A Soft Barren Aftershock by F. Paul Wilson
A sudden flurry of movement stunned him—someone moving with lightning speed, hurtling toward him. Quinn spun away but something cold and metallic rammed none too gently against the base of his skull.
“Another move and your brain stem comes out your nose.”
The pistol’s muzzle was positioned to do just what the intruder said, so Quinn froze, cursing himself. He’d played just about every role known to man in life, from idiot hero-addict to cop and now investigator of the unusual—and he wasn’t accustomed to being the one taken by surprise.
But, hell, he’d also learned how to talk and stall, how to retreat to fight again—and this seemed the right time for that.
“Okay, okay.”
The other man snickered as he removed Quinn’s revolver from his grasp. “Some hit man.”
The words stunned Quinn. “What—what did you say?”
“You heard me.”
“You called me a hit man.”
“On your knees. Gotta little hog-tying to do.”
“Wait just a goddamn minute. Who do you think I am?”
“That lady de Medici’s boy. Now on your knees or I put your own slugs through them.”
Madame de Medici? Quinn thought. He thinks I work for her?
“I’ve had no contact with the madame. Ever. I don’t know where you got your information, but I was hired by the owner, Jules Chastain.”
He could feel the other man stiffen behind him.
“Bullshit.”
“No, true shit.” He spoke quickly. “Reach into my jacket pocket for my ID. My name is Michael Quinn. I’m a private investigator in New Orleans.”
The muzzle pressed harder against his skull as the man reached around, found the folder, and removed it.
“It’s too dark to read in here anyway.”
“You mean you came without a flashlight?”
“No.” His tone was annoyed. “It’s just that my hands are full at the moment.”
He shoved Quinn toward the chairs. “Have a seat while I figure this out.”
Quinn did as he was told. The guy seemed dangerous but Quinn felt no fear of him. Odd. It was occurring to him that they’d both been taken—he hoped it was occurring to the other guy, too.
A flashlight glowed and Quinn caught a glimpse of some nondescript features, then the beam shone straight into his face.
“This could be fake.”
Quinn held up a hand to shield his eyes. “Yeah, it could be, but it’s not.”
The ID folder sailed through the light and landed in his lap.
“I don’t know why I believe you, but I do. Why did Chastain hire you?”
“To protect this place from a thief he was tipped was coming. That would be you, I guess.”
Quinn winced inwardly. It had seemed like a nothing job; he hadn’t even told Danni about it. Chastain was rich; he and Danni often needed hefty sums in their line of work: pulling in a nice, up-front paycheck for a few hours of work while she was busy with a celebration ceremony had seemed like a damned good idea.
He should have known there’d be a catch—like nearly getting his fool self killed.
The other man barked a bitter laugh. “No, I’m no thief. Chastain hired me to retrieve a ring he’d hidden here.”
“What?”
“Yeah. What the fuck?”
The silence lengthened between them until Quinn finally said, “Can I have my pistol back?”
“It’s a revolver, and a revolver is not strictly a pistol.”
Quinn had to laugh. “You mean I let a gun nerd get the drop on me?”
“Facts is facts, and no, you can’t have it back. At least not yet.”
“Not yet is okay. But how the hell did you get the drop on me?”
“Chastain told me about the rear door. I didn’t trust him, so I went in the front and out the back, then watched the place. I saw you go in the back so I followed.”
Quinn had to admit that was pretty clever, even as he kicked himself for falling for it. He’d seen how the vines at the rear had been disturbed but he’d come in anyway.
“You do realize we’ve been set up, right?”
Another short, sharp laugh. “Ya think? I knew this smelled bad.”
“You don’t sound like a local.”
“Got that right. Chastain told me to be prepared for ‘deadly force.’ He’d made it sound defensive. Now I’m thinking he wanted me to use it. What’s he got against you?”
“Nothing that I know of. Barely know the man. But I do know him better than you. I’m local. You know my name. What’s yours?”
“Jack.”
“ ‘Jack’ what?”
“Just Jack’ll do. Seems like I was supposed to kill you.”
Quinn’s muscles tightened, ready to leap. He’d actually been declared ‘dead’ once already. He didn’t fear death.
But he sure as hell didn’t want to die.
“And?” he asked flatly.
A shrug. “Don’t see any reason to.” Jack pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to Quinn. “This is supposedly where Chastain hid the ring I was supposed to bring him. Suppose it’s bogus, too.”
Quinn looked over the diagram and the instructions.
“Don’t you want a light?” Jack said.
“Don’t need it.” Quinn studied the diagram. “There should be a jagged little crack in the bottom of the first vault—the oldest—according to this.”
He ignored the fact that the other man had a gun while he still didn’t, and chanced turning his back on him to head to the rear of the vault and hunker down. He looked at the diagram again and stuck his hand into the jagged crack on the lowest shelf—that of Antioch Chastain, founder of the clan. As the diagram suggested, his hand hit a box; a wooden box. He withdrew it—along with a mass of spiderwebs and bone dust. He looked at Jack, and then opened the box.
“Empty,” they announced together.
“Figures,” Jack said. “The whole thing was a setup.”
“But why? He wanted us both here for a reason.”
“Why here? And by the way, haven’t you folks heard of graves?”
Quinn laughed. “The water table’s too high. And, actually, the cemeteries were conceived during the Spanish rule, and their design is according to the custom of the time. Good custom here—bury someone and you could find their coffin floating along in the next heavy rain.”
“So you pigeonhole them in these little buildings? Doesn’t it get ripe after a while? And what happens when you run out of shelves?”
“Here in Louisiana, the rule is ‘a year and a day.’ The heat is so great that bodies mostly cremate in that time. These tombs are like ovens. Families shovel the bits and bones of the remains of one loved one to a mutual ‘holding’ section at the foot of the shelf so that another family member can find his or her resting place for a year and a day—or until the shelf is needed again.”
“That’s gross. What country is this?”
“The United States of Louisiana. We have our own way of doing things.”
“I guess you do.” Jack looked around. “Great setting for a horror film, though. Hey, you think that’s why he got us here—to film us fighting? Some sick YouTube snuff vid?”
“You think he’s hidden a camera?”
“He didn’t fly me down from New York so we could have this nice little chat. Gotta be some reason he put us both here.”
Quinn didn’t see a camera anywhere, but memory of the loose tile flashed through his head. “It’s probably nothing, but—”
He ducked behind the altar and pried up the tile. Only dirt beneath it. But soft dirt.
He dug and struck metal within the first inch. He worked his fingers around it and came up with a bracelet made of strange metal and carved with even stranger designs. A green stone the size of a dime was embedded in its center. It looked familiar.
“I know this piece: the Cidsev Nelesso.”
“Sounds like a gelato flavor,” Jack said.<
“It was found sealed in a sunken temple dedicated to an as yet unidentified deity in the drowned city of Heracleion.”
“So what’s it doing here?”
“Good question. It and part of a papyrus scroll found with it were smuggled out and sold on the black market. The buyer was purportedly Chastain.”
“And you know all this how?”
Quinn hesitated. “I’m a private investigator. And I’ve been a cop for the City of New Orleans. But, these days—”
He held off. He was always careful, especially with strangers—and more especially, New Yorkers. But, to his great humiliation, this guy could have killed him.
And he hadn’t.
“Part of what I do these days is work with a woman,” he said softly. “Danni Cafferty. Her father owned a shop and I worked with him until his death. And now Danni and I . . . collect things. Unusual things. Angus Cafferty was a real scholar and, in his business, he needed to know about history and—things.”
“Things?”
“Curiosities of evil,” Quinn said. “Believe me or not. Objects that are cursed or that create evil in those who know how to use them or seek power through them. And I have a feeling now that we’re not dealing with any film project—we’re dealing with a thing that can cause evil.”
Quinn waited for the other man—Jack—to tell him he was crazy.
Jack didn’t say any such thing. Instead, “What about this Madame de Medici he mentioned?”
“She’s another notorious collector, but the way this is going, I doubt she knows anything—just a red herring in the story Chastain concocted for you.”
Jack took the bracelet and held it up, turning it this way and that in the wan moonlight filtering through the stained glass.
“Valuable?”
“ ‘Priceless’ might be a better word. It’s one of a kind. Supposedly one of the Seven Infernals.”
He saw Jack stiffen. “An Infernal?” He shoved it back into Quinn’s hands. “Here.”
“You know of the Infernals?”
“Unfortunately, yeah. Met one.”
Something in his expression said it had been a harrowing encounter. Jack hadn’t doubted Quinn—and Quinn didn’t doubt Jack for a minute.
“But hardly anybody’s even heard of the Infernals. Even Danni—”
“Danni—your partner who collects things?”
“Her shop is called The Cheshire Cat. It’s on Royal Street. She sells art, jewelry, and innocent collectibles. And she has a separate collection of things in the basement which will never be sold.” He hesitated. “We also destroy things when they need destroying. And when there are things out there that might cause . . . violence or havoc, people sometimes come to her—or The Cheshire Cat.” He shrugged. “We work together most of the time; she had to be at a ceremony with a friend of ours, a voodoo priestess.”
“So you’re moonlighting on your own?”
Quinn cast Jack a sharp glance. “That’s kind of what you’re doing, isn’t it?”
“This is how I make my living—just not so far from home.”
Quinn continued with, “The upper half of the scroll Chastain bought with the bracelet was copied before it was stolen. That copy and the original of the bottom half of the scroll were left to Danni on consignment.”
“Who left it?”
“Some weird old guy. Wouldn’t leave his name. Said he’d be back after she sold it. There didn’t seem to be anything—well, not right about it.” He hesitated and then said, “We usually have a nose for things that aren’t—right.”
“He trusted her?”
Quinn shrugged, hiding a burst of pride. “She has a flawless reputation.”
“Any buyer?”
Quinn felt a mild jolt of unease as he remembered Danni mentioning that she had sold the fragment.
And to whom she had sold it.
“Yes. Madame de Medici.”
“I thought you didn’t know the woman,” Jack said sharply.
“I don’t know her; I know of her. She doesn’t come into the shop herself; she sends a minion.”
Jack laughed. “Minion? She’s got a minion?”
“A number of them. Anyway, she’s purchased from Danni before and nothing bad has ever come of it.”
“So she does figure in this.”
“What the hell—maybe. But I still think Chastain is taking the two of us on some kind of a ride.”
“We’ll worry about Madame de Medici later,” Jack said, pointing to the bracelet. “What’s the deal on this thing?”
“The top half of the scroll claims the Cidsev Nelesso confers the ‘gift’ of knowing the thoughts of others. ‘No one can hide their thoughts from the wearer.’ ”
“I can see where that could come in handy during a negotiation.”
“For a collector like Chastain, who’s always haggling, it’s invaluable.”
“What’s the downside?”
Quinn was surprised by the question. “Why do you think there’s a downside?” He felt uneasy. They should have sensed something bad was going to go down.
“Always a downside with an Infernal.”
“How can you know that?”
“Supposedly there are seven Infernals. One of them damn near took the two people who mean more to me than anything else in this world.”
“How?”
“Too long a story for here and now.”
“Okay. Where is it now?”
“Gone. And don’t ask where because I don’t know. But it didn’t go alone. It took somebody with it.”
From Jack’s expression, Quinn knew better than to ask who.
Jack cleared his throat and said, “Enough about me. What’s the bottom half of the scroll say?”
“It says the bracelet isn’t of Greek or Egyptian origin—calls it ‘one of the Seven Infernals from the First Age.’ I obviously don’t have to explain that to you. But its ‘gift’ is considered a curse, so maybe that’s your downside.”
Jack shook his head. “If you know someone’s thoughts, they can’t hide anything from you. The truth can be ugly, and it can hurt, but knowing what’s really going down is better than getting the shaft.”
Quinn couldn’t disagree. The advantage in any relationship, business or personal, was obvious.
“But either way,” Jack said. “Why the hell are we here?”
“According to the scroll, the Cidsev Nelesso, like all Seven Infernals, must be triggered to work.”
Jack’s expression was bleak. “Yeah, I know.”
Quinn wondered just what the hell had happened to him.
He held up the bracelet. “Well, this one requires violence to activate it.”
“So, there you have it. That’s why we’re here. Was I actually supposed to kill you?”
“The scroll says death isn’t necessary. Just violence.”
Jack began wandering in a tight circle, muttering. “Curse. No one can hide their thoughts from the wearer. Violence.”
Suddenly Jack whirled and punched him in the gut. Quinn doubled over, as much in surprise as in pain.
“Are you out of your—?”
A right cross to the jaw snapped his head back.
That did it. If this son of a bitch wanted a donnybrook, he was going to get one. Quinn charged, head down, catching Jack in the midsection and slamming him back against the shelves.
“You son of a bitch!” Jack gasped in a breathless voice.
And then he grabbed Quinn’s arm and flipped him on his ass.
Ah, hell! Quinn thought, rolling and leaping to his feet.
But he was smiling as he charged at Jack.
“Is it going as you hoped?” said a soft, feminine voice behind him.
Jules Chastain whirled, then relaxed. Even in the meager light he recognized Madame de Medici. He had found a vantage point fifty yards from his family mausoleum and had settled in to see if the seeds he had planted bore violent fruit. How had she found him?
“Not
“As an involved party, I have a right, yes?”
He had been trying to place her accent in the years since she’d appeared in New Orleans, but it remained elusive.
“You recommended the New York mercenary, nothing more.”
She said she’d heard of a so-called Repairman Jack who hired himself out to “fix” situations. She had assured Jules he was real and reliable, though known to have a violent streak. She’d even passed along his number. Jules had liked the violent-streak aspect, and had hired Michael Quinn as cannon fodder—everyone in New Orleans knew not to mess with Quinn. The two made for a combustible combination.
She focused her amber gaze on him. “But I have an interest in the Cidsev Nelesso as well. After all, I used to own it.”
Those eyes. One could almost fall into them. Could almost believe she really had lived for millennia.
But Jules chose to humor her rather than challenge her. The Cidsev Nelesso had been found in Heracleion, which had sunk in the third century BC. The idea of Madame de Medici once having owned that bracelet was beyond delusional. More like psychotic.
So, never challenge a psycho.
“I hope you’re not thinking of trying anything sneaky here.”
“Dear Jules, the idea never crossed my mind. I will be quite happy to see it on your wrist. I lost it in a civil upheaval. Where it lands after that is up to fate.”
Whatever happened to the Cidsev Nelesso, dear lady, it landed with me.
He had made up that story for Jack about stealing it from her. Quite clever, he thought. But he had bought it fair and square on the black market. It was his.
God, she was beautiful. She’d emigrated from Cairo during the so-called Arab Spring and wound up in New Orleans with a trove of antiquities. She tended to dress in gauzy fabrics that covered everything and hid nothing. He’d asked her to dinner a hundred times but she’d refused. I’m not looking for a relationship, was her eternal excuse.
Neither am I, dear lady. I wish only one night with you.
He jumped at the sound of gunfire echoing from the mausoleum.
“Ah,” he said. “Now I am happy.”
“It should be activated now,” she said, turning and sauntering away. “Don’t forget: put it on right away or it will lose power.”