Grave Sacrifice

by Russ Linton

  “I’m good. I’m good,” I said, pulling away under the guise of helping her down the retractable steps. “Come on now, I gotta breathe.”

  “Oh Lord!” she said again, hands fluttering in front of her eyes. “I didn’t think you’d ever take another breath!”

  I needed to hear about that. First, we had to sit. Not for her sake, more for me. If she could top a waking vision of Death, I wanted to have my self comfortable. I held her arm and led her to the cluster of nearby picnic tables.

  She had a line of customers today and she’d hastily flipped around her “Closed” sign the second she saw me pull up. But were those hungry customers going anywhere? Hell no. Woman had a cult after those chicken boxes. They’d wait.

  “I’m right here,” I said. “All safe. Nothing is going to get me.”

  She narrowed her damp eyes at that last bit. No good trying to lie to somebody like Tish, whether she accepted her gift or not. I tried anyway.

  “Ace, I really didn’t think I’d see you ever again! Last time...” she trailed off, uncomfortable about the words which came next.

  “Last time you refused to tell me what you saw.” I played up the stink eye and let it relax into a smile. “Your prerogative though. I’m not going to push.”

  She clasped her hands, the long, shiny nails candy-striped purple and pink. “I saw something else.”

  Here it was. I braced myself to hear. But even if she backed down like she often did, I’d let her. Only way she could properly share a vision was without my influence. Too often, people ignored that. They’d go to psychics and tarot readers and demand answers without realizing those powers answered to nobody but the Spirit Realm.

  “I was floating. Like above this fenced-in yard. It was a prison, Ace,” she said, her eyes piercing mine. “All the inmates had on the white suits. Those the ones you wear on death row, now,” she said, her voice losing the panic and drifting toward the tone that required a head bob. “You were there and some big bull-headed white dude I ain’t never seen. These prisoners were coming at you and you two were fighting, smacking them down.” I was all in on the story now, my weight pressed against the table. Had she seen what Sheila saw or had she seen the truth? “Then this other one comes at you and I swear, I swear to the Lord, he was a devil. Claws for fingers and these crazy eyes. I was so far away, but I could see them.” She shivered and closed her eyes. “You stomped him, and good! But you’d been hurt. There was so much blood, I thought sure you’d die.” Her eyes snapped open, the memory a caged animal behind them, trying to escape. “But the shadows came to you. They were all around,” she said, motioning with her hands in a billowing arc. “You wore them like...like the raiment of kings and I thought you’d won—”

  “Then you saw a light,” I said. Her eyes got wide and she nodded along. “And the shadows went away. The prisoners came at me. I didn’t get up.”

  We’d been on the same track, but something I said at the end struck her as wrong. She shook her head. “This winged demon came at you then. Horns on her head, all fire and brimstone straight from the Revelations chapter and verse! But you didn’t fall,” she insisted, shaking her head and wagging a deadly looking fingernail. “Those shadows went, but one stayed over you, Ace. Dark as night, I should’ve been scared of it too — I know that wretched demon was. But it didn’t do nothing as those men tore into your hide. Nothing at all.”

  That was new. I’d blacked out and guessed the Sunset King’s ray from Above had shut down Kibaga. But she’d seen different.

  “Tish, were you there? Did the vision seem like you were in the yard, watching?”

  Her face twisted as if she were trying to dig for the memory, polish it, make it shine. “No, it felt far away. Like I said, I was up high, like looking out a second story. Or floating. Only I couldn’t make myself move.” She shivered sympathetically. I felt those recent wounds itch and twinge. “Ace, if I coulda flown, I’d have snatched you up and carried you away from all that.”

  I reached across the picnic table and took her hand. “You didn’t need to do anything. I’m fine.”

  Tears swelled under her eyes and she sighed. “I thought you’d gone to Jesus.”

  Score another for her prophetic visions.

  I didn’t want to relive that beat down anymore than she wanted to tell it, but I thought over those events in the silent moment we shared. She’d been viewing from a fixed position, somewhere slightly above the yard. The description sounded exactly like what Sheila had shown me of the security camera footage.

  “MiRA,” I said. “That mean anything to you?”

  Tish wiped at her eyes and I handed her a napkin from the dispenser. She continued to dab carefully around her thick lashes. “No. That important?”

  I shook my head and took her hand again. “I don’t know. I don’t know much anymore. What I do know is you’ve got a gift, like I always said. Promise to keep me posted any time you see something?”

  She sniffled and agreed. Her eyes went to the line of customers. They looked restless but weren’t about to lose their place. She put on a brave smile and waved.

  “I will,” she said. We both stood. “Anything you need while I get these orders? Your usual?”

  I smiled. If ever I needed comfort from food and friends, this would be the time. “Yeah, the usual. Chicken box and a half and half on the side.”

  We hugged and she called out to her customers as she made her way back into the food truck, letting them know they hadn’t been forgotten. While she prepped their orders, she worked on mine, setting the white takeout bag off to the side. I thanked her and left for the park. Troubling times deserved a disturbed mentor.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Atofo was a no show. Again. I devoured the chicken box and still hungry, I poked around in the chitlins. I’d sworn to never eat those nasty things, but everything about my life felt sideways. Prison, as short as the sentence had been, had changed everything I knew. I hadn’t come back to the same world. Everything had been lost in conspiracies. And now, the spirit world was bleeding too easy into the real. With Atofo MIA, I’d lost my mentor, as cruddy as he might be. It was like I’d been given a new set of rules for a reality I’d only just started to get to know.

  I’d left the burial exhibit door closed longer than usual. Great Sun’s medicine bag around my neck, I had some of the calamus root ready but not tucked into my cheek.

  More than a token gift, the bag was enchanted. The tiny pouch always appeared empty, but when I needed the root? It was there. Not that I didn’t miss the Crown Royal bag I’d taken the time to sew all those pouches into, but this conjuring herb thing was a trip. I knew some corner boys who’d kill for this pouch.

  But without Atofo lurking about, I had no reason to worry about unexpected visitors. When the exhibit door squeaked opened, I expected an anxious tourist. Should’ve known it would be Caleb.

  “Yo, Ace! Thought you’d be here!” His eyes scanned the darkness apprehensively. “Are you alone?”

  His close call with Atofo had left an impression, conscious or not. I didn’t want a repeat either. So far, Caleb had been spared much of the spirit world. When told, he’d grudgingly accepted every word, mostly out of respect for me. But even when he chauffeured Lady Araceli all the way to Mississippi, he’d missed her brutal takedown of Mordecai’s forces. Would they even have a thing if he’d seen that go down?

  “You’re good. Come on in,” I said, waving the grease-stained takeout bag. “Have some fried guts.”

  I’d mostly picked out the crunchy fried bits and left the meaty portions alone. Those had gone cold and rubbery. Caleb did the smart thing as he sat and peeked into the bag, parting the top like he was afraid it was an IED then politely turned them down.

  I took a swig of my drink, the straw giving that empty rattle, and chunked the cup into the open bag.

  “You ever feel like the world is out to get you?” I asked.

  He relaxed into the question, a little too far. “I fe
el you, my man,” he started. I gave him the side-eye and he straightened up. “I mean, honestly, I don’t know where you’re coming from. Not really. At all. Is this about prison? Or the real world? Or is this about...” he glanced around and lowered his voice, “magic?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Uh, in school, the kids used to bully me.” He said this like there was no way I could’ve guessed. I acted surprised. “But, I was a kid. Now, I’ve got my job, a good life. Only people out to get me are some revisionists on slash AmHis,” he snorted derisively. “It’s an online history forum,” he said, noticing my confusion. He tried to walk it back when he realized how hopeless that sounded but I interrupted.

  “Sure, like that. You’ve got this world you’re comfortable in, but then you got all these anonymous clowns trying you.” He seemed relieved I’d taken the comparison at face value. And I meant it. Not everybody was made to be a demon slaying shaman. I sure as hell wasn’t. “What do you do about it?”

  He shrugged. “I just keep telling the truth. Consistency, you know? I wear them down. And everybody else starts to listen to my side more because I’m not there just to bring people down.”

  Solid answer. But truth seemed in short supply. I could keep speaking truth with no guarantee anybody would ever listen. Answers, that’s what I wanted.

  “You dug up those records about Fenwick pretty quick,” I said. “And you’re doing this online forum thing. How much do you know about computers?”

  “Welllll...” his face scrunched with uncertainty. “I know enough to run some database queries and log into forums. I mean, I ran a forum once. It used a combination of HTML and PYTHON...” he trailed off as he saw my eyes glaze over. “A bit, I guess.”

  “Good,” I said, standing up and brushing off my pants. “When are you off work?”

  “My shift ended ten minutes ago.”

  “Let’s go by Kitterling’s. I need you to hack his email.”

  I didn’t give him time to say no.

  A BRITISH FLAG FILLED the screen on Kitterling’s laptop. All the usual programs and icons had been grayed out under a floating box asking for a PIN. We both stared blankly.

  “Hey, so what’s this with you and Araceli?”

  “Oh, you know,” he said, putting on some swagger that fit like an over-sized shirt, “she’s into guys with intellect.”

  “You sayin’ I’m too ghetto for her?”

  Caleb freaked. “Nothing like that! We just had a lot of time to get to know each other. The drive. The hotel.”

  I stopped fronting and let him off the hook. “Way to go, my man!”

  His eyes went back to the screen nervously. “I mean, nothing happened. Though, it could. I mean, it might. I was a gentleman.” I smiled. He wasn’t much younger than me but here he was acting like a pimply kid on prom night. He sighed, retreating to the laptop again. “What I’m not is a hacker. I just know how to use computers.”

  I decided to let him off the hook about the Araceli thing. For now. “And I’m not a shaman, I just know how to cast a few spells.”

  “That’s different.”

  “You know more than I know. Come on, just see. The dude is missing and he didn’t leave me any blank checks, so I can’t exactly afford to pay a computer forensics tab.”

  “Aren’t you profiling?”

  I shrugged. “Your point?”

  Caleb sighed and started flipping through the notepad on the store counter. He looked under the bell and the irritating jangle went off like nails on a chalkboard. He dropped to his hands and knees, examining the underside of the display case.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking to see if he wrote the PIN down somewhere.”

  “The old clown isn’t senile yet. He can remember four numbers.”

  Caleb popped back up on his knees, chin level with the keyboard. “What I do know about hacking is that it is mostly about social engineering. Like how well you know a person or how easy you can trick them. You could probably guess his passwords better than I can.”

  Good thinking. I knocked back another one of Kitterling’s beers. The craft brew IPA was starting to grow on me. That and the satisfaction of emptying the six-pack before he returned had quenched a different sort of thirst.

  “Try a date. The dude loves history, maybe more than you.”

  Caleb frowned at the suggestion. “Sure, but that’s all history is, dates. We’ve got three tries, tops.” He clattered out a sequence of numbers and a warning popped up. “Two.”

  “What did you put in?”

  “1565. Founding of Saint Augustine,” he said, pointing to one of the maps hanging in the nearby stairwell.

  Simple enough, but I wouldn’t have come up with that. Hacker or not, Caleb was in Kitterling’s headspace. I remembered the trail of maps leading to the landing upstairs.

  “Try the date the British got control or whatever.”

  Keys clacked again. The PIN prompt faded away. Caleb’s jaw dropped.

  “1763,” he said in awe. “Oddly specific. I mean, their occupation only lasted like a couple of decades.” Done reciting the historical significance, a new weight fell. “Is this legal?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, moving closer to peer over his shoulder. “I’m a shaman, not a cop.”

  “Don’t tell anybody,” Caleb said, scooting closer to the screen. “If I get a record, I don’t think they’ll let me interact with the public at the park.”

  My eyes went to the back of his curly head and stuck there. This dude’s world was small. Tucked away and protected. Whatever his real indoctrination into the Three Realms was going to be, I worried he might not survive. He went on working, opening up programs and clicking icons.

  “Do you know his email address?” he asked.

  I’d seen enough redacted client communication printouts to have gathered that intel. “Something quantum dot com.”

  “Quantum mail dot com?” he asked. “Seriously?”

  “Sure, something like that.”

  He shook his head and opened a web browser. “That’s secure,” he said, entering an address and navigating to a plain-looking webpage. “Like really encrypted. Like sex traffickers and drug dealers use it to communicate.” His eyes shot round to mine. “Not that I would know, you know? But there’s all this news online about private keys and hashed user passwords stored in such a way not even the email provider can... Oh.”

  “What?” I asked as the screen changed. The single menu page with the Quantum mail company logo shifted to an open mailbox.

  “He left the session open for this device. Probably resets every thirty days or something.”

  I clapped him on the back. “See? You’re a hacker, or whatever.”

  Caleb snorted, pleased with himself but not willing to take full credit. “As long as you’re not a cop.”

  Unread messages from the days after he’d gone missing clogged the inbox. Clients asking about items for sale. Inquiries regarding ‘Curiosities of the Occult.’ One subject line read, “IN NEED OF LOVE POTION ASAP.” I noticed several more with similar requests. Maybe Kitterling hadn’t stowed all of his snake oil above the garage?

  He’d even responded as “HopefulRomantic.”

  One meaty folder was bursting with replies, old and new. I snatched up the mouse and opened it.

  So this was Kitterling’s secret stash. His power over my assignments, my future. Dig deep enough, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a recipe to cure lung cancer in twenty-four hours. With this information, not much would stop me from taking control of the business.

  How many of these clients had he even met face to face? Emails sent anonymous around the world, my own search for a cure could take priority. Sell a few LOVE POTIONS on the side to cover rent. I didn’t need a fortune to fill my penthouse apartment with antiques.

  Hell, this place could rot while I made good for my family. Find the right magic, make the right contacts, buy a ticket to Baltimore and leave his estate f
or the local historical commission to sort out.

  No, forget a flight. I’d make the drive again. No sense in leaving Bubonic in the stables for Kitterling’s estate sale.

  “That one seems fishy,” Caleb said, snapping me out of the daydream. “Ace? That what you’re looking for?”

  Caleb’s finger hovered over the screen. Way down the list a subject line read “re: Discretion required. Urgent.”

  Subtle.

  The sender showed up as Caliban236. I’d never heard Kitterling mention the name. We were partners now though. Whether he’d meant what he’d said or not. So this was my urgent business too.

  I clicked open the email chain and drilled down to the first message. Short, coded in a cheap pulp novel way, we’d found the right trail.

  Kitterling’s message read “I need to go on holiday.” Caliban’s response was a two-word question: Time frame? Kitterling, instead of going for a typical “ASAP” replied, “Expeditiously.” The last response from Caliban was a phone number.

  I dug in my pocket for the scrap of paper I’d found on the pipe stand. The final three digits matched. Likely the last thing Kitterling had done was call this number. Phone records might confirm the contact, but wouldn’t say much more.

  I picked up the phone on the counter.

  Caleb seemed surprised. “Call? Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” I said, dialing. No ringing, an automated voice came on the line — We’re sorry, this number is no longer in service... I hung up. “Burner.”

  “What next?” Caleb’s reluctance to start his new life of crime had pulled a 180. All the fun parts of police work without all the warrants and procedures. No harm in letting him make the next move.

  “Next, we send an email. Can you set up an account on this service?”

  “Sure!” He dove into the keys. “What should we call it?”

  Huh. Caliban. Unlikely a female chose that name. Probably a guy. A lonely guy. Like Kitterling.

  “What’s a Caliban?” I asked.

  “Marvel Comics or William Shakespeare?”