Dark Arts (26 page)

“So Panos went after Zack to get to you?”
Miranda asked. “Why? He’s not a practitioner.”

“But Panos doesn’t know that. He’s a member
of my band without protection against possession, so he’s the
perfect target. Panos would assume that he knows something, as for
April, the police say the timing is wrong for Panos to use Zack to
get to April. I don’t think they know enough to be sure about that
though.”

“So you think Panos went after Zack,
possessed him, then took April, attacked her, and then returned him
home so he could have his way with Zack then? That would leave him
without a body.”

“No,” Maxwell said. “He had weeks to study
the Book of Doors. That thing could teach him to do that and more.
One of the most dangerous secrets that book breaks is the one about
bringing power from the living world into the next as you die. It’s
one of the breaches of covenant, a ritual that helps break the
division between worlds down. Panos is known for being glory
hungry, I know it’s something he’d do. He must have gotten into the
secrets of possession too, I’ll have to take another look at the
book. I’m going to put initiation off.”

“No, you’re not,” Miranda said. “You need to
join us, especially now. You need our help.”

“I need to get as far away from everyone as
possible,” Maxwell said. “I’ve brought misery and death home with
me, and I don’t want to see the worst happen.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Miranda said,
picking up on his inference. “I’m not going anywhere, and I’m going
to get you initiated tonight if it’s the last thing I do.”

Maxwell cocked his head and fixed her with a
look.

“Poor choice of words,” she said. “But
you’re coming, buster, and you’re going to watch as we take you in
and work you through all the trouble you’ve found.”

“We’ll see,” Maxwell said.

“Max?” Scott said as he almost passed by the
door. He stopped and turned into the room. “Everything okay?”

“I’m fine,” Maxwell told him. “Cops just
wanted to check my knife and ask if Zack had a history with drugs.
They’re moving their investigation on.”

“Okay, good. Wait, why are they asking about
Zack?”

“He cut himself a bit, they’re taking care
of him now. His family doesn’t want us anywhere near him, so just
stay near April’s room when he gets out of surgery.”

“It’s that bad?” Scott asked.

“Looks like, but pay attention to April, she
needs you more than Zack will,” Maxwell said.

“Was it the same guy who got April?”

“They told me it looks like he did it
himself,” Maxwell said. “Wouldn’t say anything else. We’ll figure
it out at the farm, all right?”

Scott looked stunned, his normally carefree
visage etched with worry and an emotional weight he’d never carried
before.

“Focus on April,” Maxwell said. “Zachary has
his people.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I will. Listen, I have to
tell you something,” Scott said. “When I picked up your bike at the
crossroads I felt something. Bernie had dropped me off and was on
his way back, so I was alone for a minute. Before I knew it, I was
kicking up dirt, and I saw the seal you left on top of the Dawn
Shard. I didn’t even know you left it there then. Man, I wanted to
pick up the iron seal and get the Dawn Shard in my hand, I could
hear my grandmother telling me to do it, but then there’s the rule.
Demons lie, so I reburied it. Thank the light you left the seal
there, Max. If it wasn’t covering the Shard, it would be in my
pocket right now.”

“Did you disturb the seal at all? Do you
know if it moved?” Maxwell asked.

“Maybe a little, but I didn’t dig past it,
just enough to see it.”

“How many voices did you hear? Was it one
that changed, or more than one?”

Scott thought for a moment, looking at his
hands in his lap. “Definitely more than one. At first I thought I
was gardening with my grandmother, she’s been gone for ten years
though.”

“Okay,” Maxwell said reassuringly. “Don’t
worry about it, everything’s fine. I’ll just make sure the seal is
still there, maybe work a little harder in laying it down.”

“I’m sorry, Max,” Scott said. “I hope this
isn’t because I let something out.” He stood up.

Maxwell hugged him. “In all this, I know one
thing for sure: you’re not the cause, you’re part of the solution.
Full stop, mate, you’re the good sort, through and through.”

The faces of his crying mother telling him;
“We’ll get you the help you need,” and his stoic father at the edge
of his bed barely penetrated the heavy haze Zachary Ross was in.
His eyes needed drops, the nurse in white who put them in did so
with terrifying speed and accuracy. She appeared with her
applicator, the moisture dripped, then the pads went back in.

“We’ll have to keep his eyes covered for the
time being, you can hold his hand if you like,” she told someone in
the room.

A wet hand took his, squeezing a cross into
the palm. It was a comfort in the thick darkness, except for the
weeping. Across the murk in his mind, most likely the result of
more drugs than he’d ever take on his own, expertly administered by
the hospital staff, no doubt, that weeping rolled in like a sad
mist over his calm.

The thick chunk of meat in his mouth would
not move, his body was too heavy for any motion. “We’re going to
keep him sedated for a while,” the white nurse-terror said an
instant before all his mental pictures faded and he was embraced by
the relief of sleep.

“Well, you’re in a real spot, Zachary, I’m
not going to lie,” a warm, low voice said.

He opened his eyes to discover that the
drugged haze was gone, and he was completely fine. The sheets were
tucked in firmly around him in the hospital bed, and he was
curtained into a space with a window overlooking Ramsay Lake. “I
feel fine,” Zachary said.

A glance at the gently grinning gentleman in
a pristine suit standing two feet from his bed, and the memory of
his own hands cutting his lips, his nose, his eyelids and more away
came back. “I couldn’t stop, I cut my own dick off.”

“Now, let’s take a moment away from the
grisly details,” the Gentleman said. “I’m here to help.”

Zachary looked his perfect hands over,
touched his intact face, then checked between his legs and sighed
with relief. “Was it a dream?”

“I’d love to tell you that you took the
brown acid, friend, and that it was all a bad trip, but I’m afraid
I’ve taken you here. This is a space outside your mind, where I can
help you create a space without distractions. You know, so we can
have a little chat.”

“Who are you?” Zachary said.

“One of my favorite questions,” the
gentleman replied. “I’m the man that’s going to turn tragedy into
opportunity for you. Oh, brother, this is your lucky day. You got
caught by someone that your friend brought into your life, and
there was no mercy in that crossfire. Then again, I shouldn’t call
him your friend at all, because friends don’t let friends get
possessed, now do they?”

“Panos, he took control, I, he, lured April
away, and, oh my God!” Zachary said, remembering the torture of
her, and being so afraid that he would start on Darren when he
finished. He didn’t, but went home instead, and then Panos forced
him to begin cutting himself. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I tried to
stop him, but he had me from the inside.”

“I know,” the Gentleman soothed. “It’s
Maxwell’s fault. Panos wanted him, and couldn’t find a way in, so
he took you and made you do all the dirty work. I’m sorry this
happened to you, Zachary, really, I am. It’s time to move on, to
make a decision about your future.”

“What future?” Zachary burst. “Half my face
is off and I don’t even have a pecker!”

“Believe it or not, that’s not the worst
part. You’re about to die without any guide to go by.”

“I’m fucking Catholic! There’s a heaven for
people who get murdered.”

“Not only is there no guarantee of that, but
everyone knows you could have fought Panos off if you really wanted
to. He wore you down, took you unawares, sure, but something in you
relished what you did to April. Taking power over someone else,
making changes than no savvy surgeon could ever undo, and having
your best friend, Darren, looking on because he didn’t have a
choice either. Bah! Choice, you both had it, you could have kept
fighting, but I heard you. I heard you screaming inside at first,
then you cried, weeping for your dear mother to save you, then your
God, then you just watched. You gave up until the knife turned on
you.”

“I didn’t like it!”

“The method, the bench in that old house,
the audience, the tools, no, you didn’t like any of that, but a
part of you enjoyed the doing, the taking, the cutting. We’re two
spirits here, do you think there can be any lies?”

“April was beautiful!”

“But not memorable,” the Gentleman
countered, a twinkle in his eye. “Now anyone who sees her will
remember, her face will follow them into nightmares, and that is
remarkable, is it not?”

“Fuck you!”

“Oh, I’m here with the truth and that’s what
I get? Are you and Maxwell both made to be ungrateful? I suppose
I’ll find out when I visit you in hell and wonder why you both
turned me down. There is too much doubt in your mind to prove to
anyone at the gates of the Grove that part of you didn’t like
carving into poor April. I am the help you need, but no, both you
and Maxwell slap my hand away.”

“What? What help?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific,
because I approached Maxwell, and he could have prevented this,”
the Gentleman whipped the curtain behind him aside, revealing
another bed where a young man was covered in bandages. His right
hand, his face, and there was obviously padding around his middle
under the blankets. “Now I’m approaching you, and I’m getting the
same message.”

Zachary stared at the bed and knew he was
looking at himself. A tube in his throat was forcing him to
breathe, and a monitor that displayed each beat of his heart. He
was alone in the dim light. “We’ve matched shoe prints from your
son to where we believe your son assaulted a young woman who was
admitted with similar injuries.” He heard an officer telling his
mother and father in the hall. “We have to ask, does your son have
a history of harming animals or keeping knives?”

“My son is not a monster,” Zachary heard his
father say. “How dare you insinuate that he could do this to
anyone. This was drugs. He got high and did this to himself.”

“I bet he hits Officer Tall-and-Handsome,”
the Gentleman said.

“I’m sorry, I interviewed and searched the
young man you said provided your son with his supply, but there
were no signs that he has engaged in trafficking. The doctors are
telling us that there’s no evidence of drugs in his system, but
they aren’t finished with their tests.”

“Get out of here! Can’t you just get out of
here?” Zachary’s mother wailed, slapping the shorter, older
Officer.

The pair of policemen stepped away, turned
and left. “Whoa, was I off,” the Gentleman said, drawing the
curtain. “Good thing I’m not a gambling man.”

“If I never wake up, I’ll never be able to
tell them,” Zachary said.

“I hate to tell you, but in a few minutes
the first of a bunch of blood clots are going to start roaming
around. The first will hit your brain, and then your heart. Those
surgeons did the best they could, but they could only do so much.
We’re on the clock. Don’t pass on what I’m offering like Maxwell
did.”

“You offered Max a deal? What could you
do?”

“Oh, you could not imagine, so I’ll give you
a hand. What’s the long note you like to hold on that song, Blazing
High? Think you could sing it for me?”

“What?”

“Just indulge me,” the Gentleman asked with
an inviting smile. “Close your eyes, start singing that note, and
open them before you’re finished. It’ll make you feel better, trust
me.”

It was the last thing he felt like doing,
but he was hallucinating, so he had nothing to lose. “Blazing
high!” he sung as he’d done so many times before. “Sooo Hiiiiiiii”
he continued, closing his eyes and extending the note.

The world around him changed, he was
standing, with a microphone in hand. The sounds of thousands
cheering drifted up, and the band was playing that last note, Scott
pounding a long drum roll, Bernie, Darren and Maxwell grinding the
last note of the song. When he opened his eyes he was on stage,
sweat running down his face, a full house in Boston Stadium, a
place he’d only visited when it was empty. He could feel the
excitement of the audience, people were trying to hold that last
note with him, eyes beyond counting followed his every twitch and
move.

He held it longer, mentally daring anyone in
the audience to beat him, listening to the band’s roar around him,
supporting his voice. Then he was out of breath, and he leapt up.
The final note of the song burst and ended as his feet landed on
the stage.

Just as suddenly, he was in the hospital
again, a machine breathing for him, a monitor tracking his heart,
and bandages covering his face. Zachary was back in the dark, the
Gentleman’s comforting voice in his ear. “He said no to a dream
that would have taken you with it, to glory, to fame, to riches and
success beyond anything you’ve ever dreamt. That is what Maxwell
cost you, even before this. Now you are about to die, and your
spirit will wander without my guidance, so I’m here to offer you a
deal.”

Zachary could feel his mother at his bedside
again, squeezing his hand, the cross between their palms. Her head
was down on the back of his hand. “Tell me you didn’t do it, Zack.
Just wake up long enough so you can tell me you didn’t do this to
that girl.”

“I can offer you three choices,” the
Gentleman said. “You die, a soul in the wind without direction. I
save you so you can see what life brings before I take you into my
arms when you die. The recovery will be painful, they’ll put you in
front of a judge, and they’ll convict you of attempted murder. They
won’t find enough drugs in your system to say it wasn’t your fault,
and a psychiatrist will find you sane, so they’ll put you in prison
like this – without lips, without a nose, and missing even more
than that. Then there’s the last choice, you let yourself die, and
I take your hand in mine. I live a life of true privilege, and
every once in a while I find a soul with such a lust for life, with
such charm and potential that I can’t resist. I have to make my
best offer to take you on, teach you the wheeling and dealing trade
for souls, and get you working for me. You want details? Good. I
teach you how these deals are made, how to charm people into giving
them such a sweet time that they gladly trade their souls for it.
Then you go on your own for a while, use my power to help spread
the love, and take a crop of souls for me that will make Lucifer
and Peter weep. You’ve got it in you, kid, I can feel it. I don’t
want to watch your soul get pulled off across that dark plain, so
I’m going to dumb down the fine print for you too. You are mine
until you trade for seventy souls under my supervision, using your
cunning, your charm and my goods. Then, with all that you’ve
learned, and the power you gather – and there will be power,
traders like us always find the best things when we make the most
of what people abandon for us – you will be free to make your own
destiny. Who knows? Maybe we keep working together, and we find a
way to shake down those pearly gates. You can always find someone
who is willing to make a deal. It’s paradise for a pittance, or you
can suffer. Become a bitch to someone in the wastes of the
afterlife, or in some prison cell. You give your mother’s hand
three squeezes if you’re down for option three.”