Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams (11 page)

“You know!” He
could see it in West’s face, although nothing had changed there, no
emotion, not even eye movement, but it was there. “You know that I
didn’t find anything. How? Why haven’t they asked me this? What the
fuck is going on with my life?” David wiped his eyes with the back
of his hand, slipping forward on the swing seat so the chain dug
painfully into his armpit. West walked behind the swing set, and
started to push David gently, the palms of his hands landing
between David’s shoulder blades on the back swing, then launching
him away.

“Your life Mr
Beach, has become inextricably entangled with the day to day
enterprises, industries, and affairs of angels and demons, the fey
and the foe, the gods and the monsters of this world.” He continued
to push David, his voice raising and lowering in pitch, as if the
words were a lullaby, “Agents Carmichael and McMahon occupy a world
within … an underworld, a subclass. You’ve written about these
things, and talked about them, but you have never even come close
to describing the true magnitude of that other world. You nurture a
fascination with conspiracy. I know, you read about the Templars,
the Freemasons, and the Illuminati, and you post your comments
about the moon landing, and JFK.” He pushed David a little harder,
stepping back to allow for the larger back swing, “Well here you
are, finally in the belly of the beast David. You’re being devoured
already, and you didn’t even notice the mouth closing behind you.
You didn’t see the light emptying out of your world. Your sister
compared you to Lee Harvey Oswald, and in some respects, the
comparison is an apt one, because there was a very single minded
attention to that man; however, he was found and arrested quickly,
and murdered in plain view of the whole world. You’ve been
questioned and monitored, and yet your name hasn’t come up once in
the news, not because of your role within the government, but
because they don’t know whether or not you were involved. They
don’t know David. Do you understand how important that is?”

David couldn’t
speak. He was embarrassed to admit to himself that he didn’t really
understand, certainly not in that moment. He was too afraid to jump
up from the swing seat, even though everything in him said that
this was exactly what he should do. The voice went on, soft Doppler
of doom, waves of insanity drowning out David’s capacity for
reason, “I had thought at first that perhaps this was all part of
Tiernan’s grand plan. Beyond De Somnio Mirifico, we can not know
his designs for the world. It has become increasingly obvious that
you represent an unknown quantity for them, something that lies
beyond the scope of any plans of theirs. You are in grave
danger.”

David felt the
man’s hands on the small of his back, slowing the motion of the
swing, but still pushing him, “I need you to do something for me,
but before I ask it of you, I need you to understand that death is
everywhere about you now. They will kill you without question or
hesitation, and what is more, they will kill everyone you hold
dear, and their wrath will not be born of malice, but of ignorance.
In the van out front, Agents Carmichael and McMahon are not dead
and it’s only a matter of time before they wake. Upon waking, their
actions will be swift and unyielding, so you must steel yourself
against questions of morality, or hesitations of the heart. They
will murder you, they will murder your daughter, and they will
erase every piece of evidence that you were ever part of this
world. Do you understand me?”

A dry,
crackling wheeze escaped David’s throat, and he nodded.

West smiled,
“Good. Now David, you know of the cliffs at Calvert, the ones that
overlook the Chesapeake Bay?”

And David
listened, while West’s hands pushed him deeper into the belly of
the beast.

Charlene was awake
with the sound of the first birds. She hadn’t been woken by the
morning chorus for the longest time and it brought a smile to her
face. She had slept above the covers, the unbearable heat of the
eiderdown making it impossible to fall into a heavy sleep. She sat
up and stretched her arms and felt a dull, but pleasant ache
running through the muscles in her shoulders and upper back. She
swung her legs over the side of her Edwardian four post bed and
felt the deep pile of the rug against the balls of her feet and her
toes.

Her parents,
both of them had visited her dreams, and as the memory returned to
her, she felt a moment’s melancholy. She had spent the night
weaving in and out of events throughout her life, in a way that she
hadn’t experienced in years, and now that she was awake, it seemed
almost sad to have to come away from all those cherished memories,
even if experienced in that surreal mist of sleep.

She relaxed her
shoulders, lowering her hands slowly, pausing to look at them, and
she was fascinated and shaken by what she saw. She pulled her legs
back onto the bed, and lay face down staring at her hands and arms
up close, marveling at the millions of intricate changes that had
been wrought through the night. She had grown familiar with the
pits and valleys of veins and tendons over the years, the little
whorls and wrinkles, the liver spots and calluses. She had worked
eight years in a munitions plant, hands yellowing with oxides as
she coughed up bile and evil every night. She had learned her way
around a car engine when lack of money or a good man had
necessitated it. Her hands bore no evidence, no mark of these small
battles now, no sign of the callused palms of a woman who had
lugged mail sacks in a depot for a year, listening to the coarse
and curse laden ramblings of the other postal workers.

Where were the
white lines of fibrous tissue, the scars which had run the length
of her arms after her car crash in seventy-six? Those scars had run
a more disastrous path across her body, the zigzag line drawn in
flesh by the car door as it ripped and dragged across the skin of
her chest. Charlene hunched up now on her elbows and pulled back
the neckline of her long nightgown, and she sobbed deeply with an
insane mixture of joy and confusion as she examined the pure,
smooth skin.

When hunger
finally drove her from the confines of her bed, Charlene walked to
the kitchenette and looked in dismay at her refrigerator which was
almost completely bereft of food. She had eaten a lot the day
before, she knew that, but she hadn’t realized quite how much. She
was desperately hungry now though, her stomach turning in knots.
She thought about what West had told her the day before, his
suggestion that she shouldn’t leave the apartment. How much harm
could it really do to nip out and get some food? She walked to the
bathroom to freshen up and at the first sight of her reflection in
the mirror, she was reminded of the story of Narcissus, the hunter
who was so enamored of his own reflection that he died gazing at
himself in a pool. She was sure that if she didn’t leave the
apartment to find food, she would certainly fall to a similar fate.
Even though she knew the answer, she still wondered how she could
have been so affected over the course of one afternoon and one
night of restless dreams.

The bathroom
had been fitted some years ago with a walk in shower, her joints
too weak for getting in and out of the bathtub, but she had kept
the bath as well. Even though the bathroom was barely large enough
to accommodate both, she just couldn’t bear to part with the large
copper bath which had been part of the makeup of the apartment
since 1973. She eyed the bathtub now with an excited intake of
breath.

“Double dare
you, you old ninny.” She spoke the words aloud, as an incantation
to give her courage and then she walked to the bathtub and turned
the stainless steel knob with the ivory crest embossed with a black
‘H’. She allowed her lace embroidered nightie to fall to the floor
of the bathroom, although it would take more than an incantation to
summon the courage to look at herself fully yet. She leaned over
the tub, picking up the chain attached to the plastic plug,
allowing the plug to dangle into position and fall into place in
its hole. As the hot water washed against her arm, she noticed a
small bulge beneath the skin and it appeared to move towards the
heat. Higher up her arm, a second bulge raised briefly under the
skin of her forearm and it too moved. She sat on the side of the
bath, holding herself steady with her left hand on the enameled
rim.

Where the
muscles of her left arm tensed, her attention was drawn now to the
ripple of three more small bulging shapes moving beneath the skin
and she watched as the skin of her arm seemed to pucker in
slightly, being sucked subdermally by … What? Not that she would
undo this magic, but there had been one leech and West had assured
her that a glass of salt water would drive it out of her system.
Had he known? Had he left her to undergo this change, knowing how
complete it would be? These were questions she didn’t know the
answers to, but looking at what was happening to her body, she had
little doubt; that single leech had somehow reproduced.

She felt the
warmth coming up from the bathtub behind her and she leaned over
and twisted the cold tap on full blast for a few seconds, then
standing and leaning over the bath, she plunged her arm into the
hot water and swirled it about before turning off both taps. Only
then, as she climbed into the bath, did she allow herself to look
fully and unabashed at her body. For sure, she thought as she lay
down, this was not her body. She grinned, bent her knees and
allowed her head to submerge in the delicious heat of the
water.

For the first two
miles of the drive to Calvert, it was conspicuously clear that
David had never driven a van. Curbing the rear wheel at every
corner, then over correcting and veering into the middle of the
road, David was certain that he would be pulled over if he happened
to pass a traffic cop. The cleaning supplies rattling around in the
back of the van did nothing to help his nerves. Cleaning supplies
he told himself, repeating the words over and over. Cleaning
supplies … not unconscious FBI agents. Certainly not dark denizens
of a heretofore unknown place of torment. Thump, crash went the
brooms. David wiped the sweat from his forehead and rolled down the
window, glancing at both side mirrors as he flipped on the turn
signal.

David had been
to Calvert Cliffs a couple of times before, fossil hunting with
Stephanie. He had been hesitant to contradict West, but he was sure
that his plan would be pretty much impossible. West’s instructions
came with dire warnings that Carmichael and McMahon’s shift change
was at eleven. He drove up and down a long stretch of Solomon’s
Island Road, convinced he hadn’t gone far enough, when he finally
saw the turn off for the neighborhood West had mentioned. Sure
enough, there were several houses on plots of land with well-kept
lawns, each of which presented a good runway from which to launch a
van. He pulled up against the curb, turned off the engine, and sat
looking out over the bay. The waters were calm, and the sun, still
low on the horizon, bathed the bay in a warm glow. David could
almost imagine that everything was right with the world.

Then he heard
it … a distinctive squeaking sound behind him, accompanied by the
gentlest rocking motion. He couldn’t move. At the periphery of his
senses, he was aware of the sound of air rushing past his ears,
aware of his white knuckles, aware of the pulse of his blood
flowing through his fingertips, clasped tight on the steering
wheel. Squeak … that particular noise, rubber, or flesh, and either
way, horrifying. Squeak … His heart hammered through muscle and
bone, a repetitive deafening thud, and he knew that if it could,
his heart would leap free of its cage and slam onto the
accelerator. Then thud, directly behind his head, so loud that
David screamed, his right hand grabbing the key, turning it in the
ignition, his right foot slamming down hard on the accelerator as
his scream became a guttural yell.

He looked at
the tree line ahead of him, and he knew that this was impossible.
There was no way. He could drive this line a hundred times, and hit
a tree every time. Thudding behind him, hammering, the sound of a
male voice, yelling bloody murder, wishing hell’s wrath and
damnation on him. The van lurched, and David’s chest slammed
against the steering wheel, his head snapping forward sharply.
Focus. He managed to keep the accelerator floored, his eyes fixing
on a gap. He held the wheel with his left hand, and reaching out to
his right, he felt for the tool chest. The cool metal handle
grasped hard, he heaved the toolkit off the seat, felt its sharp
edge scraping down his shin, felt it’s crushing weight tumbling
over his foot, but none of that mattered. Focus. He took his eyes
off the gap in the trees, and quickly caught site of the dash
instruments. Thirty, thirty-two, he knew he had to jump now. The
yelling, two voices now in chorus, four fists hammering and
pounding the metal behind his head, as his left hand reached for
the door handle, and then as he started to pitch his body sideways,
he heard the popping, tearing sound of the metal giving way.

It felt like
every part of him hit the dirt and grass with equal force. He had
broken everything. Definitely everything. He managed to open his
eyes in time to see the van clip one of the trees, then tip onto
two wheels as it sailed over the edge of the cliffs. Not perfect,
and he was damned if he was going anywhere near the edge to check
that the thing was sinking.

Nope.

Not a
chance.

Fuck.

That.

Then clearer
thoughts came to him. He had to move, had to get out of there. Oh
God, those sounds. The shouting, and pounding. He’d just killed.
Actually killed two men. Then an even darker thought tore through
his body, and with that thought, David Beach was on his feet, and
he could feel no pain.