CHAPTER 6
When I got to the offices after my trip, Milo, Ray and Earl were all there. I’d called and told them I’d found some information so they were waiting for the report.
“So,” Earl growled. “You found something. Took you long enough.”
“We lost Evans while you were gone,” Ray said. “Bit by a shambler.”
“Evans?” I asked.
“Tall guy?” Milo said. “Blond? Used to be with Miami?”
“Does not ring a bell…Oh, Colt Python guy?”
“Probably,” Earl said. “They starting to blend?”
“Little bit.” I laid out my notes. “You want some clue about how much fun I had finding all this stuff? Should I talk about my love of ancient Tibetan? And let me be clear that love is used in the most sarcastic of senses? Or how much fun it is trying to figure out which particular meaning of a pictogram is intended in Jin Dynastic Chinese? I’d say ‘Mandarin’ or ‘Cantonese’ but those are both the equivalent of modern English versus, say, Latin. Or that there are no modern extant copies of anything about this thing? That everything was on old scrolls so worm-eaten and faded, copied and recopied by hand that I was spending half my time just figuring out what the next letter might mean?”
“We get it,” Earl said. “You’re smart and it was tough. Nobody cares.”
“The thing is definitely an entity created by the Great Old Ones, and it empowers necromancy.”
“We already were pretty sure of that,” Ray said.
“There are only three of them ever known to exist. As the PUFF adjuster mentioned. Africa, Indonesia and Mongolia. There’s no record of the one in Africa being destroyed. Possible it was moved over here at some point. Or there might be a seed that came from there. Worth noting there may be another still there. The Indonesian one was killed by a Dutch expedition. Presumably. Very little extant information. Just a couple of survivors and I was unable to find the original report.”
“Just a couple of survivors?” Earl said. “Out of how many?”
“Looks like a couple of companies of Dutch East India Marines and about a regiment of local sepoys.”
“Jesus,” Ray said. “What got them?”
“Again, very little information.” I pushed the papers his way. Ray didn’t have my gift for languages, but he was smart as I was. Using the translated notes he might come up with something I missed. “But here’s everything I found.”
“So, undead,” Earl said, shrugging. “Which we already had. What else is going to try and murder us?”
“So I went looking for something in Mongolia. A Chinese expedition was sent up into the Hun lands to quote ‘fight a great evil.’ The expedition’s size was the equivalent of two legions. About ten thousand troops. They got back with about three thousand.”
“Okay, that’s not good,” Ray said.
“You think?” I said.
“What period,” Ray asked. “Oh, Jin. Eastern or Western?”
“Eastern. Xiaowu period.”
“Those were good troops,” Ray said. “Highly disciplined, experienced and trained. Pretty serious warriors.”
“Yep,” I said. “The loss of most of the expedition I think contributed to the Xiaowu turning over power and the demise of the Eastern Jin. But I digress. The main source of information was a thirdhand story from the POV of an apprentice to a powerful Tibetan lama who accompanied the expedition.”
“Fascinating,” Ray said. Milo looked confused. Earl was annoyed.
“The expedition had to, again, fight local supporters and a wizard from somewhere to the West. Could have been from anywhere West. Tibetans weren’t all up on geography. The lama found the body of the thing using the rune of Onesh when the supporters were cleared off. They got miners to dig down to it. The Chinese alchemists tried to burn it with fire but weren’t able to do much damage. Sounds like they were using gunpowder. The lama hit it with some sort of mystic unguents and that apparently pissed it off. Unguents unclear. Then it raised its ‘servants.’ Servants also unclear. I’m thinking that’s probably the kifo worm pseudopods. Basically it wasn’t ‘servants’ but the worm itself apparently attacking through those. They can stretch out, obviously, for miles. But I could be wrong. It was the second battle that killed most of the expedition. The lama managed to kill it but he was killed as well. That part of the scroll was degraded badly. An apprentice survived and brought the story back to Tibet. And be aware, all of this is not nearly as clear in the writings. This is mostly interpretation and guesses. But that seems to be what happened.”
“Holy shit. Enough already.” Earl sighed, obviously impatient. “Did you get anything solid?”
“Earl, there is nothing solid about any of this ancient tomes shit, okay?” I snapped angrily. “And I’m getting to it! I worked on this shit for a solid month. Smoke another fucking cigarette and wait!”
Earl scowled. Ray and Milo exchanged a nervous glance.
“Chad…” Earl stubbed out the end of his cigarette in an ashtray, then set his hands flat on the desk, took a breath, and addressed me in a very calm manner. “I’m gonna state this in a way you can wrap your big old brain around. I know it’s real important for you to feel like the smartest asshole in the room, but I’ve got work to do. So actionable intel now, history minutia trivia fun time later…Get to the fucking point already.”
“They had to deal with the local tribe, fierce cannibals, and the necromancers who were using the entity for power. So what caused what casualties is unclear, but when we attack the body, all hell is going to break loose.”
“Got it,” Earl said, lighting another cigarette. Guy was a freaking chimney. “So find it, drill down, then hit the monster with some mystic crap we don’t know, then fight its servants we don’t know, but which were badass enough to wipe out an army. Anything else?”
“There’s a large contingent of Tibetans out in Colorado. I could go see their shamans with my notes and see if they know what unguents to use.”
“Do it. You may annoy the hell out of me sometimes, but you’re good at that kind of thing.”
“We’re going to collect the PUFF on a hundred-plus-meter Old One–category entity that has been making it easy to raise the dead and attracting monsters to New Orleans for centuries,” I said. “I’m thinking we’re going to make bank on this. Assuming anyone survives.”
“Assuming MCB doesn’t say it’s out of our league and take over from us,” Ray said.
“Then we just don’t tell them,” I said. “Let them go sort through ancient scrolls.”
“Speaking of MCB, you’re still not in the clear, there.”
“I got some thoughts on that in England. I’m going to go see a voodoo woman and try to replicate what MCB did to determine I was a suspect.”
“You know my opinion on the matter.”
“Well, you’re not the one being hounded by the MCB, and nobody knows where my brother is to straighten this out the old-fashioned way. I’ll leave it to the hoodoo lady to figure that out. Maybe I can get enough information from her to show MCB how their casting was misinterpreted. Or at least get that to the political side to start to pull some of the heat off.”
“Never trust a politician or a wizard.”
“There’s two kinds of trust, Earl,” I said, looking him in the eye. “One is honesty. The other is competence. There are very few people I trust on both. I can count on the thumbs of one hand the number I trust on both. And I’m including myself in that number.”
* * *
“You don’t trust me?” Milo said.
We were driving back from clearing some shamblers out of a cemetery. In deference to MCB’s new policies we’d kept it discreet. Agent Robinson was easily excitable, and I was tired of getting arrested.
“If it came down to me or the Shacklefords, who would you choose?” I asked. “You don’t have to answer but it’s one of the bases. I love you like a brother, Milo—a real brother, not my shithead brother. But totally trust you? I don’t actually totally trust me. Are you honest? Sure. As honest as anyone can be. But try to honestly answer the original question. Are you always competent? In ways that amaze even me. But I wouldn’t want you to represent me in court. And there are emotional connections you have that are stronger than your connection to me. Would you do something for me, something very important, if you thought it violated your faith or your soul? I would hope not. If Earl was dead set against it? I think you’d tend to take Earl’s side. I don’t mind that. I don’t like you less for it. But you can see where I don’t trust you entirely thereby.”
“I guess there’s some logic,” Milo said, frowning. “But it isn’t about loyalty as much as it is about right and wrong. Mostly it sounds like you trying to justify being a butthead.”
“Uncool, man. Now, I’m going to go do some stuff that will make you uncomfortable,” I said, pulling up to the team shack. “So I’m going to go do it alone. Because I don’t trust you not to say something that will cause an issue.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go see a voodoo lady. And get my future read in tea leaves and tarot cards and there might be a chicken sacrificed.”
“Those people are…” Milo grimaced and started to get out. “Whatever.”
“Milo.” I held up my hand. “You really are the closest person I have to a brother. So please be aware, the reverse is not true. I’d literally give up my soul for yours.”
“I…Don’t,” Milo said, then shrugged. “That isn’t how souls work anyway.”
“I doubt it will ever be an issue, but I got to go get my voodoo on. See yuh, brother.”
* * *
I went to see my real estate agent.
Madam Courtney was a revered hoodoo lady but her hoodoo had always been of the “White.” When I’d first met her, I had not realized just how respected she was in the hoodoo world. She made charms and healing potions, cast blessings and such. She’d never been known to lift a finger in harm against anyone. It should be noted that despite being houdoun, Madam Courtney attended Catholic mass every Sunday, without fail, as well as on major saints’ days and at various other times. She had, in addition, attended Sunday School every week her entire life. Not “with few exceptions.” She’d once attended Sunday School and church while suffering from raging pneumonia.
So I couldn’t imagine a better hoodoo woman to see to determine what MCB had found out and possibly more. When I’d said there were twenty wizards in New Orleans better than MCB’s, I was serious and was friends with one of the top three, and her office was conveniently located in Bayou St. John.
The place was covered in charms and hoodoo decorations. After her attractive young secretary led me back through the bead curtain, Madam Courtney came around her desk to give me a hug. As usual she was dressed in bright colors and wearing a bunch of jewelry and amulets. “Oliver Chadwick Gardenier, my favorite client. Sit. Sit! Now, what is the bother for you?”
“I need you to talk to your loas.”
The first few times I had met her, Madam Courtney had constantly admonished me to trust in the loas. “It is serious then?” she asked as returned to her chair. Without asking if I wanted one or not, she poured two glasses from a bottle of dark rum.
“I have come under suspicion by the authorities of being involved in a very foul crime. They won’t give me details but I’ve determined they were looking for those who are involved and did some sort of casting. I was found to be connected as was my brother. The problem being, I am not involved in any way that I am aware. I swear this to you, Madam Courtney.”
“No need. I know you too well to believe such things.”
“But the casting has me as being, according to them, ‘the alpha and omega.’ That I created it and that I can end it. I swear I did not create it though I would like to end it.”
“What is this foul crime?” Madam Courtney asked.
“There is a group who are kidnapping girls to be used as virgin sacrifices, and selling them to those of the Dark and the Black who need such. They often kill whole families to get girls who are the right type. The only information I have is that they’re called the Dark Masters.”
“Ah.”
“You’ve heard of them.” I wasn’t surprised. Madam Courtney knew everybody.
“Rumors only. They’re not from around here. They work up north and out west, Yankees and scoundrels. So foul with the Black that I’m surprised they can maintain the semblance of being human. They call themselves Dark Masters as they think they are more powerful than the loas. They revel in sin. Many in this town work with the Dark and the Black, but I would have no clue, though, why anyone would put you in their midst.”
“That’s the question I’ve been asking everyone. The only thing I can think is to…The term I’d use is ‘reverse engineer’ the casting. To try to do the casting that whoever the Feds hired did and see what comes of it.”
“But you know not what casting,” Madam Courtney said, frowning. “And it could be many. It depends on what they were looking for.”
“Could there be a way to look for the girls instead? That may have been what they were doing. Could a federal hoodoo man have tried to find who took them, and somehow my name came up by mistake?”
“To find the girls, or them as took them, I’d need something of theirs. Not just something they touched, something that is of them. Hair, toenails. Do you have such?”
“Not currently. I can possibly find something, but that victim would probably already have passed on.”
“Such a thing is vile,” Madam Courtney said angrily. “Find me something of one of the girls who was took. We will trust the loas to show us the way!”
“Thank you, Madam Courtney. I truly appreciate the help.” I got up, laid an envelope on the table, and let myself out. When it came to the hoodoo side of her business, you didn’t ask Madam Courtney how much her help cost. It cost what you paid. If you had nothing, she would help you for free. If you were rich, you were expected to pay as much as was reasonable. The envelope contained ten thousand dollars. I was pretty sure she’d give most of it away to the needy anyway.