,” Jonah said carefully. “But he will be. He needs hate in his heart, as I had hate. He cannot be turned like this.”

  Caleb chewed on these words for a good long while. “I’ll turn the boys on him, then.”

  Jonah smiled. “Of course. And in a few months, he’ll be ours.”

  * * *

  Jonah stood before a marble hearth, teeth gritted against the pain running through his entire body. Unlike the fire in his own mansion, this one was utterly mundane, and it left Jonah chilled to the bone. Over the years the need to touch the demons had grown at least as large as his need to eat, and his distance from it now left an empty gnawing inside him.

  A pain that would only grow worse, Jonah knew.

  As the rich walnut pocket door slid open behind him, Jonah felt the bones in his shoulders pop. Another side effect of the changes he’d set into motion last night after sending Caleb away to Norwich. The pain in his shoulders—in fact, the pain everywhere in his body—flared for a moment before returning to its ever-present ache. Part of him wanted to abandon this foolish plan, to return to his seat by the fire to wait for the inevitable, but the glimpse he’d seen through that boy, that bright white light…. The same was hidden within him. Somewhere. It had been obscured by the layer upon layer of misery he’d inflicted on the world, but it was still there. All he needed to do was uncover it. Or enough of it to save that boy.

  “I never thought to see one of Jonah Bloom’s men within these walls.” As his manservant slid the doors closed behind him, Quinn sidled toward the fire, his eyes never leaving Jonah’s. When he came to a rest only paces away, Jonah thought surely then Quinn would recognize him. But he didn’t. He merely stared and snapped, “Well, what does he want?”

  “All these years,” Jonah replied easily. “Fifty, nearly, and you don’t recognize me?”

  Quinn started at the sound of his voice. Jonah’s voice hadn’t changed. Not yet.

  “Jonah?”

  “I’ve come to offer you a proposition. One I imagine you’ll find agreeable.”

  “What sort of joke is this?”

  “It isn’t a joke. At least, not on you. I need your help, and if all goes well, you’ll get your wish. You’ll be rid of me once and for all.”

  “What’s happened to you?”

  Jonah’s knee popped audibly. It was the worst one yet, causing his leg to buckle, but he remained standing as pain like an ice pick jabbed through his kneecap. “Let’s leave that aside for the moment,” Jonah said unsteadily. “Let’s talk instead about what I’ve left behind. I’ve left behind my mansion, in which a terrible secret lies. I’ve left behind my men, who will even now be searching for me. I’ve left behind my knife, the one you saw me with so many years ago. I’ve left behind much, so that you might have a future.”

  “Me?”

  “You. The sons and daughters of Providence. Indeed, the world.”

  Quinn looked as though he were about to smile, but he seemed to sense the seriousness in Jonah’s voice. “I won’t be tricked, Jonah.”

  “No, you won’t be. Not any longer. There’s an asylum near Boston. Did you know? It’s where I’ve been getting souls for nigh on twenty years.”

  “Why tell me this? Why now?”

  Jonah took a deep breath as his ribs cracked and snapped, making themselves wider at Jonah’s command. And then his skull made a sound like a walnut being crunched underfoot, and it brought on the worst pain yet. Quinn’s eyes widened as Jonah collapsed to the floor. Jonah cradled his head with his arms, as if by doing so he could keep himself together and ward off the pain at the same time, but it did nothing to help. He writhed there for long moments, but then, slowly, the pain subsided and he pulled himself up, inch by inch, until he was standing and facing Quinn once more.

  “I am telling you this,” he said after one faltering breath, “so that you’ll know where Caleb gets his men should I fail. But more importantly, I’m telling you so that you can arrange for me to be brought to our man there.”

  “Who?”

  “Why, the one who runs the asylum, of course.”

  * * *

  Jonah stared at the ceiling of the cellar as men arranged candles near his hands and feet. The changes to his body had finally, mercifully, stopped. But the pain had not. His bones, his muscles, his tendons, even his skin hadn’t been ready for such a rapid change. The simple act of breathing was misery.
>
  The days after his transfer into the asylum had passed like decades, Jonah waiting second by second for his cell to open, for men to take him and place him in the wagon they’d had made especially for transfers such as these. He thought Caleb had made other arrangements, or that Quinn had thought better of their arrangement and betrayed him. He thought surely he’d be left here to rot.

  But at last men did come, and Jonah was placed into chains and wrapped in darkness and transported back to Providence and down at last to this cellar.

  Jonah moaned, and Henry struck him soundly across the cheek. He pulled a short knife from his belt and hunkered over Jonah, no longer recognizing the man who lay before him. “Quiet, now, or it’ll go bad for you.” He brandished the knife before putting it away and returning to his chalk.

  He worried that Caleb might not come, that he might not bring Lucas, but eventually the door to the cellar opened and footsteps scraped down toward him. And there, standing over him, was Caleb. Jonah had not felt the traitor up until that moment. He’d spent decades with Caleb, and he’d abandoned the cause they’d both set for themselves. But Caleb had never truly been his own. Nor had Henry or Luther, or even Gideon for that matter. Neither had Jonah himself, not once the knife had touched him.

  Jonah looked up into Lucas’s nervous eyes, watched as he stepped forward holding the knife Caleb had already given him.

  “Stand over him,” Caleb said.

  And the boy complied, but only because he was scared beyond comprehension. Jonah could see now that Lucas wasn’t ready. Caleb had rushed things in Jonah’s absence. Jonah nearly wanted to laugh. This might foul everything. Lucas had to stab Jonah. There was no other way.

  When Gideon had died—the moment Jonah had stabbed him—his power had transferred to the blade, but it had done so only because of the demon trapped there by Jonah. Jonah’s use of the blade to gather that demon had prepared Jonah to become Gideon’s successor. Or, more accurately, it had prepared the blade. Now, though neither Caleb nor Lucas knew it, the ritual was being performed incorrectly. With the blade empty, there was no demon to shepherd Jonah’s soul to Lucas. Lucas would not be imprinted upon the blade. It helped Jonah to know that Lucas’s bright soul would not be sullied much in this process, but the most important thing was that the knife would not transfer Jonah’s power. It would instead kill him. His soul would at last be mercifully, blessedly beyond this plane, untouchable. And it would undo what Gideon and so many before him had built.