Sons of Dust

by P. Dalton Updyke

It was Vinny who broke the spell. He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her through the hole they’d made into Lucien’s tomb. Lucien screamed and the sound drove itself into Katie’s head. She covered her ears, crying out from the pain that was like glass shards shoved into her scalp. Lucien screamed again, bellowing, and Katie’s nose gushed blood. Beside her, Gina retched, vomiting on the ground and Marcus was screaming, screaming—

  Lucien rushed at them, his dark eyes, harsh and then he was jerked backwards, the chain held him tight.

  “It’s the devil!” someone cried out.

  Katie thought it was Alex but she couldn’t be sure because they were all screaming and the pain was worse and the stench was overpowering and Lucien’s voice was stapled over it all, a bellow of rage. “You must! Break them now!”

  He thrust his hands out—

  --and the shadow arms on the wall behind him thrust as well, only there weren’t hands at the end of the shadow wrists, there were claws with long fingers and grotesquely curved nails. As Lucien screamed in rage, the shadow mouth opened wide and Katie could see the long, forked tongue flickering between the shadow’s jagged fangs.

  The chain of bones rattled on the floor like clacking teeth. Lucien lunged for her, the gray claws on the wall reaching for her…

  Katie found her voice, finally, and shrieked as she stumbled backward, away from the wall, from the ruined bedroom, from Lucien, but not before she saw what Magdalena really was.

  Not a woman at all.

  Her shadow was something that might have been a woman once, but was now more beast than woman. Her skull was long and narrow, her hands claws that jerked when Lucien moved, her body distorted, her spine twisted and humped.

  It was a trick.

  The whole thing was a trick.

  She cried out, “We won’t help you! We won’t! And you can’t make us!”

  “It is written!” Lucien screamed and Katie’s nose gushed fresh blood. She wiped it away with the back of her hand.

  “It’s written that you’d be free by our will. We don’t will it! And we won’t! We refuse to let you go!”

  Lucien threw his head back, the cords on his neck stood out and the sound that came from his throat was such a howl of hatred and rage that Katie turned on her heels and shouted, “Run! Run!”

  She grabbed Bo’s hand. There was a sound from behind them and they turned at the same time to see rats, hundreds of them, pouring over the stone wall into the hallway where the others stood frozen. Gina shrieked, a high, breathless sound that rose higher and higher as the rats, their eyes gleaming orange in the odd light, ran toward her. Alex grabbed her hand, yelling, “Get us home, Katie! Now! He’s coming!”

  Katie closed her eyes as tight as she could, trying to ignore the sounds behind them. If she could will her friends here, she could will them home.

  Couldn’t she?

  She could hear her friends’ screams and the sickening mewing of rats as they climbed over legs and feet. Marcus swore and Vinny began to laugh, a crazy laugh that hinted of madness and then Katie heard a thumping sound.

  “Hit ‘em,” Vinny yelled. “Kick the son of a bitches.” He laughed again and Katie thought, please God, please please please bring us home.

  Nothing happened.

  Gina screamed again and Katie’s eyes flew open. There was a rat on Gina’s shoulder and she was beating at it, but it hung on and as Katie watched, the rat seemed to smile and then it jabbed its head forward and bit Gina under her left eye. Blood ran down her cheek in a thin stream. Alex shouted something and batted at the rat, knocking it off of Gina. He kicked at another one on the ground in front of them, but then stopped as a rat leaped at him; landing on his chest with a meaty whap.

  “Jesus, Katie! Get us out of here!”

  Please God, please God, please please please…

  But there was no wind, no feeling of being transported, no feeling of power or strength. Panic twisted her stomach, her heart banged so hard in her chest Katie was afraid she was having a heart attack. How come she couldn’t get them home? Why wasn’t it working?

  Lucien screamed again, his words punched her. “You must do it! Break the bonds! IT WAS PROMISED!”

  Katrenjia, Sister Patrice said in her mind. Her voice was calm and Katie could picture her standing in front of the classroom, her hands clasped in front of her, her face pure grace in its sereneness. The path you took to bring the others here is the way to get them home. Remember how you got them here and you will bring them back.

  But how did she get them here? Not by praying. It wasn’t prayer at all. And if prayer didn’t bring the others to her, it wasn’t going to get them home.

  Katie closed her eyes again. She pictured the Forest Field, she pictured the foundation, and then she pictured them sitting in a circle, Alex’s baseball glove on the ground behind him. She pictured a candy bar wrapper fluttering in the breeze, her mother’s blue curtains floating through the window. And she thought, flinging the words out of her mind, Home. It’s time to go home. NOW!

  And just like that—

  --“We were back.”

  Kate stopped talking. She looked at each of them for a long minute. A tear ran down her cheek.

  “That’s how I remember it, too,” Vinny said.

  There was a low murmur of agreement and then Gina asked, “What happened after that, Kate?”

  Kate tried to smile. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Bo and I threw the Ouija board away and after a few months, I managed to convince myself that it never happened. I told myself we played a game, a great game that was so realistic it gave me nightmares. After a while, I started to believe it.”

  Vinny reached for his coffee mug. He was proud to see his hand was steady. “Well, kid,” he said as he lifted it to his lips, “I don’t think you’re alone. I gotta tell you, I forgot about that day, pretty much. I guess maybe I pushed it so far back in my head it wasn’t even a memory anymore. I remember the first time we played Ouija better than the last time. Or at least, up until now. Now that you’ve told the story, I remember those damn rocks and that chain.”

  He stopped talking. The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed. Vinny cleared his throat. “We all told ourselves it was a game. Pretend. So how come Bo didn’t?”

  He was aware of four pairs of eyes on him. “How come, almost twenty five years later, she started fooling with this shit again?”

  He looked across the room at Marcus, but Marcus looked lost. “That’s the place to start,” Vinny said softly. “How come now? What happened to her that she wanted to do all this again?”

  Chapter 26

  Marcus

  The coffee pot was empty, but it wasn’t coffee he wanted anyway. Marcus ran a hand over his face, feeling the rasp of stubble against flesh. He was aching with exhaustion. The need for sleep was overwhelming. The need for a drink was stronger. “Kate, I could use something stronger than coffee. Do you have any vodka or whiskey?”

  “I don’t know what’s here. I’m not sure what Bo would have stocked.”

  “I’ll check the kitchen,” Gina said as she rose to her feet. “I could use something stronger than coffee, too.”

  Vinny followed Gina out of the room, mumbling something about needing to stretch his legs, and after a moment, Alex left as well. Alex, though, didn’t offer an explanation of where he was going or why.

  The room was quiet. Kate’s eyes were closed. She was resting her head against the back of the couch. Her long hair fanned around her head and shoulders, framing her in soft auburn. Dark purplish shadows circled her eyes, tracing an arc on her cheeks. She looked tiny, delicate. Funny, he hadn’t remembered her that way. Kate must have sensed his stare, because she opened her eyes and tried to smile. “Long day.”

  He nodded. “Marcus,” she said slowly, “I am so sorry about Bo.” She hesitated again, as if unsure how to go on. “I didn’t know you and Bo had fallen in love. I hadn’t realized you were together.”

  Marcus leaned forward and took of h
er hands. It was freezing. He wrapped both hands around hers and rubbed her skin with his thumbs. “You always did have cold hands.” Kate gave him a wan smile. “I remember having to hold hands with you in gym class. It was like holding an ice cube.” He didn’t look up at her face, focused instead on her tiny hand. “Thank you for coming back.” His voice was hoarse and he swallowed. “Bo would have appreciated it. She talked about you a lot, Katie. She loved you.” Marcus didn’t have to look up to know that Kate was crying. “Thank you for coming back for her. It means a lot to me, Kate, because I know how much it would have meant to her.”

  Kate’s hand moved in his, she curled her palm up and laced her fingers through his, then raised his hand to her lips and kissed it. “I am so sorry,” she whispered. “I am just so sorry.”

  Marcus pulled his hand away, gently, reaching up to squeeze her shoulder. “We’re all sorry.”

  Kate wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. The gesture instantly reminded him of the past. Kate hated to cry, even when they were kids. She’d wipe her face with the back of her hand quickly and he’d known with a child’s perfect instinct that Katie wanted to wipe the tears away before anyone else saw them.

  “Katie’s mom told her real ladies don’t cry,” he heard Bo’s voice in his memory. “It’s against the rules or something. Katie tries not to cry now because she’s training for when she’s an adult.” Bo laughed. “I suppose I won’t make much of a lady. Everything makes me cry and it’ll probably be worse when I’m a grown up.”

  Except that wasn’t true.

  In all the years he’d known her, Marcus could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he’d seen tears on Bo’s cheeks. Yes, he could count on the fingers of one hand he’d seen tears, but there was only one time she’d wept.

  One time.

  It started because he had money. More money in one month than his old man made in a year. The long, heady climb to the land of status started with graduation from Suffolk Law University. First in his class. And then the offers came. He was invited to join several firms but he finally chose Bergen, Bergen and Welsh because he liked the way his shoes sunk into the thick carpet of their offices. He liked the color of the leather on the office chairs, the way the administrative assistants all smelled good, the way they called him Mr. Kivale in a soft tone that screamed respect. Most of all, he liked the offer Bergen, Bergen and Welsh made.

  Money.

  Money to burn.

  Or snort.

  Like most evil, cocaine started out as something that felt good. Jennifer Layton, a junior partner at BB&W (and only female partner in the ole boys club) had a cocktail party to celebrate Marcus’s first big win. The party was a smashing success, smashing being the operative word. The bar was well stocked, the women beautiful, the conversation the kind of dialogue Marcus used to imagine. It was sharp, funny, quick. The rich didn’t just live differently, they talked differently. He walked around the room, his hand curled around a vodka martini, speaking little, taking it all in.

  And then Jennifer was beside him, her arm through Marcus’s. She leaned close to Marcus, her perfume spicy and exotic. Her brown hair brushed his shoulder as she whispered, “Time to get things rolling. This party is dying.” She led Marcus to the parlor, where mirrors were spread over a glass table. The mirrors caught the light from the track lighting overhead. Everything sparkled with a pure white glow that made something in Marcus’s gut relax.

  At that moment, he understood that while money doesn’t buy happiness, it unties the knots in a poor man’s stomach. A gorgeous blonde in a blue sequin dress was handing out gold straws and as Marcus watched, Jennifer tapped lines of pure white powder onto the mirrors. The blonde handed Marcus a straw and he hesitated, but only for a minute.

  He had to be polite, after all. A snort here and there never hurt anyone, right? He leaned over the table, put the straw to his nose, and inhaled.

  Breathe deep, the billowing gloom…

  Where did that line come from? Marcus tried to remember, but just as he thought he knew, the song – that’s it, it was a song – blew away. Moody Blues?

  Jennifer’s party was the beginning.

  The junior partners at BB&W worked harder than anyone Marcus had ever met. They battled exhaustion, spent long hours in the law library, they made every case the center of their existence. They argued with passionate conviction in the courtroom, and when the case was over and the war won, they celebrated. Oh, how they celebrated.

  It was Steve Dolan who’d used the word, one night at a victory party. He leaned close to Marcus, his eyes red and glazed and shouted, “Hard! We play HARD!” Others in the room picked up the chant and soon the words chased each other in Marcus’s brain.

  Play hard.

  Work hard.

  Everything was gone at the same way. Hard.

  Cocaine blew like sand. For Marcus, the parties began to blow into the day. He’d find himself in a men’s room stall at BB&W, snorting white powder off a small pocket mirror. The funny part was, he couldn’t remember where the pocket mirror came from, or when he’d put it in his suit. Was it a gift? Probably not, because by then, there were no gifts. The coke wasn’t free anymore. Nothing was free.

  If it had just been the cocaine, maybe everything would have been okay. But the cocaine had another effect on Marcus, one beyond the good, incredibly clear feeling that came with the first hit. By the time the drug was swirling in his brain, cleaning up the cobwebs, The Talk would be coming out of his mouth, strong and commanding, never shaky, never trembling. The Talk was the talk of doom and doom never shakes.

  Doom is always certain.

  He’d start by telling his friends revolution was coming any day. They’d kept the minorities down for too long. Revolt was coming. It was coming, and when it did, God help them. “You think the black man who sold you the Globe this morning is going to spare you because you’re pretty?” he asked a beautiful brunette. “Do you think he’ll remember that you tipped him every day? Do you think the Hispanic woman at the dry cleaners will protect you because you gave her a card with five bucks in it at Christmas? I’m here to tell you, sweetheart, that none of us will be spared. Contrary to what some folks hope, color is always primary.”

  The refrain from the Marcus Kivale theme song.

  Color is always primary.

  With the help of the coke, The Talk screamed in his head. And the worst part was, he believed The Talk. Or at least, some part of him did. He believed the blacks and the Hispanics would join forces with the Asians and the Jews and the under-privileged whites and in his fevered brain, he could picture secret meetings between the groups. He could picture their leader, a massive African American man, with a shaved head and proud features. A man who stood straight, who had enormous hands he raised in fists, a man who’d rally the men and women behind him to overthrow the reign of privileged whites. He’d have the power, the rhetoric, and Jesus help them, the moral right to start a war. The Jews would provide the financial backing, they’d fund the slaughter against the whites and who could blame them? The Asians would put up the intelligence, the weapons systems, the technical power needed for battle. The black, Hispanics, poor, would be the foot soldiers, not because of their race, but because of their rage. They’d lead the hand to hand combat, they’d scream their madness and beat their fists against the people who’d oppressed them for so long,

  Marcus could see it.

  He could read it in the faces of the people on the subway. He could see it in the eyes of the young men and women who took his tokens, who handed him his paper, who served him his dinner.

  Rioting.

  Revolution.

  Chaos.

  Like France. Like China. Like Korea. Like Russia.

  And every hit of cocaine told him it was coming NOW. Right NOW.

  He made it through the first fourteen months at BB&W and then Richard Bergen, Jr. had a Christmas party for the employees of the great white law firm and Marcus went becaus
e, after all, he had to be polite. Whoever said the love of money was the root of all evil didn’t know jack. It was the need to please that was at the root of most misery.

  At first, he stayed away from the white lines on mirrors being discretely passed in the lavish marble bathrooms. He said no (Thank you, Nancy Reagan, for the permission to deny) with a smile and a wink and his associates didn’t push him.

  That should have been his first clue.

  He moved from group to group, listening to the conversations, most of it boring, the same old same old, and then his good friend Jennifer was beside him whispering, “Come on. The party’s dying, my friend.”

  And because he agreed, he let Jennifer lead him to the bathroom, the wallpaper honest-to-God gold foil, the fixtures marble and gold. He stared at the lines of white powder, wanting to take a hit, wanting it bad, knowing he shouldn’t, really, because if he did, The Talk would start in his head.

  This isn’t the place for that shit.

  He didn’t know he’d spoken aloud until Jennifer laughed and squeezed his arm just above the elbow. She was wearing a long black velvet dress and Marcus thought she looked like Morticia from the Addams Family. “Come on, Kivale. Of course this is the place to take a shit. Look around you.”

  So he did and saw the same things he saw the first time around: Italian marble, hand-blown glass chandelier, gleaming gold faucets. And gold-leaf wallpaper. Jesus Christ. For a room where people came to take a shit.

  They didn’t have a clue.

  Marcus leaned over and breathed deep.

  The billowing gloom…

  Much later, he wandered from group to group, room to room, knowing he should leave, he should leave NOW because The Talk was starting up and it was beyond a whisper already. Pretty soon it would be a shout. He passed by his boss, Mt. Richard Bergen, Jr. himself and overhead Bergen say, “-damn ‘diversity.’”

  Marcus stopped, his heart beginning to roll a drum beat in his chest.

  “-ridiculous. If I never hear that meaningless phrase again, it will be too soon. Don’t get me wrong, I am not opposed to hiring minorities – oh, wait, excuse me – diversity, but what gets my goat is this assumption that I have to. It’s bullshit.”