David Wilson - Vintage soul

The room was an organized jumble. Heavy wooden bookshelves lined the walls from the floor to just below the ten foot ceiling. A rolling ladder clung to the face of the shelves, about halfway down one wall, but its progress was impeded on either side by cartons and stacks of more books waiting to be shelved. They would wait a long time, as not an inch of empty space could be found on any of the shelves. It was a problem, and Donovan knew he’d have to address it soon, or be pushed out the front door of his own home by the sheer volume of clutter.

A short altar stood in an alcove in one corner of the room. This, too, was cluttered. It held an ornate, silver goblet in the form of a robed woman with demons clutching her feet, a crystal ball on a wooden stand carved of a single branch of olive wood, a book open somewhere near the middle and marked with a heavy gold-colored ribbon, a small brazier black with ashes, and a dagger. The dagger was long and curved. Its handle glittered with jewels and was trimmed in four metals, gold, silver, copper and platinum. These were woven equally into a pattern that circled the hilt in concentric rings.

Charts and maps dangled and jutted from the shelves. A few of these were rolled, or folded, but still others were attached to the wood by tacks or small nails. One shelf held an assortment of divination equipment, Tarot cards, joss sticks for reading the I Ching, a small geomancy box and a leather bag of stone runes. In a small jeweled case a set of animal bones rested at odd angles.

Still another shelf had a small rack attached beneath it where talismans, crystals, pendants and charms dangled. There did not seem to be any particular order to them, and there was no index or label to differentiate one from the other. Their chains and thongs were tangled together, snarled hopelessly and all-but-forgotten.

Two doorways opened out of this main room, which served as office, library, and sitting room. One was the hallway that led to the two bedrooms and the bath in the rear of the apartment, the other led to his small kitchen. Both were separated from the main room by heavy wooden doors, and both were closed. A third door, larger and more ornate, led to the hallway beyond and, in turn, to the world below and beyond.

There was little light. A few feet to the side of where he sat in his arm chair stood a battered old desk. It was the one uncluttered horizontal surface in the room. On it sat a computer, a telephone, a pendulum dangling from a small metal stand, and a single lamp. The lamp was old. Its base was carved metal in the form of a tree. The tree had ten branches, and from each of these a small and very ancient coin dangled. A rod ran up the center to a spiked finial, which screwed down to hold the fragile slag-glass shade in place. The glass itself was thick and lustrous. It was violet, giving off an odd, soothing radiance similar to that of a weak black light. Around the rim of the shade, formed of inlaid bits of colored glass, ran the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

The lamp, as most of the other objects in the room, had been a gift received in return for services rendered. Also, as was true of most of the other objects, it served more than its obvious purpose.

Donovan raised his whiskey tumbler and took a sip. As he did so, the violet light from the lamp pulsed. It flared more brightly for a moment, and then returned to its normal glow. Donovan turned and stared at it with a slight frown. He placed his glass on the table beside his seat, shooed Cleo from his lap, and stood.

He was six-foot three inches tall with broad shoulders and an athletic build. His long dark hair swept back over his shoulders in waves, and when the light caught his eyes, they flashed a violet shade of their own. His clothing, dark pants, a rather ornate jacket over a shirt open at the neck to reveal several chains that disappeared beneath, and dark, polished boots might have seemed eccentric or affectatious on most men, archaic on others, but not on Donovan. He wore them like a second skin. He didn’t move quickly, but his motions were deceptively graceful. The lamp pulsed a final time, and then settled back to its normal violet hue. Donovan, who had crossed the room in that space of time, reached for the ornate knob of his outer door.

Behind him, Cleo leaped back to the seat of his chair and bounded up to the back cushion. She seated herself and began to wash her face casually. Donovan heard the thump as she came to rest, and knew she was watching. It was good to know she had his back.

A soft chime rang, and Donovan opened the door before the sound could die. He liked to have the advantage over visitors, and knowing they were at the door before they rang the bell was one method of achieving this. This particular time, his effort was wasted.

A very thin apparition stood in the hall outside the door, and he — it — held a thick, ornate envelope in one hand. At least Donovan assumed it was a hand. The robes concealed the messenger’s features, so that it was impossible to tell if it was a man, or a woman, or if there was anything below the billowing cloak at all. Donovan thought he caught a flash where the eyes should be, but it was impossible to be certain. The same was true of the point where the envelope dangled from the creature’s arm. If there was a hand clutching it, that hand was concealed beneath the dark material, and Donovan was fairly certain that, either way, he just didn’t want to know.

“Good evening,” he said. He held the door open slightly, filling the gap with his own form. The messenger said nothing. It wavered slightly and extended the envelope.

Donovan frowned. No verbal message. He reached out and accepted the envelope. The second he touched the paper, whatever force had held it evaporated. Donovan stepped back with a start as the cowled form disintegrated into a cloud of black dust. It maintained the vague form of a man, just for an instant, and then whirled into a funnel that resembled a small tornado before roaring down the hall in a rush of wind. Donovan’s hair lifted from his shoulder, and a sensation like being pricked with ice cubes danced down his spine. He glanced at the envelope, frowned again, and stepped back into his apartment, closing the door behind him. As many times as he’d received such deliveries, the sensation of unease they caused never diminished.

Cleopatra regarded him cautiously from her perch atop his arm chair, but he ignored her, stepped around his desk, and sat down. He dropped the envelope into the soft pool of light from the lamp and stared at it. His name was carefully penned across the center of the envelope. There was no name attached to the return address, but he knew it well enough. The envelope was standard stationary from the Bloodstone Financial Group, and he only knew one member of the administration of that fine institution. He kept most of his valuables in the institutions vault, but somehow he didn’t believe this missive related to his personal account.

Donovan pushed his keyboard and mouse aside to reveal an intricately carved design on the wooden desktop that covered most of the wooden surface. It was a circle within a circle, the outer of which brushed the bottom and top edges of the desk and curved just inside the lamp. Between the two concentric lines, symbols had been carved. Within the center circle, an eight pointed star stretched so that each of its longer points, north, south, east and west, touched the ring. Smaller points bisected the joint of each of the longer tines.

He placed the envelope in the center of the circle, and then reached into a drawer to his right and pulled out four small metal braziers. He placed them at the four large points of the star. Next he filled each with a small measure of powder. He laid a tiny, ornately decorated dagger in the circle beside the envelope, and cleared everything else from the desk. He muttered a name under his breath and touched the tip of his right index finger to the powder in the first brazier. It caught, blazed brightly for just a second, and then faded to a deep orange glow. Tendrils of smoke rose, scenting the air with sandalwood.