Grave Sacrifice

by Russ Linton

  He frowned with a thoughtful nod and knocked back another beer. At least somebody would finish off that six pack. Maybe today.

  The whole gang had met up back at Kitterling’s and were lounging in the study. Caleb and Araceli took up the chaise with him giving the alchemist and her scowl some space. Atofo splayed in an antique chair while Sheila and I stood at the front of the room. My crew; a mostly naked berserker shaman, an alchemist nun princess, a loyal history nerd, and a fiery attorney who just wouldn’t quit — courtroom, other rooms.

  “You’re the dog in this here show,” I said to Atofo with no explanation.

  He gave me a puzzled look then smiled. “My nigga!” Caleb’s eyes went wide and locked on me. He was waiting for me to go off on Atofo. The shaman rose to his full, lanky height, topknot and feather seeming too close to the ceiling of the aging house. Shaking his empty bottle, he frowned at the label. “Pisswater. But I’m going to get another. Anyone?”

  I let his lip slide and told him no on the early morning beer. Caleb seemed shocked, maybe a bit jealous, I’d let the big native bust out the N word. Araceli watched him go, eyes full of suspicion. As he passed by the coffin in the formal dining room, he tapped the lid with his empty bottle.

  “Hey, chemosabe, this your bedroom?” he said with a grating chuckle.

  “Charming,” Sheila said as he disappeared into the kitchen. “Tell me again why I got him released?”

  I took in a ragged breath and faced the bookcases, fingers laced behind my head. “Long story.”

  “He shouldn’t be here.” Araceli’s scornful gaze trailed after the departing spirit. She was in a mood and it wasn’t just having a living, breathing Atofo around. This whole necromancy business had her on edge.

  “I can’t even tell you how he’s here,” I said. “You?”

  “Whatever is making the other dead rise is out of control,” she stated.

  “But he isn’t like them,” I said. “He seems more...alive.”

  “Could be he’s tied more strongly to something here than the others.” Araceli turned her shade on me. “Could be because somebody has been feeding him blood for years already.”

  “Let’s not make this personal,” I said, dodging her accusation. “But I can’t say I wouldn’t be more comfortable if he was in the Below where he belonged.”

  “I can send him back.” Araceli sounded too eager.

  “Hold up, let’s think this through.” I didn’t need an interpreter for the look the Catalan gave me in response. “Yeah, you heard right. I said we need to think.”

  “Caleb and I have been doing exactly that while you two were in jail,” she said.

  “Fair enough,” I said, skating past an argument. “What’d you find?”

  Sykes’ box of files rested on one of the end tables, a near priceless Lièvre with a marble inset and gilded dragon masks at the top of each leg - Kitterling’s way of carrying on the theme of the trophy room. I wondered how he’d take bare asses of dead men resting on his spiffy furniture.

  Araceli wasn’t in a hurry to speak. Caleb glanced her way, deferring. When she kept her stone-cold stare, he came forward.

  “It was kind of like doing research at the Natchez archives,” he said, aiming a hopeful grin at Araceli which disappeared when she stayed cold. “These are his client files. All of the records are handwritten, no printouts from computerized sources. These are the originals. We’ve got dates, invoices, contact information. He seems to have been in a similar line of work as you.”

  “Did he have a file on Kitterling?”

  Caleb went for the box and pulled out a folder. “This one. I think. There are lots of codenames but this one is for a client called ‘Limey.’ We verified some of the items retrieved. Most of the work looks like from before you moved to Saint Augustine.”

  Seems Sykes had been his supplier in the early days. But had he brought him the real stuff or been peddling in the snake oil garbage stored in my room above the garage? I turned the page to the last entry.

  “Powdered unicorn horn and a tiara?” My face involuntarily scrunched at that one.

  “Baking soda. We found some of the powder in the...uh...cabinet in your room. Hope you don’t mind. We needed to verify.”

  “Naw, it’s all good.” I’d stared at that display case a thousand times but never bothered to inventory the contents. Most of the stuff at the front had been herbal remedies. “So what you’re saying is there are no leads. What about the book?”

  “I have it secured,” Araceli said bluntly. “If I don’t hear a reason otherwise, it goes in the forge.”

  “The forge? Hold on a minute. We’re thinking, not jumping the gun, right?”

  Sheila watched the exchange with interest. She moved to the box and started sifting through the files.

  “That book is a Grimoire Manzazuu,” Araceli said, her lip curling. “A necromancer’s spellbook. Pages made from human skin, the binding and cover bone and flesh. Keeping it whole is an affront to alchemy. To God. To humanity.”

  “Really?” Sheila gasped, sharply dropping a folder back into the box. She’d been keeping her distance from the mad alchemist. She’d seen the fight I missed in Natchez. But the distance was more like respect than fear. Calculating.

  “I thought you weren’t that kind of nun?” I countered. “Besides, the book might be our only way of getting Kitterling back.”

  “The lines between Christendom and Alchemy run closer than you can imagine,” she snapped. “You asked for private lessons. Our first should be destroying the book and releasing the souls trapped inside.”

  Sheila gave me the stink eye when the phrase ‘private lessons’ came up. She went back to digging through files.

  “Lessons? I heard that!” Atofo shouted from the kitchen through a clatter of bottles. “Don’t fall for her sorcery! She’s trying to tempt you to her genocidal ways!”

  Great. Everybody up in my business. As usual.

  Araceli rolled her eyes, hard. “The less evil spilling over into This World, the better chance we have of containing whatever is happening.”

  Atofo wandered in, two beers in his hand. He offered me one and I ignored him. He blew off my slight and plopped down in the seventeenth century Chippendale armchair with a splitting creak.

  “Amen to that keeping out evil, sister.” Atofo toasted her with his bottle. “If we’d kept all your bullshit evil out in the first place, maybe my people wouldn’t be confined to an archaeological site.”

  “Cease fire. Both of you. We can’t destroy the book because we don’t know how much it’s wrapped up in what’s happening.”

  “He’s had it for a while,” Sheila interjected. All eyes went to her. “One of the first files. He got it as payment from a source named, the, uh...” she checked the folder once more. “The Chaldean.”

  Caleb blushed. Araceli still didn’t react. Her sour mood was like it was infectious and had thrown Caleb way off his research game. Of course, Sheila lived in her own world of files and legal discovery.

  “Chaldean. That mean anything to you?” I asked Araceli.

  “They’re an ancient people, once rulers of Babylon. What they were in the past is not what they are today.”

  “Christians,” Caleb added, immediately sorry he’d interrupted. He waited for a combo of Catalan curses which never came. “In ancient times they were nomads assimilated by Assyrian and Babylonian cultures. They left behind their less orthodox teachings for the Catholic Church.”

  “Less orthodox,” I asked.

  “Necromancy,” Araceli said.

  Caleb reluctantly shrugged. Atofo had picked up a scrimshaw tusk fragment depicting a British whaling ship. He made a few swipes with it as if it were a knife, testing the balance.

  “I am not going to pretend anything y’all have said makes a damn bit of sense.” Sheila scanned the room, her eyes stopping on a sulking Araceli. She looked her up and down and pressed close to me, lips brushing my cheek. “I’ve got a new case to f
ile, thanks to you. Something about illegal discharge of firearms downtown.” She slapped the folder into Caleb’s chest and moved for the front door, hips swaying. I wasn’t the only one who watched. As she opened the door, she threw me a glance. “Call me if any of you need any actual legal advice. And Ace, call me for whatever.”

  As the door shut behind her, Atofo offered his opinion. “Nice ass.”

  “I don’t need your lip,” I said then threw it in reverse. “Actually, since you’re finally here.” I rubbed my chest, the tightness had been building there all day. “I need a quick pick me up, you feel me?”

  “No.” Holding both beer bottles by their long necks, Atofo took a swig, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. He waved the scrimshaw tusk sloppily toward me. “Won’t work.”

  “Why not?”

  “I got no mojo here. This isn’t my world anymore. You can thank the Spanish mongrel there.”

  “Hold up,” I said, unconsciously bringing my hand to my chest. “Not your world? It can work here. Even other shaman have performed the same ritual on me.”

  “But did they perform it here, in This World?” he asked, waving his finger as if prodding along some teachable moment. “And how long did it last?”

  He was right. Red Feather had pulled off a near resurrection but in less than a day that magic had started to unravel. And when he performed the ritual, I’d been in some magic pocket dimension near the Primal Flame. Not in This World.

  “Fine. What about the fight then? All the darkness?”

  “Darkness?” he asked, legitimately confused. “I thought you did that? Are you telling me you didn’t? You sat and watched me do all the work?”

  “Funny, if you can’t heal him you suddenly aren’t of any use to anybody,” Araceli said, one of her knives suddenly in her hand.

  “I’m not going back.” He peered calmly into his beer bottles. “But we need more beer.”

  I put a hand on Araceli. Not to stop her, just to gauge her distance. I might be able to keep her off Atofo, or whatever, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to.

  “She might be right. If you go back Below, you can do your thing for me and the Gallu can’t chase you.”

  “Gallu? Chasing him?” Araceli lost her murdery glare.

  I nodded. “They might have been after him when I saw them in Timucuan heaven too. Not sure it was me.”

  Araceli nodded, lost in thought. “That makes sense.”

  “Why would you care?” Atofo said, trying to sound offended. He reached into a pouch and brought out the two pieces of his blade. “Broke my knife.” I thought I saw Araceli flinch at the broken blade. “At least, those bull-headed bitches aren’t after you. Or are they, M’lady?” He hid his sly grin behind another double-necked swig.

  “They aren’t even after your demon friend here, Ace,” she said. “They’re after you.”

  “Well, duh,” Atofo interjected.

  “And how are they working with these soldiers?”

  Araceli didn’t have a quick answer there. “Servants of Death, they can’t like this situation of undying bodies anymore than we do. The ferry needs passengers, understand? But they might be able to steer these walking corpses toward their purposes. Not much is known of a Gallu’s magic.”

  “I don’t get it. What happens to these undead we’ve been re-deadifying? What happens to Atofo?”

  “This is why practices such as these were banned in alchemical circles,” Araceli sighed. “Necromancy separates the soul from the body. The victim doesn’t go Above or Below. It could be a spiritual limbo, nobody is certain. It’s why your friend Kitterling might already be lost. Your demonic life partner here? He might be sundered as well.”

  “Sundered?”

  “Their souls sundered and material form reanimated. It’s why they keep coming back. They have nowhere else to be but here, in This World.” She tilted her head in thought. “Usually though that requires a sustained ritual or a phylactery.”

  More of the secret knowledge. She definitely wasn’t sharing everything with the class. I hadn’t yet cornered her on the Triple H deal, the talking skull I’d found in the basement of Duncan Correctional, and about her being the last of her kind. Would she admit it even if I did?

  Atofo leaned back, all smug. “So if I do get ashed, either I just come back or I go poof. Forever? Then there’s nobody left to keep your ass alive. And what else, conquistadorita? You want to tell him or should I?”

  Araceli stomped her foot, jaw clamped as if trying to keep the words inside. “If that happens, Alchemy dies.”

  “A twofer,” Atofo said into his tilted bottles.

  “Oh!” Caleb exclaimed. He touched Araceli’s shoulder. She shrugged off his concern but I could tell she didn’t mean it.

  “Wait, what? How’s that?” I asked.

  “I made the Gallu a promise, a trade. Remember when we fled Fenwick Hall, racing to get here so Atofo could perform his ritual?” Her face pinched like she had a bad taste in her mouth. “You weren’t going to make it. I’d already sworn to protect your life with my own so I had to make a deal. If you get carried off by the Gallu, they claim my tools as well.”

  “You can’t get new ones? How does that make Alchemy dead?”

  “Those are heirlooms passed down through generations of Alchemists, Ace! I can’t just drop by Home Depot and replace them!”

  No, I knew what she was saying. I’d seen the care, the reverence she used with her kit. But what she didn’t seem to see was that gave her supposedly spirit-free alchemy a definite connection to other realms. The tools had been imbued over the years with power. Sweat and blood shed at a forge. How different was what she did exactly?

  But that wasn’t the big takeaway even. No. All this time, I’d thought it’d been about the sword and some noble credo. No, she’d made a pact. With demon-like monsters. Worse than demons, Death itself.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I made a few calls. Police work, the mundane kind. Blood had been stolen from a donation center near downtown, that’s where Sykes had gotten his supply. Whether he did it himself or paid someone else, the trail ran cold.

  Araceli had given up on intimidating Atofo. She sat in an armchair opposite him, her tough exterior not matching the perfect posture and crossed legs. I still hadn’t figured her out. Least of all why she’d risked her life and even her identity for me in the first place.

  A while back, she’d said it was about her duty. I’d found my faith and she’d sworn an oath to give her life for those who had. But the faith she was talking about was tough to believe in. I thought it had to do with Kibaga, but he’d been a fickle protector ready to drag me into beatdowns and walk away when the pain came. He’d helped take down the Sunset King’s prison, sure. But since then, the whole world of magic had gone crazy. And in the square, Kibaga asked for vengeance then told me to face Death my damn self. Faith my ass.

  “We’ve got to figure this out!” Caleb said, desperate. He was struggling to understand all the mojo in a rational way, always a lost cause. “If Sykes had this book, and he’s dead, how could he be responsible for this undead stuff? Atofo and the other soldiers showed up after you left his office, right?”

  “You aren’t wrong,” Araceli said to Caleb with a heavy sigh. The threat to Araceli’s life had melted the ice between them. They sat together on the couch, poring over the files. “The world is veering faster toward Armageddon. Magic will become unpredictable.”

  “This isn’t just the Sunset King and his prisons harnessing the energy of hallowed ground,” I said. “He’s got a whole crew helping bring about the End. Prisons for profit, preachers, those damn cameras all over the place, who else is involved?”

  “The Chaldean?” Caleb offered, uncertain.

  Brooding, Araceli nodded. “Not even I know how far down this cabal goes.”

  “What are we talking?” I asked. “Necromancers are making a comeback?”

  “They’re a secretive organization. They’ve always
been small in number but well-to-do in society in general. They regularly cull their membership.”

  I couldn’t resist. “Like your Alchemy crew?”

  That got me the evil eye. “Nothing like them.”

  We locked gazes, waiting to see who might blink first. I wanted to dig deeper, get her to confess. A come-to-Jesus right here in front of Caleb and Atofo wasn’t going to help matters. I gave up that fight and started to pace.

  Caleb had scooted to the edge of the spindly couch and focused on the files. The possibility of losing two friends at once had hit him hard. I could tell he still hadn’t forgiven himself for missing the first clue about the book. He dove in again, tearing through pages, tugging at his hair.

  The phone on the shop counter rang. I checked around to see if it was safe to leave the room. Caleb seemed lost in his work, Araceli back to brooding. Atofo had tilted his head back, two beer bottles hanging limply from his hand like he might be on the verge of sleep.

  “Nobody kill anyone,” I said.

  Araceli drummed her fingers on one of her knives. Atofo raised the bottles in the air with a clink, head unmoving.

  When I got to the phone, I hesitated. Kitterling had always been the one to handle the front of the house. I cleared my throat, hoping not to scare off whoever.

  “Kitterling’s Curiosities.”

  “Ace?” The voice sounded faraway, full of uncertainty.

  “Tish?”

  “Oh, I’m so glad you answered! Last time it was the machine and I hate gabbing at machines,” she said, laughing nervously.

  I picked up the vintage rotary phone’s base by the brass cradle. Stretching the cord as far as it went, I tried to peek into the study but could only see Caleb where he sat on the couch.

  “No worries,” I said to Tish. “I’m glad you reached out. What’s wrong?”

  “You told me to call if I saw anything. Those...dreams.”

  “That’s right. Visions are important,” I said. Araceli moved into view, scooting closer to Caleb. Good, nobody being murdered. She’d been off and I was starting to realize how little I knew about her. “Tell me, what did you see?”