There is something in the wind tonight
Some kind of change in the weather
Somewhere some devil's mixing fire and ice together
I got a feeling that the dark side of the moon
is on the rise
Black as a crow's feather.
- Jimmy Buffett, Savannah Fare Thee Well
Strobe light cut through chill night, illuminating snowfall in shades of crimson and azure. Gabriel Ansgar was adrift in a sea of white, red and blue. Faces swam by like specters in a dream, uniformed officers Gabe recognized but whose names he could not conjure. A visage floated into view before him, the pallid countenance of a young officer. Gabe heard his own name, slow and distorted as if spoken underwater. The officer’s mouth continued to move, but Gabe could discern nothing further. Dazed, he backed away from the officer until his hand swept across something like a spider’s web. He whirled, too fast, and lost his footing on the rime. He collapsed in a pile of tangled limbs and bright yellow crime scene tape.
“Gabe? You okay?”
Gabe looked up, feeling quite foolish. The fall had shaken him alert from his waking dream. He was at a crime scene. A handful of officers gathered there, just outside the ring of police tape which entangled Gabe. They watched him, quiet, expressionless. Their blank faces unnerved Gabe, and he felt himself starting to slide into the dream. A hand thrust out in front of him snatched him back. The proffered hand and gravelly voice belonged to Jack Casey, a rangy detective with close-cropped white hair. Gabe shook his head clear, took Casey’s hand and scrabbled to his feet, almost slipping again.
“Jesus, Gabe, what’s got into you?”
“Nothing, Jack,” Gabe muttered. “Déjà vu. Hell, it’s two in the flipping a.m. I was asleep when I got the call.”
Gabe Ansgar was a balding, square-jawed forensic investigator in his early thirties. In his twelve years on the force he had developed a reputation for finding that elusive piece of evidence that would lay bare a crime’s hidden tale.
“Well, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“You don’t look so hot yourself, Jack. What have we got?”
Jack Casey did not respond, his mouth still drawn in a tight line. He merely motioned Gabe past him and toward the dilapidated row house fenced in by yellow tape and emergency vehicles. Gabe noticed that none of the uniformed officers moved inside the circle of tape. Normally he would be pleased. No cops crawling over the scene, no arrogant detectives, no rubbernecking rookies, all trampling evidence and generally making his job that much harder. Tonight, though, their trepidation unnerved him.
Gabe shoved his hands into his overcoat pockets, reaching for the single-packed nitrile exam gloves he had placed there earlier. Donning the gloves, he moved up the steps and across the open threshold into the dwelling. Jack remained on the porch. Gabe was alone.
The odor assailed him even before he had fully entered, a noxious mingling of blood, body fluids, and burnt hair and flesh. Nothing seemed out of place in the entry hall. A man’s coat hung on a hook near the door, above two pairs of plain leather shoes. A round table stood near the door. A set of keys lie in the small pool of light shed by the lamp on the table. Aside from the smell, all rather ordinary.
Light streamed through a doorway ahead, what appeared to be a living room. Gabe stepped through the opening into a scene out of some lunatic nightmare. Most of the furniture in the room was smashed. Everything was covered in a sticky, glistening film, some a sickly yellow color, some the ochre of blood. Here and there bits of flesh adhered to the walls, floor, furniture, but rarely a piece larger than a square inch. In the center of the room the rug had been rolled back to reveal the wooden floor beneath. Gabe could make out a vague symmetrical pattern on the floor, but heavy scorching obscured the details. The flashing lights of emergency vehicles played across the walls, courtesy of two front windows that opened onto the street.
Gabe stood there for what might have been seconds or long minutes, absorbing every detail of the room. The tall wrought-iron lamp lying bent and twisted in the corner. The slow ticking of the wall clock that lay miraculously intact just inside the door. The pages of a novel strewn about like snow. The white lace curtains, clean and untouched. The faint scuffmarks on the floor going past him out of the room and leading to the stairs down the hall from the entry. The human tooth embedded in the doorjamb beside him. The tooth’s silver filling. The minute cracks in the wood grain splintering away from the tooth.
The red-and-blue lights chasing one another on the wall slowed and flowed dreamily together, and the room was bathed in the soft light of a wrought-iron lamp standing in the corner. A man moved past Gabe into the room. Middle-aged, slightly stooped, he wore a cardigan sweater and carried an ornately carved, lidded bowl. The room’s furnishings were not destroyed, but strewn around the periphery as if recently pushed aside. There was no odor other than the musty smell of old house. The walls were immaculately clean, and a clock quietly ticked away on the wall beside the door.
The middle-aged man placed the bowl carefully on the floor in the center of the room and uncovered it. A foul smelling brown liquid sloshed gently from side to side as he adjusted the bowl’s position. From a sweater pocket the man produced a polished wooden stick, as thick as a man’s finger and over a foot long. With exaggerated care the man dipped the stylus into the bowl and began to trace lines on the floor. First a circle with a radius closely matching the length of the stick, then a series of straight lines forming a five-pointed star. Along each of the lines he made smaller marks, strange curviform lines and fluid glyphs.
Finally the man stepped away from the intricate design on the floor and absently wiped away the glistening sweat from his forehead. He casually tossed aside the stylus and withdrew a book of matches from his pocket. With trembling fingers he struck the match and dropped it, his eyes wide as they followed its end-over-end tumble into the bowl. The brown liquid in the bowl immediately ignited. Tendrils of flame traced liquid trails down the sides of the bowl to the figures drawn upon the floor. The arcane marks danced with a light of their own. The man’s face waxed from ecstatic to terrified. He stepped grudgingly closer to the flames as if a hand were upon his back, thrusting him forth. He began chanting in a reluctant, barely audible voice.
“Cru na veas nor.” The man repeated the mantra over and over in an unbroken litany, gradually building in volume and intensity. Defying physics, the flames tracing the symbols on the floor rose in height, straight and narrow sheets of white light projecting the glyphs, runes and lines onto the ceiling above. The man’s face glowed with maniacal glee. He moved closer still to the flames. With arms outstretched he took the final step into the sheets of flame.
A blinding flash of light sent Gabe’s arm flying to cover his eyes, not quickly enough. He heard a sound like a wet napkin slapping against a tile floor and the horrible smell of burnt flesh and blood returned. Gabe lowered his arm and blinked away the bright spots dancing before his eyes. As his vision cleared he saw something masked by the flames, something that stood like a man and yet was not. Two burning yellow eyes stared back at him.
Gabe stumbled back, his eyes squeezed shut. When he opened them, the room appeared exactly as it had when he first arrived. He was sweating despite the January cold, his breathing ragged. Chill fingers played down his spine and Gabe spilled forward to one knee. His eyes were again drawn to those faint scuffmarks leading to the stairs.
© 2002 Austin Hale
Some kind of change in the weather
Somewhere some devil's mixing fire and ice together
I got a feeling that the dark side of the moon
is on the rise
Black as a crow's feather.
- Jimmy Buffett, Savannah Fare Thee Well
Strobe light cut through chill night, illuminating snowfall in shades of crimson and azure. Gabriel Ansgar was adrift in a sea of white, red and blue. Faces swam by like specters in a dream, uniformed officers Gabe recognized but whose names he could not conjure. A visage floated into view before him, the pallid countenance of a young officer. Gabe heard his own name, slow and distorted as if spoken underwater. The officer’s mouth continued to move, but Gabe could discern nothing further. Dazed, he backed away from the officer until his hand swept across something like a spider’s web. He whirled, too fast, and lost his footing on the rime. He collapsed in a pile of tangled limbs and bright yellow crime scene tape.
“Gabe? You okay?”
Gabe looked up, feeling quite foolish. The fall had shaken him alert from his waking dream. He was at a crime scene. A handful of officers gathered there, just outside the ring of police tape which entangled Gabe. They watched him, quiet, expressionless. Their blank faces unnerved Gabe, and he felt himself starting to slide into the dream. A hand thrust out in front of him snatched him back. The proffered hand and gravelly voice belonged to Jack Casey, a rangy detective with close-cropped white hair. Gabe shook his head clear, took Casey’s hand and scrabbled to his feet, almost slipping again.
“Jesus, Gabe, what’s got into you?”
“Nothing, Jack,” Gabe muttered. “Déjà vu. Hell, it’s two in the flipping a.m. I was asleep when I got the call.”
Gabe Ansgar was a balding, square-jawed forensic investigator in his early thirties. In his twelve years on the force he had developed a reputation for finding that elusive piece of evidence that would lay bare a crime’s hidden tale.
“Well, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“You don’t look so hot yourself, Jack. What have we got?”
Jack Casey did not respond, his mouth still drawn in a tight line. He merely motioned Gabe past him and toward the dilapidated row house fenced in by yellow tape and emergency vehicles. Gabe noticed that none of the uniformed officers moved inside the circle of tape. Normally he would be pleased. No cops crawling over the scene, no arrogant detectives, no rubbernecking rookies, all trampling evidence and generally making his job that much harder. Tonight, though, their trepidation unnerved him.
Gabe shoved his hands into his overcoat pockets, reaching for the single-packed nitrile exam gloves he had placed there earlier. Donning the gloves, he moved up the steps and across the open threshold into the dwelling. Jack remained on the porch. Gabe was alone.
The odor assailed him even before he had fully entered, a noxious mingling of blood, body fluids, and burnt hair and flesh. Nothing seemed out of place in the entry hall. A man’s coat hung on a hook near the door, above two pairs of plain leather shoes. A round table stood near the door. A set of keys lie in the small pool of light shed by the lamp on the table. Aside from the smell, all rather ordinary.
Light streamed through a doorway ahead, what appeared to be a living room. Gabe stepped through the opening into a scene out of some lunatic nightmare. Most of the furniture in the room was smashed. Everything was covered in a sticky, glistening film, some a sickly yellow color, some the ochre of blood. Here and there bits of flesh adhered to the walls, floor, furniture, but rarely a piece larger than a square inch. In the center of the room the rug had been rolled back to reveal the wooden floor beneath. Gabe could make out a vague symmetrical pattern on the floor, but heavy scorching obscured the details. The flashing lights of emergency vehicles played across the walls, courtesy of two front windows that opened onto the street.
Gabe stood there for what might have been seconds or long minutes, absorbing every detail of the room. The tall wrought-iron lamp lying bent and twisted in the corner. The slow ticking of the wall clock that lay miraculously intact just inside the door. The pages of a novel strewn about like snow. The white lace curtains, clean and untouched. The faint scuffmarks on the floor going past him out of the room and leading to the stairs down the hall from the entry. The human tooth embedded in the doorjamb beside him. The tooth’s silver filling. The minute cracks in the wood grain splintering away from the tooth.
The red-and-blue lights chasing one another on the wall slowed and flowed dreamily together, and the room was bathed in the soft light of a wrought-iron lamp standing in the corner. A man moved past Gabe into the room. Middle-aged, slightly stooped, he wore a cardigan sweater and carried an ornately carved, lidded bowl. The room’s furnishings were not destroyed, but strewn around the periphery as if recently pushed aside. There was no odor other than the musty smell of old house. The walls were immaculately clean, and a clock quietly ticked away on the wall beside the door.
The middle-aged man placed the bowl carefully on the floor in the center of the room and uncovered it. A foul smelling brown liquid sloshed gently from side to side as he adjusted the bowl’s position. From a sweater pocket the man produced a polished wooden stick, as thick as a man’s finger and over a foot long. With exaggerated care the man dipped the stylus into the bowl and began to trace lines on the floor. First a circle with a radius closely matching the length of the stick, then a series of straight lines forming a five-pointed star. Along each of the lines he made smaller marks, strange curviform lines and fluid glyphs.
Finally the man stepped away from the intricate design on the floor and absently wiped away the glistening sweat from his forehead. He casually tossed aside the stylus and withdrew a book of matches from his pocket. With trembling fingers he struck the match and dropped it, his eyes wide as they followed its end-over-end tumble into the bowl. The brown liquid in the bowl immediately ignited. Tendrils of flame traced liquid trails down the sides of the bowl to the figures drawn upon the floor. The arcane marks danced with a light of their own. The man’s face waxed from ecstatic to terrified. He stepped grudgingly closer to the flames as if a hand were upon his back, thrusting him forth. He began chanting in a reluctant, barely audible voice.
“Cru na veas nor.” The man repeated the mantra over and over in an unbroken litany, gradually building in volume and intensity. Defying physics, the flames tracing the symbols on the floor rose in height, straight and narrow sheets of white light projecting the glyphs, runes and lines onto the ceiling above. The man’s face glowed with maniacal glee. He moved closer still to the flames. With arms outstretched he took the final step into the sheets of flame.
A blinding flash of light sent Gabe’s arm flying to cover his eyes, not quickly enough. He heard a sound like a wet napkin slapping against a tile floor and the horrible smell of burnt flesh and blood returned. Gabe lowered his arm and blinked away the bright spots dancing before his eyes. As his vision cleared he saw something masked by the flames, something that stood like a man and yet was not. Two burning yellow eyes stared back at him.
Gabe stumbled back, his eyes squeezed shut. When he opened them, the room appeared exactly as it had when he first arrived. He was sweating despite the January cold, his breathing ragged. Chill fingers played down his spine and Gabe spilled forward to one knee. His eyes were again drawn to those faint scuffmarks leading to the stairs.
© 2002 Austin Hale
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