The night was cool for May, and Annie stood shivering in the long line.
She wished she’d worn more than just the sheer black blouse with a lacy black bra underneath and a black mini-skirt. It had been ages since she’d gone clubbing, and she had no idea what they wore anymore. Can’t go wrong with black-that was what she’d thought when she pulled on the same soft, knee-high boots she’d worn the night she met Eric. Now that her teeth were chattering and the crowd stretched around the corner of the building, she wasn’t so sure about that. She remembered his hands and mouth on her thighs-how they had shivered for other reasons that night. Not tonight, babe. It’s so damned cold out here, if you licked my thigh, your tongue would stick! She wished she had at least worn a pair of tights!
“Would you like my coat?” The smooth voice behind Annie startled her and she glanced back to see a tall man with a goatee shrugging off the long leather duster he was wearing.
“Oh, no, that’s-” Annie’s protest was met with a wink as he slipped his coat over her shoulders. It was a nice length and covered her to the tops of her boots.
“I insist.” He pulled the collar together under her chin. “You’re shivering like a church mouse, and I don’t really get cold until temperatures drop into single digits.”
The coat cut the chill of the wind instantly and Annie hugged it gratefully around her shoulders. “Thank you. I wasn’t prepared for such a long line.”
He nodded, rolling his eyes. “I think Styx wants to be the Club 54 for the new millennium.”
“Styx…” She looked up at the purple neon sign displayed prominently on the side of the building. “If I remember right, I think my high school graduating class chose ‘Come Sail Away’ as our class song.” He laughed. “No, no…not that Styx…”
“Oh.” Annie flushed. “So much for Kilroy.”
“I think the band named themselves after the original, though.” He chuckled. “You know…the mythical Greek river of death?”
“How festive.” Annie wrinkled her nose and glanced up at the stark letters again.
He winked at her. “Oh, but so very chic and goth and all that stuff.”
“Of course.” She smiled back at him.
“I’m Herman, by the way.” He held out a warm, strong hand at the end of a very well-developed arm Annie couldn’t help admiring as she shook hands with him. He was wearing just a black t-shirt, but didn’t appear cold at all. She met his eyes, which were bright even in the dim light of the streetlamps.
“Herman? As in Munster?” she teased, introducing herself. “I’m Annie.”
“As in Melville, actually. My mother was an English major. At least she didn’t name me Moby…or Dick.” He grinned and she couldn’t help laughing.
“Annie, like the curly redheaded waif?”
She snorted. “My mother would have died before she named me after either a comic strip or a musical. Anne is a family name. All our names are snobbish that way. Chloe and Rebecca, my sisters-those are family names, too.”
“It’s better than Herman.” He nudged her a little as the lined moved up.
Annie shifted nervously, glancing toward the door. “So is this your first time to Styx?”
“Yes.” She admitted it with a shrug. “I really don’t do the club scene. I’m meeting someone here.”
“Boyfriend?” He raised an eyebrow at her.
“No.” She shook her head.
“Girlfriend?” Now it was both eyebrows.
She smiled. “No. I’m meeting my boyfriend’s mother. Well, sort of. It’s complicated.”
“Ah, going to dish about him behind his back and all that catty girl stuff, huh?”
Annie snorted. “Not exactly. Although I am trying to get information, I suppose. Dita doesn’t make it easy.”
“Dita?” The look on Herman’s face showed genuine surprise.
“Do you know her?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I think everyone knows her.”
“I’m beginning to believe that.” Annie rolled her eyes. “How do you know her?” It was a long shot, but maybe if he knew Dita, he would know Eric, too.
“I would say we’re just casual acquaintances. So Dita invited you to the Styx…” Herman leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms, and she could see the faint edge of a black tattoo under the sleeve of his shirt. He tilted his head at her and smiled. “Styx is a little more exclusive than other clubs, you know.”
She frowned. “How do you mean?”
“Well, for starters, not everyone gets in.”
His words made her heart drop and she swallowed. “Really?” They edged forward and Annie saw several people being turned away at the front of the line as Herman went on telling her about the club. “It used to be by invitation only. Now it’s by list. Of course, you can get in if you’re well-known, or with someone well-known.”
Now she had to be on some list to get in? Great. Annie hoped Dita had put her name down on it. “If it’s so popular, why have I never heard of it?”
“Ah, but it’s not popular.” He corrected her with a wag of his finger. “It’s exclusive. There’s a big difference. Even this location’s history is a bit of a secret, you know.”
Annie tilted her head curiously at him. “How so?”
“Well, I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you…” He grinned, his bright eyes glittering with humor. She shook her head but laughed anyway. “Just kidding. Believe it or not, this place used to be a monastery.”
“From monastery to nightclub?” She wrinkled her nose at the long, warehouse-like side of the brick building. “That’s a stretch.”
“Well, not so far as you’d think,” he countered. “The monks who worked here made beer and wine and other various alcoholic beverages.”
Annie raised her eyebrows. “Isn’t that sort of a conflict of interests for monks?”
“Nah.” Herman waved her question away. “Alcohol has rarely been off-limits in religion. Sex? Yes. Getting drunk? Not so much. Most religions throughout history have used alcohol, actually, in their rituals. You know, the whole bread and wine routine? The Greeks had Dionysus-one whole god devoted entirely to alcohol! Besides, haven’t you ever met an Irish Catholic priest?”
“Okay. I guess you have a point,” she admitted with a smile. “So these monks made booze and got ritually sloshed? Not a bad setup, when you think about it. What happened to them?”
“This place was a monastery and a distillery back before the Revolutionary War,” he explained. “But I think the Order of Gabriel went underground some time in the eighteen-hundreds.”
“The Order of Gabriel.” She repeated the words as they moved up together in line. Standing next to him was actually more effective in keeping her warm than his coat was. And she was grateful for his presence. “I’ve never heard of it. Wasn’t Gabriel the Angel of Death?”
“Yes.” Herman nodded, smiling as she edged a little closer to him in the chilly night air. “In some Christian doctrine, he was so called. He was also known as the Spirit of Truth.”
“Interesting…what happened to them? The monks, I mean?” Annie was curious, although she was a little incredulous at the turn their conversation had taken.
Herman shrugged. “The monastery closed down. During prohibition, the distillery became a factory. Styx bought it ten years ago and turned it into an after-hours club. As for the Order of Gabriel, they never disbanded. Rumor has it that they continue to protect the secret of life and death to this day, although no one knows where the sect is located anymore.”
“The secret of life and death?” Annie blinked up at him. “They protected the secret of life and death?”
He nodded, smiling at the stunned look on her face. “What else would the Order of Gabriel protect?”
“Why do I feel like I’ve just been plopped down into the middle of the Da Vinci Code?” she murmured, shaking her head and glancing toward the ever-nearing door with a little laugh. She spoke mostly to herself. “First bees and now secret monastic sects…I can’t imagine what’s next.”
“Bees?” He cocked his head at her, his smile bemused.
“Never mind.” It was Annie’s turn to wave his question away. “It’s a long story. So tell me, Herman…what is the secret of life and death?”
“Do you really want to know?” His question was casual, but his eyes were very serious and she found herself transfixed by his steady gaze.
Finally, she nodded. “I think I need to know.”
Leaning in to her, his whisper warmed her ear. “The secret is…death is not the end.”
Annie let his words sink in, trying to comprehend the fullness of them, and found that she couldn’t. Instead, she turned and asked him, “How do you know all of this?”
“Let’s just say I’m a bit of a trivia buff.” He winked and crossed his arms and Annie again glimpsed a fuller view of the black tattoo on his upper arm. She lifted the sleeve of his shirt slightly to reveal several strange characters that wrapped around his upper arm:???????.
Annie raised her eyebrows. “Why don’t I believe you?”
“I bet you want to know what it says?”
She nodded, studying the tattoo. “Is it Greek?”
“It’s all Greek to me.” He winked. Leaning close, he whispered, “It says…Gabriel.”
“Why am I not surprised?” She smiled up at him. “Just a bit of a history buff, huh?”
“Hey, would you look at that! A lucky penny!” Herman stooped to pick it up off the ground. “What’s that old saying?”
Annie murmured it, a rhyme right out of childhood. “See a penny, pick it up, and all the day, you’ll have good luck?”
“That’s it!” He held the penny up to the light. It gleamed as he turned it from side to side. “Did you know there’s more to that saying?”
“No.” Annie shook her head and smiled. “But I bet you know it.”
He beamed. “I do! ‘See a penny, let it lay, and bad luck you’ll have all day.’”
“Good thing I’m not superstitious.” She pulled his coat around her, shivering and still somehow feeling cold, even though her body was warm enough now. “I don’t believe in black cats or broken mirrors or lucky pennies…or boozehound monks who protect the secret of life and death, for that matter.” Herman gave her a lop-sided smile. “My mother used to have another saying.”
“What’s that?”
“Better safe than sorry.” He winked and pressed the penny into her hand, folding her fingers carefully over it. “I think you’ll be glad we picked this one up.” Annie was surprised the coin felt warm. She would have opened her hand to look at it, but they had reached the front of the line and a voice distracted her.
“Who are you?” The doorman’s eyes swept over her and Annie felt herself shrinking.
“A-Annie Thanos.” She stumbled over her own name as he glanced down at the clipboard he was holding.
“You’re not on my list.”
Damn Dita. Of course, she would end up waiting out here this whole time and not be on the list to get in! After the coffee bean fiasco and the bizarre honey bee pursuit, Annie wouldn’t put anything past the woman.
“She’s on my list, Doc.” Herman winked as he slipped his coat off her shoulders. The sudden change in temperature made Annie shiver as she glanced over her shoulder at him. “Let her in.”
“All right.” The doorman gave Herman a nod and stepped aside.
“Aren’t you coming?” Annie stared back, incredulous, as she started through the door.
“Nope.” Herman waved her on. “I like it better in line…between Scylla and Charybdis!” She shook her head at the obscure reference to Greek mythology-
the origin of the phrase “between a rock and a hard place.” He winked and disappeared back into the line as she made her way into the club, and she didn’t have any more time to wonder at his strange allusion.
The club was dark and loud and sought to swallow her whole. There were so many people it was hard to move. So much for exclusive. She shaded her eyes against the pulsing colored lights and looked for Dita. How was she ever going to find her? The club was huge, laid out in several levels, very like a warehouse with steel railings and stairways. The place was hazed with a thick blue light that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Annie noted the lights located high above, placed sporadically on the warehouse ceiling.
Looking up, she spotted a crowd of people on the second level, all grouped together. Then she heard a high, familiar laugh, floating over the pounding of the music coming through the dance floor speakers that were taller than she was. She knew she had found Dita.
Annie’s boot heels clicked against the metal as she made her way through the couples dancing together on the stairs. Edging her way against the railing, Annie made her way toward the throng of people that surrounded Dita as if she were some modern day Scarlett O’Hara entertaining a crowd of would-be suitors.
Dita’s eyes met hers through the crowd and Annie reached into her skirt pocket to pull out the jar of honey she had put there on her way out the door that night.
She waved the honey back and forth and heard Dita squeal in delight as she stood and beckoned to Annie.
“Oh, yes!” The woman’s voice was unmistakable. The crowd parted like the Red Sea as Dita moved toward her. The woman snatched the jar of honey from Annie’s hand and held it up to the light as if she were looking at gold.
“Perfect! Lovely! Thank you, dear.”
Annie pursed her lips and put a hand on each hip. She had to speak loudly to be heard over the music. “Eric doesn’t live with Virgil!” Dita raised her eyebrows. “I never said he did. Would you like a drink?”
“No…thanks.” Annie shook her head, eyeing the older woman. “Why didn’t you just give me Eric’s address?”
“I didn’t know if he wanted you to have it,” Dita confessed with a smile.
“Would you mind running down to the bar to get me a drink? I’m simply parched!” Annie rolled her eyes. “I’m sure one of your…followers…would be happy to do it.” She glanced around at the throng of onlookers, who were quietly watching them both. “I just want to know where Eric is. Tell me and I’ll go.”
“Now dearest…” Dita put her arm around Annie’s shoulders and steered her toward the stairwell. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know. Just be a love and run down to the bar and ask the white-haired gentleman back there for a Black Death.”
“A…what?” Annie frowned at the older woman. If that was a drink, it was one she had never heard of.
“A Black Death,” Dita repeated clearly. “And if he tries to make it with vodka, be sure to tell him you want the real thing.” Annie shook her head and sighed as she tromped her way back down the stairs. She found herself standing dutifully at the bar, waiting in line for a drink.
Just like a good little girl. Her face burned and she looked down at the glass in the bartender’s hand, her mood darkening as she moved to the front of the line.
“Can I have a Black Death, please?” Annie asked the white-haired bartender. She had made sure she was in his line, just like Dita had directed. He lifted the hood covering his snowy head and raised his eyebrows at her. All the bartenders were dressed in black robes with hoods, probably to accentuate the whole River Styx theme, she mused, as the old man stood and blinked at her.
“Sure thing.” A martini glass was up on the bar before Annie could even blink and she saw him take the cap off a dark-colored bottle of vodka.
“Oh, wait-” She smiled apologetically and placed her hand over the rim of the glass. “Dita told me to tell you, if you started to make it with vodka, that she wanted the real thing. I’m sorry. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Dita?” His eyebrows rose further and he put the cap back onto the bottle.
“Indeed. Does it mean anything to you?”
Annie shook her head, giving him a puzzled look as he lifted the gate at the end of the bar and stepped out from behind.
“If you want the real thing, you must pay your passage.”
“Passage?” Annie sighed. Of course she would end up getting stuck with the bill. “I don’t suppose Dita has a tab running here?” The old man smiled, easing his hood back slightly. “Those unlucky souls who come without coin are denied, I’m afraid.”
Unlucky souls? See a penny, pick it up, and all the day, you’ll have good luck. Annie opened her hand, still closed around the penny Herman had placed there. She had forgotten about it entirely.
“Ah…yes.” The man plucked the coin from her palm and Annie only saw a brief glimpse, but it didn’t look like a penny to her. No longer a small copper thing, it seemed to glimmer gold in the blue light from above as he held it up to briefly inspect it before putting it into a pocket in his robe. “Follow me,” he directed, waving her toward a door next to the bar that swung on its hinges as they walked through. The corridor was dimly lit, and Annie took a few hesitant steps and then stopped.
“Excuse me,” Annie called. “Where exactly are we going? All I wanted was a mixed drink…”
The old man stopped and took something off a hook on the wall, handing it to her. “Put this on.” It was a black robe, like his.
“Look…” Annie frowned at the material filling her hands. “I’ve had a really weird day, and it just seems to be getting weirder. All I want-”
“Do you seek the Black Death?” His voice seemed deeper back here. Was there an echo? Glancing back toward the door, Annie could hear the pounding sound of the music and remembered Dita’s request. I’ll tell you everything you want to know. That’s what she had said. Okay, Eric, whatever I need to do to find you.
“I…guess so.”
He gave her a curt nod. “Then you must come as the others, hooded and veiled. Only death knows the secret of eternal beauty.” Annie frowned, shrugging on the robe and pulling it together in front of her.
The hood was large and fell into her eyes, and she had to push it back.
“Follow me.” They were traveling down the corridor again, and she followed when he made a sharp left and took her down a steep flight of cement stairs that turned halfway down to the right again. Great, I’m following some guy into the basement of a bar, and I’m probably going to end up on the front page of the newspaper tomorrow as the victim of some grisly axe murder.
Annie checked her intuition and discovered that she wasn’t afraid of the old man. There was definitely something strange about all of this, but she didn’t think he was going to hurt her. The door at the bottom of the stairs led into another long, dimly lit corridor. This passageway was much wider than the one upstairs.
She remembered Herman telling her this was once a distillery as they passed the rows of barrels lining the basement walls. When the hooded man stopped at the door and turned to her, Annie gasped and took a step back, her heart pounding. He didn’t look at her. Instead, he reached for something around his neck and pulled a skeleton key hanging on a leather thong over his head.
He looked at her, and asked, “Who are we?”
Stunned, Annie stared back at him, not sure what to say. He repeated the question. His tone wasn’t threatening. It was just a simple question. “Who are we?”
She was about to say she didn’t know when she saw the characters carved over the door:???????.
“The Order of Gabriel,” Annie breathed, her eyes wide. The old man gave a nod, turned, and put the key into the lock. She stumbled after him, amazed at how quickly he was walking now. The dark hood kept falling into her eyes, and she had to push it back to see where they were going. They weren’t alone down here, she was sure of it. She could hear the sounds of people talking and faint laughter. Was it an echo from upstairs? On her left was a doorway and she caught a shadowy glimpse of two figures locked together in an embrace. They were kissing-were they kissing? Are you sure?
“What do we protect?” the old man asked, turning to face her again as they came to another locked door.
Annie glanced over her shoulder, her head still filled with the shadowy vision of the couple. What were they doing-really?
“What do we protect?” He repeated the question and Annie turned to him, glancing over the door. There was the symbol again, the same one Herman had tattooed on his upper arm.
“The Order of Gabriel…” She swallowed as she met his rheumy eyes.
They were sunk deep into his skull. She remembered Herman’s words, and continued. “The Order of Gabriel protected…the secret of life and death.” The old man gave another nod and unlocked the second door with his skeleton key. This corridor stretched longer than the last, and now Annie was sure she could hear people. There were moans of pleasure-or pain-she wasn’t sure which, coming from the rooms on either side of the hallway, and the high sound of laughter. She strained to catch a glimpse as they passed, but with her hood falling over her eyes and the pace the old man had set, she couldn’t see much. Each image was just a brief impression-a shadowy, hooded figure bending over the writhing, nude body of a woman; a man bound and gagged, hanging from the ceiling, his fingertips brushing the floor. A pulsing red glow emanated from one room along with a smell of something sickly sweet, like garlic gone sour.
“What is the secret?” The old man turned and asked her the question, the key poised at the lock. He assumed she knew the answer, since she had known all the others. Thanks, Herman. The coincidence was too eerie and Annie shivered.
“Death is not the end.” Annie’s words were lost as someone down the hall screamed.
Her eyes widened as she followed the hooded figure through the door and into a small, sparse room. The light here didn’t come from dim bulbs, as in the corridor, but rather from a fire burning low in the corner of the little room. The man added wood to the stove and then turned to a cabinet that looked to Annie as if it had been carved out of ivory. It was a gleaming, bone white, and the skull and crossbones carved into the front seemed to grin at her as he used the same key to unlock it.
Pushing his hood back off his head so he could work, the old man pulled open the black-velvet-lined cabinet. In the center, like a dull jewel, was a vial of thick, black liquid. If it weren’t encased in glass, it would have been camouflaged entirely by its dark surroundings. Annie watched as the man opened the vial to reveal an eyedropper fastened in its lid. He worked quickly, but carefully, retrieving a corked tube from several laying on one of the wooden counters. He put one drop of the viscous black fluid into the empty glass tube before corking it and putting it into his pocket. When he had replaced the vial and locked the cabinet, he turned to Annie.
“What is that?” she asked, nodding at the tube he had slipped it into his pocket.
“Black Death.” He opened the door, expecting her to follow, and she did, as quickly as she could. This time, she kept her hood on and didn’t look to either side as they made their way through the doors. He took her robe and hung it on a hook before they headed back up the cement stairs. The noise of the bar seemed to vibrate under her feet as they emerged into the blue, hazy light of the Styx.
The old man didn’t speak as he filled a martini glass with something clear from a nozzle. Tonic water? Annie wondered. When he slipped the tube from his pocket and uncorked it, she thought she could smell that too-sweet odor from the basement again. In the little room downstairs, she had thought the liquid in the vial was thick and sticky, like molasses. But now it ran down the side of the tube as quick as black mercury, falling into the martini glass without leaving any residue on the side of the vial.
“The Black Death…” Annie stared as the entire drink turned dark before her eyes.
“Yes.” The old man held the glass out to her and gave her a nod. “You sought the secret and it was revealed to you.”
She didn’t feel as if anything had been revealed. As a matter of fact, she was more confused than ever. Annie took the glass from him and was surprised at how cold even the stem of it was in her hand. “Well…thank you.”
“Only death knows the secret to eternal beauty.” The voice in her ear belonged to Eric, she was sure of it, and she whirled toward it, nearly spilling the hard-won drink in her hand. There was no one there at all. She glanced back at the old man and he winked at her, moving to serve another customer.
What does that mean? She stared into the black depths of the drink in her hand. Only death knows the secret to eternal beauty. The old man had said that to her, too, before she had put on the dark robe and hood.
Annie stared into the glass, seeing a dark reflection of herself. There was an image shimmering there, and she recognized it as she did when looking at pictures of herself as a child. In this vision, she was an old woman, her face careworn, her smile lost in laugh lines, the familiar high cheekbones making her cheeks look slightly sunken. She was looking at her own face, years into the future, her physical beauty having faded long before.
“You’re still beautiful.” It was Eric again, and it startled her out of her vision. He wasn’t there, and yet she could have sworn the voice was real. She could almost feel the heat of his lips pressed right to her ear!
Only death knows the secret to eternal beauty.
Annie understood, suddenly, and the realization brought tears to her eyes.
Her physical beauty would fade, over time, but the light burning in her that had caught Eric’s attention that night in the kitchen would never fade. He had seen her, fully, without ever even looking at her physical form. He had seen the woman inside of her, the woman she was becoming, the woman she wanted to be, the one beyond her physical body.
I want to grow old with Eric, she thought, blinking back her tears. He’s the man I want to be with when my hair is white, when we have grandchildren coming to visit and stories to tell about the old days. The feeling was so strong in her that it was an ache, and she found herself even more determined to do whatever it took to find him again.
Annie found Dita sitting on a soft, oversized chair, still surrounded by admirers. When Annie handed her the drink, Dita’s eyes widened slightly, but she motioned her to sit. The crowd of people moved away the moment Dita waved her hand, leaving the two of them in relative privacy.
“Well, dear, I didn’t expect you back…so soon…” Dita sipped the drink and her eyebrows rose in surprise. “And this is exactly what I asked you for!”
“I hope so.” Annie sank into a chair with a defeated sigh. “You have no idea what I had to do to get it. Or maybe you do. I don’t know. I’m so tired of this runaround. Do you really know where Eric is? I need to find him.” Dita set her glass on the little table between them and leaned toward her.
“Actually, I got a call from him just a few hours ago.”
“Oh please.” Annie rolled her eyes. “Do you think I was born yesterday?”
“He’s back in town.” Dita picked imaginary lint off the chair. Annie marveled again at how incredible she looked for being a grown man’s mother.
“Then why wasn’t he at his place today?” Annie crossed her arms.
Dita shrugged. “How should I know?”
“Why don’t I believe you?” Annie shook her head.
Dita gave her a cool, grim smile. “You can believe what you like, darling.
He doesn’t tell me everything. What I can do is give you the address to The Elysian Fields. He will be seeing a client there between two and four tomorrow.”
“What in the heck is The Elysian Fields?” Annie cocked her head and frowned.
Dita raised her eyebrows at her and then winked. “It’s a mystery school.”
“A…what?” Annie asked, shaking her head as if to clear it. Eric’s mother looked as if she were enjoying Annie’s suspense.
Dita crossed one knee over the other. “I guess the best way to describe it…it’s a kind of new age school, for people like intuitives and psychics.” Annie put her head in her hands for a moment. It was beginning to hurt.
“You’re sure he’s going to be there?”
“It’s what he told me,” she replied with that one-shoulder shrug.
Resigned, Annie said, “Okay, give me the number.” Dita bit her lip and then sighed. “They don’t have phones.” Annie laughed, incredulous. “Oh, come on!”
“It’s true!” she protested. “Something about vibrations? They have a lot of…alternative ideas. But I can give you the address. It’s about an hour’s drive out of town.”
Annie sat still for a moment, pondering. “What the hell. Why not? This couldn’t get any stranger. Give me the address.” Dita reached into her purse and pulled out a black book. She flipped the pages and Annie watched as she wrote an address in large, looping letters on a slip of paper before handing it to her.
“Thanks.” Annie stood. “Enjoy your honey…and your drink. Virgil and that old guy were both quite an experience.”
Dita caught Annie’s arm as she passed. “Would you mind doing me another favor?”
“Are you kidding me?” Annie sighed. “What? What could you possibly want now?”
Dita’s smile was kind and Annie felt herself relenting. “Can you pick up something for me while you’re there?”
“Is it anything illegal?”
“Goodness, no!” Her laugh was like silver crystals falling. “It’s just a beauty cream. Inquire at the office and ask for Kora. She’s holding it for me.”
“I guess I could,” Annie replied, feeling gently bullied again, but not knowing how to refuse.
“Thank you, dear.” Dita stood and leaned over, surprising Annie by giving her a brief kiss on the cheek and leaving behind the smell of lavender and roses.
It should have been a kind act, but Annie fought the urge to wipe at the spot. As Annie tucked the slip of paper into her purse, she headed down the metal staircase and heard Dita call out that odd parting phrase again, “Good luck!”
* * * *
This is crazy. Annie made her way down the steep, narrow steps into the darkness, feeling her way. The only light in the stairwell flickered on above her head for a brief hopeful moment and then went out again. Dita had been right. It took her an hour to find the place, but it wasn’t in the country like she’d assumed it would be. It was in the middle of a place that looked like a small version of Chinatown-complete with signs in strange languages. She found the brick building next to an open marketplace selling everything from candles to crystals.
Her feet hurt. She had to park two blocks away and walk in heels. A block or so before she found the building, she had seen two boys sitting on the sidewalk playing some sort of game. Annie recognized it as she passed. Pick-Up Sticks. She stood for a moment and watched them. Kids still play that game?
She was surprised they weren’t inside playing video games. When Annie stepped over the flood of their sticks, they just looked up at her and smiled.
Edging her way down into the darkness, she felt dizzy and nauseous. She reached into her jacket pocket, remembering she still had the honey cake Virgil had given her the day before. She broke off a small piece. The taste surprised her. It was like honeyed coffee- rich and thick.
How far down does this go? She peered into the darkness and couldn’t see anything.
Behind her, she could see the faint glow of daylight, where she had passed a bar called The Boatman and had met a grizzled old panhandler sprawled at the entrance marked “The Elysian Fields” in scrolling letters. Annie frowned, still shaking off that half-creepy, half-sad feeling she got whenever she met the homeless.
“Penny for your thoughts?” he had asked, his voice rasping through what was left of his teeth.
“You’re gonna give me a penny for my thoughts?” Annie had smiled in spite of herself.
“You give me a penny,” he had corrected. “And I’ll tell you your thoughts.” She had given him a penny, but had hurried past him before he could speak again. Maybe she didn’t want to know what she was thinking.
Annie couldn’t resist another small bite of the honey cake as she moved down the stairwell. The stairs ended and a deep red light at the bottom illuminated a sign indicating that the store was to the right and classes to the left.
The woman in the office upstairs had said she could find Kora in the store, so Annie turned right. At least the passageway was lit, even if it was with hazy red lights.
As she neared the end of the hallway, Annie was paralyzed by a deep growl in the darkness ahead of her. The sound came closer and she took a step back, her hand reaching out to steady herself against the cinderblock wall. A large black dog came into view under one of the red lights, and Annie gasped, stepping further back.
“Kirby!” The faint voice came from somewhere on the other side of the wall.
The dog turned its head in the direction of the voice and whined. Annie thought the dog might be friendlier now, having been admonished, and reached a tentative hand out, but the dog growled again, baring its teeth. She straightened, putting her hands in her pockets and considered the stairway behind her. The moist honey cake gave her an idea. Squatting down again, she made a kissing noise, holding out a bit of the cake. The dog came forward, tentative, his nose working. He took the offering from her fingers. His tail was wagging now and Annie sighed, relieved, and stood up again.
“Bark worse than your bite, huh, pal?” She moved past him toward the end of the corridor. He followed her, nosing her hand to see if she had more for him.
Around the corner, the passage ended and Annie found herself under one of those caged red light bulbs at a door marked with a strange symbol and the word
Apollyon. She frowned. There were no other doors and the corridor had come to a dead-end.
Annie shrugged. This must be the place! End of the line! She opened the door and it swung easily. The room was all basement-cinderblock walls and pipes that ran across the ceiling. The fluorescent light over her head flickered. It was clearly a book store, filled with shelves, but there were all sorts of other strange, occult novelties, tarot cards and glass fairy baubles and statues of various gods and goddesses. Annie stared at a huge red Buddha on the floor that had a sign near his faded belly that read, Rub Me.
She could smell incense and located the source on a desk that held an ancient cash register. The incense burner was in the carved out top of a human skull replica that glowed with the light of a candle inside. Annie made a face.
Lovely. Gotta remember to put that one on my Christmas list. There were no customers milling about.
“Hello?” Annie called, looking for the source of the voice that had called the dog. Annie thought she saw movement behind one of the book shelves and called out again. “Kora?”
The dog beside her barked and the door behind her swung shut, the force of it making the skull light flicker and go out. Annie started, gasping, and her hand went to her throat. The dog licked her other hand as if in apology and trotted off behind the desk where wisps of smoke were coming out of the skull’s eye sockets.
“I heard you!” came a muffled voice.
Annie turned at the sound of a door, and a girl entered the room looking like she should be going to a funeral. Annie understood the whole goth-girl rebellion thing, but she had never found it attractive. I guess that’s the point? The girl was wearing the requisite black lipstick, heavy make-up, dark eye shadow.
Her long hair was dyed a deep black with red streaks. Annie eyed her combat boots and Beetlejuice-striped thigh highs and suppressed a smile.
As the girl stepped under a glowing black light that Annie hadn’t noticed on the ceiling, her black t-shirt glowed with a purple ghoulish image of a skull.
Annie took a step back in surprise as the girl advanced. The skull disappeared as she moved to stand under the fluorescents.
The girl smiled at her and extended a tiny, almost childlike hand in greeting. Annie noticed her nails were long and painted like some bizarre reverse French manicure, black on the bottom and white on the tips. “I’m Kora. You were looking for me?”
Annie looked down at the girl, whose head barely came to her shoulder.
She wasn’t as young as she looked, Annie judged. The tattoo and the belly ring and the eyebrow stud make her look younger somehow.
“Yes. I’m here to pick up something for Dita-” Annie stopped, realizing that she didn’t even know Dita’s last name. Not that mattered. People seemed to know who she was, regardless.
“Ah, Dita! She said you were coming.” Kora smiled and Annie saw the flicker of a tongue stud. “You want the beauty box. Stay right here!”
Annie waiting, wondering how Kora had known she was coming if they had no phones. In fact, how did one run a business without a phone, exactly?
Kirby came trotting back around the corner in her direction. He stopped for a moment to be petted before going to sit by the entrance, as if waiting for something.
Kora returned holding a wooden box about half a foot square. It was carved with an intricate pattern, something that seemed familiar to Annie, although she couldn’t say why. It was unrecognizable as any concrete image, and she thought perhaps it was something Celtic. She reached out her hand to touch it.
Kora offered her the box. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Annie took it and tucked it under her arm. “Thanks.”
“Oh, she told me to tell you not to open it.” Kora headed toward the desk, her boots treading hard on the basement floor.
Annie closed her eyes and threw her head back toward the ceiling, slapping her forehead. “Like mother, like son?” she muttered. Unbelievable!
“You mean Eric?” Kora asked, lifting the skull on the desk and re-lighting the candle.
Annie moved toward her. “You know Eric?”
“Oh, yes!” Kora watched the flame, a small, secret smile on her lips. “We all know Eric.”
“Is he here?” Annie leaned over the counter as Kora knelt behind it to pick something up off the floor.
Kora put some papers back on the desk, using the edge of the skull as a paperweight. “I thought he was supposed to have clients here today. Check in the office upstairs. Do you know where that is?” Annie nodded, already heading for the door. Her heart was racing.
“Thanks for your help!”
* * * *
Annie glanced up as the door opened, half rising to meet him. It was a stocky bearded man with glasses and a goatee. He glanced at her, his eyes moving over her blouse and skirt and heels. She felt out of place here. This guy was the most average-looking person she had seen walk through the door yet.
The tattooed, long-haired biker guy just before him had eyed her, too, and then asked a lot of questions at the window about a Reiki class. This stocky guy wanted an application for something he called the “Medical Intuitive Program.” He sat in the chair across from Annie with a clipboard and filled it out while he hummed. Annie glanced at the clock again and sighed. The woman at the window, a patient redhead named Polly, had told her he was due in any minute.
That was almost an hour ago.
The box was heavy in her lap and she wondered what was in it. Her mind wandered as she traced the pattern on the box again, like some grooved finger labyrinth. The trials of the week had exhausted her: meeting Dita, the spilling of the beans, Virgil and the killer bees, Herman and the secret monastic sect, the old man and the Black Death, and now this strange odyssey into The Elysian Fields. The thought of seeing Eric again, the object of every action she had taken lately, made her stomach clench. What would he say? Would he welcome her?
Would he want her?
Annie swallowed hard as she recalled Kora’s smile when she spoke of Eric. Had he been with that little goth-girl? She wouldn’t doubt it, at least not from the impression she got from his mother. Do you believe her? Annie felt dizzy and looked at the clock again. She hadn’t eaten since the honey cake. She couldn’t imagine eating now, anyway. She was nauseous at the thought of facing Eric.
Dita. The image of Eric’s mother laughing made Annie cringe. There’s a woman who needs therapy. She smiled at the thought. The box seemed to grow heavier in her lap and she shifted. She wondered again what was in it. Dita had said beauty cream. This didn’t look like a box for lotion. It looked like a box for jewelry.
The stocky guy carried his clipboard to the window. Annie listened, still tracing the pattern, as Polly and the man talked, their voices just a distant murmur. Don’t open the box. Kora’s words made Annie’s face burn. What was she going to find-snakes? Annie glanced around. The room was empty again.
No one was at the window.
Why not? She lifted the latch, using it to pull the lid up. Nothing. Just a red velvet inlay and a little mirror on the inside of the lid. Frowning, Annie felt along the bottom to be sure. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and then did a double take.
As a beautiful woman, she had always been praised for her appearance, but today Annie didn’t recognize the reflection that stared back at her. It was the same face, the wide, dark eyes, the pale skin, the long dark hair. Annie lifted the box closer, incredulous. Her cheeks were rosy, her hair slightly disheveled from the day’s wanderings, but it was more than that.
She looked soft and open. Her lips parted in wonder. All the places where she had been cool, sharp, or angular, seemed to have melted, softened, smoothed. She touched her cheek, feeling the heat of the radiant flush there. Is this what they mean by rosy glow?
Something had changed in her as she had continued her search for Eric.
The shallow beauty of her physical form had somehow been transformed into something deeper. There was a radiant light that seemed to come from within, and it wasn’t just the secret she was holding fast in her belly. There was a spark in her eyes, some fire lit and growing there, that went beyond her physical appearance. Annie was looking at herself, ageless, timeless, and could finally see the deep beauty that radiated outward from deep within.
She felt unsteady and closed her eyes for a moment, fighting another wave of nausea. Her urgent search, the pain of her own denial, the sudden gravity and weight of her life, all hit Annie with such force that she went reeling, the world spinning around her as she dropped the box and slid to the floor into darkness.