Strange Trades (35 page)

Babalu-Aye’s voice was a guttural growl. “Speak!”

The man began to recite his personal history, starting with his name.

Kraft Durchfreude’s story unreeled for hours. Shenda and Thurman sat transfixed at the enormity of the far-stretching, long-living evil his tale contained. Dawnlight filtered through the gauzy curtains before he was done. For the whole time Babalu-Aye held him ceilingward like a doll, a rigid tableau.

When at last the recitation was finished, Babalu-Aye dropped Durchfreude back in the chair. The
orisha
departed his servant, and Titi Yaya returned, her loaned body seemingly unaffected by the superhuman exertion.

Shenda rubbed her grainy eyes. “Titi Yaya, what—what is he?”

“An
egungun
, a shell. He is possessed by the dead man he once was.”

Thurman spoke. “A zombie?”

“If you will.”

“What can we do with him?” asked Thurman.

“I can end his artificial life with the proper spell—” suggested
la iyalocha
.

Shenda had been thinking about the immense horrors wrought by Durchfreude and the Phineas Gage League. Now she spoke.

“No. Wake him up enough to realize what has been done to him. Some of the things he said make it seem he’s halfway there already. Then—send him back to his masters.”

Titi Yaya reached out to touch Shenda’s wrist. “That will set large and uncontrollable forces in action, daughter. You play one
orisha
against another. Are you ready for the consequences?”

Shenda felt emptied of emotions. Pity, remorse, fear, hope, hate—all were just words without referents. Her body was thin as a piece of paper. Only weariness ached inside her.

“All I know is that I don’t want to live in a world where such things go on. Let’s end them if we can.”

“Very well.”

Into the kitchen stepped Titi Yaya. Sounds of bottles and tins being opened, bowls and spoons and whisks being employed trickled in to Shenda and Thurman.

She returned with two small vials full of subtly differing cloudy mixtures, one open and one corked. From the open one, she anointed Durchfreude’s joints and head, made him swallow the remaining pungent liquid, chanting all the while.

The
egungun’s
eyes showed white, his limbs twitched. Bullfinch barked. Durchfreude got spastically to his feet. When his vision was again functioning, he lurched out of the
casa de santo
.

Shenda knew it was time for them to leave also. “Titi, you know I can never repay you.”

“The debt is all mine, daughter. I should have been more forceful with you, made you take the Necklaces, gotten you under the protection of the
orishas
. Now I fear it is too late. The gods do not like being ignored for so long. And they are vengeful when slighted. I will work for you despite this.”

Shenda hugged her aunt. “Thank you, Titi! That’s all I can ask. Come on, Thurman. I’ll drive you home.”

Thurman and Bullfinch preceded Shenda. At the outer door, when Thurman was already down the stairs and on the street, Titi Yaya pressed the second vial into Shenda’s hand. “This is for your sick boyfriend, dear. It will help him.”

Boyfriend?

Shenda regarded Thurman thoughtfully.

Boyfriend.

What
didn’t
Titi Yaya know?

12.

A Cavern Measureless to Man

Samuel Stanes wore only a small head bandage a month after his surgery. Even in the dim light of the abandoned subway station, Twigg could detect the powerful knowledge of the limitless freedom conferred by the neuro-alteration alight in the newest member’s eyes.

Now the Phineas Gage League was up to full strength. The resulting synergy and competition would doubtlessly inspire them all to new heights of ambition and conquest. At times, Twigg enjoyed the cruel play that flourished amongst them. At other times, he would have preferred to have the entire world to himself, resenting the presence of the others. But such had been the way since the League began.

Not that there could never be changes.

And yet Twigg, even in his speculative heresy, failed to intuit that changes waited literally just around the corner.

Out of the darkness and into the station pulled the little mining train, Kraft Durchfreude at the helm.

The Dark Intercessor looked like a poorly constructed scarecrow from the fields of Dis. He seemed to have spent a longish period of dirty action without bathing or changing his normally immaculate suit, resulting in a shambolic appearance.

Twigg shook his head ruefully. Deplorable and dangerous. Shameful, if such a word could apply. It was like watching a corpse rot. This would have to be the meeting where they dealt with Durchfreude. They could send him on an errand and discuss his fate then.

Climbing aboard with his peers, Twigg noticed two oddities.

The pile of victims in the last car was covered with a tarp.

And instead of the expected whiff of unclean flesh, a strange herbal odor wafted off their driver. Twigg found it instinctively repugnant.

Down the long dark descent the train chugged, finally arriving in the flambeau-lit charnel cave.

The cold flyblown broken meats of their last feast still festooned the tables. The corpses, thankfully, had been removed. But no pleasant repast awaited their delectation. The smells of old rot were gagsome.

Further strangeness: Durchfreude did not servilely hasten to move up the portable steps for their ease of disembarking. He seemed frozen at the controls of the train.

With Twigg taking the initiative, the League members got awkwardly out.

Now Durchfreude did an unprecedented thing. He backed up the train until the last car effectively blocked the narrow tunnel mouth, their only exit from the meeting place.

Twigg began to feel very ill at ease.

Durchfreude stepped down. Jerkily, he moved to the caboose. Awkwardly, he pulled the tarp off.

The victims therein were already unfairly dead, some of them quite messily. With a burgeoning horror, Twigg recognized one of the corpses as a highly placed Isoterm executive. Others he knew as important members of other PGL-led companies, a fact confirmed by gasps and demands made by his compatriots.

“What is the meaning of this?” “Is this some kind of obscene joke?” “I can’t believe what I’m seeing!” “Durchfreude, explain yourself!”

Give their senior member full credit for bravery. Creaky old Firgower moved toward the Dark Intercessor, relying on old patterns of dominance.

“We want to know the meaning of your actions right now!” quavered the very illustrious head of Stonecipher Industries.

By way of explanation, Durchfreude reached in among the bodies and retrieved an exceedingly sophisticated automatic weapon.

A rubber apron was not a satisfactory shield. The first blast cut Firgower to gory flinders, giving the others time to scatter.

But in the final sense, there was no place to run.

With stoic lack of affect, Durchfreude calmly potted the screaming members wherever they sought to hide. In their frantic scrambles and inevitable death throes, all the furniture of the chamber was overturned and smashed.

Twigg’s mind on the conscious side of the dam was blank. But not for long. A single stray bullet in his side filled his superman’s brain with crimson anguish.

He fell to the carpet, facedown, a hand going to his wound.

Metal. He felt metal. His pump had caught the bullet, stopped it penetrating further.

Twigg lay still.

Eventually the screaming and inarticulate gurgling stopped.

But the shooting continued, a single round at a time.

Ever conscientious, Durchfreude was slowly walking around the scene of slaughter, putting a
coup-de-gr
â
ce
shot or three into each surgically altered brain.

Twigg opened his eyes.

He was staring into the lifeless blood-freckled face of Isabelle Fistule a few feet away.

Between them lay a familiar machete, often employed for fun, now his last hope for survival.

With infinite slowness he snaked his hand toward it.

Just as he stealthily clasped the handle Durchfreude’s shoes appeared in his vision. The man’s back was toward Twigg, as he pumped mercy shots into Fistule.

Still supine, Twigg swung up and around with all his strength.

A deep pained grunt.

Hamstrung, the mad assassin collapsed, rifle flying off.

Twigg was atop the creature in a kind of parody of sexual mounting. The face of the Dark Intercessor remained blank as ever.

Seeking to compose his mind, Twigg felt a greatness invade him from outside. Perhaps it was only his damaged pump flooding him with an uncontrolled mix of hormones and chemicals and soft drink. But whatever the source, amidst the stench and clotting filth, something celestial descended and rode Twigg like a horse.

“Speak,” ordered Twigg.

Durchfreude began a mechanical recitation covering the past few days.

When he was finished, Twigg said, “The servant is not to blame for the master’s mistakes. Die cleanly now.”

Durchfreude’s jugular blood sprayed Twigg from waist to head, feeding his power.

Twigg stood up beneath the splattered gaze of Phineas Gage.

Alone. He was all alone, the only one of his kind in all the world.

How wonderful!

13.

Fuquan’s Sendoff

In the three days following the burning of the Karuna and the visit to Titi Yaya’s, much happened.

Thurman felt dizzied by it all.

First, the police. They had found the dropped gun in the street and conclusively linked it to the bullet obtained from Fuquan’s charred corpse. The fact that the only fingerprints on the pistol were those of a long-dead respectable businessman proved only that the weapon had probably been stolen and kept unused for years, then handled by a gloved killer. Much persistent questioning ensued. The firemen had reported a fleeing car, but had been unable to provide positive ID that would link it to Shenda. Still, as with any business-related fire—especially one involving apparent concealment of a death—the suspicions of the authorities turned first on the owner and putatively disgruntled employees and customers.

“Now, Mister Swan,” said Sgt. Botcher. A comb-over, a plump ruddy face, and a black vinyl belt distinguished the policeman. This did not cause Thurman to underestimate him however. “Witnesses report that you had a little run-in with the victim some weeks ago.”

“It—it was nothing. He got mad when he thought I had eyes for a woman he wanted.”

“Ah-ha. I see. A woman. Would you mind divulging her name?”

Thurman knew he couldn’t lie, and also how suspicious all this would sound. “It was Miss Moore.”

“Miss Moore. The owner. Hmmm. She sure has her hand in a lot of businesses in this city. All properly insured, though, I bet.”

Sgt. Botcher made a little tick in his notebook. Then he threw Thurman a wild pitch that appeared to be an attempt to establish a specious bond.

“You’re a vet, Mister Swan?”

“Yes. The Gulf War.”

“Me too. ’Nam. One long hellacious fuck-up and fuck-over. Yours was penny-ante. Just a few months of the bosses testing some new systems and keeping their hand in.”

Thurman tried to imagine his debilitating chronic illness as something penny-ante. Maybe to someone outside Thurman’s skin that was how it looked. “I guess.…”

“Learned all about guns in the service, naturally.”

“Well, sure, the necessary drill. But I don’t think I ever fired one in combat. Mainly I was a demolitions man.”

Sgt. Botcher’s eyes got as wide as camera shutters in a dark room. “That’ll be all, Mister Swan. And please —don’t leave town without letting us know.”

But the police were only a minor upset in Thurman’s existence. They were blind and unknowing of the strange new reality that had been revealed by Kraft Durchfreude’s hypnotic confession. (And God help the authorities if they were ever unlucky enough to track down that monster!) Tiresome as they were, they grew bored, went away eventually and could be forgotten. A number of other things were more disturbing, less forgettable, and did not seem likely soon to go away.

The shattering of his newly fashioned cozy routine, for one. With the destruction of the Karuna, he had no way to start his day. No familiar faces and rituals, no laughter and jokes, no hearty boost of generosity, goodwill and nourishing food. It left a void at the center of Thurman’s day. And whenever he encountered other members of the Karuna family, he saw the same sad feelings at work in them.

“Go home, Thurman,” Vance von Jolly told him when he showed up for work the next morning after the dawn departure from Titi Yaya’s
casa de santo
. The artist was stretched out on his couch, paint-stained covers pulled over his face. A small rigid tower poked the blanket up at groin level. “Someone’s scraped the canvas of my heart with a blowtorch. The palette of my soul is crusted dry. I drag raced with the Devil and lost.”