Mightiest of Swords (The Inkwell Trilogy Book 1) (4 page)

              “Still nothing?” she asked.

              “No. There’s something.” I could not guess to the extent of my injuries, but already knew that if Joy were upright, mobile, and reasonable, she would be okay. I hoped to be mobile, at the very least soon. We waited there in silence. After what seemed an hour, the stinging-throb that covered most of my body was almost entirely gone. My eyes did not show any signs of improvement, though. “It doesn’t hurt much anymore, but it still feels like I closed my eyes and can’t open them. Let’s get to the car.”

              Joy helped me up, grunting herself in response to her own burns. “Should I take us to the hospital?”

              “I don’t think they’d do anything besides tell me to give it some time and let the eyes heal themselves.” I contemplated what I actually should do. “I think we leave, stop by a Walgreen’s or something. Get some bandages for my eyes, some sunglasses. I think it will just take a while longer for them to heal.” I hoped.

              “Please tell me we’re leaving now, then” Joy inquired, voice tinged with exhaustion.

              My own panic was dissipating rapidly, though it was only replaced by bewilderment. “No. I haven’t even had a chance to tell you what I saw.”

              “I did see. At least, I saw something.” Joy had started the vehicle, letting the heat wash over us to warm our clothes. Every few seconds I heard her grunt, likely grinning-and-bearing her way through the air moving on her burned skin. I already felt terrible for bringing her along. Not being able to heal her was also weighing on me. Just as I was about to suggest trying the same blind healing spell on her, she shushed me. “Quiet! Someone’s going into the house!”

              “Who’s going into the house? What time is it? Is it still dark?” The lack of sight was something I’d thought about in those vague hypotheticals you posed to yourself, though I never really let myself think too much about it. The situation was disheartening, but this new visitor leached whatever reserves of energy I had managed to find. It was not logical to think that this was the arithmancer. Nor was it logical to think that his apprentice would be returning to scene so hastily abandoned. Now, we had a third party.

              “Yes. Still dark,” Joy informed me. “It’s a woman, I think. No, wait, I think it’s a man.  Duck!” I heard her shift in her seat felt the small bounce of the hatchback.

              I ducked down, but hit my knees against the dashboard. “Motherfucker!” I exclaimed…in a whisper.

              “Shhh! He’s looking over here at us,” Joy cautioned in as low a whisper that could still, feasibly, be heard.  Apparently my hearing was returning at an exponential speed.

              “Can he see us?” I tried to match the volume of her whisper. Paranoia was already a natural aspect of my personality, but it was now coming to strange meeting point where it was combining itself with pessimism. As in, surely he saw us, right?

              “I don’t think so. It’s still dark and I’m just…” Joy stopped, “kinda,” she halted once more, “looking through the steering wheel.”

              “Describe him as best you can!” I ordered.

              “He’s in a suit. And wearing fedora, it looks like. He’s kinda old…” she trailed off. I could feel her shifting in and out of her seat, presumably to get a better look.

              “Tell me anything else about him that you think might help me distinguish him.” I flipped through a mental catalog of who could possibly show up at a scene such as this and was still coming up empty.

              “It’s dark and he’s too far away!” she snapped.

              “Sorry, but be patient. I know you’re in pain, and I will do my best to get you healed as soon as possible, but please, please, please look harder.” I remember reading about people who lost one sense and often developed their other senses to compensate for the lost sense. I tried to listen more keenly. It was accomplishing nothing.

              After a few more seconds, “He’s not looking at us anymore. He’s going up the stairs. Wait, I can see him in the neighbor’s porch light. He’s wearing a big lapel pin on his blazer. I swear it looks like the medical symbol. He’s a doctor, I think…”

              That was no doctor.  “As soon as he goes inside, get us to Shred’s.”

“The only good thing ever to come out of religion was the music.”

—George Carlin

“Music was invented to worship the gods; but has, in recent centuries, become their greatest insult. We humans have made it entirely our own.”

—Shred

rEvolve: 2

What we have learned:

Music is, perhaps, the oldest of the magics. Long before our ancestors could talk, they noticed the power intrinsic to a beat. Before words were written, our predecessors danced for millennia, reaching back into epochs unknown. While Watson and Crick unraveled the depths of genetic coding and the Human Genome Project sequenced our DNA, it was unnecessary to understand this one, ostensible fact: mankind was hardwired to produce these sounds.

              Echoing our own complex genetic coding, humanity learned to sequence sounds and rhythm into new life. With the advent of spoken word, music and its magic into glory and ubiquity.

              But the gods grew weary of this ascension; a new, or even perhaps original, Tower of Babel. Music was meant for the divine, for it so obviously moved even the gods: to fury, to wrath; to love. While mankind made its music, the gods moved to influence it. They did so ruthlessly. While humanity hid its use of numbers, while it practiced the writing of words in hidden corners, the gods were invoked by the musical intonations of man. Each time, they spread their influence over the maker. Music became the sole property of the gods, and they did not appreciate its use outside their worship.

              Humanity moved forward. The bards of the ancient world sung of heroes in service to the gods. As they sung these tales, they no longer relied upon the gods of old to invent instruments. They made new instruments and new sounds, and in so doing, forged new magic. These were instruments intended for glory, but they were quickly becoming instruments of salvation. Because imbedded in these epics of worship, were stories of human triumph. These words paired with music were a source of tremendous strength.

              Much more recently in our history, the gods realized they had for too long neglected the American South. Those who had been brought to the Americas enslaved sung praises and glory to their gods, but with such little hope for the present, they found their own magic in their music. They began to wonder if their music of worship had deafened the gods over time. So, they sang of their own sadness, of their outcast state, and spoke of the gods less and less. They danced with one another; they played and they sang. They triumphed over theirs station and thereby they were victorious over deaf gods.

              The world over, humanity wrote songs that honored no god, only men, women, and ideas instead. Their stories were their own. The dams were broken. Music honoring gods wilted on the vine, uninspired notes fell on already deaf ears. Music honoring mankind flourished. And the power of humans grew still.

              It is said that the gods now practice and hone the craft of music. It is said that they bide their time and plan to wreak revenge.

How can you climb a mountain to kill a god?

Why do you cross unknown lands to kill our gods?

Why do you build walls to starve our gods?

—Anathema,
We, the Gods

Chapter 4

“Damn it, Grey!” Shred was prone to fits of melancholy, seasoned with anger. Not the violent kind, but enough to provide a sufficient counterbalance to his seemingly merry persona.

             
Shred
is not Shred’s real name. Neither is it a variation on his surname, nor a nickname. It is a name he christened himself, I suppose, to give himself a level of anonymity, but also because it distanced himself from his real name and his hair metal past.

              Shred is a musimancer. He never uses that term, though that is what my father called his kind of magic. Shred calls himself a bard, but more in the Homeric way than the Shakespearean way.

              Back in the 1980’s, Shred made a name for himself by using his magic to amass a fortune. Next time you listen to a classic rock station, just be advised that that one hair metal band’s song you love more than life itself is most likely his song—a deviously intricate master class in musimancy. Though, at its most basic level, much of what you hear on the radio is basic musimancy as most of what you hear relies upon
C major, F major, G major
, and then
A minor
. The four chords of modern music, Shred says are the real Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Nevertheless, Shred contends that their appeal to the ear is based on some anonymous magos in the 1950s who was writing songs trying to make a few bucks to get by and found a quick way to score some money.

              “I can bolster the healing you’ve already done, and, hopefully, take care of Joy easily enough. It might be enough to get your eyes better faster. But, in my experience, when it comes to organs, it takes longer because of regeneration. If not for that magic you did back there, you’d probably be blinded for life, if I had to guess based on the hues of pissed-off red covering your face. Still. The shit you get yourself into, kid!” I heard him getting out blankets or sheets or pillows and piling them on the recliner next to me. “I wrote a new song. Haven’t played it for anybody yet,” Shred rumbled around a few feet away from me, an effort ending, I think, with him pulling out his couch into a bed. “You both are going to listen to it. It ain’t much, but it should help set you straight.”

              “Thanks, Shred,” Joy uttered, sounding circumspect, but also relieved.

              I have never been the kind of girl to need anyone’s help, however. “Shred, I’m not here because we need you to take care of us,” I huffed. “We need to tell you what’s going on!”

              “I told your dad I was out, Grey. I can’t do his shit—
your shit
—anymore.” There was more than a little disdain in Shred’s voice. It stung, but I refused to let him know just how much. “I’m too fucking old,” he added, almost to make it an excuse or maybe even an apology.

              Shred was also a little full of shit. He used music to heal himself daily and was most likely older than the barely 50 his physical appearance indicated. Shred, last I saw him about a month before, was in excellent shape. His long, straight black hair always hung loose on his shoulders. He was almost certainly of Mediterranean stock, as his skin was olive. He often played shows without a shirt, so he was meticulous about his fitness.  So, even if there were silver hairs intermingled with the black matte, he did not appear old.  All said, even if I did not believe it, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that the anonymous songwriter he told me about who cashed in his magic for money back in the 50’s were him.

              “I need your help, Shred. Something big is going down.  You know you can’t be out.  If anything, you’re on the bench, waiting for a line change!” Shred loved sports, especially hockey.  This was a pastime which I often shared with him, though I could never profess the near-religious devotion he felt for the game. I even imagined he was wearing one of his Bruins jerseys right then. “This is bigger than anything I’ve ever seen around here. It might even be bigger than anything that’s gone on in a good long while.” I paused, hoping his silence meant he was taking my plea for help to heart. “I need your help. I have no eyes. No apprentice. And fucking Mercury just showed up in Northampton!”

              From somewhere near where Shred’s La-Z-Boy was, I hear Joy mutter something that sounded like, “You have an apprentice.” I ignore her.

              “Mercury-Fucking-Johnson? Haven’t seen that son of a bitch since the ’87 tour!” I had no idea who this Mercury Johnson-person was, but I didn’t actually think he was seriously asking after him.

              “No, Shred—Mercury. Messenger-of-the-fucking-gods-Mercury!” I was spent. Revealing that last element of information to Shred expelled my last reserves of energy. I hitched, realizing I was on the verge of tears, but not entirely sure I was even capable of crying at that stage in the healing process. Still, I would have used tears against Shred if I thought they would work. Desperate times…

              “Okay, girl, okay.” Shred’s polished baritone was full of resignation. I knew he knew. “I need some coffee. It’s gonna be Irish. You want some?”

              We both squeezed out yeses.

              From the recliner, Joy spoke again, more loudly this time: “Grey?”

              “Yeah?” I leaned back into the loveseat, rubbing my eyes, trying to coax my eyeballs back into working order. They did not comply.

              “I said I would be your apprentice,” she repeated.

              “You mean, you would help me until my eyes get better?” I asked, envisioning her face, wondering what level of earnestness I would be seeing.

              She sneezed and waited a moment before speaking again. “No, Grey, I mean from now on. Until the day I die. Your eyes should get better, but we don’t know that for sure. And, honestly, I’ve been thinking about it. For a while now. I actually thought from the get-go, the day I moved in with you that you were going to ask me.”

              I was stunned.

              She continued, “I love college, sure, but you’re the most learned person I know, and you’ve never been to a college class in your life.”

              That wasn’t exactly true, but that was a story for an entirely different day

              Joy, it seemed, had been preparing to say this to me now for who-knows-how-long. “I don’t even think you’ve been to any kind of school since the day your dad started to homeschool you. The world is full of doctors and lawyers and rocket scientists. The institutionally learned are everywhere…”

              “Not as much everywhere as you’d think,” I foolishly interrupted. Her passion subsided, and I swore I could feel her gaze drilling holes into me for stealing her moment.

              “What I’m saying is this: I’m willing to put my heart into this. I’m already living the danger and helping you. And I want to find out what really happened to my dad. To your dad. This is how we fucking do it!”

              From somewhere near the kitchen, Shred cleared his throat. “Here you go.” I heard the shuffling footsteps falling heavily as Shred walked over to me. I held my hand out and he put my finger through the loop and didn’t let go until he was sure I had grasped it. “It’s more Irish than coffee. You guys need some rest. And I need time to think.”

              I heard the hollow boom of Shred picking up his acoustic guitar and his fingers sliding down the frets as he sat down somewhere close by. After some picking to warm up, he strummed and picked some more. His song was beginning and I found myself immersed; lost in his song. I have always loved music, which might have something to do with why Shred was more like an uncle than one of my dad’s friends.

              He sang and played, and I could hear his fingers continuing to pick across his guitar strings. I was entranced and caught snared in something I had never felt before. It was beauty; and while I believed in no form of the afterlife, I was suddenly energized by an epiphany: what if when we die, we are not placed in the skies like the heroes of old, but rather, what if we were made into a note and suspended into music?

              I felt as if I became someone else, and that my memories belonged to someone else, but they were still memories I cherished, even if they felt as if memories from dreams. I was moved beyond reckoning.

              When Shred finished playing, neither Joy nor I could manage a word. Shred had successfully put us into some kind of trance or altered state of consciousness, and the after-effects continued to resound in my ears.

              I felt Joy grab my hand and pull me up. She walked me to the sofabed, helped me remove my shoes and clothes. She put a large t-shirt over my head for a gown. I do not even remember lying down.

              I awoke to the voices of Shred and Joy. They weren’t trying to be quiet, so I figured it must be their own subtle way of trying to rouse me from my slumber. It worked.

              “I’ve been looking at websites. Everything I’ve read says her eyes would have blinked closed before any real damage could have been done. So, it might not be a full organ-regeneration. I think she might only be like this for a few more days. Tops,” Joy was explaining. I could only assume she was speaking to Shred.

              “Problem is, I don’t think you guys have that long before the more serious shit hits the fan. I’m already hearing,” Shred rifled through some papers, sounding agitated, “things.” I also hear his mug clank down on his table.

              I felt my face. My eyes felt goopy, like someone had spread salve over my eyelids and tied some cloth around my eyes. We never did get to Walgreen’s, but someone apparently had since I fell asleep. I decided to not yet let them know I was awake.

              “She doesn’t know, but since last year I started taking classes I didn’t tell her about. I already speak and read Korean because of my mom. Took Latin in high school. Took some German last year. Taking Classical Greek and Akkadian this semester.” Joy was explaining to Shred her desire to become a magos. If anyone were capable of dissuading her, it would be him.

              “Akkadian? I have no idea what the fuck that is.” Shred’s footsteps were on the hardwood surface of his kitchen floor.

              “Babylonian, basically.” Another mug was set to the table. I assumed it was Joy’s. “It’s like calculus, but with letters.  You know, they’ve actually uncovered some tablets recently that lead us to believe the Babylonians actually used calculus thousands of years before the rest of Europe started to use it.”

              “How ‘bout this—I have no idea what language
you’re
speaking right now.” Shred sounded like he was even further away. “It’s five o’clock. You need to wake her up. Our freak show has to get on the road.”

              “Speak for yourself, sir!” I shouted, somewhat groggily. I stood up, but my knees buckled and I went right back down to the mattress. “The only think freakish here is my charm and good looks.”  My charm was something I considered virtually non-existent. I tell some people that I developed my cheerful demeanor from reading Russian literature. Along with my sense of irony. As for looks, they were never something I paid much attention. “I’m awake. You said it’s five? Morning or afternoon?” I asked whomever was listening; my lips and tongue more parched than I realized.

              “You’ve been asleep for nearly 36 hours. It’s five p.m. on the 12
th
,” Joy informed me. “We’ve tried taking care of you. Shred has been singing to you ever few hours. It was really sweet. He’s really sweet. I wish I had gotten to know him sooner, Grey.”

              “Something to drink, please?” I heard Joy walk over and put a straw to my lips. I sucked. I coughed. I spewed water, some of which undoubtedly landed on Joy. She made no indication or complaint however. It made me wonder if she would always be so patient, so longsuffering. Would she not tire of the life magic would require of her?

              I heard tissues being taken out of a nearby tissue box. “Shred’s helping us. As soon as you passed out, he started making calls. He’s even friends with a demon that lives by the Memorial Bridge!”

              The SUB—the world’s Seedy Underbelly—a
s
I applied the term, almost playfully at first, to any dealings that happen in the dark.  Eventually, my dad started calling it The SUB, too, likely due to the double entendre of “sub” referring to that which lies beneath the surface
.
While it was true that many members of The SUB managed to converge with humanity on harmless basis, most of the time, it could be said that something untoward was occurring.

             
I never saw thy face, but I think upon hell-fire
. Henry IV. I’ve never met Shred’s demonic friend, and had never heard from which belief system he had sprouted, but I did know that Shred liked to jam with this one. And if anyone knew what he was doing, it was him. In fact, I’d be surprised if said demon had not, somehow, shown up on some of Shred’s recordings.

              Shred had released some albums with his band in the late 80’s and early 90’s, then spent the next decade touring.  Al the while, he amassed a fortune that he rarely touched. His laywer has carte blanche to license out his music, but he does not take any other inquiries. He does some social gigs for his own amusement because, when it because when it came to it, he loved his craft. It amused me to think that last cola commercial for which one of his songs was licensed had a real, honest-to-goodness demon playing rhythm guitar on it.