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When magick reentered the world its nation states immediately began to weaponize their folklore. Ultimately, much like nuclear weapons, these attempts were as destructive to their wielders as to their victims. The United States descended into a new civil war as the legends of its founding were rended apart by the much older stories of its soil. The Chinese Communist Party found that its ideas of control were diametrically opposed to the Taoist Immortals’ concepts of harmony. Germany became a dark place no man dared to tread.
Later, sitting in a bunker, what world leaders remained gathered to discuss, in tones of barely restrained panic, how they might retake their world. The knocking that echoed throughout the chamber brought the whispers to a halt. It was only then that they realized how foolish it was to retreat to such a place, underground. Every culture in the room buried their dead.
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Korbin awoke in the dark. He was on a bed, he realized, the room faintly illuminated by a hearth, fire down to its embers. Without moving, he looked around to see a chamber made of perfectly fitted asymmetrical stones, no windows, only a single door. In the back of his head, a voice tried to call out, to tell him something was amiss. The bed, though, was comfort beyond compare, a luxury akin to anesthesia.
Trying to find some balance between the bed’s sensuous slumberousness and his mind’s pleading, Korbin stretched. He reached his arms above his head, then swung them down to his hips, interrupted when his left arm encountered a solid object that rose from the bed’s otherwise perfect form.
The subtle change caused the voice in Korbin’s head to jump several decibels. His kind mated for life and he hadn’t shared his bed in years. He shot up, head roiling so he couldn’t quite make it to placing his feet on the floor.
“Korbin,” the form next to him spoke, “what are you doing?”
The voice, soft, feminine, and unfamiliar, caused Korbin to push through his nausea to stand. He placed his hand on the wall to balance himself, finding that the stone was intensely warm. He blinked, trying to locate the door he had seen only a moment ago. It was only then he realized he was naked.
“Are you leaving so soon?” the soft voice asked from the bed. The question left an impression in Korbin that he had a choice in being here, that perhaps he had arrived of his own volition. His mind felt heavier than a rock with a hangover, though. He could remember an old friend, Temur, an earth elemental that loved mead, and that their hangovers were calamitous events akin to earthquakes. But he couldn’t remember how he arrived.
Balanced by the wall, Korbin risked a look over his shoulder. On the bed was a woman, lit like a waning harvest moon in the firelight, with smooth skin, a strong figure, and beautiful, dark hair. Like the embers, her eyes glowed a reddish gold. She spoke, “You just got here.”
Korbin shook his head, but it didn’t dislodge the cement around his brain. He could only mutter, “You’re not my Zuri.”
The woman stood up, sheets sliding from her. Even in his current state, Korbin was struck by her magnificence. She smiled with the same easy confidence his wife had possessed, a certainty she would have her way. With her black hair and curvaceous figure, he could almost convince himself that this was his Zuri, that her death had been a terrible dream.
He might have been able to persuade himself of this if the figure hadn’t responded, “Who’s Zuri?” He felt the question pull at his mind, wrapping around the memories of his wife and pushing them toward the same dark well where the memories of how he got here now dwelled.
He struck her then, fast and hard with the back of his hand, all the anger and loss snapping out in the blow. With the focus Zuri had taught him he was able to transform his hand into the Black Talon and grab this impertinent stranger by the neck. “If you don’t know who Zuri is, then I know I shouldn’t be here.”
Even through the tough skin of the claw that was now his right hand, Korbin felt the softness of the figure’s flesh quickly giving way to an unyielding warmth not unlike the room’s stone. The confidence fled from the creatures eyes, replaced with a burning anger. The golden red there, Korbin realized, was not a reflection of the fire, but from whatever magic this thing, this place, possessed.
Tightening his talon around its neck he asked, “What are you and what is this place?”
The thing in front of him began to change, becoming taller and thinner, a forked-tongue rolling out of its mouth as its legs lengthened, threatening to pull Korbin from the floor. The raven hair curled away from its face, skin pulling tight until its nose disappeared and its mouth stretched wide. A sound like steam escaping from a grave became its rancid breath as it spoke, “We could have had so much fun, you and I.”
Korbin wasn’t beyond fear, but he wasn’t naive to the ways of transformation. He might not have expected this, but this simulacrum certainly hadn’t expected him. He extended his metamorphosis into both hands and feet, digging into the stones with his talons to keep his stance, raising the other arm as to stab this creature’s eyes from its face. “Ravens eat lizards, thing.”
The rend he put across its face only widened its smile, tongue slipping out in sibilant syllables. “We’re much more than that, here in the house of Naugle.”
“Not for long,” Korbin replied before growing his sharp beak to snap the tongue out Naugle’s beast.
###
Korbin was covered in viscera by the time he heard the knock at the door. Blinking away the burning in his eyes, he looked to see McPherson peeking through the Judas hatch. Presumably standing on her tip-toes, she was barely able to get her chin up to the portal. The inspector, lit from behind, was identifiable to Korbin by her stature and voice. “Oh, good. It’s you.”
Korbin blinked, trying to clear his head. Looking down at his bloodied hands, he remembered he was naked. “I seem to have lost my clothes.”
“Look around,” a male voice made unrecognizable by fear and uncertainty. “All the other men had their clothes on when they left. They might still be with you.”
Misunderstanding the last sentence, Korbin swiveled his head to look for other men in the room, but only found the corpse of the thing he’d dismembered. The strange chunks wriggling on the floor in a pool of black liquid made him feel he was likely to vomit. Refocusing on something else, he asked, “Who is that?”
“We’re going to get you out of here,” McPherson replied.
“We?” Korbin barely got the question out before light streamed in from the torch-lit hallway. McPherson was there, lock picks still in hand, kneeling next to the door’s mechanism. Next to her, head frenetically searching up and down the hall, was a scrawny, bespectacled man, sweat covering his pale pate. He was, in absurd contrast to his flannel shirt and jeans, carrying a hot pink backpack.
McPherson stood, slipping her lock picks into the interior pocket of her blazer. “This is Oliver Derby. I believe you’ve met.”
Half-and-again as tall as McPherson, Oliver peeked around the doorframe and saw the carnage. If possible he became paler, glasses sliding down his nose.
With nothing cogent in his mind Korbin said, “I didn’t know you could break locks.”
“I don’t think reality is a factor in this place.” McPherson pushed Oliver into the room and closed the door behind her. “Let’s pretend this will give us some privacy.”
Korbin looked over his shoulder at the thing he had massacred. “I think we might be safe in here for awhile.”
McPherson guffawed, banishing any realism of the idea. “Korbin, we’re in a ghost house created by a deal with the Ogru Dem. This whole place is an open throat.”
“The Ogru Dem?” That got Korbin’s attention. “What? How did this happen?”
McPherson hooked a thumb at Oliver. “Ask the professor here.”
“I—” Derby began to answer, then stopped, sliding off the pink backpack. He set it on the floor by the fire, away from the still wiggling pile of parts. “I took this from the house.” Out from the bag he pulled a perfectly round, nearly flat stone. “I mean, there wasn’t a house here when I look it, but I dug it out of the park.”
“Why in the name of the seven winds would you do that?”
Oliver cringed, retreating from Korbin’s harsh tone. “I was being blackmailed.”
“You didn’t think to tell me that when you hired me?”
“Oh, it gets better.” The mischief in McPherson’s voice grated on Korbin. She elbowed Oliver. “Tell him by who.”
“A student, I, uh, was having inappropriate relations with.” McPherson poked Oliver, egging him on. “Her name was Etenia.”
Korbin found his head swimming again. “Etenia? Etenia Ephraim?”
Shock raised Oliver’s eyebrows. “You know her?”
Korbin dragged Derby to standing, pulling the smaller man closer. “Do I know her? Do I know the First Sorceress of Kek?” Korbin shook Derby, rattling him until his glasses sat askew. “I will eat your eyes for this, little man!”
With an unusual disregard for her dress, McPherson placed her hands between the two men. “Korbin, stop. He didn’t know. It’s your own fault for not recognizing the portrait of Naugle. You should have listened to Zuri more.”
Korbin dropped Oliver to turn his anger onto the analyst, “How dare you – “
“How dare I what?” McPherson’s question was as solid as the floor they stood on. “I’m not what the one ashamed of my own heritage.”
Eagerly seeking to steer the conversation away from his own wrongs, Oliver asked, “What heritage?”
“Korbin is X’Komish.” McPherson turned to Oliver to wipe the gore on her hands off onto his shirt. “Or part X’Komish, I should say.”
In a surprised tone that would have gotten him thrown off faculty staff, Oliver responded, “With a name like Korbin Halvorsen?”
Like straightening a child’s dress, McPherson set Oliver’s glasses straight on his face. “For a professor of local history, you’re pretty ignorant. Naugle wasn’t the only one interested in destroying X’Komish culture. Or did you think the chief’s ancestral name was Francis?”
Korbin burned with his own anger as he remembered meeting Zuri in the state boarding school that had branded him with the name of his father. Zuri had refused to give up her name for the Anglo one that they had tried to force on her. Despite everything; the starvation, the beatings, the shackles. By the time she escaped and then returned for him, he couldn’t even remember what little X’Komish he had known.
Korbin turned from this to search for his pants. Trousers in hand, he said, “Fine, we’re in a house that shouldn’t exist that sits on a hole that wants to swallow mankind. What do we do about it?”
“You can’t be serious,” Oliver spoke. The only thing that kept Korbin from throttling him was the look of utter contempt that McPherson leveled at the professor.
“You idiot. The darkness the X’Komish were enslaved to is still down there. It’s been waiting for a chance to rise. It’s always been waiting. And you’ve given it to it.” McPherson nodded behind her at the door. “Or did you think the army of men we snuck past were imaginary? You saw the look in their eyes. The only reason you got past them is because you look like them.”
Korbin chuckled unkindly, wondering how McPherson had snuck Oliver past his own wife. “What’s your plan, McPherson?”
“I was hoping between the three of us we might be able to figure out how to use the stone to seal this place back into the Earth.” McPherson bent down to the round, flat stone that Oliver had pulled from the backpack. Korbin felt his disgrace again, knowing he couldn’t recognize the symbols on its face.
“It was brought in here before,” McPherson continued. “It sealed the mine and destroyed Naugle’s house. I say we use it like a depth charge.”
Both Korbin and Oliver responded in confusion, causing the inspector to point at the eviscerated, still wriggling corpse on the floor. “That thing had to come from somewhere. If we can find the hole it crawled out of, dropping the stone down it might do the trick.”
“Or without the proper incantations it might just drop like a rock,” Korbin countered.
“Do you know how to read the symbols on the stone?” Aggie asked.
“I do.” Oliver spoke quietly, but his tone washed over the rising anger between Korbin and Aggie. “The runes on the stone are for a sacrificial rite.”
McPherson spoke softly and slowly, as if to a frightened animal. “What are you saying, Oliver?
Korbin watched the smaller man’s Adam’s apple move up and down. “Castillo never left Naugle’s house. And neither did the stone. He must have been the sacrifice that sealed the mine.”
Before McPherson could speak Korbin found his anger again. “Well, guess who just volunteered.”
Oliver boggled at the pair, protesting before Aggie rose to place a calming hand on his shoulder. “Oliver, does the stone specify what the sacrifice has to be?”
“No,” he said uncertainly.
McPherson disappeared the stone into her coat as she stood. “Then let’s take this a step at a time.”
“I, uh, OK,” Oliver muttered, wiping the sweat from the bridge of his nose before resettling his glasses. “But then – “
The door rumbled in its frame, rattling the Judas hatch open to show a solid wall of brackish flesh, glistening greenish black in the firelight, moving past the door. A long quiet moment went with it, only broken by Oliver squeaking, “What was that?”
Korbin made to answer when a smell like boiling sulfur caused him to choke. He glanced at the bedmate he had dismembered. While their attention had been elsewhere its separate parts had bubbled into a single, dark green slime that oscillated, pushing at the edges of its boundaries.
With a pitch in his voice that hung by a very thin thread, Oliver asked, “Is it dead?”
“No,” Korbin answered. “Ogru Dem don’t die, they just…reassemble.”
Oliver shakily tried to pick up the backpack. “I’m going to find my wife and get out of here.”
Korbin felt no small amount of satisfaction as McPherson slapped him. “You looked her right in the eye when we came in here and she didn’t blink. We need to get rid of this place if you ever want her to see the light of day again.”
McPherson looked back at the door, its Judas hatch now empty of everything but the torchlight of the hall beyond. “OK, Korbin, we’ll lead the way. Oliver stay close behind us.” Bones fused and feathers bristled up the once pale skin of his arms, Korbin stepped forward.
Oliver, eyes wide and dodging between Korbin’s talons and the remains of the Ogru Dem, refused to move. Korbin pointed a claw at him. “This is nothing, little man. If you don’t move you’ll see how far I can take this metamorphosis. And then I will fly my way out of here and forget your name before the next sunrise.”
With this threat hanging over him, Oliver stumbled toward the now silent door. Regardless, Korbin and McPherson approached it as if the portal might spring open of its own accord.
Reaching for the handle, McPherson stopped and glanced at Korbin. “You were bluffing about flying out of here, right?”
Korbin could feel his ears beginning to disappear under a plume of black feathers. He croaked, “You left me down here first.”
“Oh, come on!” McPherson caused both men to jump as she stood straight, raising her voice. “You’re fine.”
Korbin stared at McPherson as he felt his eyes (rather painfully) change color and shape. “Do I look fine to you?”
McPherson gave her tiniest harumph, acknowledging Korbin’s superior position. “Fine. Just try to give me some warning if you decide to go it alone.”
“No guarantees, analyst.”
Using the title of her occupation seemed to placate McPherson, who reached for the door handle.
The girl stormed across the castle grounds, headed straight for the gate, only to be stopped by the crossed halberds of the guards. They screamed in shock as their bladed staves became snakes. Alerted, the archers dropped the portcullis, but this stopped in its descent as the girl gave a flick of her wrist, then walked under it without a worry of being crushed.
Seeing this from his balcony, the King said nothing. He had made the announcement some time ago: We had had enough of old men with pointed hats and starry cloaks who gave vague advice but never wisdom, who promised the vanquishing of enemies but vanished in times of danger.
This young lady heeded the call. The King had found Their new wizard.
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Oliver Derby watched the strange pair from the window of his home, wishing he could hear whatever it was they were discussing. He had hired Korbin Halvorsen at the suggestion of a university colleague, but had no idea the strange man would bring in another, shorter, possibly stranger man. This unexpected addition made him clutch the curtains until he saw them, arm in arm, walk towards the boarding house. He turned away then, leaving a sweaty palm print on the curtain.
The kitchen, the room furthest away from the window, offered him no solace. He made a cup of coffee and sat at the oak kitchen table, contemplating his future. He found he was unable to concentrate, the consequences of his actions ricocheting off each other, bouncing against the walls of his conscious. Before he knew it, it was dark outside. He rose to return to the window, dreading he would still be able to see the boarding house.
Before he parted the curtains, though, a husky voice spoke behind him. “Oliver Derby, I presume?”
Oliver jumped at the sound. Someone was sitting in his father-in-law’s Astoria Grand chair. Dwarfed as they were by the seat, Oliver still recoiled from the invader. “Who are you?”
The lamp next to the chair flared to life, blinding him. As the burst faded from his eyes, he saw the small individual in the worsted gray suit that had accompanied Korbin. Pale, with a button nose and with a pixie haircut that hadn’t been in style with his students for at least a decade, they did share the smile with the worst of his classes’ smart asses. “I’m Aggie McPherson, spectral analyst. Korbin brought me in as a consultant after your wife disappeared. But this isn’t about her, is it Oliver?”
The invader’s throaty voice unsettled Oliver further. “What are you doing in my house?”
“Is that really what we should be talking about, Oliver?”
“You’ve broken into my home. I’ll call the police.”
The figure lifted one hand from the chair to gesture to an antique rotary phone on a short pedestal close by. “Go ahead.”
Repelled by the idea of moving closer to the stranger, Oliver reached into a pocket for his smartphone. Before he could dial, though, McPherson added, “We can ask them why you haven’t filed a missing person report on your wife. That should make for an interesting conversation.”
Phone in hand, Oliver stopped. He knew the tone of blackmail. “What do you want?”
The playfulness in the analyst’s voice vanished. “I want what I’m being paid for. I want to know why what was a lovely green space in your courtly neighborhood suddenly sprouted a 19th century boarding house.”
Oliver let the hand holding the phone fall. “That’s what I want. That’s why I hired Korbin.”
The stranger arched a meticulously plucked eyebrow. “Aren’t you worried about your wife, Anne?”
Oliver fumbled his words, pushing out, “Of course I’m worried about Anne, I just meant – “
“I know what you meant.” The invader leaned forward, elbows on knees. “You know what I’m worried about? Why would Oliver Derby, resident historian at Slakterquay’s Azoth University not know his wife was related to one of its most infamous figures?”
In the dim light of the room, Oliver only babbled at this new heap of information. The stranger continued, “The answer is, of course, that you did know. You knew when you sent her in there.”
“I would never – “
They cut him off. “What I can’t figure out is how a professor pays for a house in South Slope. Then, what, you’ve got two, three kids in school? Nice ones too. Schools, that is, not your kids.
“And Anne doesn’t work. I mean, unless you count making herself a nuisance at HOA, PTA, and city council meetings.”
In the dim light the stranger made a show of looking around the finely furnished room’s hardwood floors, Persian carpet, and antique clock. “So how do you afford it all?”
Oliver prepared the usual smokescreen for his shame. “We’ve done very well with some investments – “
Accustomed to people accepting this polite fiction, Oliver was unprepared for the stranger’s laughter. “Oh, Oliver, you realize no one buys that line, right? I’ve asked some of your nicer neighbors. They all know your living off your wife’s family fortune. Slakterquay wouldn’t be the ‘Paris of the Pacific Northwest’ without the Clark’s involvement in timber and cattle.” The invader crinkled their nose as if they could smell the old slaughterhouses by the river.
Oliver felt his blushing might glow in the dim light. “How do you – “
“Here’s what I really can’t figure out, ” the analyst interrupted again. “Why would you endanger the goose with the golden eggs? I mean, if your wife disappears, you’re the very first person the police are going to suspect.”
Sweating, Oliver didn’t really think before he answered. “I didn’t send her in. She insisted.”
“And you couldn’t stop her.” The smokiness of the stranger’s voice lifted into a lilting amusement. It made Oliver wish he could smash one of the room’s vases into their face. “So why summon the house at all?”
“What are you talking about?
McPherson leaned back into the chair, steepling fingers together in front of their smile, white even in the amber glow of the lamp. “Well, according to the few neighbors I spoke with Anne wears the pants in the family. Not surprising, considering the power imbalance in your relationship. Your students probably call you a cuck?”
The stranger continued over Oliver’s protests. “But bringing back the house wouldn’t do anything about that. It might get rid of Anne, but then, one way or another, you’d lose access to her family’s fortune. And if you could keep that and not have to deal with Anne I imagine you’d have done it years ago. So you needed something the house could provide.” The stranger paused, hair shadowing their face in the dim light. “You needed the same thing Jeremiah Naugle wanted. Gold.” Raising eyes to the ceiling, they continued, “Or money, I guess. Which is so much more boring than gold. I’ll never understand that change.”
McPherson brought their eyes back to Oliver. “But why not use your wife’s abundance?” A shadowed hand pointed a finger at Oliver. “You needed money and you couldn’t tell Anne why.” Fingers snapped before returning to point. “You’re being blackmailed.”
Throat dry, Oliver was barely able to croak before the stranger stood up and said, “So which of your students have you been fucking?”
Blinking the sweat from his eyes, Oliver could only think to respond, “How do you know all of this?”
The stranger laughed lightly as they stood from the chair and stepped closer, causing Oliver to back against the curtains. “Oh, come now, that was a short leap. What’s the most likely thing a college professor is going to get blackmailed for?” Two feet from Oliver, the stranger’s violet eyes wandered along with her words, “Although you lot at Azoth U tend to get up to some strange things, so maybe that’s more of a leap than usual.” The eyes snapped back to Oliver. “But you’ve already admitted as much.” McPherson poked him in the chest. “Out with it.”
“I – ” Oliver stopped, unwilling to commit his sin into the air.
The stranger fluttered their eyes in a fashion that was unsettling in how disarming it was. “Boy or girl?”
“Girl.” Oliver quickly corrected himself, “A young woman.”
“Oliver.” McPherson said his name as if they weren’t strangers. “This is going to take all night if I have to drag it out of you. And I have a strange suspicion we’re running out of time. At this stage, it’s possible you may only get out of this with a divorce.” When Oliver still didn’t speak, they continued, “You know, instead of prison.”
“Her name was Etenia.” The proposition of incarceration popped the name out of him.
“Was? Is she dead?”
“No.” With a grumble, Oliver added, “I just haven’t seen her since she went into the house.”
McPherson crinkled their nose as if a particularly foul smell had crawled into the room and died. “So this is bigger than your sex tape.”
“It would seem.”
“You’re not sure? Well, I don’t blame you if you didn’t watch it.” The stranger shrugged. “But you watched enough of it to know she has the vantage of you.”
Oliver slumped against the curtains, wishing their billowing would swallow him whole. “Etenia had been the only person to show real interest in my work in I don’t know how long.” He sighed, hating the whine in his voice, so similar when he fruitlessly expressed unhappiness to his wife. “We spent hours discussing Slakterquay’s history, prehistoric till modern, going over everything from fossils to land grants. I thought she was as fascinated by it all as I was. So much so she took me to her bed.”
“Took you to her bed? Let’s skip the romanticism and catch up to modern times. Let me guess – there was one topic in particular that got her all hot and bothered.”
Oliver looked up from his shoes, nearly toe-to-toe with the stranger’s small, well-polished ones. “Yes. The Naugle Massacre.”
McPherson’s violet eyes pierced Oliver with disdain. “A word too late, but perhaps in your future, don’t fuck people turned on by tales of bloodshed.”
Oliver felt his face heat again as he admitted, “But I wanted to talk about it. No one else does. My wife doesn’t even allow me to teach it in class. The subject is verboten.
“But Etenia was as excited as I was about the legends. Yes, they’re apocryphal, but how could you not find it fascinating? A tale that your town is founded by homicidal maniac who made a deal with the devil?”
“The Devil?” McPherson’s increased skepticism sent Oliver to staring at his shoes. “Jeremiah Naugle didn’t have congress with the Devil.”
“No, he found something worse.”
The stranger cocked a snoot at Oliver. “You don’t know much about the Devil.”
McPherson grabbed Oliver by the front of his shirt and pulled him out of the curtains. “Or you wouldn’t be in this mess. But I think I’m missing some pertinent details. What was it about Jeremiah Naugle that got your Etenia all worked up? Specifically.”
“Well, that he had created the South Slope. It had once been a cliff of soft earth that Jeremiah Naugle had mined using hushing.”
The stranger released Oliver. “Hushing?”
“Hydraulic mining. A technique he had brought with him from California. He used hoses with high-pressure nozzles to pull water from the river and blast the cliff, stripping away the soil to search for gold.”
“Not an environmentalist then.”
“I don’t think the concept existed for Naugle. Only his gold. His flooding of the Saint Vilhelm River with sediment was noticed by the indigenous people who began attacks on Slakterquay. Something they had never done before.”
“Indigenous people? You mean the X’Komish?” McPherson asked, circling Oliver, urging him on.
“The X’Komish are more of a confederation of tribes that united after their genocide, but yes. The move wasn’t popular with the settlers, either. Their trade in furs and pelts depended on the river and access to the Pacific. Others had already prospected the area for gold and found nothing, so they thought Naugle was uselessly muddying up the river.
“He convinced some of the settlers, though, that gold moved what he termed “upstream,” flowing from the South Pole to the North and one such stream ran through Slakterquay.
“Naturally, most of the settlers already considered him mad, but the gold he spent from his California claim caused most to encourage him to stay and spend more.” Oliver gave a wry smile, something his students often enjoyed. “I suspect they may have been taking advantage of him.”
Oliver stood rigid, his eyes tracking McPherson each time she passed in front of him. “That would have surprised the settlers as much as Naugle finding his gold. But find gold he did, not by sifting through the blasted soil, but after he went underground. It’s said that his hushing uncovered a cave entrance and he disappeared into it for weeks. Everyone assumed he died there. Until he came out carrying gold.
“He reinforced the cave entrance and stopped hushing, focusing on his mine. Some of the settlers even began to aid him. Even after Naugle had stopped filling the Saint Vilhelm river with silt, though, the X’Komish continued their attacks. If anything, they increased in ferocity. So Naugle built his house on top of his mine. Made of stone to protect from firearms or fire, huge for its time, three-stories —
A slap on his ass caused Oliver to jump. “I’ve seen the house, Oliver. On with it, lover boy.”
Stuttering, Oliver turned to face McPherson, rotating to keep her in front of him as he continued. “It was said that the house appeared overnight. A local preacher hailed it as a miracle. It became something like a combination of a tavern, community center, and fort. There were also rumors that Naugle had used some of his gold to bring in sex workers from San Francisco.
“Whatever the truth was, it was there that Naugle convinced the men of Slakterquay to slaughter the X’Komish. Jeremiah handpicked a group of men and led them out of the house at midnight to attack the X’Komish seasonal settlement. They killed every man, woman, and child they could lay their hands on. Then they set everything ablaze.”
McPherson stopped pacing, a dark silhouette in Oliver’s peripheral vision. “Humans never cease to impress with their ability to murder one another.”
“Yes. And Naugle’s massacre was up there with the worst of them.” After a pause, he continued. “Only one man spoke out against the treatment of the X’Komish, a Spanish priest named Franco del Castillo. Castillo had been in Slakterquay longer than Naugle. His preaching on tolerance and overtures to the X’Komish had largely held the peace until the other man’s arrival. But gold was more powerful than the priest’s words and very few listened to him even when the fighting began. But then Castillo returned from town, having witnessed Naugle’s massacre, saying he had seen the murderers dancing in the fires of the burning village with foul-begotten things that moved like snakes with legs.
“He kept this up until he disappeared. No one in Slakterquay seemed to mind that much.”
“Of course not.”
“Naugle celebrated by taking a bride.”
Out of the darkness, Oliver heard the name of his wife’s ancestor. “Lillian Clark.”
“That’s right. A powerful family in Slakterquay, the Clarks worked with Naugle to expand the river docks to bring in more goods and equipment, eventually using the new infrastructure to begin shipping out timber, using the cleared land to grow grain and raise cattle. Pelt boats became barges, which brought in more money, which, in turn – “
“You’re losing the thread professor.”
“Well, with Naugle’s help, the Clarks continued to grow the town. Until Castillo returned.
“He did so without his clerical collar and in the company of X’Komish warriors that had been on long-distance coastal raids. They had returned in their ocean canoes to find their people slaughtered and Castillo ready to lay the blame at Naugle’s feet. Unlike the settlers, the X’Komish believed him. The presence of the creatures he described was the reason for the tribes’ attacks on the mine. They called them the Ogru Dem, which is interesting. It’s not a word with roots in the X’Komish dialect.”
“No, it isn’t.” McPherson floated into the room’s dim light, eyebrows drawn together and any semblance of mischief drained away. “In the beginning, the X’Komish were born in darkness, under the earth, created as slaves. They escaped and climbed to the surface emerging on the surface where the sun meets the sea. They’ve battled the Ogru Dem since the First People emerged to live under the sky. The Ogru Dem fight to drag them, and all people, back down.”
“You,” Oliver couldn’t keep the incredulous and condescending tone his students hated out of his voice, “believe all of that?”
“I’m not the one that has a ghost house on my block, Oliver.” McPherson’s tone changed his name into a synonym for ‘idiot.’ “What happened next?”
“The X’Komish warriors and Castillo attacked Naugle’s house. It was said that the fighting could be heard all the way to the river.
“Whatever it was, it brought Naugle’s house crashing down. Literally. Accounts state that Castillo carried a round stone into Naugle’s House, and shortly after, the house collapsed.
“Some say the stone was a seal of X’Komish tribal magic, other legends speak of Castillo evicting evil spirits. Whatever it was, the tales say the house was swallowed by the Earth.”
McPherson blinked, face without expression, which to Oliver was more unsettling than all of the games and clever banter. With an equally flat tone, they replied, “So it stayed until you went and fucked with it. What did you do?”
Oliver began to stutter a response until McPherson more forcefully repeated the question. He continued, “Shortly after I told Etenia the story, she began her blackmail demands. I tried to put some cash together, but it wasn’t nearly enough. I told her I couldn’t get it from Anne without her knowing and if I got divorced I wouldn’t be able to get any. She told me to get the gold from under the park where Naugle’s house once stood. I told her that was insane, that there was no gold, and she said she would be satisfied if I brought her the stone.”
Imitating his own disbelieving tone, McPherson replied, “And you went and dug the stone out of the park?”
Oliver sputtered like a drowning man. “I didn’t have any reason to believe that the stories were real. The park was made a designated historical site, although nothing commemorates why. So, yes, I borrowed some equipment from the archaeology department and located the stone. I waited until Anne went out of town and then spent a night digging it up.”
“And the next day the house was there.”
“Yes.”
“What became of Etenia and her blackmail demands?”
Oliver felt shame seal his mouth shut until McPherson’s stare became so heated his skin began to burn. “She…she went in the house.”
“When did this happen?”
“I saw the house when I looked out the window the next day. Etenia was already standing in the park.”
The stranger’s tone became harder, pushing on Oliver. “You sure it was her?”
Oliver closed his eyes and nodded. “She turned and looked right at me before she went in. Her raven-hair and golden eyes are quite distinct.”
“Then your wife arrived home…?” McPherson trailed off, letting Oliver follow.
“She was furious about the house. Despite everything I tried, she insisted on going in to speak with the owner.”
McPherson scratched the space between their eyebrows with a manicured finger. “So you now have a house in your neighborhood that was built by a dead man who made a deal with the Ogru Dem. And you let your wife and your mistress go in.” In the dim light, the violet of their eyes burned. “You thought that was a good idea?”
“I didn’t let them go in!” Oliver moved his hands, trying to swat away blame. “I couldn’t stop them!”
The stranger sighed, exasperation leaking out in a long exhale. “Mistress is another word for master, Oliver. So you had a wife and a master. Now you’ve broken both relationships on the altar of Naugle’s house.” The inspector looked at Oliver again, this time with something like pity. “What did you do with the stone, you moron?”
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The travels of Marco Polo could have happened without purpose. Yes, trade and riches were at their center. Nothing more (which is to say nothing of value) would have come from Polo’s ventures, though, if the great Khan had not sat the young Venetian down and asked, “What have you learned of my realms?”
