The Gathering Dark (2 page)

Though he was tall, the bartender was thin and bony, his face edged like granite. He had an inch or so of bristly hair on his head and a well-groomed goatee that made him look almost severe. A Chinese dragon was tattooed on his throat, its tail wrapped around his neck before ending at the base of his skull.

As though he had sensed the attention on him, Bradenton glanced at Octavian. His expression became grim and he excused himself from the press of flesh. Another bartender filled the void almost instantly. The bare-breasted woman never bothered to put her top back on.

“Peter,” Bradenton said when they met up at the far end of the bar.

“You know I don’t do this sort of thing anymore,” Octavian said gravely, eyeing the other man carefully.

“It’s serious, amigo, and I don’t need this crap in my bar.”

Several seconds ticked by as the men stared at one another. At length, Octavian dipped his head and then nodded once.

“Great! Oh, man, thanks so much.”

Bradenton stepped back a bit, grabbed a bottle of Crown Royal, and poured a shot. He slid it across the counter to Octavian, who tossed it back without a word. The glass clinked on the mahogany bar as he set it down.

“Anyway,” the bartender went on, “the stuff in the papers about this magician guy? Calls himself Mr. Nowhere?”

“I’ve read the coverage.” Already, Octavian began to scan the bar for some sign of malevolence, something out of place.

“He’s here,” Bradenton said, voice low.

Octavian gave him a hard look. “So?”

Uncertain, Bradenton poured him another shot. “You’ve read about him. He’s made people disappear in five different bars in the city. Makes a big deal about it, like he’s some old-time stage magician. Makes them disappear in front of crowds of people, and they never come back.”

The man scratched at the dragon’s tail tattooed on the back of his neck. “I’ve seen him do it, Peter. Twice in here in the last week.”

“Why don’t you call the cops?” Octavian asked dismissively.

He left the shot on the table and took a step back, out of the immediate range of the lights above the bar. Something was in here, he felt that now. Something that shouldn’t be. Better to be in the shadows, to watch from the dark.

“You haven’t seen him do it, man. This shit is real. Nothing the cops can do. But you—”

“I helped you once, Bradenton. Doesn’t mean I make a habit of it.”

The bartender stared at him. There was something in his expression, more than disappointment, almost disgust, that made Octavian bristle with both anger and humiliation. Once he would have killed the man for the look in his eyes.

“You know all this shit,” Bradenton said. “Magick.”

Octavian sighed tiredly and turned away from the bar. As an afterthought he turned and tossed back the second shot of Crown Royal after all. Then he closed his eyes and let his senses focus on the dark presence in the room.

After a moment he opened his eyes and strode across The Voodoo Lounge to a far corner. At a round table, a gallant-looking old man with silver hair and a black cane sat encircled by a dozen people or more.

“Indeed,” the man said. “It is among the highest forms of magick. Physical translocation. Most magicians never achieve it. To me, well, not to brag, but it’s little more than a parlor trick. I’ve been at this game for quite some time.”

A chill ran through Octavian; fear like an itch at the back of his brain. Dread swept over him in a crash, then receded like a wave upon the shore. Mr. Nowhere, the media called him. Typical, to give such an unsettling figure a show business name. Yet here he was, bedecked in the image of show business, albeit an image stolen from bygone days, the elegant stage magicians and prestidigitators of nearly a century earlier.

Beneath the magician’s voice was a rasping, angry sound, a swarm of bees, the revving of a racer’s engine.

Octavian hated to be afraid.

He stepped forward, insinuated himself among the small throng around the magician. They gazed in adoration at the charming old man, as though they could possibly not have heard the stories in the media. But this was a modern age, and nothing on television could be perceived as truly real. Everything seemed somehow contrived, even the worst tragedies, the most heinous crimes. Fiction and reality were almost indistinguishable to these people. They sensed no danger.

Fools.

“Where do you put them?” he asked, voice clipped, cold.

The magician glanced up. His eyes twinkled merrily. “They’re all quite safe, I assure you. All part of the show.”

“That’s not what the authorities think. How long do you think you’ll be able to pretend they’re coming back?”

The smile slipped from the magician’s face as if it had never been there, an illusion no less stunning than levitation or sleight of hand. People began to back away, and Octavian had to revise his opinion of them. Fools they might be, but they could feel the danger now, could sense that a battle had begun.

“Perhaps I ought to show you how the trick works,” the magician suggested.

He had a thin white mustache so fine that Octavian had not noticed it at first, and as he spoke, he stroked his fingers across it like the villain from an old Hollywood serial.

Octavian scraped the back of his hand across the stubble on his chin. He stood like a gunfighter, legs slightly parted, long canvas duster draped across his body.

“Try me.”

With a laugh, the magician glanced at his audience, who had backed away even further. They were anxious, even scared, but they wouldn’t stray so far that they would not be able to witness the outcome. The music in The Voodoo Lounge had changed from reggae to old blues. B. B. King sang “The Thrill Is Gone” on the sound system. Other customers began to move closer, trying to figure out what was going on.

“Excellent,” the old man said. “Pay attention, my young friends. You’ll never see magick like this again in your lives.”

With a flourish of his hand, the old man sketched a symbol in the air. Like the neon in the windows, the symbol took form, began to glow, and to flow like mercury.

“Now you see him,” the magician said, and the sound of angry bees that buzzed beneath his voice increased.

A flick of his wrist, and the symbol hanging in the air flowed toward Octavian. With a single motion, he sidestepped the burning energy, duster flapping as he moved. His fingers steepled together, both hands shot out and he captured that energy between his palms.

He gave the magician a hard look, then crushed its glow between his hands. With a pop, it was snuffed out. The stench of brimstone rose from his fingers.

The magician gaped at him a moment, and it was almost comical. Then terror swept the old man’s features, his face etched with it.

“I’m still here,” Octavian told him. “Now, bring them back.”

The buzzing grew louder and the old man’s face began to change, to grow ugly. “Fuck off, mage. So you’ve got your own little parlor tricks. You don’t have the power to challenge me. They’re mine now. All of them. And more where they came from.”

A sad smile blossomed on the face of Peter Octavian. He glanced at the fascinated crowd. “Pay attention,” he said. “Now you see him . . .”

All that time, his hands had been held before him as if in prayer. Now he opened them, fingers contorted in a gesture of ancient power. A flash of bright blue light burst from his hands.

The old man was gone.

In his place was a hideous creature whose flesh seemed hard as rock, edges sharp as diamonds, skin so red it was almost black. Jagged ridges ran in two identical strips up its face and across its leathery skull. Its belly was enormous as though it were grotesquely pregnant.

Screams drowned out the music.

People ran.

“
Now
you see him,” Octavian repeated softly.

Blue light arced from his hands again and this time he seemed to dance with it, a series of steps and hand motions that were almost balletic. He spun around, the energy trailing off his fingers in ribbons.

With it, he sliced open the creature’s vast stomach.

A wet, hollow sound echoed in the room and the demon screamed. For a moment its innards seemed endless, an entire world contained in the recesses of its gut. Then, one by one, five people spilled out, covered in a rancid sort of afterbirth. They choked and wept, and one of them vomited, but they were alive.

What remained of the demon burst into flames, but it was already dead.

Someone shouted for a fire extinguisher.

Octavian turned and strode toward the door. The place was silent now, save for the music. The patrons of The Voodoo Lounge had gathered round in horror and awe, but now, as he headed for the door, they parted to let him pass. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the topless woman again. Suddenly uncomfortable with her nakedness, she covered her breasts with her arms and looked at the floor.

Afraid of him.

It was the thing he hated most, for people to be afraid of him. He would not be able to come in here anymore.

Bradenton and Agamemnon met him at the door.

“Peter, that was . . . holy shit, man, that was amazing.”

Octavian ignored him. Instead, he glanced regretfully at Agamemnon, of whom he was quite fond.

“You won’t see me here again.” Agamemnon nodded silently. The mage turned up his collar and stepped out into the icy, driving rain.

A light spring breeze whispered down off the mountains and gently swayed the hand-carved chimes that hung outside the propped-open door of Sweet Somethings. The music the wind drew from those crafty wooden flutes was far subtler than what might have come from any of the metals often used to forge such elegant creations. It lingered in the air and suggested to the mind images of faraway places, of hot afternoons in some remote village in southeast Asia, of pipe music played by Pan or Pip.

Or, at least, that was what the chimes suggested to Keomany Shaw, the woman who had hung them there in the first place.

This early in the morning it was almost too cold to have the door of her confectionary shoppe wide open, but Keomany did not mind the goosebumps that rose on her arms or the chill that crept tendril fingers up beneath her sweater and light cotton jersey. As a fresh breeze blew through the shoppe, she gave a delicious shiver and a smile teased the edges of her mouth.

She stood in the middle of the shoppe with a clump of paper toweling in one hand and a bottle of Windex in the other. Showcases filled with homemade fudge and hand-dipped chocolates gleamed. Displays of penny candies and jellybeans were tidied—errant mixtures repaired before closing the night before and steel scoops ready in each plastic dispenser. Candles and chimes and the little gift items she carried were free of dust, as were the shelves upon which they sat.

The air was laden with the deep, rich aroma of chocolate, a fragrance almost as delicious to her as that of the earth itself on a fine spring day. A day like this one.

May Day.

Keomany did a little pirouette, as if the wooden chimes outside the open door were her musical accompaniment, and then flushed slightly as she glanced out through the display window to be sure she had not been seen. A twinkle in her eye, she went out to the sidewalk to clean the front window and the glass door. When she stepped outside Sweet Somethings, though, Keomany could not help but pause and glance around her.

How could I ever have left here?
she thought.

The village of Wickham was nestled snugly among the mountains of northern Vermont, just over an hour south of the Canadian border and even farther from the nearest thing that could legitimately be considered a city. After high school Keomany had returned to Wickham as infrequently as possible, despite her parents’ pleas, and after college she had managed to ensconce herself in the publicity department of Phoenix Records for three full years without setting foot on Currier Street. The little half-English, half-Cambodian girl might have drawn strange looks and whispers in northern New England, but New York City had barely noticed her.

For the longest time Keomany had thought she wanted it that way. Yet what a revelation to discover that it made her feel lost, without identity.

She stood now on the curb of Currier Street and her gaze slid along the storefronts—the ski shops and mom-and-pops and restaurants, The Lionheart Pub, Harrison’s Video, The Bookmark Café, and the Currier Street Theater—and she felt more at home than she had felt since becoming a teenager. In the six months since she had moved back to Wickham, Keomany had felt this way more and more each day. Sweet Somethings was her place. Wickham was her town.

Her old life had somehow become her new life. It was a revelation. Though there were still cell phones in evidence and the whole town was wired for the Net, and in spite of the tourists that spilled into town for the skiing in the winter and for the kayaking and hiking in the summer, for the most part, Wickham still felt the way she imagined it had when her grandparents had been children here.

Her gaze went to the mountains then and for a long moment Keomany could not look away. The first of May, and the world was in bloom. Every breeze was redolent with the rich scents of the green coming back to the trees and the fields, the blossoming of flowers, and the heavy, pungent smell of coffee beans roasting at the Bookmark three doors down.