Authors: John Hornor Jacobs
Would you serve and live
?
Or end this suffering and die
?
The words thundered in his mind. Something was offered here that went beyond words, went beyond his comprehension.
The black creature moved, filling the room with darkness, even though the sun streamed through the window.
Rise, then, if you would serve
.
The boy began coughing again. More blood dripped from his mouth, but now the pain burned with something more akin to lust.
As he drew himself up in the dark thing’s shadow, the boy could feel himself hardening, becoming recalcitrant and cold and strengthening, becoming ever stronger. Becoming something...else.
If you would serve, take up your father’s sword
.
The black thing turned, stepping through the wall, back into the field.
If you would not die, remove your mask
.
The boy watched as the figure flowed back across the barren fields toward the dark wood.
If you would not be weak, consume the strong
.
It was gone.
Wilhelm Rheinhart stood panting in the gathering darkness, blood dripping from his lower lip. He remained still for a long time and then, squaring his shoulders, opened the door to the long hall and walked out of his sickroom.
He found the old sword—his father always called it a gladius—in a cabinet in the library. The leather-bound books spanned to the ceiling, muffling the clank of the sword as he drew it from its short scabbard, its edges as sharp as when the sword had been issued to his father in the War Between the States. A short wide blade, a stabbing blade, it lay heavy and inert in the boy’s hand.
His mother sat in the parlor, at the piano, when he found her. Holding the blade flat, the boy came up behind her and drove the sword into her back with a violent movement, piercing her heart. She arched her back and drew in one surprised breath, and never exhaled. Pitching forward onto the keyboard, her body made a jangled, minor chord. The flounces of her dress discolored with blood.
Turning, the boy walked from the room, face hard.
He found Karl in the kitchen with a serving woman. His brother ate raw sugar from a bowl, dipping wet fingers into the brown stuff, smiling at the serving woman who looked on.
Wilhelm chopped once with the sword, driving the blade deep into the woman’s neck, then roughly jerked it out. Thick arterial blood sprayed across the kitchen. Her eyes bulged and blood frothed at her mouth. She toppled onto the floorboards near the stove.
Karl swung around from where he sat at the kitchen table and stared at his brother, caked in gore. He opened his mouth and brought sugar-rimed hands to his face, his eyes wide. He began to scream.
“Goodbye, brother,” Wilhelm croaked as he drove the sword through Karl’s open mouth. The scream died to a gurgle. Karl skittered on the end of the sword, vibrating as his body, with instincts of its own, tried to shake itself loose. Karl flopped backward onto the table, eyes vacant, body slack.
After Wilhelm cut his brother open, he ate Karl’s heart with great wrenching, tearing bites, chewing each mouthful until he could swallow it, the salt and iron of the blood making him gag, so much so that he thought he might vomit it up in a clotted mess. He managed to keep it down, his aching jaws working strongly, the muscles grinding in his blood-smeared cheek, until it was finally gone.
Afterward, Wilhelm swooned, standing uneasily in a growing pool of blood. He cried, weeping like a boy alone in the woods, weeping for what he’d lost, and for what he’d gained. Tears streaked his face and, after a while, he started to feel a burning in his chest again.
Wilhelm stood and looked around at the kitchen in amazement, the sword slipping from numb fingers. It fell to the floor with a clatter. The sobs coming from his chest were so loud it took a while for Wilhelm to realize they were his own.
When his thoughts finally turned to his father, he made his way out into the night, the cicadas whirring their night-songs, the oaks throwing up black branches against the canopy of starry sky.
The thing that had once been a boy wiped his tears and moved forward into the night, into the dark wood, looking for his master.
Chapter 1
Memphis, 1951
“A
man will uproot his life, move his home, his family, to avoid paying back one large. A measly grand. But he won’t really
change
,” Gene Corso said around his Havana, passing Ingram a slip of paper.
Ingram sat in the office, on a cul-de-sac off Poplar, facing Corso over an expanse of mahogany desk. Ceiling fans stirred the smoke in the air. At the far end of the office, beyond a plate-glass window, three men played cards and laughed at a joke.
Corso tapped a thick, ringed finger on the desk blotter.
Ingram glanced at the slip of paper. A name and license plate number. Ronald Meerchamp.
“He drives a blue Packard, white trim, they tell me. Got his license from the DMV. Just called up and asked for it, pretty as you please.” Corso drew on his cigar. He looked at the tip and blew on the cherry. “This guy’s a pussy hound. He likes the dark meat. And that means Pauline’s.”
Ingram knew the place. Off Gayoso and Pearl.
“You gonna be able to recognize him?”
“Yeah. He sat in on Wilson’s poker game last week. Got took for a bundle.”
“That was my fucking money. Tellya what, Bull. I’ll give you ten percent of what you get back. And another job in a coupla days. Got a guy needing someone found in Arkansas. Weird job but it pays.”
Corso brought a bottle out of his desk and poured whiskey into a crystal tumbler.
“We’re done here. Send Mickey in on your way out.” He sipped his drink.
Ingram stood and took his hat from the rack. He walked over to the three men playing cards.
The dour one sniffed and looked up at Ingram, a cigarette dangling from his lower lip.
“What? We got a game going here.”
“Corso asked for you.”
Mickey stood, cursing.
“Goddamn, you’re a fucking big one, ain’tcha? They call you Bull cause you’re so big? Or did your mother fuck cattle?”
Ingram put his hand on Mickey’s shoulder.
“I wouldn’t.” The words were flat, inflectionless. Mickey coughed.
“Yeah, well, the boss wants me.”
Ingram walked out into the Memphis heat.
His 1949 Plymouth Coupe sat sweltering at the curb. He threw his hat and jacket into the passenger seat. Sliding behind the wheel, he felt the sticky heat of the leather seats.
Driving east, Ingram smoked and hung his arm out the window to dry the armpits of his shirt. He twisted the knob on the radio until he found Nat King Cole on WDIA, crooning about a buzzard and a monkey.
The sun dipped in the west, casting long shadows across the street. Ingram turned off Union onto Gayoso, slowing, the coupe rumbling in low gear. He found the brothel on the corner of Pearl. No sign, just a line of cars parked down the street.
No blue Packard in sight.
He parked the coupe caddy-corner and watched as men wandered in and out of the large, frame house. Occasionally, a whore wandered out on the upper gallery to smoke. As the sun went down, the house brightened, the red curtains filtering bloody electric light onto the yard, the street. Ingram checked his watch. Drawing a pint from beneath his seat, he cracked the Federal Papers on the whiskey and sipped.
At 7:30, Ingram started the coupe and drove past Pauline’s. He found a diner a few blocks away. After a porterhouse and fried potatoes, he drank coffee, chatting with the waitress. She had an ex-husband and a kid at Sewanee.
“He’s a smart little kid, that Stephen. Always quoting stuff.” Bad teeth and breath that smelled like shrimp.
Ingram nodded.
“You single?”
“Sure.”
“Oh. Me too.”
“That’s nice.”
“You serve?”
Ingram shook out a cigarette and tamped the loose tobacco on his wrist. She lit the tip with a match.
“Thanks.”
“You see some action?”
“Pacific.”
“My ex was a reporter.” She snorted and put her hands on her hips. “Instead of a gun, they gave him a camera. He stayed in Washington. You believe that? The cheap bastard.”
“Can’t say I wouldn’t have traded places with him.”
She scratched at her hair with one lacquered fingernail.
“You want some more coffee?”
He threw down a five, smiled, shaking his head, and ducked through the door.
Back at Pauline’s, he drove around the block until he spotted the blue Packard. Someone had done a poor job on the white racing stripes. He stopped long enough to match license numbers, then continued down the block. Ingram turned around and found a spot to park within twenty feet of the Packard. He smoked and watched Pauline’s, taking an occasional sip from the whiskey.
The street was empty by the time Meerchamp staggered out onto the porch and toward his car. Untucked suspenders dangling at his sides, he walked with the rubbery gait of a sailor on leave, drunk and recently vigorous. At the car door, he fumbled with his keys.
I could do this now. But he might not have the dough on him.
Meerchamp pulled onto Pearl and headed south.
Bugs made tracers in Ingram’s headlights as he tailed the Packard. Meerchamp parked at a large apartment building. Ingram cruised the block before parking.
From the glove-compartment, he took a snub-nosed .38 and slipped it to the small of his back, followed by a foot-long leather-bound rod that he flattened to his forearm.
He entered the building, passed the elevator, and checked the mailboxes. Meerchamp 713A. He entered the stairwell and bounded up the steps by threes until he reached the seventh floor.
At apartment 713A, he stopped, scanned the hallway. No one. He rapped on the door.
The voice, when it came, was hesitant. “Who is it?”
Ingram kicked in the door, splintering the locks. He heard a satisfying
oof
as the door banged open.
Ingram moved into the apartment, ducking his head. Meerchamp lay on the floor in his shirt-sleeves and boxers, blinking.
“No!” the man screeched. “Help!”
Ingram clubbed Meerchamp’s head with the sap, toppling the smaller man forward. He caught him by the neck with one big hand. Meerchamp’s breath whooshed out as Ingram yanked him into his chest.
Desperate, he clawed at Ingram’s eyes.
Ingram jerked his head back, snarling, holding Meerchamp out at arm’s length. He tossed him through the door, into the kitchen. Meerchamp slammed into the cabinets, head-first, and slumped to the floor.
In a flash, Ingram was on him again, and dragged him to the sink, shoving the man’s head under the spigot. He cranked the water on. Meerchamp spluttered and screamed, fighting Ingram’s grip.
“Goddammit, you son of a whore! What do you want?”
Ingram banged Meerchamp’s head in the sink. “Stop playing games. You know why I’m here. Where’s the money?”
“What?” The man’s voice pitched up an octave. “What money, what—”
Ingram pulled him from the sink and smashed his face with the sap. The nose went flat, and the blood started coming.
“The money. Where is it? Last chance.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
A ceramic pitcher sat on the counter, filled with wooden spoons, spatulas, whisks, and a meat tenderizer. Ingram grabbed the tenderizer and forced Meerchamp’s hand onto the counter.
“Where’s the fucking money? Last chance.”
“You already said last chance, you sonofabi—”
Ingram slammed down the pewter mallet. The first blow sank into Meerchamp’s flesh and flattened the hand against the counter. The second blow pulped the man’s little finger. Meerchamp’s screams became frantic. No neighbors in sight but the man was getting too loud.
Ingram bashed his head against the counter to quiet him.
Meerchamp slumped to the kitchenette floor, face a bloody mess, eyes unfocused, barely moving. Ingram grabbed one of the dinette chairs and sat down, straddling it backward.
“You got whiskey?” Ingram said. “Left mine in the car.”
Meerchamp glanced at the ice-box. Ingram found a fifth of vodka in the freezer. He twisted off the cap and placed the open bottle at his mouth. Meerchamp sucked greedily.
“You’re gonna lose those fingers.” Pulling the bottle away, Ingram brought it to his own lips and took a drink. “I can’t understand why you don’t just cough up the dough.”
Meerchamp closed his eyes, leaning forward. Ingram propped the man up and patted his cheek.
“Goddamn. Why didn’t you just pony it up?” Ingram shook his head. “Fuck. Put out your hand.”
The smaller man looked at Ingram blankly.
Ingram stood up and grabbed a dish towel. “You can die from wounds like that, soldier. Put out your hand.”
The man stuck out his paw, and Ingram poured vodka over the man’s hand. Meerchamp screamed, but weakly now.