"The Curse of Sagutai"
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dochermes"The Curse of Sagutai"
5/6-5/7/2005
I.
In his office, Jeremy Bane was studying three local newspapers, as well as one from upstate, item by item. He had long ago realized that tiny hints and vague allusions in newspaper stories could lead to important cases involving the Midnight War. Right now, he was reading about a sighting of a brown bear chasing two hikers up near Lake Minnewaska but it sure didn't sound like a normal bear as it was described as running on its hind legs most of the time. Very intriguing. Using a razor blade he kept on his desk, he cut out the clipping and put it to one side. The Dire Wolf Agency had nothing active at the moment, there was no reason why he couldn't go upstate tomorrow and poke around where this bipedal bear had been reported.
Back to the newspapers. He couldn't find anything else of possible relevance. There was an amusing story about three teenage boys stealing a ride-on lawnmower and trying to go down the Thruway on it, but that didn't relate to his world. Bane folded the papers, got up and crossed the office to leave them on top of the waist-high bookcase for the moment. The Midnight War was sure in a slump these days.
The doorbell rang and he swung around, glancing up at the clock on the wall behind his desk. Ten minutes to five. The Dire Wolf headed into the small waiting room, barely large enough to hold a coffee table stacked with old magazines and two straightback chair. High up over the door to the hall was a closed circuit monitor and he paused to check out the image. An older man, maybe five feet eight and one hundred and fifty pounds. White hair and mustache, a pointed foxlike nose and thick-lensed glasses over dark eyes. The man was dressed well, in a tailored dark blue suit with powder blue shirt and black silk necktie. He was also holding a slim cane that had a curved handle, leaning on it just a bit, and he topped off the outfit with a matching fedora tilted at a slightly rakish angle.
All of Bane's instincts were warning him.
His Kumundu training at Tel Shai and the lessons he had taken in reading body language were giving him wildly conflicting messages. This mild old man in the hall was nothing like what he seemed to be. The Dire Wolf took a breath and smiled faintly at his own reaction, then opened the door to the hallway. "Yes?" he said.
"Mr Bane? Jeremy Bane?" asked the man in a mellow, refined voice.
"That's me. Can I help you?"
"May I come in? I believe I had an undertaking you might be interested in." The man glanced across the lobby nervously, but the gesture rang false to Bane. That was acting, he wasn't genuinely worried.
"I'll hear you out," Bane told him, and gestured for the man to come in. Closing the door behind them, he ushered the old man into the office and motioned for him to take a seat in front of the desk. Going around behind that desk, the Dire Wolf lowered himself into his own chair and said, "Let's start with your name."
"Cabot. Russell Cabot." The man settled back and seemed to relax a little. "I'm a poet and literary critic but my real interest in life has always been the occult, the macabre, the supernatural. My studies of the Midnight War have led me to learning a little about you, sir. The famous Dire Wolf."
Bane did not react. "Go on."
"I have come to New York City because I am investigating a sorcerer. Formerly he was aligned with Red Sect but he now works alone. The man is quite dangerous. He has learned some Darthan spells and he has a taste for necromancy. Have you heard of a man named Sagutai?"
"No. Never."
Cabot leaned forward and lowered his voice in a conspiratorial way. "Sagutai has dark plans, dark plans indeed. I have learned he has taken rooms in a hotel down by Bleecker Street. My information is that the secret of his power is a strip of parchment on which are written thirteen symbols which seem to be runes but which are much older in origin... symbols from THE REVELATIONS OF TOLLINOR KJE."
"You seem to know a lot that most students of the supernatural never find out," Bane said coldly. "The Midnight War is no game, it's not for everyone."
"Oh, I have been careful. Very discreet. I bet my safety that Sagutai does not suspect I even exist, much less that I am following him. Now, to prevent him from going any further with his scheme, that parchment must be gotten away from him. Frankly, I am not physically capable of it. Bad knees. Not to mention I have no training. But you, sir, you are well-known for your daring feats." Cabot smiled the flash of perfect teeth that usually indicated dentures in someone over sixty.
Bane had not believed a single word so far. It was not that Russell Cabot, if that was his name, was not a smooth and accomplished liar. It was that Bane had Tel Shai training. He could spot the way Cabot's pupils dilated according to what his said, how the tendons on the back of his hands tensed and relaxed, how the rhythm of his speech pattern was slightly uneven. He also concluded that this Cabot was much more physically fit than he was trying to convey, even athletic.
Now Bane was extremely curious and his hunting instinct was up. "Let me guess," he said. "You want me to steal that parchment from Sagutai and give it to you."
"Oh, I don't want it," Cabot quickly put in. "No no no. I stay away from magick items. I try to stay safe. As long as you get that strip away from Sagutai, he will have cancel his intended sacrifice."
"And you are hiring me for this?"
"Absolutely. You will be saving an innocent victim from being offered to Draldros, of course, but I will pay you for your service. How much do you think would be fair?"
Bane did not hesitate. "One thousand dollars flat. That's my standard fee and I charge it so that I can claim you as a client. That gives me certain legal prerogatives."
Reaching into the inner pocket of his suit, Cabot pulled out a thick roll of twenties and fifties and began counting them out on the desk.
"A check is more customary," Bane said.
"I have to be careful. My hobby has me on the periphery of dangerous individuals and I don't want anything that might lead them to me. There."
The Dire Wolf took a red leatherbound ledger from the center drawer of his desk. He counted the money himself, placed it in a manila envelope that went into a pocket of the ledger and entered the details. Then he wrote out a receipt, which Cabot refused.
"No, please, I really am afraid I will leave some clue that will have a warlock on my trail. I trust you implicitly, sir." Cabot waved dismissingly at the receipt, which Bane returned to the ledger before locking the book back in his desk.
"All right," the Dire Wolf said. "Now all that remains are details. What is the name of this hotel where Sagutai is staying...?"
II.
Hours later, Bane left his dark green Subaru Outback on a side street and headed toward Bleecker. After Cabot had left, he had done a Google search and found that there was no Russell Cabot mentioned anywhere on the Internet or the Deep Web, published poet and occult researcher or not. This was no surprise. The Dire Wolf had called a few of his contacts and described the man who had entered his office that afternoon but had not gotten anywhere with that either. Nor could he find out anything about anyone named Sagutai. All he was left with was suspicion.
As usual, Bane was wearing his all-black outfit of slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket. It was not really dark even at one o'clock on this warm May night, but he blended into shadows as well as he could expect. Walking along Bleecker Street, he noticed the flow of traffic and the good amount of tourists still out window-shopping and looking for souvenirs. Not a good night for burglarly, he thought sourly. He preferred his cases to take place in the dead of winter when the streets were empty and there were few passers-by. Still, he decided to at least get a look at the scene.
The Hotel CHEYENNE ARMS was a six-story red brick building that was showing its age. The front door had brass handles and two lamps set in black iron holders. Many of the windows were lit. Cabot had told him Sagutai was occupying the north corner room on the second floor, and Bane gazed up thoughtfully. A narrow alley ran between the hotel and a Thai restaurant, and the Dire Wolf entered it. He looked up and saw a window on the second floor open half way, showing a hall. This had to be a trap, he knew it but he couldn't resist investigating. Curiosity was way too strong a motive in him.
Bane waited until he was sure no one was watching, then crouched and leaped straight up eight feet to seize the ledge of the partly open window. He did this with a casual ease that suggested he could have jumped even higher if he had wanted to. The Dire Wolf pulled himself up, braced one forearm across the ledge and shoved the window open more fully with the other and then scrambled through into the hotel. The whole procedure only took a few seconds. Standing up in a musty hallway with threadbare carpeting and dim lamps set on stands every ten feet, Bane straightened his clothing and glanced around warily before lowering the window back to its original position.
Room 204 was at the northern end of the corridor, as Cabot had told him. From behind the door of the adjoining room came the muffled voices of a TV playing, but no sound came from 204 and no light showed under the door. Bane pressed the side of his face against the door, slowed his breathing to a minimum and relaxed his awareness. His sense of hearing stepped up to a higher level. After two minutes, he was convinced that no one was in that room, not even the soft breathing of a sleeper was audible.
Now what were he crossed the line. Drawing a Trom device from an inner pocket, he inserted its probe into the lock. Fine wires extended and reshaped themselves, stiffened and then rotated. The lock clicked open. Returning the invaluable gadget to his pocket, Bane opened the door and closed it behind him as he stepped into darkness. In a few seconds, his night vision kicked in. Even Tel Shai techniques had their limits. Bane could see better in dim light than other people, but he was not superhuman in that sense. He could make out vague shapes of furniture and the slightly less black rectangle of a heavily curtained window. In another minute, he was able to move about without bumping into things.
Taking a pencil flashlight from his jacket and twisting its lense down, Bane sent a white thread of light around the room. The furnishings were meager. A couch in front of a TV on a rolling stand, a few chairs and a coffee table. In one corner, the door to a bathroom stood open. Against one wall was a single bed with an iron frame. It was the items which the occupant had brought with him that were startling. Grotesque statuettes in bronze of men in armor and winged demons. Two swords with curved blades lying on the bed in their lacquered sheaths. An esoteric symbol drawn in blue chalk on one wall. Several books that Bane recognized at once, THE REVELATIONS OF TOLLINOR KJE and THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN and LOST SCIENCE OF THE ANCIENTS. He nodded grimly. Whoever was renting this room was no mere dabbler. Those books were seldom acquired without someone dying horribly.
Now he had to act quickly. Bane figured the parchment strip would not be hidden in one of the more conspicuous sorcerous objects but in some place more mundane. He searched quickly, replacing everything so precisely that no one would know he had been there. As he went through the room, he examined clothes hanging in a closet, finding an expensive tan suit with a dark brown shirt and white tie, all ready to be worn. Matching brown shoes sat on the closet floor and a matching brown fedora sat on the shelf overhead. Bane almost laughed out loud, something extremely rare for him, when he found these clothes. Finally, he unscrewed the base of the old-fashioned telephone and found a tightly folded piece of brown material. It was the parchment. Bane pocketed it without further examination, restored the phone and headed for the door but stopped. He took the parchment strip from his pocket, noting it was increasingly warm to the touch. For the longest time, he stood there in the dark with the parchment in his hand.
III.
The next morning, just before nine, the Dire Wolf strode up to the four-story building where his office was, eager to see what would happen. He went through the lobby, past the EMERGENCY ONE walk-in clinic and down the short hall which ended at an Emergency Exit metal door. To his left was a plain door with a brass plaque which read DIRE WOLF AGENCY. Bane unlocked it, stepped into the small waiting room and into the office itself. It felt stuffy, so he turned on the AC low to bring in some fresh air. Bane went over to his desk and started checking messages on his cordless phone in its charger. Nothing out of the ordinary, it seemed as he listened to the reminders of court apppointments, messages from old teammates like Nebel and Unicorn, one request to ask if he would take on a blackmailing case for a former client.
At fifteen minutes past nine, the doorbell rang. Bane went to let Russell Cabot in and showed him to the same chair in front of the desk. The elderly man was as snappily dressed as the day before as well, in a tan suit with a dark brown shirt and white tie. As he sat down, Cabot removed his matching brown fedora and placed it on the empty chair next to him. "Good morning," he said in his cultured tone, "As you can imagine, I'm eager to hear how your ah, project went last night?"
The Dire Wolf took his seat behind the desk and leaned forward, hands clasped in front of him. "Smooth as you could ask. If Sagutai looks for that strip, he won't find it."
Unexpectedly, Cabot burst into laughter. He covered his face for a second as he tried to get control of himself. "What a relief! Grelok preserve us, what a relief." The cackling welled up again and he forced himself to stop. "My, that was close."
"And now I think you can afford to tell me some truth for a change," Bane demanded quietly.
"Why not? Indeed, my poor fool, why not? It is too late for you to save yourself." Cabot pointed a bony finger directly at the Dire Wolf. "You walked right into the trap. You have damned yourself. Sagutai IS real, he is my mortal enemy. His knowledge of sorcery is greater than mine, I must admit. He sent me a registered letter with a return address of a publishing firm and three days ago I opened it to find that pre-runic parchment in my hands."
"The parchment put you under a curse, right?"
"Oh, much worse than a mere curse. It doomed to be visited by a servitor of Draldros himself. Three days after a victim takes custody of that parchment, he will be dragged to Fandedral and torture more vile than any mere Humans can devise. Do you understand? And that is the parchment you took last night." Russell Cabot wiped an eye that was moist from laughter. "You young fool...."
Bane leaned back easily. "I think I've read a little about this in Mr Dred's notes. I'm not the expert on magick and curses that he was, but I studied his notes. The parchment has to be taken willingly by the victim, is that right? I couldn't just punch you out and shove it in your hand."
"No, no, it has to be willingly received. It is too late for you in any The curse of Sagutai will be on your head. At any second, the three days will be up and the doorway to Fanedral will open. I will be quite safe, the Kushelan will only take one victim. But you.. ah well, I am sorry to do this to you, my boy, but seriously... better you than me."
Now a predatory gleam showed in Bane's pale grey eyes. He lowered his voice and said, "What makes you think I have the parchment, Cabot?"
The satisfied smirk fell off Cabot's face instantly. "What.. what do you mean?" he asked.
"I didn't trust you from the start," Bane said. "I'm glad you wore that suit today, it means you brought that hat with you."
"NO!" Russell Cabot screamed and clutched at the hat. Folded into its inner band was a strip of brown parchment with thirteen symbols older than runes written on it in Human blood. "You couldn't have.. I don't believe it."
"Believe it," the Dire Wolf said coldly. In the space directly behind Cabot, the aim shimmered a deep lurid red, swirling rapidly like a maelstrom. The sulphurous stink filled the room as a wave of furnace-hot air gushed out. For a second, a hideous black form with a houndlike head reached out and seized Russell Cabot with taloned paws. Then the red gate closed with a crash like thunder and Bane was alone in the office.
Getting up from behind the desk, he found to his surprise his legs were wobbly. He straightened up and exhaled sharply. Even a glimpse of Fanedral was not joke. The office reeked of brimstone and felt like it was a hundred degrees. The Dire Wolf went over and turned the AC up to its highest setting. He would go out for a while while the air cleared. That HAD been close, he realized, he had been all set to just pocket that cursed strip and wait to meet Cabot this morning. Being suspicious had saved his life more than once.
He picked up the plain straightback chair from where it had been knocked over and set it in its usual place. At the door, he paused to look back. Like Russell Cabot had said, Bane thought, better him than me.
9/11/2014
5/6-5/7/2005
I.
In his office, Jeremy Bane was studying three local newspapers, as well as one from upstate, item by item. He had long ago realized that tiny hints and vague allusions in newspaper stories could lead to important cases involving the Midnight War. Right now, he was reading about a sighting of a brown bear chasing two hikers up near Lake Minnewaska but it sure didn't sound like a normal bear as it was described as running on its hind legs most of the time. Very intriguing. Using a razor blade he kept on his desk, he cut out the clipping and put it to one side. The Dire Wolf Agency had nothing active at the moment, there was no reason why he couldn't go upstate tomorrow and poke around where this bipedal bear had been reported.
Back to the newspapers. He couldn't find anything else of possible relevance. There was an amusing story about three teenage boys stealing a ride-on lawnmower and trying to go down the Thruway on it, but that didn't relate to his world. Bane folded the papers, got up and crossed the office to leave them on top of the waist-high bookcase for the moment. The Midnight War was sure in a slump these days.
The doorbell rang and he swung around, glancing up at the clock on the wall behind his desk. Ten minutes to five. The Dire Wolf headed into the small waiting room, barely large enough to hold a coffee table stacked with old magazines and two straightback chair. High up over the door to the hall was a closed circuit monitor and he paused to check out the image. An older man, maybe five feet eight and one hundred and fifty pounds. White hair and mustache, a pointed foxlike nose and thick-lensed glasses over dark eyes. The man was dressed well, in a tailored dark blue suit with powder blue shirt and black silk necktie. He was also holding a slim cane that had a curved handle, leaning on it just a bit, and he topped off the outfit with a matching fedora tilted at a slightly rakish angle.
All of Bane's instincts were warning him.
His Kumundu training at Tel Shai and the lessons he had taken in reading body language were giving him wildly conflicting messages. This mild old man in the hall was nothing like what he seemed to be. The Dire Wolf took a breath and smiled faintly at his own reaction, then opened the door to the hallway. "Yes?" he said.
"Mr Bane? Jeremy Bane?" asked the man in a mellow, refined voice.
"That's me. Can I help you?"
"May I come in? I believe I had an undertaking you might be interested in." The man glanced across the lobby nervously, but the gesture rang false to Bane. That was acting, he wasn't genuinely worried.
"I'll hear you out," Bane told him, and gestured for the man to come in. Closing the door behind them, he ushered the old man into the office and motioned for him to take a seat in front of the desk. Going around behind that desk, the Dire Wolf lowered himself into his own chair and said, "Let's start with your name."
"Cabot. Russell Cabot." The man settled back and seemed to relax a little. "I'm a poet and literary critic but my real interest in life has always been the occult, the macabre, the supernatural. My studies of the Midnight War have led me to learning a little about you, sir. The famous Dire Wolf."
Bane did not react. "Go on."
"I have come to New York City because I am investigating a sorcerer. Formerly he was aligned with Red Sect but he now works alone. The man is quite dangerous. He has learned some Darthan spells and he has a taste for necromancy. Have you heard of a man named Sagutai?"
"No. Never."
Cabot leaned forward and lowered his voice in a conspiratorial way. "Sagutai has dark plans, dark plans indeed. I have learned he has taken rooms in a hotel down by Bleecker Street. My information is that the secret of his power is a strip of parchment on which are written thirteen symbols which seem to be runes but which are much older in origin... symbols from THE REVELATIONS OF TOLLINOR KJE."
"You seem to know a lot that most students of the supernatural never find out," Bane said coldly. "The Midnight War is no game, it's not for everyone."
"Oh, I have been careful. Very discreet. I bet my safety that Sagutai does not suspect I even exist, much less that I am following him. Now, to prevent him from going any further with his scheme, that parchment must be gotten away from him. Frankly, I am not physically capable of it. Bad knees. Not to mention I have no training. But you, sir, you are well-known for your daring feats." Cabot smiled the flash of perfect teeth that usually indicated dentures in someone over sixty.
Bane had not believed a single word so far. It was not that Russell Cabot, if that was his name, was not a smooth and accomplished liar. It was that Bane had Tel Shai training. He could spot the way Cabot's pupils dilated according to what his said, how the tendons on the back of his hands tensed and relaxed, how the rhythm of his speech pattern was slightly uneven. He also concluded that this Cabot was much more physically fit than he was trying to convey, even athletic.
Now Bane was extremely curious and his hunting instinct was up. "Let me guess," he said. "You want me to steal that parchment from Sagutai and give it to you."
"Oh, I don't want it," Cabot quickly put in. "No no no. I stay away from magick items. I try to stay safe. As long as you get that strip away from Sagutai, he will have cancel his intended sacrifice."
"And you are hiring me for this?"
"Absolutely. You will be saving an innocent victim from being offered to Draldros, of course, but I will pay you for your service. How much do you think would be fair?"
Bane did not hesitate. "One thousand dollars flat. That's my standard fee and I charge it so that I can claim you as a client. That gives me certain legal prerogatives."
Reaching into the inner pocket of his suit, Cabot pulled out a thick roll of twenties and fifties and began counting them out on the desk.
"A check is more customary," Bane said.
"I have to be careful. My hobby has me on the periphery of dangerous individuals and I don't want anything that might lead them to me. There."
The Dire Wolf took a red leatherbound ledger from the center drawer of his desk. He counted the money himself, placed it in a manila envelope that went into a pocket of the ledger and entered the details. Then he wrote out a receipt, which Cabot refused.
"No, please, I really am afraid I will leave some clue that will have a warlock on my trail. I trust you implicitly, sir." Cabot waved dismissingly at the receipt, which Bane returned to the ledger before locking the book back in his desk.
"All right," the Dire Wolf said. "Now all that remains are details. What is the name of this hotel where Sagutai is staying...?"
II.
Hours later, Bane left his dark green Subaru Outback on a side street and headed toward Bleecker. After Cabot had left, he had done a Google search and found that there was no Russell Cabot mentioned anywhere on the Internet or the Deep Web, published poet and occult researcher or not. This was no surprise. The Dire Wolf had called a few of his contacts and described the man who had entered his office that afternoon but had not gotten anywhere with that either. Nor could he find out anything about anyone named Sagutai. All he was left with was suspicion.
As usual, Bane was wearing his all-black outfit of slacks, turtleneck and sport jacket. It was not really dark even at one o'clock on this warm May night, but he blended into shadows as well as he could expect. Walking along Bleecker Street, he noticed the flow of traffic and the good amount of tourists still out window-shopping and looking for souvenirs. Not a good night for burglarly, he thought sourly. He preferred his cases to take place in the dead of winter when the streets were empty and there were few passers-by. Still, he decided to at least get a look at the scene.
The Hotel CHEYENNE ARMS was a six-story red brick building that was showing its age. The front door had brass handles and two lamps set in black iron holders. Many of the windows were lit. Cabot had told him Sagutai was occupying the north corner room on the second floor, and Bane gazed up thoughtfully. A narrow alley ran between the hotel and a Thai restaurant, and the Dire Wolf entered it. He looked up and saw a window on the second floor open half way, showing a hall. This had to be a trap, he knew it but he couldn't resist investigating. Curiosity was way too strong a motive in him.
Bane waited until he was sure no one was watching, then crouched and leaped straight up eight feet to seize the ledge of the partly open window. He did this with a casual ease that suggested he could have jumped even higher if he had wanted to. The Dire Wolf pulled himself up, braced one forearm across the ledge and shoved the window open more fully with the other and then scrambled through into the hotel. The whole procedure only took a few seconds. Standing up in a musty hallway with threadbare carpeting and dim lamps set on stands every ten feet, Bane straightened his clothing and glanced around warily before lowering the window back to its original position.
Room 204 was at the northern end of the corridor, as Cabot had told him. From behind the door of the adjoining room came the muffled voices of a TV playing, but no sound came from 204 and no light showed under the door. Bane pressed the side of his face against the door, slowed his breathing to a minimum and relaxed his awareness. His sense of hearing stepped up to a higher level. After two minutes, he was convinced that no one was in that room, not even the soft breathing of a sleeper was audible.
Now what were he crossed the line. Drawing a Trom device from an inner pocket, he inserted its probe into the lock. Fine wires extended and reshaped themselves, stiffened and then rotated. The lock clicked open. Returning the invaluable gadget to his pocket, Bane opened the door and closed it behind him as he stepped into darkness. In a few seconds, his night vision kicked in. Even Tel Shai techniques had their limits. Bane could see better in dim light than other people, but he was not superhuman in that sense. He could make out vague shapes of furniture and the slightly less black rectangle of a heavily curtained window. In another minute, he was able to move about without bumping into things.
Taking a pencil flashlight from his jacket and twisting its lense down, Bane sent a white thread of light around the room. The furnishings were meager. A couch in front of a TV on a rolling stand, a few chairs and a coffee table. In one corner, the door to a bathroom stood open. Against one wall was a single bed with an iron frame. It was the items which the occupant had brought with him that were startling. Grotesque statuettes in bronze of men in armor and winged demons. Two swords with curved blades lying on the bed in their lacquered sheaths. An esoteric symbol drawn in blue chalk on one wall. Several books that Bane recognized at once, THE REVELATIONS OF TOLLINOR KJE and THE SKULL BENEATH THE SKIN and LOST SCIENCE OF THE ANCIENTS. He nodded grimly. Whoever was renting this room was no mere dabbler. Those books were seldom acquired without someone dying horribly.
Now he had to act quickly. Bane figured the parchment strip would not be hidden in one of the more conspicuous sorcerous objects but in some place more mundane. He searched quickly, replacing everything so precisely that no one would know he had been there. As he went through the room, he examined clothes hanging in a closet, finding an expensive tan suit with a dark brown shirt and white tie, all ready to be worn. Matching brown shoes sat on the closet floor and a matching brown fedora sat on the shelf overhead. Bane almost laughed out loud, something extremely rare for him, when he found these clothes. Finally, he unscrewed the base of the old-fashioned telephone and found a tightly folded piece of brown material. It was the parchment. Bane pocketed it without further examination, restored the phone and headed for the door but stopped. He took the parchment strip from his pocket, noting it was increasingly warm to the touch. For the longest time, he stood there in the dark with the parchment in his hand.
III.
The next morning, just before nine, the Dire Wolf strode up to the four-story building where his office was, eager to see what would happen. He went through the lobby, past the EMERGENCY ONE walk-in clinic and down the short hall which ended at an Emergency Exit metal door. To his left was a plain door with a brass plaque which read DIRE WOLF AGENCY. Bane unlocked it, stepped into the small waiting room and into the office itself. It felt stuffy, so he turned on the AC low to bring in some fresh air. Bane went over to his desk and started checking messages on his cordless phone in its charger. Nothing out of the ordinary, it seemed as he listened to the reminders of court apppointments, messages from old teammates like Nebel and Unicorn, one request to ask if he would take on a blackmailing case for a former client.
At fifteen minutes past nine, the doorbell rang. Bane went to let Russell Cabot in and showed him to the same chair in front of the desk. The elderly man was as snappily dressed as the day before as well, in a tan suit with a dark brown shirt and white tie. As he sat down, Cabot removed his matching brown fedora and placed it on the empty chair next to him. "Good morning," he said in his cultured tone, "As you can imagine, I'm eager to hear how your ah, project went last night?"
The Dire Wolf took his seat behind the desk and leaned forward, hands clasped in front of him. "Smooth as you could ask. If Sagutai looks for that strip, he won't find it."
Unexpectedly, Cabot burst into laughter. He covered his face for a second as he tried to get control of himself. "What a relief! Grelok preserve us, what a relief." The cackling welled up again and he forced himself to stop. "My, that was close."
"And now I think you can afford to tell me some truth for a change," Bane demanded quietly.
"Why not? Indeed, my poor fool, why not? It is too late for you to save yourself." Cabot pointed a bony finger directly at the Dire Wolf. "You walked right into the trap. You have damned yourself. Sagutai IS real, he is my mortal enemy. His knowledge of sorcery is greater than mine, I must admit. He sent me a registered letter with a return address of a publishing firm and three days ago I opened it to find that pre-runic parchment in my hands."
"The parchment put you under a curse, right?"
"Oh, much worse than a mere curse. It doomed to be visited by a servitor of Draldros himself. Three days after a victim takes custody of that parchment, he will be dragged to Fandedral and torture more vile than any mere Humans can devise. Do you understand? And that is the parchment you took last night." Russell Cabot wiped an eye that was moist from laughter. "You young fool...."
Bane leaned back easily. "I think I've read a little about this in Mr Dred's notes. I'm not the expert on magick and curses that he was, but I studied his notes. The parchment has to be taken willingly by the victim, is that right? I couldn't just punch you out and shove it in your hand."
"No, no, it has to be willingly received. It is too late for you in any The curse of Sagutai will be on your head. At any second, the three days will be up and the doorway to Fanedral will open. I will be quite safe, the Kushelan will only take one victim. But you.. ah well, I am sorry to do this to you, my boy, but seriously... better you than me."
Now a predatory gleam showed in Bane's pale grey eyes. He lowered his voice and said, "What makes you think I have the parchment, Cabot?"
The satisfied smirk fell off Cabot's face instantly. "What.. what do you mean?" he asked.
"I didn't trust you from the start," Bane said. "I'm glad you wore that suit today, it means you brought that hat with you."
"NO!" Russell Cabot screamed and clutched at the hat. Folded into its inner band was a strip of brown parchment with thirteen symbols older than runes written on it in Human blood. "You couldn't have.. I don't believe it."
"Believe it," the Dire Wolf said coldly. In the space directly behind Cabot, the aim shimmered a deep lurid red, swirling rapidly like a maelstrom. The sulphurous stink filled the room as a wave of furnace-hot air gushed out. For a second, a hideous black form with a houndlike head reached out and seized Russell Cabot with taloned paws. Then the red gate closed with a crash like thunder and Bane was alone in the office.
Getting up from behind the desk, he found to his surprise his legs were wobbly. He straightened up and exhaled sharply. Even a glimpse of Fanedral was not joke. The office reeked of brimstone and felt like it was a hundred degrees. The Dire Wolf went over and turned the AC up to its highest setting. He would go out for a while while the air cleared. That HAD been close, he realized, he had been all set to just pocket that cursed strip and wait to meet Cabot this morning. Being suspicious had saved his life more than once.
He picked up the plain straightback chair from where it had been knocked over and set it in its usual place. At the door, he paused to look back. Like Russell Cabot had said, Bane thought, better him than me.
9/11/2014
