Dark Arts (32 page)

The hands closed around Maxwell’s mouth and
nose, and then he heard two gunshots. The side of Darren’s face
exploded into a shower of blood and bone. Everything that held
Maxwell and the guards in place released them. Miranda lowered the
gun, her face frozen in a stunned expression, and Maxwell rushed to
Darren’s body. No one could survive the damage the gunshot did. He
patted his fingers in the blood pooling around the body’s head and
drew a circle on Darren’s shirt. “I bind you to this body, though
it be dead, though it be cold, may it forever hold your soul.” He
chanted as he drew symbols from the Book of Doors inside the circle
using blood. He moved to Scott’s side then, hoping he managed to
catch Panos before he could leave Darren’s broken and dying
body.

“I’m going to be okay, hurts like a
son-of-a-gun, but I’ll be fine,” Scott said as he held his leg. “It
went through, not bleeding very much.”

The security guard took the gun from Miranda
gently, put it on the nurse’s station and then yanked her hands
behind her. “Gotta cuff you two while we wait for the cops,” he
said as two more security guards arrived.

“Never mind that, you git! My friend’s been
shot!” Maxwell said. Two of the nurses rushed to Scott’s side, the
third looked at what was left of Darren, who was absolutely still
on the floor, and turned to the nurse’s station. “Best place to get
shot, a hospital. We’ll get you fixed up.”

Miranda allowed herself to be handcuffed,
but when a security guard approached Maxwell from behind, he got a
finger pointed at him. “She just saved your mate’s ass over there,
and I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Don’t tell them anything, Max,” Miranda
said as the security guard turned her towards the elevator. “They
won’t believe.”

“Are you going to come with me quietly,
Sir?” asked the tall security guard standing in front of Maxwell.
His demeanor was calm, he was just doing his job.

“Your friend’s going to be okay,” one of the
nurses said. “The bullet went straight through, and the bleeding
has already stopped.”

“If you’re taking me where she’s going, then
I’m going with you then,” Maxwell said, putting his hands up.

“We’re all going to the same place,” the
guard said as he cuffed Maxwell.

“What happened?” asked Gladys, shocked.

“They’re taking your daughter to the
station, let her tell you what happened,” Maxwell said, twisting so
he could see her and Susan. “Someone has to do a warding on this
floor. Panos.”

“I’m going to be okay!” Scott called up from
where he was on the floor with one of the nurses. The other was
running off.

As the next act in the chaos began, with
doctors rushing in, nurses helping Scott and what was left of
Darren onto gurneys and visiting families coming almost as quickly
to find out what had happened.

Maxwell had enough time to go through all
the events in that hallway in his head, and came to one conclusion:
any honest thing he said could be turned against Miranda. He could
leave out all the mystical motivations behind what happened, but
that made it look like Miranda shot Darren in the head while he was
unarmed. He could say that Darren was about to attack someone
again, and Miranda was only preventing that, but there was a guard
in the room who saw everything.

If that guard started talking about being
pinned against the wall by an unseen force, Maxwell would back him
up, but that would make them both seem crazy. More importantly, it
wouldn’t help Miranda. Spiritual possession and mystical forces
were not known as good explanations for anything in a court of
law.

The police detective he sat across from in
the interview room barely even registered on Maxwell’s senses. He
let the questions roll over him as though he were a stone and the
detective was a breeze. Nothing he said mattered, no threat or
promise he made caused Maxwell to so much as bat an eye. After two
hours of questions and attempts to get him to respond to anything,
Maxwell calmly put his head down on the table and closed his
eyes.

“Are you all right, sir?” the detective
asked.

“I am medically fit,” Maxwell replied. “You
have better things to do.”

The detective didn’t move for a moment, then
he collected his note pad and pen, then quietly left.

The only thought in Maxwell’s head was that
he should have been the one firing the gun. It was his band, they
were his friends, and Panos was his enemy. He brought the trouble
into being, but Miranda was going to pay for its end.

By the time he was checked out of the police
station, Maxwell was emotionally numb. The only urge he had and
followed was to look for Miranda as he was walked out, given
everything he came in with, then shown to the door by a lawyer he
didn’t know. He couldn’t see her, which wasn’t a surprise, but it
was a disappointment.

He could see Allen on the other side of the
doors, and he stopped the lawyer, who was saying; “-but they’re not
charging you with anything. It’s obvious the knife you had on you
was not used in the assault.”

“What about Miranda?” Maxwell asked.

“I don’t think I can discuss her case with
you,” the lawyer said.

Maxwell slowly turned towards the tall, grey
haired man, resisting the urge to drag his face down to his level
and force him to speak.

“The news is not good,” the lawyer said
quietly. “They have already charged her with first degree murder,
it’s the fastest I’ve ever seen someone charged with a crime that
severe in this province.”

“Bail?”

“Listen, I understand what happened in the
hospital, I was at your initiation, I’m here because I’m good and
I’m one of you, but I have to present the defense on what I can
prove, on what a jury might believe. She is in a very tight spot,
Max.”

“Will she be able to get out on bail?”

“No,” the lawyer replied. “She is a Canadian
citizen, so she won’t be extradited, but she just arrived in the
country after a long absence, and has ties internationally. I’m
going to fight for her to get out on bail, but I don’t know of a
judge who would grant it.”

“So, she’s going to go to jail for
twenty-five years,” Maxwell said, having difficulty finding the air
in his lungs to finish the statement.

“I’m going to do everything in my power to
get this down to second degree,” the lawyer said. “I’ll make it
happen, Max.”

Maxwell pushed through the doors and nodded
at Allen. Bernie was waiting in a black four door Chevy Nova. It
looked new, he knew it was the car they were setting him up with to
take the Dawn Shard on the road.

“Bernie’s all packed, he’s going to take the
shard.”

Maxwell began shaking his head before he
reached the sidewalk and didn’t stop until all three of them were
in the car. “You’re not taking the shard, you’re not going
anywhere, Bernie.” He said firmly. “You’re going to stay home,
you’re going to guard the book, and you’re going to read that
fucking thing over and over again.”

“Are you crazy?” Allen said.

“Panos made a mess of things,” Maxwell told
Allen, who was in the back seat. “He opened doors he’ll never get a
chance to close, and I trapped his spirit in Darren’s corpse, and
I’m sure Darren didn’t get a chance to get out. I can’t be the only
person we know who understands what’s in that book, especially
since I’m going to take that shard down the road and maybe never
find more than three days peace at a time.”

“You’re going to be needed here, Max,”
Bernie said.

“For what? To watch her go to jail for ten,
twenty, twenty-five years because I dragged her into my bullshit?
Bloody hell, I love that girl like I’ve never, and the best thing I
can do for her is get as far away as I can, take my fucking trouble
and artifacts with me.”

“She’s going to want to see you, even if it
is just visiting,” Bernie said. “Miranda is going to need you.”

“Would you listen?” Maxwell asked, and was
about to launch into another list of reasons, when Bernie’s father
interrupted him.

“Max is right,” Allen said. “We’ll go to the
crossroads. You’ll go on to the house in another car, get his bags
together. We’ll take care of her Max. Just remember, you may have
brought this trouble here, but Miranda and all your friends,
everyone who loves you would have rather you did. This is the kind
of trouble that would have killed you if you faced it alone, so,
even though it looks like it couldn’t have been worse, I’m glad you
brought it home. This is a better outcome in the end, we get a
chance to take control of it.”

“Darren and Zachary are dead, April won’t be
the same, and Miranda is going to prison,” Maxwell said quietly.
“If I knew this was the homecoming, I would have driven my bike
into the Saint Lawrence. Drive.”

The ride to the crossroads was a silent one.
Maxwell could see the grey patch of trees surrounding the
intersecting dirt roads well in advance. The grass in the graveyard
was yellow, the oaks, pines and birch trees were grey for fifty
feet in all directions as though they had been parched, dead and
sun-bleached for a hundred years. When the car stopped, he could
see their limbs had been twisted, hollow faces stared towards the
middle of the intersection. A few of the grey faces were furious,
their long, dark hollow expressions severe and jagged. Most were
morose, rounded and drooping.

A dozen elders from the Gathering circle the
night before were along the roadside, watching the car pull in,
waiting. “You’re my brother,” Maxwell said to Bernie as he turned
the car off. “Doin’ this as much for you as for anyone.”

“I know, Max,” he replied. “Wish I was going
with you.”

“Not this time,” Maxwell said. “I’ll tell
you where to find the book when I call from the road.”

Bernie hugged him and got out of the
car.

“Sure going to miss you, Dad,” Maxwell said
to Allen just as he was opening the door. “Thank the stars you were
there to catch me when I was young.”

“I’m sorry you’re taking this on the way you
are,” Allen said. “But I’m proud of you.”

Maxwell got out of the car and walked to the
middle of the crossroads. The chill in the air was still intense,
and he knew he’d be facing something evil if it weren’t for the
group of elders shedding their light on the crossroads. The sun was
going down, there was no time for hesitation, so he picked up the
shovel dropped in the middle of the road and dug down to his
seal.

Sweat broke on his brow as he felt malicious
eyes staring at his back. Whatever was coming to visit the stone
was powerful enough to stare through the protection a dozen elders
had drawn around the crossroads. He smirked at he struck the iron
seal, and knelt down to pick it up. One of the elders took it in
oiled cloth marked with protective symbols. “Not going to want to
use that until it’s blessed again,” Maxwell told him.

“We’re going to melt it down and cleanse the
metal,” the elder said. “Thank you for doing this, man.”

Maxwell looked up and recognized the man who
joined them for a few songs, his blonde and silver hair was bound
up in a long braid. “The road is a second home,” he told him.

“Come see me in Arizona sometime,” the elder
replied as he closed the oiled cloth and returned to his place on
the roadside.

Maxwell looked at the Dawn Shard in the hole
and shook his head. “We’re going on a trip, you and I,” Maxwell
said. He could feel the evil staring at him from a distance recede
as soon as he made contact. The feeling that hundreds of other
worldly beings were pressed back filled Maxwell. They were still
there, he could faintly feel their desperation and hate. “I’m going
to find out what you’re really for some day.” He shoved it into his
pocket.

Bernie was behind him with the keys to the
Nova. “I’m going to miss you, man.” He said with a hug.

“Me too, but you’d better get back to the
farm, I don’t want to wait around her long,” Maxwell said.

“The car is all loaded up, I even had time
to get your amp in there, just in case,” Bernie said.

“I lost a minute somewhere,” Maxwell said.
“Take care of Miranda and her aunts for me, make sure they know I’m
sorry.”

“They know,” Bernie said. “They don’t blame
you, but they know.”

With a final, firm hand shake, Maxwell left
his friend behind. He got into the black Chevy Nova, moved the seat
up, started the engine, and put the car into drive.

October 31, 1976
A gas station just outside Big Wreck, Arizona.

“I hear you,” Maxwell said as he turned the
ignition key of the Chevy Nova off. He could feel the lady in the
passenger seat, if not see her. Harriet McCullen had a son who had
run off as a teenager, and she was deeply worried. She had been
deeply worried for a very long time. “I know where to find your boy
Daryl, and you’ll be seeing him tonight, just be a little patient.
I’ve got a call to make, so I’ll be minute, luv.”

He stepped out of the car and into the
merciless Arizona sun. “Missing Canada fall today,” he said to the
gas attendant, a dusty looking fellow in an EXXON hat. “Fill it up
with regular.”

He stepped into the telephone booth and
connected to the operator. “Collect call to Canada, here’s the
number.”

A moment later the line rang and Bernie
picked up. “Max! How’s the road?”

“Road’s doing fine,” Maxwell said, leaning
against the glass and looking out towards the parched highway.
“Driving almost pothole free out here, makes me wish I had my bike.
Might not have room for this week’s passenger though.”

“You picked up another lost one?” Bernie
asked, surprised.

“Lots of ‘em out here. This one’s as
pleasant as you please, just wants to be reunited with her son,
says he wandered off to a mining town called Big Wreck. I asked
around, and sure enough, I wasn’t too far. Place has been abandoned
since the early nineteen hundreds.”