Imagine two 18-wheelers carrying full loads of toxic waste. They are at opposite ends of a two mile stretch of road, barreling towards each other as their engines whine and their wheels smoke in protest. Imagine them plunging headfirst toward each other, only the destruction of the other on their cold, metal minds.
Now imagine you are sitting on a raggedy couch between them.
The thing about magic is that it is entirely different than what you see in the movies or on t.v. Instead of lightning bolts and fireballs, you get a dead, unnatural silence that reminds me of the minutes before a sudden and terrible storm begins to roll in. Rather than glowing wizard staffs and billows of smoke, you get an oily residue that suffuses the air as it thickens with something malignant and wrong. That silence? That icky dirty feeling that makes your skin crawl and your teeth feel too big for your head? That’s two opposing wills fueled by years of ritual, discipline and dealings with inhuman creatures. They’re revving their engines and peeling their tires as they slam against each other, and you can sense it, but you can’t see it.
Instead, you see the monstrosity known as Peter staring down at the man known as Abraham McMillen. And if not for the weight of power you can feel burning through the oxygen in the room, it might look like the world’s most intense staring contest. It might even be funny.
But then Abraham’s eyes burst and he starts to scream.
Peter may not have been a match for his sister Dilly or her friend Milly in the magic department, but it was clear he was no slouch. He had managed to follow me here and eavesdrop on my conversation with Abraham McMillen without detection, and whatever Abraham’s knowledge and abilities, I could somehow sense that the thirty second invisible war between them wasn’t going his way. That’s why I ignored the itching sensation growing on my chest and eased the stun gun out of my jacket pocket, holding it ready as a last resort. I had little doubt Peter could rip me apart if I caught his attention too much, but if Abraham lost, I wasn’t going down without a fight.
The problem with Peter, well…the relevant problem with Peter, at least…was that he was a sadist. When he had Abraham on the ropes, wailing and thrashing as his head started to cave in, he kept drinking it in, a twisted smile writhing contentedly on his ruined face like a snake trying to get comfortable on a sunny rock. So during the three seconds he was delighting in painfully killing the other occultist in the room, I jammed a lighting bolt into his weirdly spongey ribs.
He collapsed immediately, but I knew my time was limited. I had pulled the stun gun because I needed him to be instantly incapacitated. If he had time to speak or gesture after being shot or stabbed, I was most likely fucked. But the stun gun bought me a window, however short.
Still, I felt my heart thudding as I heard him trying to say something as he toppled to the ground. He wasn’t even entirely human any more, so who knew how well electricity would even work on him? But rather than a spell, it sounded like he was trying to threaten or mock me.
“You…should…have killed me.”
I was fully on my feet now, my other hand holding the small semi-automatic that I had tucked into my belt before coming to see Abraham. I could hear honest confusion in my voice as I leveled the gun at Peter before emptying it into his chest.
“Well yeah, of course. That’s what I’m doing.”
His body jumped from the impact of the bullets, and as I reached the end of the magazine I moved up to his head. He was still by the time I fired the last round, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Looking back at Abraham, it was clear he was already dead, so I decided to see if a hunch I had was right.
“Heckle, come in here.”
There was a loud crack as Heckle broke open the door and entered the room. When Abraham was alive, there were wards in place that kept most people out unless he invited them in, Peter obviously not included. Now that he was dead, however, his magics were gone too.
“Are you all right?” Heckle’s voice was deep and gravelly, and while his face remained a relative blank, his tone actually seemed concerned.
I nodded and gave him a shaky smile. “Yeah. Just make sure this fucker is dead. Tear him up and watch both of them while I look for anything of use. We have to burn this place when we go.”
Heckle nodded silently as he bent down and began casually dismembering Peter’s body with his bare hands. Feeling my stomach turn over, I starting searching for anything of use in the apartment, including on Abraham’s ruined corpse. Tucked away in an old notebook I found the address for a pawn shop and a note that said “Izu or Franklin Box of Shadows?”, so I figured that was a good place to start. But I also needed to know where to find an Incarnata after finding the box. I searched for twenty minutes, my ears pricked for the sound of approaching sirens the entire time. But there was nothing. Finally giving up, I grabbed an armful of what looked like the most important books and papers Abraham had in his collection and handed it to Heckle.
I had run across a small bottle of lighter fluid under the kitchen sink and now I squirted it around the room, liberally dousing the two dead men before wiping off the gun and placing it in Abraham’s hand. I knew it was sloppy, but I hoped the impending fire would make up for our lack of finesse. Striking a long kitchen match, I tossed it onto one of Teddy’s only friends, if you could call him that. Within moments the living room was fully ablaze and we were heading down the back stairs and calling Jeckle to pick us up as sirens finally began to wail into earshot.
I breathed a sigh of relief. If I hadn’t seen a sign of police coming by the time we reached the car, I was going to have to call it in myself. I didn’t want to risk someone else getting hurt if the fire spread beyond Abraham’s apartment, but it was better that I didn’t have to be the one to make the call. As we got in, I glanced at Jeckle and he just nodded to me, his eyes placid. I’m not sure, but I think the two of them may have some kind of telepathic link. If I’m right, I guess he already knew everything that had happened anyway. Either way, my two magpie golems left me alone as I looked out at the passing scenery, my hands shaking as I tried not to cry.
“Hello? Is this Mr. Saltzmann?”
I felt my stomach fluttering as I waited for his reply. In the past few hours I had learned that the woman who potentially had a box of shadows had died and that her niece had inherited her pawn shop. I then found out that the niece had died too. My last hope was the niece’s husband, and his voice was strange when he finally answered.
“Yes. I guess.”
So far so good, even though he sounded like he was either stoned or had just been in a bad car accident. “Hi there. My name is Cora Westgate. I’ve been trying to track you down. Or at least something I think you have.” I sat there, waiting for a response, but no dice. “It’s a box. It’s called an…Izu Box of Shadows, I think?”
Another pause, and I almost threw out “Franklin Box of Shadows” as an alternative, but then he was speaking again.
“Why do you want it?”
I felt a surge of relief. “So you do have it. Awesome. Look, my uncle…he’s been abducted. By very bad people. And I think the box can help me find him. I know that sounds crazy, but if…”
“Fine.”
Something in the back of my head warned this was coming way too easy, but I didn’t have the luxury of questioning it. Every minute I wasted was longer that Teddy was stuck in…well, I wasn’t sure what, but I doubted it was good. “Oh, wow. Great! Look, I have your address and I can be there in two hours if that’s okay. I’ll be glad to pay you well for it but…”
“No, I won’t be here when you get here. Just take it.”
I went to thank him, and to ask if he was okay. He just sounded so…lost. But the line was already dead. I reached his house in the middle of the night, and when I knocked, the door just swung open. As I entered I could smell the sharp copper scent of blood in the air. Pausing at the threshold, I poked my head in further and saw where the smell was coming from. There were two dead men and a dead woman in the living room. It was hard to tell, but it seemed like one of the men had killed the others with a knife before turning it on himself. But before that, he had written a letter.
It was sitting on top of the box in the center of the room, the yellow paper stiff in spots with freshly dried blood. The box itself was pristine and beautiful in a vaguely sinister way, with its black wood and smoky gray metal seeming to radiate a mild inner warmth. I saw a central metal cylinder in the middle of the contraption and what appeared to be small slots on each of its six sides. Leaving the box alone for the moment, I turned back to the yellow paper. It was a letter to me, at least mostly. It warned me to leave the box alone, or destroy it if I could. I guess it was the last thing he did before he killed himself.
I hesitated after reading it. I had little doubt the box was responsible or at least connected to all the death laying around me, and I could feel the weight of Saltzmann’s words. Words he had spent his last living moments writing in an attempt to keep me from repeating his own mistakes. Warning me that the box wanted me to take it. That it knew that I would, despite his plea.
The thing was, I had no other options to help Teddy. I felt like I was on a massive game board, jumping my piece from square to square as I worked my way toward wherever Teddy was being held. Find the devil pig. Talk to Abraham. Find the evil box that probably killed these people. Every step brought me closer to getting Teddy back in theory, but I had no real way of knowing if I was making progress. All I could do was keep pushing on until I got him back or knew that I couldn’t.
But if I failed, it wasn’t going to be because I gave up or chickened out. I touched the tumerin around my neck as I approached the box again. I had started wearing it most of the time since Teddy was taken despite his prior warnings of the dangers it could pose. It had protected me before, and besides, Teddy had given it to me. It made me feel a bit like he was with me.
I found another note discarded on the floor near the box and picked it up. It was instructions on how to use the box. Following the instructions, I removed the collection of possessions already in the central chamber and placed a silver ring my mother had given me inside. Then I spun the tube and looked through the closest slot, holding the idea of finding Teddy firmly in my mind.
The sensation of being somewhere else overtook me immediately. I heard a hushed voice whispering to me in some unknown language, its words feeling like worms trying to eat their way deep into my brain. At the same time, I was seeing…or being transported to…several different scenes.
The first was a small town I didn’t recognize. I didn’t see any people, but in the distance I saw a sign that read “Welcome to Brimley!” I took a few steps toward what looked like a nearby truck stop, but then I was gone. Now I was in the forests of Hell. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought it was near where I had last left it, the same waterfall faintly audible over the buzzing voice pressing ever closer to me. I felt a surge of fear. Viewing something through the box was akin to being in a dream that you only partially realize is a dream. The reality of what I was seeing was constantly warring with my dim recognition of the fact that I was actually in that poor man’s living room and not running my hand over the rough and icy bark of one of the skeletal trees filling my vision.
Then I was in a new place. This was a courtyard of some kind, though it had the feeling of something that was staged to invoke awe and fear more than something that was used for more…courtyardy things. I don’t really know what you do in a courtyard, but you get my drift. It was weird and creepy, but also somehow phony feeling. And I wasn’t sure how any of this was getting me closer to…
“Teddy!” I blurted it out before I could stop myself. Further down the courtyard there were a group of figures seated on stone chairs, but standing a bit closer I could make out the back of my uncle. I tried to run to him in my vison form, knowing in the back of my head that it wouldn’t work, and while I did seem to travel toward him, I was suddenly somewhere else again.
It was a rundown park of some kind in what looked like a shabby part of a normal city. I was disappointed I had lost sight of Teddy, but I could tell this place was important. It was where I needed to go next. The voice in my head was almost unbearable now, but I forced myself to focus as I looked around for any clues as to where I was at or what this place was called. After a moment I saw a small rusty sign dangling from the side of a lopsided chain link fence. I was trying to read it when I felt my chest grow hot and itchy where the tumerin was resting. Then everything faded away and I found myself back in the blood-soaked living room.
I was frustrated, but I couldn’t help but feel relief when I realized the voice was gone too. Touching the coin around my neck, I could tell it was still warm. Maybe it had protected me from the box after all. Either way, I needed to get the thing loaded in my car and get going. Standing up shakily, I said the name that had been on the rusty sign, testing it on my tongue to make sure it sounded right and was seated firmly in my memory.
I’m not sure what’s waiting for me there, but I have a feeling it’s nothing good.
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Credits
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