by Derry Sandy
The video ended with an image of Wrise talking frantically into a cell phone while checking the pulses of the downed men.
“So, Satan has Cassan,” Lisa said glumly after the video had ended. She felt as if she was being constantly introduced to brand new horrors.
Kamara elbowed her and Lisa sat up, marshalling her face into an expression she hoped suggested that she saw men dragged into solid boxes every day.
Kat asked, “Why do you even think he is alive?”
“I’ve looked at the video several times and this looks like a kidnapping. The creature only killed people who got in the way. If it wanted Cassan dead he would be dead.” Uriah turned to Wrise. “Kindly elaborate on the circumstances under which this box came into our possession.”
“Uriah, for the record, we do not know these birds, and I don’t think we should be talking to them.”
Uriah again spoke patiently as if reasoning with a recalcitrant patient. “Wrise, when we rescue Cassan, I will ensure that he knows that all the information we shared was shared based on my orders. The worst has already happened Cassan has been taken.”
Wrise peered at the women, sighed, and began. “The business we do here is, in theory, pretty simple. We are facilitators. Our clients either have personal property that needs long-term protection or property that needs to be delivered to another owner or property that needs to be held temporarily. Basically, it’s an escrow-storage-delivery service.
“The items that come into our possession are, of course, not the sort that you can hand to the postman or keep in any ordinary storage facility. Some of it is what you would expect, items of an ordinary but illicit nature. However, we also move, hold or transfer items of a more…magical persuasion. Clients pay fees based on an established formula weighing, among other things, the nature of the items protected as well as whether the client wishes to remain anonymous and wants the contents of his parcel or container or storage box to remain anonymous. Full anonymity, where we do not know the client or the contents is categorized as a ‘Full Black’ and storing a Full Black incurs an upfront fee of one hundred thousand dollars and five thousand dollars for every day it remains in our care.” Wrise paused and glanced at Uriah once more before continuing. “This crate came to us as a Full Black. The fee was paid upfront in cash before we collected the box.”
“So why did you open it, it being a Full Black and all?” Lisa asked.
“Sharp as a tack, aren’t you,” Wrise commented. “The one thing we absolutely do not do, is traffic living human beings. Cassan detests the trade. We heard a woman crying from inside the box.”
“So you were going to rescue the woman?”
“No, well yes, but this was different. We received the box on a Thursday and placed it at a secure location. The crying started on the Friday night and we all heard it regardless of where we were. No matter how far away we got from the crate, we heard her. The effect was limited to those who did the initial pickup, me and the three men who died on the video. We heard it all day and all night, even in our dreams, an incessant weeping, like a voice from the bottom of a well, begging for help.
“We have had strange things happen before but this ranked pretty close to the top of the list. However, the crate was scheduled for an anonymous drop-off within a couple days and the four of us wanted to keep it quiet until the drop date came. Then hopefully it would become another person’s problem.”
“Which one of you caved and told Cassan about the possibility that there was a woman in the box?” Kat asked.
“Yohan, the guy on the video who hit the thing with the crowbar. He caved and told Cassan. Once the boss knew, there was no way he was delivering that box if there was even the slightest chance that there was a living person in it. We called up the other guys and went to the warehouse. The rest is on the tape.”
“Who did the box come from?”
“I have no idea. Cassan gave me instructions for the pickup. I assembled the team. The crate was left essentially in the middle of nowhere. A clearing in the Moruga Forest. It took us a day to hike to the location and three days to hike out with it. It weighed a damn ton. We probably should have airlifted.”
Wrise turned to Uriah. “I’ve done what you asked. Now what?”
“Can you help us?” Uriah asked Kat. “Do you know anything about this box and where my brother might be?”
“The box is called an Apandoradra,” Kat explained. “It is a gateway that allows beings to travel from one place to another within a given realm or even to travel from one realm to another. The thing that took Cassan is a maboya.” She paused. “Defining what a maboya is, is difficult, that word is used to describe a wide range of bad Amerindian spirits. Those spirits can act independently, but more often they possess a person, causing physical and mental changes. I think you are right. I think Cassan is alive somewhere. If you let us look at the box perhaps we can figure out where the last user travelled to.”
“Why do you assume we kept the damn thing?” Uriah replied.
“Because you probably would not destroy a box into which your brother had disappeared. You may have moved it. Secured it in a steel vault somewhere, set guards with more guns on it, but you would not have destroyed it.”
“Can other things come through?” Wrise asked, obviously with a mind toward security.
“It depends, coming through an Apandoradra, particularly one that has been used many times, is not easy. It’s physically taxing even for the strongest monsters. Each box therefore has a finite number of uses. The boxes were one of the first attempts at creating gateways between the realms and within them. They are the steam engines of astral travel. As you have seen, they are a good way to send a nasty little gift.
“Why do you think it was sent for Cassan? The box was scheduled for delivery to a third party.”
Kamara piped up, “Maboya are controlled by the one who releases them, I believe. The maboya would only take Cassan if its handler wished it. Right?” She looked at Kat.
“That is only a B-plus answer, Kamara,” Kat commented. “They can be controlled, but only if the correct spells are used in the first place. The spells to raise maboya are very specific and they are written in Arawak, Carib or Mayan hieroglyphics the interpretations of which are imprecise at best. Perhaps this maboya was under the proper controls of his master. Or maybe it was meant for someone else, who can say for sure. The fact that no one has contacted you for delivery of the box speaks volumes. Take me to the box and I may be able to tell you where the maboya took your brother and boss. We are wasting time.”
Uriah pondered a moment then rose and walked to the back of the room. “Well don’t just sit there. Come with me,” he commanded. The women rose to follow. Uriah walked to the back of the room to a life-sized metal sculpture of two men stick fighting. He yanked on one of the metal sticks and a trapdoor opened in the floor to reveal a narrow but well-illuminated staircase.
“I apologize for the theatrics. This is Cassan’s office not mine,” Uriah said with a sheepish look at the secret door.
He started down. Kat hesitated for a moment before she stepped on to the stairs. Lisa and Kamara shared a look then followed. Wrise formed the rearguard of the procession. The stairway was long and doubled back on itself at regular landings. They descended at least six floors. The stairway terminated at the start of a long high-ceilinged hallway. The hallway itself opened on to a wide well-lit chamber. Inside the chamber was a massive vault door.
The chamber was guarded by six men in black fatigues and body armor. A fifty-caliber belt-fed machine gun was mounted on a swivel that allowed it a 360-degree command of the room. The gun was manned by two more men. A ninth man sat inside a bullet-proof kiosk that appeared to house the communication equipment. All the guards bristled with weapons, semi-automatic rifles that looked sleek and venomously insectile. Lisa could smell the gun oil.
“Please don’t let the guns bother you. We had to take extra precautions after the incident. In any event th
ere would be armed guards here regardless,” Uriah said. “This is one of Cassan’s vaults, one location where he stores escrowed items. The security feed you saw before is from this room.” Uriah led the way to the door. The silent guards evaluated every move the party made.
Uriah punched in a lengthy security code, swiped a key card, then turned the massive wheels on the vault door. Wrise repeated the procedure with his own credentials and turned the vault lever the opposite way. The door opened smoothly revealing a climate-controlled warehouse. Beyond the threshold there were rows and rows of tall, steel shelves bearing boxes, crates, tarpaulin-covered shapes, pieces of furniture, and all manner of what appeared to be mostly junk.
They entered the subterranean warehouse. The shelves created a maze, but every shelf was labeled with some sort of mapping code. Uriah seemed to know the way. The party soon arrived at a cleared area in the warehouse.
In the middle of the floor sat a cube-shaped object covered with a tarp. Uriah approached the object and gingerly removed the covering. Under the tarp was the solid cube they had seen in the video. It was so black it seemed to drink all the light that struck it and it was perfectly smooth without being glossy. Lisa thought, it looked innocuous. Doorways are not really dangerous…it’s what comes through them.
Kat made no move to join Uriah next to the cube.
“Lisa luv, you’re up,” Kat said cheerily indicating that Lisa should get closer to the cube.
Lisa sputtered, “W…w…what do you mean I’m up?”
“Touch the box, see what it tells you.”
“Me? I have no training for this.”
“Sometimes beginners’ luck is all the training you need. Jump right into the deep end. I know how you saved Rohan. Just relax and let the psychic energy flow. Look at Kamara. She followed my instructions back in Sea Lots and she got to keep all her fingers.” Kat grinned, her bright eyes twinkling.
Lisa frowned but started towards the cube. The first few butterflies of what she suspected would become a swarm, took flight in her stomach. As fearful as she was, she understood that Cassan was their only lead to the malevolent sorcerer and so she had to push past her fear. Instinctively, she trusted Kat but the soucouyant operated in a manner that while perhaps well-thought out, because she never shared the intermediate steps in her reasoning, seemed reckless. “Should I use one hand or two?”
“Do you want to gamble the loss of both hands at once?” Kat asked still grinning.
“Now isn’t the time for jokes, Kat,” Kamara scolded.
“Who says that I’m joking,” Kat said allowing the grin to fall from her face. Uriah observed the exchange in silence. Lisa stood in front the cube.
“Let the record show that I do not want to do this.” With that she placed both hands on the light-absorbing cube. It felt as smooth as it looked but surprisingly it was warm like a living thing. The box began to hum, the vibrations in sync with the natural frequency of her very cells. A cold wind slammed into her and suddenly she was floating through the air. Up through the ceiling she went. Up through the ceiling and out into the night.
As it was before when she had traveled to assist Rohan, she felt neither fear nor discomfort. She found herself above the Kings and Commoners. She saw the white Mercedes SUV where they had left it in the parking lot. She floated high above Port-of-Spain, commanding a clear view of its unique skyline. The mountains that bordered the city’s northern outskirts were dark bastions against a moonlit sky. To the west, the Gulf of Paria was a black expanse dotted with illuminated buoys and bigger brighter oil tankers. She had a moment to look toward the direction of her house in Belle Eau Road, Belmont. The hills of that area were bejeweled with the lights of many houses and the warm promise of home beckoned to her.
She moved eastward, away from the city toward Laventille. Sporadic late-night traffic was visible around Independence Square. Next, she traced a path above the Eastern Main Road following it until she was above the back road that led to Troumacaque and Pashley Street.
From there she traveled over the hills of Laventille proper. Her forward motion halted above the red steel roof of a large dilapidated house secured by a high wall. She slowly descended toward the rooftop. She thought her feet would slam into the metal surface of the roof, but she continued downward, through the galvanized sheet metal as if she was a specter.
There was no sensation to indicate her passage through the roof. She passed through as if it was as insubstantial as the air. She found herself in a room on the uppermost floor of the house. The room was bare save for a rusty metal bed with a thin mattress and a chair. There was a window that was heavily barred with wrought iron. A man paced the room. He was small, wiry, and of Indian descent. His clothes were rumpled but well-tailored. When he turned in her direction she noticed that he looked like a younger, handsomer version of Uriah. This must be Cassan.
“Cassan,” Lisa whispered, but the man appeared not to hear her. She hissed louder, “Cassan.” The man continued pacing. She floated over to him and clouted the back of his head. His response to the assault was to scratch the back of his head as if her blows had no more force than a mosquito’s landing. She concluded that in her current state she could not be heard or seen. She decided to reconnoiter. She exited through the door without opening it. This is lovely, she thought. She felt light and happy and free. Perhaps she would stay like this forever.
She made note of where the room was in the house, memorizing its position relative to the other rooms on the upper floor. Why am I memorizing this location again? she wondered. Oh right Kat and Uriah will want to know. But who was Uriah? She could not seem to remember. This is so nice. She went back to the room and entered through the door again. She floated about three feet off the ground observing the man and wondering how she could communicate with him.
Suddenly, the door opened and a lovely girl in a red and gold sari entered. The girl’s head jerked upward and she made direct eye contact with Lisa. Can she see me? Lisa wondered. The girl walked slowly over to her with her head cocked to one side and when she was within arm’s reach she grabbed Lisa’s ankle.
The contact was like a jolt of electricity, shocking Lisa out of her reverie and into full realization of where she was and what she had come to do. She instinctively tried to escape through the roof, but the girl was like an anchor. Panicked, Lisa kicked the girl in the face and wrested her foot free. Her return was not the pleasant journey that the first passage had been. She slammed into her physical body back in the subterranean warehouse and immediately felt weighted and sluggish. When she opened her eyes, she was staring at the ceiling, her view obscured by the barrels of four guns. Above the guns were the dispassionate faces of men, she was sure would shoot her if necessary and would not lose sleep over it. But among those faces were those of two women she thought she should recognize. Her brain began to awaken. Her mind felt as if it were coated in fuzz and lint, but the women’s names came to her.
“Kat…Kamara, what the hell happened?”
“What is your name?” Kat asked.
“My name is…my name is…I’m Lisa Cyrus and you asked me to touch the box. I have a black dog and I work at the Watcher’s Guild.” She blurted out as many facts as she could to establish her identity.
There was an almost palpable release of tension. The armed men took a step back and Kat and Kamara knelt at her side and helped her to sit up. The story tumbled out of her. “I was flying and I saw him and there was a girl who saw me and she grabbed me but I escaped.”
“You know where Cassan is?” Uriah asked excitedly.
“Yes, I can take you to the place.”
“A girl?” Kat asked.
“Yes, a girl in a sari. She came to the room. Cassan could not see me, but she could. She tried to hold me there.”
“She tried to steal your body. That girl is probably a specter, she could have followed your trail here and taken your body, leaving you the ghost. You began to thrash about just before you returned and we
thought a maboya had possessed you. Ergo the men with the guns.”
Lisa looked thoughtful for a moment, “It’s not so bad, being without a body. To be honest it is pretty nice, it is like a dream.”
“For a short time it is like that, but that level of existence is fraught with its own perils. You did well, Lisa, better than you can appreciate right now.”
“Why didn’t you go, Kat?” Lisa asked.
Kat smiled, “If I were to go, who would pull on the tether to draw you back. Look.” With that Kat pinched something invisible in the air.
“I don’t see anything.”
“Look closer.”
And Lisa did. Then she saw it. Leading from Kat’s fingers was a fine thread like a single strand of spider’s silk. The thread was attached to the hem of Lisa’s dress.
“The way forward is marked by the passage of the last ones to use the cube, but if you travel in spirit, it’s safer if someone is there to pull you back.”
On the way back up the stairs, Lisa walked in silent thought as Uriah and Kat made plans for rescuing Cassan from the house in Laventille.
“We can take it from here,” Uriah said. “Just let Lisa draw us a map and I can have some of Cassan’s best men assault the house.”
“You send your men into that house and you will never hear from them again,” Kat replied. “I have two men in mind who are better than all of yours combined.”
“This is my brother. I don’t know or trust your men.”
“Uriah, within an hour of arriving here, we located your brother. It is also in our best interest to see him safely returned. Trust me when I tell you, my men are better.”