Outside of the Fox Hunt country club the royalty of East Tennessee golf society slowly begin to gather, waiting for the long summer day to die, for the darkness to become sufficient to allow for the fireworks. With the catering, bartending, and the massive pyrotechnic setup, it’s one of the few events of the year that the rarified citizens of Fox Hunt mingle with the common folk who serve their food and clean their houses and, on this occasion, blow stacks off of deliberately constructed black powder tubes.
All of that is forgotten to the young Tim Hanes, though, as he sneaks behind the safety cordon the fireworks team has put up to keep out the curious. Tim watches the rockets launch into the air with some indifference until something goes wrong. He knows something is amiss before it happens, watching the firebugs scramble in a panic for a few seconds before leaping away from a shadowed pile that is nothing more than a silhouette to Tim.
But then the pile transforms into a burning explosion, all of its stars hurling burning the ground instead of the night air. It’s as close as Tim has ever been to real danger and it freezes him solid, the heat of the chaff flying by him, phosphorous flares raining down around him, inches from his face. He’s not hurt by any of it, but it burns him nonetheless, the placidity, the privilege, the comfort of his position peeling away from him as the shockwave washes over him.
When he plunges into war, years later, against the protests of parents, priests, and peers, he thinks of that moment, never really having left it, and never tells anyone of it.
To start at the beginning go here. To hear an audio reading of the chapter, hit the play button below.
I only stared at Satre, wondering if he had lost his mind. Outside of the horsewhipping that he gave to Mitnick, this was the most emotion I had ever seen out of him. Both instances, some part of me noted, involved the other gangster.
After an uncomfortably long minute, Sartre wiped a tear away and said, “Perhaps they are smarter than I thought. How would they do such a thing?”
I tried not to stare at Sartre, but to just report with the same feigned indifference of a soldier making report to an insane dictator. “They think if they get a message to her on behalf of Lanzo she’ll sneak out and come to them. But instead of a romantic rendezvous they grab her.” I guessed at that last part, but it suited their style.
“And hide her away somewhere in our fair city while Mitnick loses his mind.” Sartre covered his lips as he said this, stifling more laughter.
“Until he gives up some prescribed amount of money.” With Sartre returning to a reasonably sane state, I still felt like the adult in the room. I didn’t like it.
Sartre peered out his window into the night’s blackness, recovering his composure. “And what does Lanzo think of this plan?”
The same question had occurred to me and I wondered what Sartre’s motivations were for asking it. Was it because the Corsican might be a possible complication? Or because he felt something for the boy? Unsure, I answered honestly, “I don’t think he knows about it. I suspect his buddies may do their best to dress it up as a rescue attempt if that’s what it takes to get him to go along.”
Face in profile against the distant lights of the loading dock, Sartre gave a ghost of a smile. Whatever that meant, he kept it to himself. “And what do you think of this plan?”
“I think it’s dangerous.”
A sardonic specter of Sartre’s grin floated its way over to me. “All profitable efforts are.”
I nodded, acknowledging the truth of the statement. “I think it’s doomed to failure without your assistance. It might be doomed anyway and I think you need to be prepared for Mitnick finding out you were involved.” Partly out of not wanting to be presumptuous and partly out of the hope he might not I added, “If you decide to get involved.”
Sartre turned to stare at me with his grey eyes, piercing in that half-light to a level of physical discomfort. That was something I was accustomed to, though, so I waited until Sartre gave a final laughing grunt that shook all of him but his gaze. “It would be great fun,” he concluded, presumably speaking of tweaking Mitnick’s nose. “C’est pas le moment. Tell them ‘no’.”
I nodded, trying not to show my relief. Thinking of the Citroen, I decided to throw in another wrinkle. “What do you want me to tell Atwell?”
Sartre eyes flared up, the ghost of his expression becoming a heated reminder of his anger from the casino. “He must know of this?”
I shrugged, letting my powerlessness work to my advantage for once. “If he becomes unhappy with me, I go back to prison.” I was, after all, receiving payment for services rendered. In that way, I wasn’t all that different than the other players in this fiasco.
In an echo of Mitnick’s actions, Sartre reached into his blazer pocket and removed a large wad of euros. Peeling off a number of bills, he held them out in the air between us. “Atwell does not need to know for now. Perhaps what you have learned about Mitnick will keep him happy for a time.”
I eyed the money then brought my stare back to Sartre, feeling an old familiar anger begin to simmer inside me. I had liked him once – his old school cool that swung to a crazy angry, his insistence on remaining his own man, his indifference to rumors that the town produced about him. But this was a good reminder he wasn’t any different than Mitnick, or Atwell. I was the same as the women, or the police, or anyone else in this town, a thing to be bought and sold. I sat there and let myself feel that anger until it might have been dangerous to not do something else.
I took the money, folding the bills into a wad I could fit in my pocket. I noted it was large enough that it would still produce an “are you happy to see me” bulge for anyone paying attention. The money secured away, I nodded at Sartre while I made multiple decisions at once. Instead of voicing any of that I said, “OK. I’ll let Jasper know when I’ve spoken to them.”
Sartre nodded, smiling a smile that was meant to indicate happiness, but held none. “Good, good.”
Sensing that was all that Sartre wanted for now, I spoke before the car door opened. “Mitnick asked if I knew where Sergei was. He knows he’s not in that pipe anymore.”
The specter of anger rose back into Sartre’s eyes, a hostility at a perhaps not unexpected wrinkle. “What did you tell him?”
“I didn’t. I asked about Nika and got these bruises.” I shrugged, finally giving into the urge in a calculated move to seem ineffectual. “Besides, I think he knows where he is.”
Sartre passed over my comment about Nika, his grey eyes becoming lidded with suspicion, uncertain of this new information. “Why do you say this?”
“Just in the way he asked.” I shrugged again. Now that I had given in, it was impossible to control the impulse. “I mean, he asked if I knew where Sergei was. How did he even know I knew about Sergei?”
Sartre gave this a long, slow thought. “It is good you told me this.” He gestured to a rook, unseen beyond the tinted glass, standing in the night. The car door popped open with the sound of a vacuum seal.
I grinned, an idiot happy to help. Stepping out of the car, I turned around to give Sartre a grin, patting the money in my pocket. “I think I’ll take the rest of the night off.” Without waiting for a reply I started to walk down the road instead of back to the casino. Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I tried to put a spring into my step, like any loser done good.
A minute later, perhaps enough time for some hurried consultations and instructions, the blue-white headlights of all three sedans sped by me, splashing me slightly from the water that had collected on the road. I stood there, watching the cars fade away, feeling the dirty water soak into my work pants. Cheryl’s voice mentioned that it might stain.
If I had any second thoughts about what I was going to do next they evaporated right there, covered as I was by others’ inconsideration. Once I was certain that there was enough distance that I wouldn’t be seen, instead of running home or going inside to wash the leg out, I broke into a sprint, headed towards the yellow Citroen.
Atwell was too busy watching Sartre’s party leave to notice me until I had ripped open the passenger side door and dropped in like a wrecking ball. I would have liked to take a moment to enjoy his surprise, but instead I growled at him, “Follow those cars.”
Lazarus of Bethany, Saint Lazarus, Lazarus of the Four Days, Righteous Lazarus, hated Halloween. It wasn’t that he didn’t like candy or children or costumes. On the contrary, he found all of those things delightful. However, in his long association with the Earth, the celebratory night had only recently taken on any of those characteristics. The Celts, those stubborn and troublesome people, had long ago laid the foundation of All Hallow’s Eve to mark the darkening of the year. In their blasphemous veneration of the dead, they had weakened the veil between the awake and the sleeping. And someone had to clean that mess up.
As someone who had stood in both the land of the living and the dead, it had been decided that Lazarus was the one to do it. As the new order of the Nazarene came to pass, the old traditions were viewed anew, but even the transformation of the pagan holiday into a Christian vigil hadn’t swayed its unearthly powers. In the end, moving around the globe to sweep up old martyrs and spirits back into the rightful place of the dead wasn’t any easier than helping families put grandma back in the ground.
Worst of all, Lazarus couldn’t start work until after midnight. He had always been a morning person.
It always ended where it began, though, and so he took his bare feet and walked the old roads of Eurasia. He headed west, making his usual visit to Lady Catherine and the other caoineag. Their incessant wailing could only be bested by bagpipes, which he picked up from the Glencoa boys long ago. Fortunately, those old soldiers were only too happy to see Lazarus and be put back in the ground. The old Continent certainly had its share of the headless or handless. Countless centuries of butchery had given rise to ghosts that only Lazarus’ lifetime of experience under the Romans had prepared him for.
The First People of the Americas rarely needed any help from him as they had been shouting restless spirits into the Western sky long before Lazarus was born. The rest of the population had stubborn and disjointed ghosts, particularly the East Coasts’ Puritan ancestors. A few recitations from the Book of Common Prayer, though, particular one inscribed by the angel Malak, sent those old killers packing.
Around the Pacific, the qaitu were involved in everyday life, so All Hallow’s Eve wasn’t special for them, but the thinning of the veil meant that sometimes a bygone mother could become a bit overbearing. Sitting down with those old matrons and asking for images of their grandchildren that had passed was usually enough to make them wistful to return to the Legendary Place.
Asia had the most terrible ghosts, at least to Lazarus’ reckoning. Avenging ghosts, drowned ghosts, hopping ghosts, cannibal ghosts, baby ghosts, vampire ghosts, and every ghost with a gaping wound. Fortunately, this meant the land was filled with peoples that had spent generations acquiring knowledge of how to dispel such angry dead, so typically Lazarus only needed to escort the defeated back through the veil.
It was only towards the end when he arrived in the Mohandiseen district that he found the one he venerated. Down narrow Egyptian streets he found an establishment with Japanese lanterns hanging outside. Inside was a well traveled man competent with chopsticks after years of practice. Lazarus only smiled at the old one and said, “How is it that you always get out?”
The old man finished chewing and then raised his eyes to the ceiling. “From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry.”
“You’re a long way from Nineveh.”
“So was the ocean,” the eater replied with a knowing smile. He respectfully set down his chopsticks and wiped his mouth. “But I suppose I should get ready to leave.”
Lazarus smiled, and leaned forward to whisper in the other man’s ear in a conspiratorial tone. “Well, I might need your help.”
“How do you mean?”
“There’s a weird one out on this Allhallowtide. An etemmu on the loose. An old slain god that was left in human flesh, so he thinks he’s human.”
“Hard to banish a ghost who thinks he’s human.”
“Exactly.”
The sushi-eater raised his eyes towards the ceiling again. “What a strange world.”
“Indeed. Can I get your help?”
“Of course. Let me finish my kujira and we can go.”
To start at the beginning go here. To hear an audio reading of the chapter, hit the play button below.
Things that are normally mundane take on an unfamiliar cast when you head into danger, some mix of heightened senses and paranoia turning the ordinary into the potentially menacing. Walking through the back halls of the casino I thought I noticed a higher number of non-employees, particularly shady men who kept their eyes on the money with women who kept having to pinch at their hemlines to keep them from riding up too high. I wondered if Sartre was greasing his relationship with the town’s elites with more sex than usual or if he had opened up a new line of business in blackmail. By the time I had opened the clanking metal door to the loading dock, I decided it didn’t much matter to me anyway. It did make me think of Sophie, though, and all her contradictions: Non-judgmental, protective, kind, capable of great savagery.
Outside the night was still cold and impenetrably black beyond the fluorescents that dotted the empty loading dock with islands of light. A few dozen yards away a car flashed its blue-white headlights. I jumped down off the dock and walked towards it, the evening mist making me wish I had brought the umbrella. Walking in the rain I noticed a Citroen BX parked a ways down the road, old and idle, looking like it had always been there.
In Sartre’s cavalcade there were three cars, sleek and black, with one of Sartre’s rooks close. Tall and black in skin as well as clothes, he opened the rear door of the sedan for me. The stout Frenchman was inside, dressed in a suit that might have been as expensive as the car. He was slightly disheveled, which suggested I might have interrupted something, which would also explain why he didn’t look happy to see me. No one did lately, so I didn’t let that slow me down. I slipped inside, sitting opposite Sartre so we could look at each other as we spoke.
Sartre waited for his rook to close the door then said, “You have the air of the half-dead.” For a moment I thought he was telling me that I smelled. The confusion on my face caused him to gesture to my bruises.
“Yeah,” I said, rubbing my chin. “I picked these up asking around about our friend.” Sergei’s bloated corpse chose that moment to float back up into my mind. I clenched my teeth and banished it.
Sergei smiled slightly, either my suffering or my news bringing him some small joy. “Then you have found something. What have you found?”
I glanced around the interior of the car, thinking about how easy it would be to bug. Then I thought about Atwell and the other layers of protection Sartre must have. Hell, he had gotten away with that stunt in the casino. So I stopped worrying about surveillance and said, “Sergei was with Mitnick’s crew, but he was from a different outfit. Somewhere in the south, Georgia or Chechnya.
“He was watching a girl being kept in Mitnick’s house, name of Nika. She’s important to someone, maybe Mitnick. Sergei let her fall into the wrong company and Mitnick had him killed to make an example.”
Sartre blinked so slowly it might not have happened, his hand holding up his head, index finger framing the side of his face. His tone was flat, without commitment. “Wrong company?”
I nodded. “The Idiots you saw me with at the Factory. One of them is named Lanzo Moreau. Apparently, he and Nika met while she was slumming at the Factory and hooked up.” I thought about Lanzo drunk and screaming for her, the honest pain in his voice. “It may have been more than that.” The lack of expression on Sartre’s face suggested he didn’t understand. “Young love,” I added, producing a cynical grin from Sartre. “Mitnick didn’t approve.” I gave the whole thing some extra thought and added, “I’m not sure why he just didn’t kill Lanzo.”
Sartre straightened his tie. “I knew the boy’s father. Perhaps Mitnick was aware of this.” That certainly explained the reaction of his uncle back at the moto shop. Hearing Sartre say this, though, it felt like something more important that I didn’t quite grasp.
“Or it may not have served the purpose that Mitnick wanted.” I threw out that guess without really knowing why. Maybe I found the idea that Mitnick was so intimately familiar with the town’s workings that he knew its genealogy to be more disturbing than I wanted to consider. I doubted Rotella and the police had reconnaissance that good.
Sartre stared steadily at me, the smile gone, his eyes only breaking with blinks so infrequent it felt like watching a sculpture. Under that evaluating stare, I was glad I hadn’t done anything to cross him yet. “And you are certain of this?”
“That Mitnick had Sergei killed?” I resisted the urge to shrug, keeping my frame straight. I took stock of everything I had learned then replied, “I’m as certain as I can be without a confession.”
“Does your lack of confession keep you from knowing why Mitnick tried to flush this man out into the ocean?”
I made the obvious guess. “To send a message, to let everyone know what happens when you fail him.” I had another theory, but I decided to keep that to myself for a little longer.
Sartre didn’t frown or smile, neither satisfied or unhappy. “Anything else that I should be aware?”
Still uncertain if it was a good idea, I decided to keep my word to Max. “Well, the Idiots want to kidnap her for ransom.”
That perked him up. Sartre’s eyes jumped to mine, as if he could snatch the truth from them. There was a quick intake of breath, like a predator catching a scent. “Pardon?” he asked as if he had simply failed to hear me.
“The Idiots, the other Corsican, Max, and the Turk and the Algerians, want to grab Nika and ransom her back to Mitnick.” I kept my tone level, trying not to let my contradictory thoughts on this poorly thought-out plan show.
Another slow blink from Sartre, “They told you this?”
I nodded.
“Why did they tell you?”
I rolled my eyes towards the ceiling, minutely suggesting the idea I was about to put forth was beyond my powers of comprehension. “They thought I might be able to help. They saw us talking at the Factory and asked me to pass it on to you.”
Sartre covered his mouth with his hand and chuckled through it. The clucking grew until he took it away to laugh in growing volume. His eyes widened as his laugh got louder, going from the dispassionate slits to engorged orbs, the grey in them shot through with veins like red lightening. I only had to stop staring at this when he laughed at the ceiling like I had told him the best bar joke. He then leaned forward, eyes bulging, laughing in my direction, as if urging me to join in. Or he could have been about to eat me. It was hard to tell.
There was one rule to the simple orphanage and that was, “We don’t go down in the cellar.” Ginger, an old woman with hair like a fading sunset, had told Charlie the rule while standing in front of the doorless basement. A breeze, warm and damp, issued out of it. There was nothing about the darkness beyond that made him want to go down, so he had obeyed the rule.
Until Chrissy had disappeared. And then Jonathan. Charlie began looking for a way to leave, but Ginger locked all the doors and windows whenever she left and somehow watched everyone when present.
So one night, when Ginger was in a sleep so deep she might have been dead, Charlie grabbed his hat and coat. He stood at the top of the stairs, looking into the cellar, open like a throat. He went down, uncertain of what he would find, paralyzed into stillness when his foot hit the bottom with a sound like a wet sponge.
“I’m sorry,” he heard Ginger say from the top of the stairs. “But it’s not a house Charlie,” and she closed the door. There was a gurgle and the floor moved beneath his feet.
