Tuesday, February 14, 2023

Betrayer (A Short Story)

 

“You have until Friday, no extensions.”

            The final syllables of Ben’s flat, emotionless voice lingered after the harsh click as I slipped the phone into my jacket pocket, checked my empty wallet and gathered what was left of my senses, all the while cursing under my breath.

            “Kill my landlord…”

The city sank its omnipresent roar into my ears as I stepped out onto the porch, the smoky air merging seamlessly with the slate grey clouds.  The marble white façade of the gentrified apartment building across the street contrasted starkly with the Barrio’s rundown tenements.  Ancient structures the developers were intent on bulldozing into oblivion along with their residents. 

As I walked down the cracked front steps, eyes scanning the distant skyscrapers of downtown, I could sense a clock ticking in some office high above.  It would not be long before I joined the growing list of outcasts, driven from my ramshackle apartment with nowhere left to go…nowhere apart from the burnt-out husk of a former life that I had no intention of returning to.  But I had no choice anymore. 

I would need his services one last time. 

Walking with my head down, I dodged past the dog-walkers, derelicts, and churchgoers until I made it to the painfully familiar spot.  The tiny park by the river, adjacent to the shuttered Old Bodega, was all but deserted this early in the morning.  There was no one in view as I entered the small grove of pine trees by the waters edge; blocking the church steeple with their natural spires of dark green and brown.

I took a deep breath as I fumbled with the tarot cards; laying the aces at the four corners and the death card at the center.  The soft ground smelt of pine needles and the sweetness of decay as I silently rehearsed the incantation that I had promised myself never to use again.

Breathing in deeply, I spoke the words that Ingram had taught me in my rebellious youth.  Arcane phrases that hailed from lost lands, ruined cities, and fallen stars.  They possessed no name that could be safely spoken by human throats.  The Witch of Endor had spoken them whilst summoning the shade of the prophet Samuel.  The Sibyls had invoked them when those eldritch priestesses desired to see that which was not meant for mortal eyes.  Their lingering echo spanned a thousand centuries and dimensions beyond counting.

The chant began low and animalistic, my voice joining with the droning buzz of insects over nocturnal desert sands, before rising to the desperate wail of the mourning widow-lady, arms aloft beside the blazing funeral pyre of an ancient Sumerian ziggurat.  The pitch of her voice and mine plummeted as Baal-Hammon reached his great hand from the void and caught her by the throat, bringing forth a bestial howl from beyond that shook my body and threatened the very fabric of my soul as aeons and dimensions collided.

But the underworld’s roar soon ceased.  The final verse hanging spectral in the air, before being blown away on the chill breeze as the gates of time slammed shut again.

I could taste Camilo’s presence long before I could see him.  The bitter flavor of crematorium ash pressing down on my tongue as the ghost slowly broke through the hole that I had pierced in the thinning veil between worlds. 

The temperature of the air switched from mid-autumn to the depths of winter, causing ice crystals to form around the slowly materializing spectre in the shadow of the hissing pine trees. 

It was some time before he appeared vaguely human.

“What is it now, traitor?”

The cadence of his voice was somewhere between metal on ice and sandpaper on old floorboards.  Time had failed to dull the hatred, the dead having all the time in the world to remember.

“I have a proposition,” I said coolly, swallowing my primal fear, “One that may free you from the Realms Between should you accept.”

“A proposition?”

I could feel the invisible sneer on his blank face.

“You dare to proposition me? I should have cut out that lying tongue when I had the chance…”

His angry hiss was matched by his incorporeal “body” which began to bubble like steam, giving off a frigid mist and stinging my cheeks with a thousand needles.

I let him rage for a time.  He could not hurt me from his place within the circle.  Nor would he ever believe that a part of me could feel the anguish of his imprisoned soul.  He had every right to kill me.

I did not speak again until his writhing form had settled, his wrath having left the pinecones ridged with frost.

“You know that I have the power to breach the darkness,” I said, keeping my voice firm, “The bars of your prison are mine to command now that Ingram is dead.  But in exchange you must take out your frustrations on another…along with anyone associated with them.”

“Damn you! I am not your errand boy, Domenic…”

“No, Camilo” I replied, “You were my friend.  This proposition is my redemption and yours.”

“Friend?”

The phantom’s outline twisted in mocking, gibbering laughter.

“What do you know of friendship, betrayer? You were always nothing but a little monster doing the dirty work for others; the master’s lapdog.  Of course, you would speak honeyed words of redemption, all the better to obfuscate your crimes.  I am done with you.  Your schemes are none of my concern…”

“You’re wrong.”

I paced around the pulsating edge of the circle and laid my hand upon the Ace of Coins.

“My schemes are your sole salvation, oh guardian of the portal.  You are the last of your kind.  Old Campo’s spirit lingered in the Casa before it was demolished.  He refused my generous offer, and now he is beyond all reach.  The Bodega is next on their list.  Your last anchor to the mortal plane is set to fall on Friday morning and you will be consigned to oblivion along with the Barrio if you fail to heed my call.  Remember the promise that you made to Lita, you will not see her again unless you fulfill your duty.  You may hate me, but think of all that you love before you refuse me.  This is your last chance.”

The ghost writhed amidst the circle of tarots and an icy wind whipped the frosted pine needles, but I could tell that he was finally seeing reason.

“Speak, bastard…” He said, his despairing hiss merging with the sound of the trees.

I sighed.  I did not relish what I was about to do, but I concealed my doubts behind a mask that Ingram would have approved of.  He had never shown any weakness before his “chattel”, and blackmailing a lost soul with the memory of a mortal lover was but another tool at the arcane master’s disposal, a method of control.  Now I would use it to do the unspeakable.

“Benjamin Johnston is your target.  He is a property manager for Melcore Ltd, the landlord that has chosen to sell the Barrio from beneath the feet of its residents.  The demolition order sits upon his desk and it is he who will send you to the void this Friday unless you do as I command.  I shall sing Morpheus’s Song once I have the necessary amplifier and grant you release when the Dirge of Corruption is complete.  Do you swear to destroy that which would destroy you?”

There was silence in the little grove.  The breeze moaned through the creaking branches and out over the muted waters beyond the frozen trunks to mingle with the distant sound of traffic on the overpass.  The threatening grey clouds pressed down on the surrounding rooftops with all the potential of an impending avalanche.

“Very well, you murderer,” the soft reply finally came, a whispered sigh of resignation, “Just know that I will be waiting when you draw your last breath.  All the favor that our master showed to you will mean nothing in the end.”

I stood alone under the dark trees, my legs feeling like frozen sticks as sweat dripped into my eyes.

It took two full days to get a meeting with Ben, his time was money and he was hesitant to spend it on poor investments like myself.  The look on his pasty-white face was sour as I walked into his eighteenth-floor office and his resemblance to spoiled milk only deepened as I outlined a lengthy list of grievances that were hardly mine alone.

“The Board has already spoken,” he sniffed, betraying a stuffy nose, “You exhausted your appeals months ago.  Why are you wasting my time like this?”

“Sir, given the season…”

“Oh please, you were never a religious man, Dom.  Money doesn’t grow on trees and the company’s patience has its limits.”

“Then please Ben, at the very least, give me a letter of recommendation.  Something I can show to my next landlord.  Surely you wouldn’t let me stay in the gutter this winter?”

He stared at me for a split second before loudly blowing his nose and tossing the tissue in the wastebasket beside the overflowing desk.  His lips remained hard, but I could see the condescending and very Christian pity in his eyes as surely as the gilded crucifix hanging from the wall behind his well-cushioned chair.  Pity for the dirty soon-to-be derelict before him, appearing twice his age in a worn-out beige jacket that had long since faded to brown. 

He shook his head and managed a half-smile.

“OK, Dom,” he sniffed, “You may be a stubborn ass but you always paid your rent on time, so I’ll do you this one last favor.  Come back tomorrow and my secretary will have your letter.  That’s all.  Now if you’ll excuse me.”

I naturally thanked him profusely, pouring out more “bless yous” than a born-again Christian.  But the busy property manager had already re-focused on his computer screen under the watchful eye of his crucified savior. 

It was an easy matter to fish the discarded tissue from the wastebasket on my way out, slipping it into my pocket as I casually nodded to his pretty blond secretary and made for the elevator.

I held in my elation.  Only after I had left the bustling downtown streets behind and returned to the isolation of my attic room in the Barrio did I allow myself a chuckle.  Fortune’s Wheel truly favored me that my charitable landlord had a cold.  While it was far inferior to blood, mucus would serve as an adequate conduit for my purposes.  And not even a saint’s crucifix could bar powers far older than the first mortal cities.

I set to work at once.

Ben’s secretary received no visit from me the next day, or the day after.  I doubt she lost any sleep over it amidst the endless scheduling conflicts and never-ending deluge of phone calls. A loyal cog in the machine of a high-end real estate company, right up until the moment when her boss stepped from his office with a loaded pistol in his hand.

I read about it in the Friday paper.  On what should have been the day of my eviction. 

Benjamin Johnston, rising star of the Melcore team and devoted family man, had “snapped”: shot his secretary, shot his boss, even murdered a contractor from Pierson Construction in cold blood, before throwing himself from an eighteenth-story window.  He had no known mental illnesses, no prior criminal record, only a mild cold.

The sinkhole was briefly mentioned on page fourteen.  There had been no deaths, but some of Pierson Construction’s most valuable equipment had been inexplicably swallowed-up in hard-packed soil outside the Old Bodega hours before its scheduled demolition.  Any construction or demolition work in the area had been postponed indefinitely, the site having been deemed unsafe.

Satisfied, I set the newspaper down and grabbed my coat.

There was a nip in the air as I walked down the street, whistling tunelessly as I passed the derelicts and dog walkers on the way to the small park.  Noting the smiling faces of the churchgoers that were quickly stifled as the monsignor passed by.

When I arrived in the grove of trees, I removed the tarot cards from my pocket along with the lighter fluid.  Soon the flames were rising as I made the proper signs over the disintegrating symbols of death and judgement.

Only meters away, I could feel the sinkhole outside the abandoned Bodega, the traces of hastily evacuated machinery, and the slowly mending wound in the fabric of time.

I knew that I could never be forgiven.  Camilo had made that clear.  My only redemption was that he had finally escaped into the Beyond, the last of Ingram’s “guardians” to find release.  His time of torment was at an end, no longer bound to the “portals of power” within the Barrio that had once fueled my mentor’s abilities and ambitions. 

I sighed as the flames died below my feet.

I had been the one to betray him; luring my fellow apprentice to the basement of the Bodega before speaking the words that stripped his soul from his body.  The others had been Ingram’s work, and I had done it all for him.  Cammy’s subjugation was to be my “proving”, my final test of arcane mastery.  As if forcing someone into bondage proved anything beyond one’s cruelty.  And was to prove my cruelty yet again by telling Lita that her loving fiancé had willingly abandoned her.  The blood of her suicide was on my hands and remained so fifty years later.

My victory was hollow.  I had saved myself, I had saved the neighborhood, or what was left of it, and I still had a roof over my head.  But in the end, I was only an old slave-master breaking the chains that should have been broken long ago.  The good Catholics of the Barrio would never acknowledge such a tainted savior.

A betrayer I remained.  My final act of treason having fallen on the memory of my teacher, and the empire that he had striven to build upon the backs of ensnared souls, including those of his own students who failed to live up to his godly expectations.  With Camilo freed, the last rotten pillar of that empire had crumbled.  I had refused to follow in Ingram’s footsteps, even as I had employed his methods to serve my own ends, making amends in the only way that I knew how. 

I left the grove of pines and walked away down the street, avoiding the parishioners huddled by the church door. “The Devil” card secured in the breast pocket of my thread-bare jacket as the autumn cold stung my cheeks.

Regardless of my past, my allegiance and sympathies now lay with those brave enough to defy the gods of their world.

Now Available at The Bookshelf in Guelph!

I'm happy to announce that the Falhorne series is now available in paperback at The Bookshelf ! Come check it out if you're in the a...