by B. L. Morgan
After a while O’Malley came in with another cop and started grilling me about a dead guy they found in the stairwell of The Blaine Building. That must have been the real door man. His throat had been cut.
A young white female had also been thrown out of the back of a delivery van a few blocks from The Blaine Building. She was identified as Bobbie Chambers. Her throat also was cut.
What a shame, I thought. She never even got a chance to know what the John Dark dick can do for a woman, or two or three at a time.
All joking aside, she seemed like a good kid, especially when she was holding my balls.
I told O’Malley and his buddy what I knew, that the guy who took the girls was Caesar Lanista. O’Malley told me I was lying. That was when the door swung inward and my attorney, who I didn’t even know I had, came to the rescue.
Anthony Steller strode into the interrogation room like he had the deed to the entire Police Department.
“Hello Jonathan,” he said to me. I nodded to him like we were old friends even though I didn’t know who the hell he was.
“Have you charged Mr. Dark with anything?” He asked and looked into O’Malley’s eyes, then into the other cop's eyes.
“Aaaaaa, we’re holding him, pending questioning,” O’Malley started and was cut off.
“Which is against his Constitutional Rights and I also noticed back on the street, Mr. Dark was arrested without any attempt at making his full rights known to him, which is also, illegal!”
“We haven’t arrested him,” the other cop squeaked out. O’Malley gave him a “you shit-head” look.
“Then Mr. Dark is being detained without due process of law, in violation of Civil Statutes!” He paused for effect.
The cops looked at each other and didn’t say a word.
“Take the cuffs off my client now or I'll be in the Mayor's office first thing in the morning and you'll be in the unemployment line, if you're not in one of your own jail cells for assault!” Anthony Steller, my new friend, said calmly. “We are leaving.”
The police did as they were told.
As I left the room O’Malley said under his breath, “I’ll be watching you. You’ll mess up, and I’ll be there.”
I gave him the finger.
As soon as we were out the front door of the Police Department, Anthony Steller shook his head and laughed. “You need to be more careful,” he said. “They could have just arrested you for public profanity.”
“Fuck them,” I said and that made the attorney laugh some more.
He gave me his card. “Keep it. You’ll probably need me,” he said.
“And what do I owe you for helping me out?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it for now.” He said. “I know who you are. When I need you, I’ll let you know.”
He trotted down the steps to his Ferrari parked at the curb.
* * *
I took a taxi to Johnny’s Bar and Grill. The Police had impounded my car to go over it thoroughly for clues to who kidnapped Sherry, Terry and Sushi and murdered Bobbie. I’d told them his name, but they’d tear my car apart anyway.
PART II
Hail Caesar! We who are about to die, Salute thee!
-Salutation of Roman Gladiators
A wonderful stream is the River Time,
As it runs through the Realm Of Tears,…
-B.F. Taylor, The Long Ago
There are Gates, that should never be opened.
There are Doors, that can never be closed.
-The Walker In Darkness
CHAPTER 14
Old Gods & Gates
It was after hours at Johnny’s. The closed sign was lit, but the front door was unlocked when I tried it. I went in. The place was totally dark except for one table where Johnny and his grandmother Jeanette and a guy who I’d never met before sat around a table that had a glowing bluish sphere in the center of it.
I went to the table and Jeanette motioned me to sit in the remaining chair. When I went to tell them about the kidnapping she silenced me with an upraised hand. “We know about the abductions and the many deaths caused by this man who is out of his place,” Jeanette told me in her deep Cajun accent.
Hell, I’d only known about one killing Caesar was connected with. That was Bobbie. I knew Jeanette didn’t exaggerate. So, Caesar Lanista must be a busy boy.
I sat down.
Waves of bluish ethereal light washed over the faces of the three staring into the globe. The pulsating sphere almost seemed to have a life of its own as clouds of swirling light danced within the glass before us at the center of the table.
“Friendly Loa, spirits who watch over us from birth to death, show us the way. Show us the path to the one who violates the order.”
I looked into the glass too. At first I didn’t see anything, just swirling swimming colors, bluish in shade mixing around inside the ball. Then they seemed to coalesce, the colors and lines converged and I saw.
It was like I was drawn into the glass, my entire field of vision, my entire mind. I became eyes without a face. I could see all around me. I was gliding down dark, torch lit corridors. The walls were of uneven brick. They were slick with moisture and slime and moss.
I had the feeling I was far underground. I didn’t know why I felt that, I just did. Like the weight of tons of Earth was pressing down upon the tunnel I was gliding through.
Flying down the dank corridors I knew I wasn’t really there but I was feeling everything as though I was. The chill of the air on my face, the smell of the mold on the walls, all of this I could feel more than see. I knew my consciousness was being given a piggy-back ride by whatever it was that Jeanette had called to her crystal.
I glided silently down the depressing halls until an opening was ahead. Into a vast open chamber, I floated above a stone alter where there stood warriors in ancient garments that I couldn’t identify. I drifted over the top of it all.
Several people along with Sherry, Terry and Sushi were being held in chains. They were being lined up in front of a huge standing stone oval that had weird symbols and hieroglyphs carved into it.
Behind the stone oval was a statue that stood at least nine feet tall. The body was that of a muscular man except that it had six arms. The two arms in the center ended in a sea creature’s claws.
The head of this thing was like an elephant’s except that it had bull's horns sticking out of its forehead. I saw all of this with a growing sense of dread and deja vu.
Caesar Lanista was striding back and forth in front of his captives. He had a short sword in his hand. Impatiently he was slapping his leg with it. Finally he stepped in front of a young white man and barked some orders.
The man was grabbed and dragged screaming to an upraised stone slab.
Another prisoner yelled something at Lanista and I realized that while I could see and feel what was around me, I could hear nothing. All was silence.
The captive that shouted at Lanista turned so that I saw his face. It was Julio “Padre” Paez. What the hell was he doing there?
Caesar strode to Julio and back handed him, knocking him to the floor. Then he walked back to the stone slab where the white man was being held down. He waved his short sword in the air and looked to be shouting some sort of an invocation to the idol behind the oval.
He waved the sword around his head, standing over the screaming white man.
Out of the air around me came the shout, “Look, oh look what they’ve done to the Temple I built to my forgotten goddess. This is an abomination! Oh, Isis please, strike them down!”
Lanista looked up into the air. It seemed like he looked directly into my eyes.
“Be silent!” Jeanette ordered. “He can hear you.”
Lanista laughed and the crystal went dark and like waking suddenly I was sitting back in my chair in Johnny’s place.
Johnny was on his feet. “Where the hell are they?” He shouted to the guy I’d seen before. “We need to get over there and mess those
mother fuckers up and get my woman back.”
The guy Johnny talked to was a chubby middle-aged man who wore a business suit and a worried expression. “I can tell you where they were.” He said to Johnny. “But it is already too late. They are leaving as we speak.”
Jeannette got up from the table and switched on the overhead lights. “He is correct. I can feel them departing.”
“We’ll catch them on the way out.” I said.
Jeanette put her hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “Sit back down. You have time. Listen to what this man has to tell you.”
“Yeah,” Johnny said. “You best tell me how you knew about all this or I’m gonna be jumping in your ass.”
“Isis gave me the gift of foresight and far seeing. That is how I saw what was happening tonight from a distance and knew this was done by the man who stole my temple from me,” the man explained.
Jeanette turned to me. “As Johnny was closing up, this man came looking for my help. He uses different tools, but he is like me: One whose soul is close to the spirits while he still is in this life. I knew he was on his way to me from the moment he started seeking assistance. It is the way we are. We know these things about each other.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” I said to Jeanette. “I’ve seen you do some weird shit.”
The chubby guy spoke again. “My name is Paul Brady. I am the Grand Master of The Masonic Temple in Cahokia. I practice transcendental meditation and while in a trance the wise and wonderful Isis spoke to me. She showed me the secret passage down to the tunnels that lead to an old Indian temple far below ground. I converted the temple to a worship place for Isis and built the sacred gate to her world from her instructions. After doing a secret ceremony, the gate opened and Caesar Lanista came through. I welcomed him with open arms, believing him to be a messenger of Isis.”
“He brought some of his warriors through and I welcomed then as well, until he brought Asmodius, the Lord of the Pit. He stands now immobile, in the form of stone.”
“When I saw Asmodius I tried to make them leave my temple and barely escaped with my life.”
“Well, why don’t we just get the goddamn history of the fucking world while we’re at it,” Johnny said. "We’re standing around jacking-off while Sushi is being carried off to god knows where.” He leaned over the table toward Paul Brady. “Tell me where the hell that place is we just saw or I’m going to bust you upside your fucking head!”
The look on Johnny’s face told me he wasn’t joking.
“All right,” he answered and gave Johnny and me directions to where his Temple of Isis below the Masonic Temple was. He finished with, “Just remember, to get to them now you’ll have to travel through the gate to another world.”
“I’ll walk through the fires of hell to get Sushi back,” Johnny said. “Are you with me?” He asked and it was the first thing he’d said to me tonight. The look he gave me was like he was pissed off at me too.
“You know I am,” I told him. “We got to get those other girls back and Julio too, if we can manage it.”
“I don’t give a fuck about nobody but Sushi,” Johnny answered me. “But we’ll bring them back if we can.”
We both got to our feet and made ready to head out the door. Jeanette grabbed Johnny and gave him a hug and kissed him on the forehead. “My Grandson,” she said, looking into his eyes. “I am proud of you. You are much like your father. Beware when you go to these other places. You will be a part of where you are. The longer you stay, the more it will become a part of you. Always keep in your mind who you are, or you could lose yourself.”
Jeanette turned to me. “Watch over my grandson.” She said. “Remember, some of those you go to rescue, may not want saving.”
Johnny went behind his bar. He got a sawed-off shotgun for himself and pulled out a chrome plated 9mm. He handed it to me. “I took this off a drunk that came in here to rob me about a week ago.”
I looked at the gun. It was nice. Well-oiled and in good working condition. The clip was full.
“Damn, you didn’t tell me about that,” I said to Johnny.
“Wasn’t no big deal,” Johnny answered. “I got a collection of weapons in a box in the back room that I took off people in here that could arm the entire mother fuckin’ Hells Angels.”
We went out the door well-armed, heading toward another world.
CHAPTER 15
Into the Pit
We cruised toward Cahokia in Johnny’s car. The night was cool and overcast. The sky was pitch black, not a sign of the moon or stars, the perfect night to step into a pit.
Johnny still wasn’t saying too much to me. We rode along in silence for a few minutes that seemed like hours, finally I said, “What’s up man? You’re acting like I fucked your dog or something.”
“You should of fucking called me,” he said through tightened lips. I could tell he was pissed. “You should’ve called me the instant you saw Sushi in that club. I shouldn’t be in the middle of this shit. You know that! Sushi shouldn’t be in the middle of this shit. If you’d have called me, my woman and me would be on the springs doing the snake dance right now. Instead you and me are riding down the road getting ready to kill some mother fuckers tonight.”
“Hold on Chuck,” I said to Johnny. “You’re acting like it’s my fault Sushi was peeling off for those guys.”
“You should have fucking called me, goddamn-it!” He shouted the last two words.
“That’s why I didn’t call you,” I told Johnny. “You’re not thinking. A man don’t think too clearly when it’s concerning a woman who treats his dick the way he wants it treated.”
We rode in silence the rest of the way to the Masonic Temple. He pulled up outside a building that looked like an old small town courthouse.
When he shut the engine off Johnny turned to me. “Seriously Bro,” he said. “Sushi does treat my dick just right.”
“I know,” I answered.
We both got out of the car simultaneously. He looked at me over the top of the car. “And I do get fucked a whole lot more than you do, too,” he said.
I gave him the finger and said, “Fuck you.”
“Won’t help you that way,” he answered and grinned and I knew the Johnny I knew was back. “Time to make these boys pay,” he said.
“Yeah,” I answered. “They got to pay with interest.”
* * *
The front door to the Masonic Temple was open. I had the 9mm out in front of me and Johnny had his sawed-off shot gun ready, just in case some of Lanista’s guys were still around and wanted to play games. If they wanted to play, we’d pitch first.
The inside of the Masonic Temple looked like a rich man’s social club. Shiny polished marble floors and dark oak furniture were under softly lit chandeliers. The Masons were a rich man’s exclusive club. It showed.
We weren’t here to be sight-seeing. Following the directions that Paul Brady gave us, we made our way to the back of the building to an average sized office where a nice sized teak desk sat on the other side of a large rug with the Masonic symbol sewn into the center of it.
I grabbed the rug by its corner and pulled it to the side. Just like we’d been told, there was a recessed steel ring set in a trap door. I’d once seen a movie called The Evil Dead where a trap door like this was in the floor of a cabin in the woods. Something started beating on the door from below and just about made the woman who saw it being banged upward shit her pants. At that moment when I saw that door and the image from that movie flashed through my mind I wondered, why in the hell do I even watch those movies? That was the last damn thing I wanted to be thinking about when I grab hold of that steel ring. I was about ready to swear off horror films right then.
I reached down and grasped the ring in my left hand, keeping the 9mm pointed at the trap door.
I glanced at Johnny. “You remember about a month ago when I came into your place and got lit?” I asked.
“Yeah, and I remember the thirty times sinc
e then too,” he answered.
“I told you about a nightmare I’d had where I went down a tunnel in Viet Nam and I told you about that thing that came through the doorway that I blew up with grenades,” I said.
“Yeah, I remember,” he answered. “And I told you, you were full of shit.”
“Well, that wasn’t a nightmare. It really happened. And that statue that I saw in Viet Nam and the doorway… they’re the same ones that we saw in Jeanette’s crystal tonight. Does that make any difference to you?”
“No,” Johnny said. “You’re still full of shit. Just maybe a little more than I knew.”
“They might be waiting for us,” I told him.
“Then let’s not disappoint them,” he answered.
I pulled the trap door open.
The smell of moss and decay and rotting things came flowing up around us through the opening in the floor. I didn’t know where it came from but the thought came to me that this is the way it must smell in a grave. I didn’t want to think that but it popped into my head and wouldn’t go away.
I had expected to see a ladder leading down into the dark but what I saw instead was a set of stone stairs that went down into a dusty blackness. Goosebumps jumped up onto my arms. The resemblance to the stairway down into the Earth in Nam was too great.
I told Johnny this and also said, “You get to go first, Bro.”
“What’s the matter,” he asked, “You afraid of the dark?”
“Yeah,” I told him. “I always hate this shit. But I’m more afraid of you with that sawed-off. With the wide pattern that thing shoots, you cut loose from behind me, I’ll be picking pellets out of my ass for the next six months.”
He went past me and started down the stairs. “I wouldn’t want you to pick your ass any more than you already do,” he said. “You scare enough of my customers away already.”
We headed down into the dark. Neither one of us had even thought to bring a flashlight. It was too late now to go back. We moved down the stone stairs. The light from above faded out quickly. Within minutes we were in pitch black.