The building was a whitewashed construction of concrete blocks, its proportions squat and ugly and reminiscent of an old gas station. The party was held in the basement, and Colin Morgan stared through the window, nursing his drink and fighting to ignore the itch that chafed around the veins of his left arm. A scion of one of the better off families of New Orleans, he had graduated magna cum laude from Tulane before moving to Nashville, and if the Vanderbilt School of Law lacked the prestige of the Ivy League, its legal education was first-rate, and upon graduation, he would have a ticket of admission to the big law firms of Atlanta and Dallas or to a clerkship on the Federal Circuit. He liked Nashville as well, for its nightlife catered to a man of good taste, and if the upscale clubs and working-class bars grew old, there were more exclusive outings – private parties with a more select clientele. It was at one of these that he had picked up the heroin habit.
The structure was built into the riverbank, and a glass door led to a patio that overlooked the water. Colin stared through the opening, trying to remember when he had last attended class. He was largely untroubled by the thought of failure, though a few doubts gnawed at his mind – his parents would be pissed if he flunked out, and they would insist upon treatment if the reasons for his dismissal became known. Then make sure they don’t find out.
His eyes roamed about the room, and a thin blonde smiled at him from the corner table. An instant of recognition flashed through Colin’s mind (Sarah? Susan?), and he looked quickly away. Somewhere in the past, in a place now obscured by the cravings that fogged his brain, they had met, but he would be forced to make small talk, to feign normality, if she came to his table. The itching sensation was stronger now, and he wanted no delay when the time came to find an empty restroom stall or a quiet place beyond the patio lights, where he could pull the syringe from his pocket and find a vein –
“I think she likes you,” a voice said, and Colin jumped. The newcomer was dressed in a striped suit, new but unfashionable, and a black fedora sat easily atop a head of iron-gray hair. Colin guessed his age at around sixty, but the newcomer moved with the ease of a much younger man, as if the thickness at his waist was mere camouflage.
“My name is Norton Fisher.” He spoke with a trace of English accent and shook Colin’s hand with a strong grip. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Colin Morgan. Aren’t you a little out of place with this crowd?”
“Not at all.” Fisher smiled, and the smile was pleasant enough, but the old man held Colin’s eyes a little too long, a predator sizing up its prey. “I like to mingle with the younger set. May I buy you a drink?”
They went to the bar, and Colin puzzled over his new companion as they waited for service. The drugs had not ruined his looks (at least not yet, something warned in the back of his mind), and he wondered whether Norton Fisher was seeking a romantic partner. No. The Englishman’s mannerisms were all wrong, for he sized up Colin like a potential business client – or a debtor – rather than a nocturnal conquest. An odd man, he thought, but Colin remained intrigued, and the itching sensation on his left arm subsided – a little. He glanced into the mirror behind the bar and found the plain girl, watching from the far end of the room.
“Absinthe.” Norton Fisher signaled to the bartender with two fingers. “For myself and my companion.”
The bartender returned with two glasses of green liquid. A flat spoon was perched atop each glass and a sugar cube rested upon each. He produced a carafe of water, its curved surface glistening with condensation, and dribbled clear liquid across each cube.
“I always heard this stuff would make you see visions,” Colin said. “I was disappointed when I found out it was ordinary liquor.”
“Perhaps,” Fisher replied, “but I like the symbolism – a liquor distilled from wormwood. There fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters. And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. Do you want to see a vision?”
“What do you have?” The itching in the crook of his elbow returned with a sudden fury, and he squirmed uncomfortably on the stool.
Norton Fisher produced a small bottle from the inner pocket of his suit, removed the cork, and poured a single drop of dark liquid into each glass. The drop swirled in the liquid like a tongue of flame, then dissipated and vanished. The Englishman regarded the drop with an intense look, then returned the vial to its hiding place.
“What’s that?”
“Pure magic,” Fisher said. “In small doses, it produces mild alterations in sensory perception, heightened awareness of sound and color, and an alertness that the uninitiated might describe as surreal. In larger doses, the effect can be quite dramatic.”
“In what way?” Colin grinned. “Are the visions that good?”
“Drink first.”
He regarded the liquid with a touch of suspicion, then raised his glass, and they drank together. Colin felt a tingling sensation on his tongue, and an unpleasant, slightly rotten, aftertaste lingered in the back of his throat. His first impression was mild disappointment, but as Colin’s eyes wandered about the room, he realized that he noticed every feature in minute detail: the diamond stud in the nose of a red-haired girl, an odd aroma that lingered about a muscular man in an open-collared shirt (steroids, he thought, without knowing exactly why), the threads of a dozen separate conversations. The dark room seemed brighter, and every detail stood out in sharp relief. Even the first warnings of heroin withdrawal had vanished. Colin glanced toward the plain girl and noted the flashing red light behind her. Maybe it’s an eye, he thought.
“Do you like it?” Norton Fisher watched him carefully.
“It’s certainly different,” he replied. “But you never told me what happens at higher doses.”
“Why don’t we find out?” The Englishman pointed. “That scrawny blonde in the corner, the one that flashes her eyes toward us every few minutes –”
“You want me to talk to her?”
“No.” The vial slid across the table, and Norton Fisher stared at him without blinking. “Do you want to know, or not?”
Colin secreted the vial in his palm and ambled toward the corner table. He moved in an aimless, zigzagging pattern, his route indirect, so that no one would remember him later. Colin saw that her drink was a brightly colored concoction, something fruity, and he noted with a touch of satisfaction that the red liquid was unlikely to stand out. The girl looked away, carefully avoiding his eyes, and as he passed her table, Colin poured the entire contents of the bottle into her glass.
He went into the restroom and rubbed his jaw as he stared into the mirror. Something about that reflected visage appeared oddly hateful, as if a monster had concealed itself beneath his own features and waited for the opportune moment to reveal itself. Colin took several deep breaths as he thought of dumping the vial in the trash, then secreted the evidence next to the syringe in his pocket – if the girl overdosed, he wanted nothing left behind that might leave his fingerprints or DNA. He splashed water on his face and exited the restroom, passing quickly by the empty table and empty glass as he returned to his own place.
“What happened?” he asked his companion. “Is she dead yet?”
“Watch.” Fisher pointed to the dance floor.
The girl swayed in the middle of a group of revelers, and for an instant, Colin wondered if he was looking at the same person. Alone at her table, she had been a nonentity – not quite unattractive, but inconsequential. Now, she appeared older, and the dullness of her features had blossomed into something older, more sensual; it was, Colin thought, as if she had grown to adulthood in the space of minutes. Her eyes met his own for an instant, and Colin felt a stab of sudden jealousy as she wrapped an arm about the waist of another dancer. Their hips pressed tightly together as she danced with the beauty of a swaying cobra, and Colin was halfway out of his chair as her lips brushed her partner’s neck –
– and her teeth sank into his cheek.
What followed was noise and chaos and confusion. A table was knocked over, and one of the patrons stumbled past, fleeing in blind panic, as Fisher hauled him upright. They stumbled toward the door, and Colin gave a last backward glance at the girl, standing alone as one awakened from a dream. Her face and clothing were smeared with blood, and the sensuous beauty, if it had been there at all, was gone. She was herself again, alone and afraid. They stumbled through the crowd and into the parking lot, and the Englishman ushered him toward a black sedan.
“What just happened?” Colin stared in amazement. “Is she going to be okay?”
“She is no longer your problem.” Fisher turned the key, and the engine roared to life. “You and I are going on a journey.”
“But I never agreed –”
“Yes, you did.” A hand grasped his chin and twisted his neck painfully. “The moment that you tasted my potion, you agreed.”
The black sedan sped away, and Colin slumped in the passenger’s seat as the river passed in a blur outside his window. He realized that he was involved in something terrible, a thing that made his heroin addiction, the train wreck of his academic career, even the likelihood of serious legal trouble for the girl, seem like child’s play. “The moment that you tasted my potion, you agreed.” A knot formed in the pit of his stomach, and his arms broke out in gooseflesh, but Colin remained oddly passive, unable to fight or flee as he pondered the Englishman’s words and the conviction that metastasized in his own mind.
Blood. The vial that he gave me was full of blood.
Afterword – One Month Later:
The Catholic Church of the Korean Martyrs rested opposite a strip mall, and the priest recited the liturgy as Detective Liz Park resisted the urge to check her phone. Tomorrow was the feast day of Andrew Kim Taegon, a celebration of the first Korean priest, and her parents expected her to be present for the meal. Fat chance of that, she thought – it was her weekend to be on call, and if the last few weeks were anything to go by, she would be taking witness statements or standing at a crime scene before sunrise. Maybe tonight will be different. There had been six over the last four weeks, and though no one had died (at least not yet, she grimaced), each assault had been more frenzied, more brutal, than the last. She found it particularly frustrating that their suspect, known to every patrol officer in Nashville, remained so elusive.
Suspects, she corrected herself. There are two of them. They needed to locate the girl, but it was Colin Morgan that she wanted – Park had seen the footage from the nightclub, and mister Morgan would have some serious explaining to do when she finally ran him to ground. Her phone buzzed as the Eucharistic Prayer began, and Park stared at the number on her screen. God, Eckhart, tell me you have some good news. The congregants around her knelt for the Sanctus, but the phone was already to her ear as Liz Park retreated to the nave, listening to the voice on the other end of the line. Two minutes later, she was speeding toward downtown, to another hospital room, another witness statement.
I didn't see this coming and all along I was like "what's happening? What's happening?"
Nice! This promises to be a wild ride!