Garden of Lilies

by Eli Constant

  “Recovered alive?” Jim’s face lights with hope and it crumples as I reply with a shake of my head. “The police don’t come to you, Tori. You go to them. That means you’ve already got some pretty stiff info on him.” He glances away from me, to a man huddled around a nearly-empty glass.

  “Yeah. I’ve heard some things, given them a few clues that point his way.”

  “Shit.” He walks away, taking a glass away from a patron on the other side of the bar that looks like he’s seen better days. Jim’s voice is low when he speaks to the man, but I can hear him just fine. “I’ve got to cut you off, Samuel. Go home to your wife and kids. Whatever’s eating you can’t be that bad.”

  “You don’t know that, Jim. Sarah will never forgive me.” God, the man’s voice is so broken.

  But he’s alive. The living have no right to sound like that, not when they are still breathing and can still dream about the future.

  Jim reaches over and pats the man on the shoulder. “You’ll be surprised by what a wife can forgive, if you really want the forgiveness.” It’s deep and real, his advice to the man, and it surprises me. Jim lives the bachelor life now, but he’s been divorced three times- not exactly a testament to a successfully married man who can give good marital advice.

  The man named Samuel swipes at his eye with the sleeve of the disheveled business suit he wears. He nods and gets up. “Thanks.”

  “Anytime.” Jim smiles as the man reaches into his pocket to pull out some money. “On the house tonight, Sam. Go home. Cab will be out front in a bit.”

  Tears are free-falling down the man’s face now, rain cleaning off whatever burden he carried. “Thanks again.”

  Jim watches the man leave and then picks up a set of car keys that have been left behind. He turns to the back of the bar and hangs them on a little rack. A sign is above it: “Too drunk to drive? I’ll call you a ride.”

  I don’t ask Jim about the exchange when he comes back to me after calling the man a taxi. It’s little things like that—his real concern for the people that come into his bar—that makes me trust him, despite the time he’d once served in jail and the way he advertised his establishment as a ‘safe’ zone for less-than-legal activity. He didn’t condone the big stuff though, the stuff that put kids in danger or left elderly folks dead after a burglary-gone-wrong. Even lawbreakers have a code about how far they’ll cross the line.

  “Don’s a petty criminal, Tori. This doesn’t sound like him.” He rubs a hand roughly across his face before leaning against the counter. “Look, you know I don’t mind talking to ya, ‘cause you’re not like one of the blue boys. You ain’t a cop. But, shit, girl, it’s not escaped my notice that half the guys you come in here questioning me about end up laid out on a table in your basement.”

  My fingers play with a half a peanut shell that’s sat lonely near a well-used coaster. The coaster’s got the old bar logo on it, from before Jim bought it. He’s too cheap to buy new ones.

  “That’s true.” It’s all I say. We’ve been down this road before, but eventually he’ll tell me what he knows. This time, little girls are involved. He won’t want that kind of blood on his hands, even if he has killed in the past for whatever reason. I can always smell the taint on people—that fresh-turned earth, covering a deposit of decomposing food, scent. But, I also feel the goodness in him, the thing that makes me trust him.

  “Little girls have gone missing, huh?” Jim’s voice sounds a little broken.

  I nod.

  “Dammit.” He hits his fists against the countertop. It’s loud enough to startle the two other patrons still in the bar. Despite it being many hours before closing time, they both take that as their queues to stand up and place money on the bar before walking out swiftly. Jim’s has a reputation for fights, no matter the time of day. He breaks the brawls up quickly with a shotgun mounted under the bar though.

  “So what can you tell me? I’ll only pass along the information that’s helpful. If I can be sure it’s not him doing it, I’ll do my best to point them in the right direction.” I move my drink a little, listening to the tinkle of ice against the glass walls.

  “Don didn’t used to be a regular, but lately he can’t get enough of the place. He meets some friends here and there, has a drink, then pays and leaves. Been going on for more than three weeks now, was even in here yesterday.” Jim’s gazing over my shoulder, a faraway look. I wonder what he’s thinking. I wonder if he’s thinking he’s facilitated kidnappings and the death of a little girl. “Some money’s usually exchanged. Always looks like a fair amount.”

  “But he hasn’t been in today?” I finish my glass of vodka and place my hand over the top of the glass before Jim can try to refill it. “You know I can’t handle my liquor. Should have gone for the rum and coke today rather than the real stuff.” When I order a rum and coke, Jim leaves out the rum.

  “I know you can’t, little miss drunk off a teaspoon of tequila.” Jim gives me a lopsided grin. He can be an ass. An ass I care about, but still an ass. His smile fades though when he confirms that Don hasn’t come into the bar today. “Yeah, he’s not been here today. I just don’t believe he could have done it though, Tori. He’s not at that level. Believe me; I’ve seen the ones that have it in them to hurt kids.” His hands are resting against the countertop. They’re balled into tight fists, his knuckles going ashy in protest.

  “I helped a mother pick out a dress for her little girl today, Jim. She couldn’t decide between a pink or a purple one. She said her daughter loved both colors so much. We settled on the purple dress and I suggested pink socks or maybe a bow. I had to bathe and disinfect a six year old’s body, Jim. I had to ignore the bruising that was still showing on her upper thighs from being assaulted.” I want to tell Jim that you can’t always go by your gut feeling or how a person looks. Sometimes, monsters hide in plain sight. I should know.

  I’m one of them.

  “Jesus.” Jim’s face is white. He might have killed someone before, but at his heart, he isn’t a killer.

  “Yeah, Jesus.” I stand up. “The police haven’t been able to find any trace of online chatter—how the victims are being given to their abusers. How payments are being made. They’re sure it’s being done in person, off the grid.” My butt aches from the hard wood stool. “You call me if he comes back and then I’ll call the cops. I want to have a word with him before he’s arrested.”

  “If he’s been conducting this business in my damn bar, Tori, you ain’t the only one who’s going to have words with him.” His face is red, his eyes dark. Without saying anything, Jim takes the money back out of his pocket and hands it to me. I take it, confused. Jim is my friend, a father figure almost, but he doesn’t do things for free. I guess it’s part of the lifestyle. “This one’s on me, Tori.”

  I slip the money back into my purse, not bothering to fish out my wallet. That would make too much of a show of it. If his patrons knew he gave out information for money, he’d be in trouble. You don’t cater to the type he does and help the police on the side. He’s a softie at heart though. His type is the reason child abusers don’t last long behind bars.

  God, I wouldn’t want to be a wife beater or pedophile in jail. You don’t come back from that. Look at me, acting like I know something about police work and criminals. Terrance would be teasing me about now. Of course, I’ve helped him on enough cases now that I’m an ‘official’ consultant with the department. That always made me feel weird.

  Yanking my right sleeve down properly before it could sneak up past the knife sheath again, I come back to reality. Jim’s staring off at nothing again with a grim frown on his face. I can feel death like wet paint on his fingers. They’re itching to hurt someone... in a bad way. “Jim, you hurt him and he can find a way to weasel out of charges. Lawyers are dirt bags, they won’t care how he’s made the money he’ll give them. Blink of an eye, and you’ll be the one behind bars with him swearing up and down that you knew what he was doing here.”
/>   Jim nods slowly. “I’ll call you if he turns up, Tori. I promise.”

  I can see in his eyes that he would call me, but I’m not so sure he’ll refrain from having a few ‘words’ with Don beforehand.

  “Jim, I’m serious. The best thing you can do is call me and leave him alone.”

  He doesn’t respond and I walk out of the bar; pushing through the door takes effort. It’s windy outside, nearing violence, and the force of the impending storm is heavy against the buildings. The clouds make it darker than it should be for late afternoon. The autumn is strange. Stranger than it once was. Hateful versions of spring showers. Days that are at once cold and then hot in the blink of an eye. I hate getting wet. A middle school teacher I once had, I forget her name now, used to joke that I was part cat. If only she knew what I actually was.

  I feel the whisper of a soft touch against my palm as I walk, tilting forward against the wind so that I am not blown away. Glancing down, I find her face. So small beside me, her dark hair unmoving in the weather, because the strands are as lifeless as the rest of her body. She smiles and the expression is sad.

  “I want a pink bow and socks.” It’s a forlorn sigh, getting quickly lost in the storm’s yelling.

  Before I can reply, she disappears. Ribbons of ethereal shadow that seem to melt away with the first drops of rain.

  My hand tingles where she’s touched and I’m plunged into something I try my damnedest to avoid. I feel the way her life ended. I feel the fear.

  There are sharp pains as I am kicked, over and over again. Then there is a body pushing against me as I lay motionless on the floor. I begin to cry as the length of a man pushes inside my too-small opening. Wetness pools beneath my thighs as I feel my skin tear and bleed. And the worst part is that I don’t really understand what’s happening as the trauma of it overwhelms my senses and I sink into shock.

  Maybe that’s not the worst part. Maybe it’s good that I am so innocent that the brutality of what is happening escapes me.

  Chapter Two.

  As soon as I’m back in my car, I unstrap the knife nestled against the soft skin of my inner forearm. I roll the straps around the military-grade webbed sheath and shove it into the dash. I feel freer without the weapon on.

  I have others of course, besides the compact knife with the three inch blade. There’s a hand spear I particularly like that straps against my calf using a neoprene sleeve. It’s the most comfortable thing I’ve found and its low profile, so it barely shows even under slim-legged jeans. Its blade is about six inches. It can go deep into a man, if necessary.

  It’s only been necessary once, thank God. I’d sunk the blade into the middle of his right side, just between the liver and the kidney. I’d had to be precise, to make sure I didn’t cause too much damage. I’d been lucky because he wasn’t in the best health, so the decay inside of him helped me... visualize his organs. He lost enough blood from the wound and been in enough pain that I’d made it out of that situation alive, but he hadn’t died. If I’d hit the liver, he probably would have. A person can bleed out quickly from a severe penetrating wound to the liver.

  After rubbing my wrist a little, the sheath having been a teensy bit too snug, I start the car and shift into drive. I know the route back home by heart; the scenery sends me into auto pilot.

  Terrance would reprimand me if he knew what relief I get from being unarmed. Weapons just aren’t who I am, even though I know I need them in situations like this—going to Jim’s bar, asking questions, being surrounded by unsavory characters. I could protect myself though, if I had to.

  I know the human body. I know its anatomy.

  I know just where to shove the knife to cause the most damage. I know where to place the point if I want the assailant to bleed out slowly.

  But the blood...

  Even the sight of it sets me on edge. I can feel the vibration of it feeding into my gift.

  I’m not like other necromancers. Not exactly. It’s hard to explain. Shit.

  Necromancy is messy. It’s death magic and mind-warping visions and a spiritual awareness that transcends... pretty much everything humans think they understand about what happens ‘after’ life. I have more than that contained within me, or at least Grandmother Sophia insisted that was true. She often said that I would find my true calling in the dominion of living things, not dead. I still don’t know what that means.

  It has taken me years to decipher only the surface of my power. I’m still discovering things, still realizing that I’m a novice. When I was very small, I remember how my Grandmother said that I wasn’t something to be feared. I was made for a purpose and that purpose goes back across time like ripples moving through water after a stone has disturbed its restful surface.

  Necromancers were once revered. Warriors used their final breaths to call us to carry them to Valhalla. We could have returned to the old ways, carried on that age-old mission.

  Not now though. Not since the war. What we were has dissolved into what we are—a group on the run, however few of us there are left in the world. We die the instant we are exposed. No, there’d be no ferrying brave souls to the other side again. Valhalla is a dream upon a dream. A nothingness juxtaposed against the everything that frightens us.

  My father only wanted me to know enough about my gifts to stay safe. He wanted me to be able to control my powers so that I could push them down and be normal. Safe and normal. He and my grandmother didn’t always see eye-to-eye on that matter.

  Until the day he died, my father encouraged me to ignore the souls that came to me, unbidden, for help. I would lie and tell him that I hadn’t had any recent run-ins with souls. His smile would say he believed me. His eyes would tell me that he knew I lied.

  Because I’m not normal and no matter how fervent my father’s protection was, he could never keep the afterlife from finding me. Whenever it wanted to. God, I wasn’t even normal for a necromancer. And that was saying something.

  If a spirit is still out of the ether, still in our plane of existing, I can see them and talk with them. It’s really disconcerting when you’re at a party and you don’t know who’s real and who’s not. Thank god I’ve learned to control that. I’ve learned to partially block the part of my brain that keeps them looking all too alive. Most days now, I can keep the spirit world at bay, like a faded outline against the world, and only see the living. Most days.

  Sometimes, when I’m near enough, my power not as guarded as it should be, spirits are able to use my gift to find their own ways back into their bodies. God, some spirits are strong enough to even push past my protective walls when I’ve set them firmly in place. Spirits are the pure human counterpart. The strength they had in life, their inner strength, translates outside the bodily vessel. Sometimes, the spirit of a child will be stronger than a champion wrestler because of that. Size in life does not determine spiritual fortitude.

  If the dead take possession of their body and they stay too long, the bodies will continue to decay and eventually they’ll become the thing that all humans fear—a true zombie. I can understand, you know, why humans hated us so much. Why they continue to hate us so much. Without training, the creatures we raise from death go wild and murderous. There are those of us who have used the gift for dark pursuits. But there is also true evilness among humans. Malevolence is not contained to my kind.

  Most of the necromancers slaughtered to end The Rising were so inexperienced that they didn’t even know what they were doing. They were as scared as the humans that hunted them. Of course, some of them did know what they were doing. They were as evil as the zombies they raised.

  That’s not the kind of necromancer I am.

  A red light stops me. The thrum of the Bronco beneath me is like a too-fast heartbeat. The light staying my course is a crimson glow. It’s the color of passion. When you want to ‘go’ and your body is primed. I often think it’s funny that the heat of that color is used to make cars stop.

  The light turns green.
I move forward slowly, methodically. The buildings passing by pull me back into my thoughts.

  I can also use a bit of blood magic.

  Let me clarify. Every drop of blood acts like a little death. And for me, death is power. For all necromancers, death is power.

  But most necromancers don’t have training in the many ways one can harness blood. Grandmother made sure that I did, passing down the bits of knowledge she’d gleaned from a Shaman in the old country. She even said I had a natural knack for blood. To intensify my natural power, I can prick my finger. The deep crimson liquid can simply be dripped to stain the floor and I can feel the throbbing of energy soak through the wood or linoleum and reach into my toes and upwards through my body. It makes me able to take an unwillingly soul out of its body with less effort than other necromancers. It lets me do a lot of things that an average joe spirit-wrangler can’t.

  Any necromancer can make a soul fill a body, but I can make the flesh so pink, the blood so hot, the eyes so clear, that any onlooker would know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the person is still breathing and living.

  It’s an evil thing to do though. I know it is.

  And I’ve only done it once... for personal reasons.

  For a time, it had been so easy to prolong the realness of the beautiful body, to give me the continued illusion of happiness. I could even force enough temporary power into him to make his heart beat whilst I lay upon his chest.

  But then, keeping the power on twenty-four seven started taking its toll. I’d woken up with blood trickling from my nose, eyes, and ears more than a few days in a row. It got progressively worse, for both myself and the spirit’s collapsing body, until I finally let him go. My Adam.

  It’s still hard to think about him.

  Grandmother Sophia said I was special, stronger than others of our kind that still existed. But I think that’s because the strongest of us were killed during The Rising. Or maybe her words were that of a grandmother to a beloved granddaughter.