by James Palmer
These thoughts and more bombard me constantly. My only bit of peace that comes from all of this is the knowledge that, while I was too late to save my poor, sweet Emmaline, I managed to save the lives of every man, woman, plant and animal on this planet.
Mr. Lovecraft, I have shown you what evidence I could. Of the meteor, house and grounds there is nothing left. In my haste I did not attempt to retrieve samples from the Cowart property, though thinking on it now I know that would not have been wise. Every trace of what happened has necessarily been wiped from the Earth. I have given you everything I have so you can corroborate what you must. The rest I leave up to you to decide if my tale is true, or if this is nothing more than the vivid imagination of a madman. Honestly, I wish it were the latter and I could be somehow cured of this knowledge.
I remain your Friend and Admirer,
Very Sincerely Yours,
Bradley S. Wallace
Mule Springs, Georgia
Slow Djinn
Sam Eldritch took a swig from the bottle of four year-old Kentucky red eye and waited for the monsters to go away.
Downing said bottle had become his usual Friday night ritual, though lately his partner managed to show up sooner or later to talk him out of it. This was quite a trick, considering his partner had been dead for almost a year. So far, he was a no-show. It was almost midnight, and wasn’t that the witching hour? Wasn’t that the time when old Chen said the spirits got out for a stretch?
Sam lifted the half empty bottle to his lips again. The amber liquid slid down his throat like a slug of hot lead. Not very smooth; definitely not the good stuff, but it would do the job nicely. He stared at the ceiling, waiting for the warmth in his belly to spread out to the rest of him.The empty chair across from his desk squeaked, and when Sam looked down he saw his partner, Jim Malone, sitting there.
“You’re late,” said Sam.
“I got caught in traffic.”
“Funny. You always were the funny one, Jimmy.”
“And you were always ready for anything,” said Malone’s shade.
“You look like hell,” said Eldritch, desperate to change the subject.
The ghost shrugged. “I’m dead. What’s your excuse?”
They sat in silence for a time, Sam drinking and trying not to look at his ex partner.
“Why are you doing this to yourself?” Malone’s ghost said after a while.
Sam shrugged. “Birds gotta swim, fish gotta fly, Sammy boy’s gotta get hammered.”
“You’ve got a job to do.”
An icy finger traced a line up Eldritch’s spine. He slammed the bottle down. “I’m workin’ on it, Jimmy. These things take time.”
“It’s been a year.”
“Chinese demons ain’t exactly in the phone book. Chen’s working on it.”
“I don’t care about Chen. I care about you.”
“Oh yeah?” Sam said, anger–and the booze–filling his face with heat. He looked at his partner–through his partner–to the office door. He could clearly see the black lettering spelling out Sam Eldritch Private Investigations on the other side of the frosted glass, backwards from his viewpoint, like some foreign language in one of Chen’s ancient spell books. “You’re not the only person your death inconvenienced.”
“I see,” said Malone. The ghost leaned back in the chair, and Sam idly wondered how ghosts could sit in chairs but walk through walls. “So this whole thing is an inconvenience.”
“You know what I mean. My point is, why can’t I be left alone to get drunk in peace?”
“Because there can be no peace for me or anybody else while that demon is out there. It killed me, but it gave you a gift. There must be a reason for that.”
“Yeah, some gift. Now I see ghosts and devils and even worse things coming out of the woodwork. Things no man should ever have to see. Things that might just go away if I could only get staggering drunk for a few hours or so.”
“That won’t help and you know it, said the ghost. “Hell, if I was still alive, I’d join you, but you’re still gonna have the same old problems come morning.”
Sam nodded. Ghost or not, he certainly couldn’t fault the man for his logic. Jim had always been the sane, rational one, while Eldritch always wanted to trot right in, guns blazing, usually getting brained with a lead sap for his trouble.
“Well,” Sam said finally. “Be that as it may, I’m already half way to Drunkville, so why stop now?” Already he could feel the whiskey playing havoc with his tongue, slurring his words. “Seeing things that shouldn’t be there when I’m stone sober is only half the problem. I’m not only a laughing stock, but a magnet for every nut job for miles who thinks he’s been plagued by ghosts or demons. I had to set a trap for a banshee last week. Do you know anybody in their right mind who has to do that?”
“I wish I could help you. I really do. I wish that demon had never shown up and we were still on the force and I was sitting across from you in the flesh and we were sharing that bottle together. But all I can do is get you to hang on, keep pushing. That, and tell you that you have a client.”
Sam heard a knock at the door. The ghost of Jim Malone had vanished.
He sat there for a moment, unmoving. It was late. Maybe if he kept quiet they would go away. The knock came again.
Sam grumbled. No dice. He reached into the top left-hand drawer of his desk and pulled out the .38 revolver he kept there for emergencies such as this. This time of night, it wasn’t usually clients that came calling. It was more likely someone he owed money to who would gladly take his kneecaps in trade, or a lower level henchman from one of the crime bosses he put in jail come to fit him for a concrete overcoat. Or...he preferred not to think about the third option. But he called this .38 the Very Special, because it and the bullets it fired had been blessed by a priest, and those bullets could take down all manner of otherworldly entity.
“Who is it?” Sam called, aiming the gun at the door.
The silhouette behind the frosted glass, back-lit from the lamp his secretary Janice kept on in the outer office, was indistinct. He couldn’t tell if it was a male or female here to see him at this late hour, but at least it was human…he hoped.
“Someone who needs your help,” the silhouette answered.
“We’re closed.”
“Please, Mr. Eldritch. This will only take a moment. I am prepared to offer you a significant sum of money.”
That last was enough to give Eldritch pause. He thought of the gas bill, the light bill, the rent on the office. “Come in,” he said.
The door opened. A tall, thin, dark-skinned man wearing an expensive white suit stood in the doorway. He wore a crimson fez on his head. He crossed the threshold and walked over to Sam with slow, deliberate steps. He had a thick, dark mustache and brown eyes. A split lip completed the picture of a man who looked like Sam felt.
Sam quickly pocketed the pistol.
“In this neighborhood, you really should lock your door, Mr. Eldritch.”
Sam grinned. “The people I deal with in my line of work aren’t usually the kind to be stopped by a measly door. Please, have a seat.”
The man did so, the old wooden office chair, newly vacated by the ghost of his partner, creaking slightly.
“My name is Salim Maraud, and I need some stolen property recovered.”
“I see,” said Eldritch. “And what might that be?”
Maraud reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small photograph, handed it across to the P.I.
Eldritch studied it. It was a rather large and garish-looking gold ring with a huge dark stone set in it.
“It is a ruby ring. It’s been in my family for generations. This morning it was stolen from me.”
“Have you tried the pawn shops?”
“I have scoured this entire city, Mr. Eldritch. If it was ever in a pawn shop, it didn’t remain there long, and no pawnbroker remembers it. I am certain that the person who stole it is still in possessio
n.”
Eldritch glanced at Maraud. “You seem very anxious to find it.”
“Yes, I am. It is . . . priceless beyond the imagining of it. You must find it for me.”
“Why me?”
“I have heard that you are a specialist in strange matters, and this is no ordinary ring.”
“I see. Mind telling me what kind of ring it is?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Eldritch. Just know that it possesses great power. I will make it worth your while to retrieve this ring for me.” As if to demonstrate, Maraud reached into another pocket, produced a leather wallet and pulled out six brand new one hundred dollar bills, laying them carefully on the desk one by one.
Eldritch arched an eyebrow. This was more money than he’d seen in a month.
“As they say in this country, there’s more where that came from,” said Maraud. You will be paid this amount every day until the ring is found, at which point you will get one thousand dollars.”
“I usually set my own fees,” said Eldritch, pondering the stack of bills. “But this is more than generous. I’ll find your ring for you, Mr. Maraud. Mind if I keep the picture?”
“Certainly.”
He pocketed the photograph and looked up at Maraud. There were a lot of things about this he didn’t like. He didn’t like Maraud’s reticence about the nature of the ring, and he didn’t like the fact that the man waited until after midnight to pay him a visit. Still, it was better than getting drunk and feeling sorry for himself.
“Do you know who took it?”
“Gangsters,” said Maraud. “Common thugs. I do not know their names. They barged into my tobacco shop this morning, demanding, uh…what is the word in your country? Tribute?”
“Protection,” said Eldritch.
“Yes. That is the word they used. A ridiculous concept. I am not a timid man, Mr. Eldritch, and refuse to be bullied. I told them to leave my shop, but they attacked me. When I regained consciousness, my store was vandalized and my ring gone, stolen right off my finger.”
Maraud gave Eldritch a description of the men, but it was too generic to be helpful. Eldritch kept that to himself, but promised Maraud he would find his stolen property.
*
The next day, Sam swallowed four aspirin and went to see Chen.
Mornings in Chinatown were beautiful. Store owners busily swept off their front stoops, while old men played mahjong. Chen’s place was a little hole in the wall with the innocuous name Red Rooster Gifts. Little bamboo shoots in ceramic pots, bonsai trees, paper fans. But Chen’s real stock and trade was in the back.
Eldritch entered the dimly lit room crammed with Oriental bric-a-brac and walked purposefully toward the rear of the shop. He stepped through a beaded curtain and was instantly transported into Chen’s house of horrors. Jars of chicken feet and other assorted animal parts were displayed on wooden shelves alongside vials of colored powders. Golden serpent-like dragons with jeweled eyes guarded every nook and cranny, and the place was thick with the pungent smell of incense and old magic. Sam walked past a jade Buddha he could swear watched him whenever he came in. From the corner of his eye he thought he saw the little green head turn to look at him, smiling its cherubic smile. He snapped his head quickly to the right, but the little statue was staring straight ahead.
He decided not to let it unnerve him today and continued onward. Chen was where he always was, sitting behind a low wooden counter, a long pipe jutting from his mouth, his dark eyes staring at Eldritch intently. Sam couldn’t tell how old Chen was. His jet black hair was free of grey, but he had many lines and wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. A long, braided ponytail, Chen’s queue, coiled around the old man’s neck and down the front of his grey smock to disappear somewhere near the floor.
“Hello, Sam,” he said, giving a curt little bow.
Eldritch returned the gesture. “Hi ya, Chen. I’ve got another case, and I could use your help.”
“Of course, Sam. He sat his pipe on the counter and did another little bow.
“Any word on our demon friend?” Eldritch asked out of habit.
“Not yet,” said Chen. “He is very hard to place, and shy. He has not made a return appearance in Chinatown. It would help if you could remember more about that day.”
Eldritch sighed. So many things about the event were a cloudy blur. He remembered the restaurant, Malone sitting across from him…the demon grabbing him…a feeling of intense cold…nothing else.
“Well, about this case–”
“Wait.” Chen reached under the counter and brought out a wooden box decorated in bright Chinese characters and pictures. He opened it and removed a yellowed deck of over-sized cards and began laying them face down on the table.
“This is no time for a game of blackjack, Chen.”
Chen scowled as he laid out the cards. “Must you always mock what you do not understand?” he asked, followed by a string of rapid-fire Chinese that could only be a curse on Eldritch and his entire lineage. Once he was done dealing the cards, looked up at Sam, grinning. Then he reached down and turned one of the cards over.
“Six of Swords,” he said. “You will need intelligent thinking to defeat your foe.”
“No kidding,” Sam replied dryly.
Chen’s eyes narrowed. “You want my help or not?”
“OK, OK. Just deal ‘em.”
Chen turned over the next card.
“The Lovers. Interesting.”
“What does that mean?”
Chen sniffed. “Not certain. But some of those you encounter may have a deep connection to one another.”
Chen quickly flipped the final few cards.
“You will, how do you say? Return to the scene of the crime. Remembering is understanding.”
“As always, Chen, you’ve been very helpful.”
The Chinaman grinned. “You Americans are always so blunt. You’re a detective. Do you always have to have everything spelled out for you?”
“Do you always have to talk in riddles?”
Chen shrugged. “You seek a thief, correct? Your client is missing an item of great value to himself, but others covet it for a different reason. Be careful, Sam. It has the power to destroy men by giving them all that they desire.”
Eldritch raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t mentioned anything about the stolen ring, but what did that last part mean? “There are worse ways to go.”
Chen snorted, put his cards away. “You wish.”
“Why can’t I have an ordinary case for once?”
Chen smiled, taking up his pipe again. “It is your destiny to walk the path between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Take heart, your thief is ordinary, but that which was stolen is not. Tread carefully, and you could have the answers you seek.”
“That’s it?”
“It is enough,” said Chen. “You must be content with that.”
*
Next Sam went to see Vivian. He needed to know more about this mysterious ring he was being paid so much money to find, and figured no one would know more about mysterious magic rings than an honest-to-God siren. Besides, she was the girlfriend of the local gangster, and gangster’s girlfriends hear things. If anyone had a protection racket going, she’d be the one to ask.
The Daffodil was empty at this hour, save for a few people setting up for the night’s opening, and the band doing a sound check. Eldritch knew from past experience that whenever the stage lights were up, Vivian would be there.
To Sam’s right was the bar, where the bartender was already hard at work polishing glasses and restocking the Daffodil’s impressive larder of hooch.
“Hiya Sammy.” Moses Grimm set down a glass in front of the private detective and filled it with gin without being asked. He was a really good bartender.
“Hey, Moe.” Eldritch considered the glass before downing it. “Vivian in?”
The black bartender nodded. “She should be on in a sec. How’s business?”
Eldritch shrugged.
“I could complain, but what’s the use? How’s this two-bit gin joint treating ya?”
Moses shrugged his huge shoulders and went back to polishing glasses. He was six four and broad as a barn door, and even after all these years he still looked out of place behind the Daffodil’s bar to Eldritch. He had been a boxer once upon a time, but had some problems and had to give it up. He was also Sam’s only friend these days who wasn’t a ghost, Chinese sorcerer or supernatural being.
But Moe Grimm had also been “touched,” as Chen had said of Eldritch after that demon had reached its icy talons inside him and changed his world forever. Moe had a very special curse. He was what the ancients might call a seer, but with one very important difference. Most seers could see the broad strokes of time, the big, history-making events that were just over the horizon. People like Nostradamus, or that late night radio psychic with the smoky voice who Sam would listen to when he couldn’t sleep. Moses Grimm could see the future, all right, and he was always one hundred percent dead on in his predictions, but it was the smaller stuff, the tiny things that happen but don’t really amount to a hill of beans in the grand scheme of things. And unlike your usual seer, Moe had actually asked for this gift. He had made a deal with the Powers that Be and lost. If it looks like a sure thing, there’s probably a catch somewhere. Never make a deal with the Devil without reading the fine print.
Eldritch felt bad for Moses Grimm. Here he was, down on his luck. All he had wanted was to bet on the ponies and not lose his shirt. But he made a bad deal. Now he had to tend bar for gangsters just to pay the rent. So Eldritch did what he always did every time he saw him. He asked what the future holds, even though the information was absolutely useless to him. And Moses told him.