The Necromancer's House (20 page)

He looks into the field, where the headless body jerkily brushes down a plow horse, who stands placidly, swishing its tail against flies. Clearly headless bodies groom horses all the time in this hellish fairy-tale Russia.

Maybe I am in hell?

I ran into something hard in the dark.

A fence?

A plow?

Maybe I died?

“What, you have nothing to say?”

Andrew just blinks.

The head hawks and spits again, excusing itself.

A dream that's all just a dream

But I thought that when it happened

And it was real

“Even in a dream, one must be polite. But no. You are badly raised in America. Even if you did speak, all I would hear would be the sound of America coming from your mouth. Do you know this sound?”

Andrew says nothing.

“Would you like to hear this sound? The sound of America?”

Andrew shakes his head weakly, causing his head and neck to hurt.

“At last! The baby has an opinion! Well, here is the devil, baby, you will hear anyway.”

The head growls then, showing the crooked teeth below that thick mustache. The growl grows into the sound of an engine starting up. A helicopter engine. It opens its mouth as the rotors of the unseen helicopter spin more rapidly, then, as the rotors chop and roar at flight velocity, it opens its mouth impossibly wide and blows a jet of wind, hot and stinking of gasoline, blowing the straw in the stables about furiously, frightening the sheep away and scattering a trio of hens. The idiot brother shields his cigarette with his cupped hands, but it blows away anyway, and he cries.

The head shuts its mouth now, cutting off the roaring wind.

“It's all right, Ivan. America is gone now, and it is time for hot towels.”

“Hot towels? I like hot towels.”

“I know. Hot towels feel nice.”

Now the boy comes from behind Andrew

Neck hurts too much to turn and see where he came from

somehow carrying a bucket, towels, a lit oil lamp, and a shaving box. The boy has his leg back on

?

but limps slightly as he sloshes the steaming bucket along.

His big brother fetches himself a stool and sits, chin poked forward, loosening his collar. The boy packs a steaming towel around the simple man's neck and he coos.

The headless body now comes, washes the horse sweat from its hands in the soapy water, unwraps the towel, and then soaps and shaves Ivan's face, gently slapping a cheek when it wants him to pucker and tighten.

It wields the straight razor expertly.

Andrew shudders.

If they were going to hurt me, they would have done it already

Says who?

“Hurt you?” the head says from its tines, squinting with concentration at the remote-control shaving job its body undertakes. “More light!” it barks, and the boy winds the tiny knob that adjusts the length of the wick, leaning the lamp closer.

“Now you're in my way.”

The boy steps to one side.

“Good. Stay there.”

It hawks and spits a black clot and then addresses Andrew again.

“Hurt you? Why would we hurt you when you do such a good job hurting yourself? You should see the goose egg on your head. No, we want you well. We have many accidents here. Farmwork is perilous—but what would you know about it with your supermarkets and whores and ghettos? We want you safe and sound so you can heal us, little Jesus. See how you helped Lyosha?”

I want to wake up

“Wake up, then!”

I want to go home

“Who is stopping you? Go!” the head says, looking at Andrew now. The body has turned his way as well, and gestures with the razor as if to indicate the road Andrew is welcome to walk.

With some effort, Andrew swivels his hips over the lip of the manger, but something is wrong, something more than his throbbing head and ground-glass-packed neck.

He tries to stand but collapses to the ground, knocking his chin and biting his tongue. A startled rooster flaps its wings halfheartedly and continues to strut.

Of course he has fallen.

He has only one leg.

 • • • 

Andrew wakes up.

Adjusts the sweat-dampened pillow beneath him.

In the distance, a train.

“Ichabod.”

Nothing.

“Ichabod, I command you to appear to me.”

Nothing.

If it isn't listening, it isn't disobeying.

He'll have to formally invoke it or go see it.

The idea of going to see it in its cave makes him shudder.

Its cave by the train tracks.

And formal invocation is a pain in the ass.

He looks at the antique clock on his nightstand.

One ten
A.M.

Just after midnight in New Orleans.

He has a debt to pay.

 • • • 

He appears in the restroom of a fine-dining restaurant off Chartres, one he knows keeps late weekend hours. Knows also that it won't be so busy he's likely to have company in a private stall. He gets lucky, appears in front of the sinks, sees himself in the mirror.

Looking older.

Looking fortyish, not thirty-five.

Hair still black, skin tight, but there's something.

Still beats looking fifty-three . . . what would that look like?

Before his eyes, his hair goes mostly white, loses its luster; deep lines bracket his mouth, his eyes get crow's feet.

Not ready for that. Not yet. Go back.

He concentrates, believes himself younger.

Gets younger, thirty-five again.

Pops a blood vessel in his eye.

“Ow, FUCK!”

His left eye goes red; he bends over.

A waiter peeks in the bathroom door.

“You all right, sir?”

“I'm perfect, thanks.”

He's far from perfect, but people don't press things in this city, and the waiter disappears.

His sclera will clear up; he'll still be younger when it does.

It gets harder every year, though; they all lose this battle.

He feels the bulge in his coat pocket, wonders if the waiter thought he had a gun.

It's worse than a gun!

 • • • 

He goes by the zinc bar where a bartender with retro-lacquered hair cracks an egg, looks at Andrew, looks back at his work, finishes making the pre-Prohibition fizz for the rich young lady in the antique silk stockings. It could be a scene from 1935 until her cell phone buzzes and she looks down at it, smiles privately.

Now his phone is out, dialing Haint.

It rings five times, and then he hears the message.

“You know who this is if you got this number. Don't fuck around.”

Now the sound of something small and squeaky getting killed by something hard and heavy, underscored by Haint's gravelly laughter.

Beeep

“Andrew. Call me back. I'll be at Lafitte's. For a while.”

 • • • 

He's there for longer than a while.

A bearded boy in a bowler hat tears up Zevon's “Werewolves of London” in the back, fenced behind listeners perched directly at the piano, wobbly on their stools. The pianist's buddy leans against the wall near him, accompanying him on harmonica. Everything is dim. Everyone is drunk. The steamy little building reeks of whiskey and sways with inebriation.

If Dionysus came back, this would be his temple.

No sooner has Andrew thought this than Dionysus walks in.

WTF?

Did I just think WTF instead of what the fuck?

Is that fucking Dionysus?

Andrew relaxes a bit when he realizes the grape-leaf-crowned figure moving through the crowd is wearing a papier-mâché mask. He tenses again when he notices that nobody else looks at it. It's looking at him. No, correct that; it points its eyeholes at him, but those holes are black and eyeless. Sleeves hang past where the hands would be, but he is nauseatingly sure it has no hands. It floats rather than walks.

Andrew white-knuckles the table.

Now the piano man aborts the Doobie Brothers song he had just started, bangs his hands discordantly on the keys, looks at Andrew, and says, “May I sit?”

Nobody else notices.

They sway and drink and talk as if they're still hearing the song.

The harmonica man plays on.

“Sure,” Andrew says.

The chair opposite him pulls out on its own and the empty Dionysus collapses into it, the grape leaf garland and mask landing on top, the eyeholes fixed on the ceiling.

The waitress, a depressive woman with a lazy eye and a
Who Dat?
T-shirt, plucks the crown of grape leaves from the chair and walks it over to the piano player, fitting it down over his hat.

“Thank you, Felicity. Your next period will be crampless.”

“Awesome,” she says, sounding upbeat for the first time tonight.

The piano player tickles the keys and speaks to Andrew again.

“I believe you're the only person in this establishment drinking virgin soda water. You profane my temple, sir.”

“Ichabod?”

“At your service, as ever.”

“I called you hours ago.”

“You commanded me to appear before you. You did not specify a time.”

Everyone around the piano claps and cheers.

A man in a ridiculous toupee reaches past other celebrants to tuck a fiver in the well-stuffed tip pitcher.

The waitress points at the musician's near-empty glass by way of asking him if he'd like another drink.

“Absinthe,” he calls to her.

Looks back at Andrew.

“What is your pleasure, O magus?”

“I have a question, but I'd like to ask it in private.”

“Ask away! Nobody's listening.”

Now everyone in the bar turns and looks at Andrew.

“Ichabod.”

“I know. The manners in this city aren't what they used to be. Friends, might we have a little privacy?”

The drinkers all put their fingers in their ears, still staring at Andrew.

Andrew's fear grows, but then he remembers he's in charge.

Sort of.

“That was good,” he tells it.

“They're easier to control when they're drunk. But you know about that.”

He plays a little piano riff.

“Make them stop.”

“MAKE THEM STOP!” they all say.

“I command you.”

“I COMMAND YOU!”

“Do you really?” the piano player says.

His buddy starts making a train noise with the harmonica.

“Yes,” Andrew says.

The harmonica
choos
like a train whistle.

The harmonica player now lowers his harmonica, looks at Andrew too.

Silence.

The piano man spins his garlanded hat, puts it back on his head at a more rakish angle.

“I choose to interpret ‘Make them stop' as ‘Make them stop living.' That's a tall order. Forty souls in this room, including the piano man. I'll have to tamper with a gas line.”

“That's not . . .”

The waitress comes back with a glass of liquid that glows green like antifreeze. The piano man takes it.

Nods at her and says, “Forty-one!”

“My life sucks anyway!” she says.

“
Forty-one dead in New Orleans gas explosion, America's oldest bar destroyed.
You and I will survive, of course. But this is going to be on CNN!” says the piano player.

“That's not what I meant and you know it.”

“I don't have to know what you meant. I only have to know what you said. Now either you insist and they all die, or I disobey. Your call entirely.”

Now everyone in the bar drops to both knees, bowing their heads, their hands extended palms up in supplication.

“No, that's more classical, isn't it? Let's do something modern.”

Now they all look up, interlace their fingers, tears streaming down their cheeks as if they were all attached to the same irrigation system.

Andrew can't speak.

“Just say ‘live' or ‘die.' I won't insist on protocol.”

Andrew's mind races. He can't think of a way out of this.

“Friends,” it says. “I believe the wizard fears to slacken my leash, even just a little. If you have any last words, now would be a good time to say them.”

They speak in chorus.

“NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP

I PRAY THE LORD MY SOUL TO KEEP

IF I DIE BEFORE I WAKE

THE PIANO MAN MY SOUL TO TAKE.”

All eyes rest on the magus.

The sound of gas hissing rises up.

One of the candles leaps.

“Live!” Andrew says.

The hissing stops.

The candle leaps again, throwing too much light, casting the piano man's shadow against the brick wall behind him, but of course it isn't a man—tentacles, a writhing squid, just a split second of that.

Now he bangs out “Happy Days Are Here Again” on the piano.

All the drinkers look at each other, reach out to each other. They kiss indiscriminately, with no regard to age or gender. They begin to reach down pants, up skirts, fish out breasts.

A wild-eyed Asian man on his knees begins to stroke Andrew's thigh. Andrew moves away forcefully, stands up. The Asian man attaches himself to another couple, pets them, is petted in return.

“Shall I make them
stop
?” asks the grinning piano man.

Andrew speaks slowly, considering every word.

“I, Andrew Ranulf Blankenship, command you by the conditions of your entry into this sphere, and by the power of the words I here intone, which bind you to my service, to release all men and women currently in your power from said power, and to restore them to the state of independent thought and action in which you discovered them upon your entry to this building.”

The piano player stops playing.

“Nicely done.”

Raises his glass to Andrew.

It's going to leave before I can ask it if the witch is really dead.

“To you, sir. And to wormwood.”

He knocks back his absinthe.

“Ichabod, wait . . .”

The room blurs.

The bearded boy in the bowler hat belts out “Werewolves of London,” his friend accompanying him on the harmonica.

The entity

it's a demon just say it

is gone.

It came on its own terms and fucked with him until it got him to make a mistake.

It inched that much closer to liberty.

It kicked his ass.

Haint never comes, does not answer subsequent texts.

When Andrew gets back to the restaurant, he finds it closed and locked.

He will sleep among the crypts in the cemetery north of the Quarter, not far from Marie Laveau. He will sleep there, unafraid of molestation; he will make himself invisible.

Failing that, he has other means of self-defense.

Very persuasive means, indeed.

It will be the next day before Andrew takes his Hand of Glory and his unanswered question back through the rabbit hole, back to Dog Neck Harbor, New York
.

To you, sir.

And to wormwood.