Fantasmagoria (5 page)

“I don’t have time for that.”

“You should make time. Gods know you’ll need it, you crazy bastard.” The old man chuckled.

Vernal looked at it again. He took a bite and scowled.

“What do you think?”

“Tastes like ass,” he mumbled.

“Don’t be a pussy.”

Vernal swallowed. “I thought old men were supposed to be respectable.” A few gritty bits stuck to his teeth and he spit them onto the paper.

“Profanity is a lot like wisdom.”

“How so?”

“It brings clarity in times of darkness.” The old man produced a vial from his pocket and set it on the counter. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re full of shit.”

“I mean the bottle, moron.”

Vernal picked it up and turned it in the light. It was filled with a viscous yellow liquid. He sniffed. Citrus.

“Extremely concentrated, per your specifications.”

“And I can cut it with water?”

The apothecary nodded. “Well, I wouldn’t put it on my skin like that. Liable to burn it off.”

Vernal nodded and set the Jackal’s key on the counter.

“Sonuvabitch.” The old man lost his smile. “You went and did it. You better hide that somewhere safe.”

“I thought you wo--”

“I’m not touching it.” He pointed. “Nothing good is going to come to the man who holds that key.”

“I was just going to say, I thought you’d want to see it before I stashed it away.”

The old man stared for a moment. He lifted the key and turned it over in his hands. “Do you have any idea how old this is?”

“No.”

“You don’t care, either.” The old man set it down. “This is the key to great power.”

Vernal put the vial and key in his coat. “I don’t want great power. I want the Genix. Pimpernel wants great power. It’s an even trade.”

“Erasmus Pimpernel can’t be trusted.”

The bell over the door rang again just before a hooded youth trundled down the stairs. He browsed the shelves of glass jars along the far wall. Each was filled with a different kind of putrescence. Lycanthropy viruses.

Vernal kept his voice down and one eye on the door. “I don’t trust anybody.”

“Are you certain he even has the Genix?”

Vernal squinted. “You said--”

“I said he probably has the Genix. Kane McMasters found it.”

“The guy on TV?”

“The same.”

The youth turned to the old man. “You have gryphon tears?”

The old man nodded and turned to remove a crystal vial from under the counter. He went on. “And everyone in the reliquaries business knows Kane really works for Pimpernel.”

The hooded youth fidgeted and rubbed his arms.

Neverod user, Vernal thought. Gryphon tears soothed the burns.

“But, no one knows what’s in Erasmus Pimpernel’s private collection but Erasmus Pimpernel.” The old man looked at the youth. “How many drops?”

“Six. No, five. Five.”

“Five?”

The youth nodded and rubbed his nose again. He was shaking.

The old man turned to Vernal as he filled a small syringe. “Once he knows you have the key--”

“He already knows I have the key.”

“Here you go.” The old man wrapped the syringe in wax paper and stuffed it in a bag. “That’ll be twenty.”

The youth dropped the money and took the bag.

“How can you be sure?” the old man asked.

Vernal watched the youth leave. “Because the Jackals would sell me out for a bag of fingernails.” He stood.

“True.” The old man paused. “That means the Murderlings are after you and you’ll be dead by nightfall.”

“How much am I worth?”

“How would I know?” The old peddler shrugged. “You aren’t worried?”

“Eh. If I don’t get the Genix, I’m dead anyway.”

The old man waved him off. “Oh, don’t start with that ‘end of the world’ bullshit again. People have been preaching about the end of the world since long before you were born. Since before I was born, and that’s a helluva long time. ‘Kraxus is coming’ my ass.”

Vernal shrugged and put on his coat. “I didn’t say anything about Kraxus.”

The old man coughed and cleared mucus from his throat. “I get enough of it at temple.”

Vernal nodded to the little shrine to Xueyin the Keeper, the last of the holy trinity, at the back of the shop. Her swooping gown poured down her body in folds like a waterfall. “If you don’t believe it, then why have that?” He waved his hand over her elaborate headdress.

“That’s different.”

“Whatever,” Vernal gurgled in his grated voice. “Keep your superstitions, old man.”

“Wait.” The old man lifted a finger. “I have something for you.”

“I have to go.”

“Just wait.” The old man put the gryphon tears away. “This stuff keeps me in business. Retail chains won’t touch it.” He walked around the counter and opened a cabinet.

Vernal eyed the door. “What’s so bad about gryphon tears?”

“Eh, it’s how they collect them.” The old man inserted a long pair of tongs into a sand-filled terrarium.

“One at a time?”

“No. Ass. They put the animals in these machines with a big screw and pinch them. Supposedly it’s very painful.”

“So?”

“So, some people think it’s cruel. Here.” The old man pulled out a long, insectlike worm. It squirmed in the tongs. “Hold out your hand.”

Vernal raised an eyebrow.

“The Black Hand uses these. Never know, might keep you alive.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a stirge larva. The acolytes of the assassin cult let these burrow into their wrists. Through the palm.”

Vernal looked up. “What?”

The old man nodded and pinched the tongs. A thin, serrated stinger emerged from the creature’s hind end as it wriggled. “When you cock your wrist back, it compresses the animal and ejects the stinger. Useful as a concealed weapon. Sharp, and poisoned.”

“That’s clever.” Vernal smirked and held out his hand.

The old man paused. “You’re really not afraid of anything, are you?”

“What good is fear?” Vernal grumbled. “Hurry up.” Vernal grimaced as the long, slender larva pushed into his skin and squirmed into his wrist. “Ow.”

“It will secrete a numbing agent.” The old man put the tongs away. “You won’t feel it after a couple hours. You’ll also be less susceptible to pain.”

Vernal watched the skinny larva disappear as the apothecary handed him some gauze for the bleeding. Vernal took it and cocked his wrist. Sure enough, the stinger emerged through the base of his hand. He smiled. It revealed his chipped teeth.

The old man looked away. “The longer you use it, the more it will stain your palm. Hence the name, the Black Hand.”

Vernal dropped the smile and put the stinger to his companion’s throat.

The old man stopped.

“Where’s the back door?” Vernal asked.

“Don’t point that thing at me.” The old man raised his hand to move the stinger out of the way.

Vernal grabbed the old man’s head and pushed the barb to his throat. “Don’t tell me all these freebies were for old time’s sake. You’d charge for breathing the air in the store if you could. You’re trying to get me to hang around. That means they’re on their way. Is that what the junkie was for? A lookout?”

The old man stared into Vernal’s eyes. “You’re insane.”

Vernal smiled and pushed. He broke skin. A single drop of blood from the old man’s wrinkled neck gathered on the tip of the stinger. “How potent is the toxin?”

“Very.” The old man was stoic.

“You deal with the assassin cult. You must have a secret way out. Where is it?”

The old man nodded. “At the back. Under the statue of the Keeper.”

Vernal nodded. “She keeps you safe, does she?”

“Safe enough from the likes of you.”

Vernal glanced at the front door. Then he motioned to the shrine. “Open it.”

The old man shuffled to the back. He pushed the serene, smiling statue to the side, moved two lit candles, and twisted a hidden latch at the base of the shrine’s gilded frame. The paneling below opened with a click, revealing a small, laddered tunnel.

“It goes into the abandoned sewers of the old city.”

Vernal pushed the old man down, put the gauze in his teeth, and climbed down the tunnel. “Tell Pimpernel I’ll be in touch,” he mumbled.

“Vernal,” the old man sneered from the floor, one hand at his neck. “You really are The Infernal.” Tears welled in his eyes.

Vernal bore his chipped teeth in a snarl and disappeared.

The old man stood up, retrieved some gauze for himself, and put it to his neck. The tiny bit of venom that had made it into his body was already making him woozy. He sat next to the colorful dragon skull as the front door jingled. Two large men entered.

“You’re too late,” the old man sighed. “He’s already gone.”

(SIX) At the Pleasure of the Damned

Gilbert felt his skin flush and his stomach boil before he had time to return the cup to the floor, and he knew he had just drunk poison. He looked up at the three figures on the tattered brick balcony overhead. They were shrouded in black robes and each wore a tribal mask—horned, flame-tongued, and angry. The acolytes of the assassin cult were unmoved.

Gilbert gripped the pocked concrete under his hands. He looked at the little tray that had been left for him in the middle of the chamber. “I drank poison, didn’t I?”

“Thaloximine,” one of the figures answered. “Are you familiar with it?”

Gilbert nodded. “It’s a saurus tranquilizer.”

“Indeed,” replied the second.

“It merely sedates a forty-ton animal,” said the third. “It kills a man.”

Gilbert started to feel dizzy. His mind and heart began a race neither could win. He swallowed dry.

“The poison will numb your entire body, starting with your extremities.”

“Without feeling, you will lose the ability to walk.”

Gilbert couldn’t see straight. He couldn’t tell who was talking anymore. “What do I have to do?” he asked, looking up at the concrete dome overhead. The abandoned remains of Hoosegow Prison were a vine-strapped hulk. As his head throbbed, it seemed as if the dome would crash in on him.

“You may be able to reach one of the causeways before the poison takes effect.”

Gilbert looked around. Three large, oval causeways sloped down and away from the main floor, delving into pitch darkness. The engineer in him wondered if the room had been some kind of aqueduct.

“The antidote is inside this chamber.”

“You have all you need to know.”

“Your fate is in your hands.”

Gilbert’s mind split. One half was aware of his actions, and it watched helplessly as the other half circled for answers. As in a dream, he was both observer and observed, trapped in his body and free.

He stumbled to his feet, then tripped and fell. His hands took the full weight of his body against the concrete, but he felt nothing. Gilbert collapsed on the ground near the tray, which clattered and shook. He realized he’d never make it three steps let alone across the hall. He began to shake and gasp.

Had they told him everything he needed? What did he know?

Everything was a ritual with the Black Hand, a test, full of innuendo and double-meaning, like the robes and the secrecy and the poison. Nothing was as it seemed.

They didn’t say the antidote was in the causeways. They merely said it was in the room.

Gilbert lost vision.

“The antidote isn’t in any of the causeways, is it?” He panted between words.

Gilbert’s entire body was numb, and it made him feel three times larger, like a swollen insect, a juicy moth ready to burst out of the cocoon of his radiation suit.

“Your service to the Black Hand has concluded.”

One of the robed figures raised a blowgun to his mouth.

“Goodbye, Mr. Tubers.”

As the dart pierced his neck, Gilbert was certain it would pop him like a balloon.

§ § §

Gilbert awoke with a throbbing headache. He was nauseated and his muscles burned as if he’d just risen after a night of heavy drinking. He coughed and tried to move his hands, but he was handcuffed to a chair. The hood of his suit had been draped over his head again, and he stared out through the round portal with the sound of his own breath in his ears. It was dark. The air was moist and foul. The table in front of him was chipped and scratched and dotted with brown stains of old blood.

Gilbert took a deep breath, sat up, and stared into a wall of metal eyes. Heads. Mechanoid heads. Hundreds, thousands perhaps, pseudoflesh long since decayed, stacked one on top of the other in a pile three meters high. Some were tiny. A few were half as tall as he. Some were empty. Some were bleeding wires.