The Adventures of Dead Dan: The Old Religion
by John Rossi
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Table of Contents, parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 |
Dan Collins has lived for nearly a decade in a waking dream of denial but has at last accepted that he is Undead. He doesn’t really understand what he is or can do; he tries to blend in with the mortal world as best he can by attending faithfully to work, friends and, above all, family. And yet a question haunts him: might other supernatural beings be walking among the living? Might they be beneficent or malign? Would they even be human in any way? Dan is not sure he really wants to know.
part 4
Drina explained: “It all started off innocently enough. E is Streghe and a part of our coven, or at least he was. His name is Ettore, but we just call him E. He’s a Silvanus worshipper. Silvanus being a spirit of fields, cattle, natural beauty. He is a spirit devoted to growing things and animal husbandry, all that sort of thing. So breeding dogs made perfect sense to E.
“The problem was that his favorite breed, the Neapolitan Mastiff, are very short-lived. E rescued several of them. He would come to love his big brutes but, because many had been mistreated, they would lead even shorter lives than normal. They would die a couple of years after he got them. He had to bury over eleven of his mastiffs through natural causes alone in the last couple of years, and it really upset him.
“E began to investigate ways to improve their health. Many people don’t know this, but purebred dogs tend to have a lot of health problems. The more E began to try and figure out a natural way to help his beloved mastiffs, the more he became convinced that a supernatural solution was the only real way to help.”
Dan was curious: “Why didn’t he just go that route in the beginning if he can do all the tricks you can do?”
“Because magic can be a very powerful thing,” Drina replied, “and he didn’t want to use it on his pets unless he was sure there was no other way.”
Dan nodded in agreement: “Sounds responsible enough.”
“It wasn’t, we thought it was, but we didn’t really understand until it was too late what we had done. The plan was simple at first. We create a focus that could help change the genetic disorder the mastiffs suffered from the inside out. We wanted to... kind of purify all the genetic damage that generations of breeding had done.
“To do this, we found something potent, an avatar of the ancient spirit of dogs, the Dire Wolf. All dogs are supposed to be descendants of wolves. E called on the spirit of the skulls anima, and I charmed it. It wasn’t easy, but we were both thrilled that we pulled it off. We thought that we were using powerful magic for something purely innocent: to help living creatures live a better life. We thought it was a mature use of our power.”
“Then what happened?” Dan pressed eagerly.
She looked at him with forlorn eyes. It felt like an eternity before she finally answered. “The essence of the focus is primordial, savage. When E used it to commune with the spirit of his mastiffs, it did more than improve their health. They began to grow; a lot. What was on average an already huge dog went from weighing about a buck-forty to over three hundred pounds in a couple of months. He has three of them now, and they stand almost five feet tall at the shoulders and they make Saint Bernards look cute.”
“Holy smoke!” Dan exclaimed.
“That’s far from the worst of it. Because the skulls’ spiritual nature is so atavistic, the mastiffs have grown way more aggressive than normal. E can’t control them anymore, and he won’t admit it.”
Dan contemplated everything she had told him. It would have all seemed so unbelievable if not for the arcane things he had already witnessed in the last several hours. This young woman had walked into his already complex world and made it chaotic. Just thinking about the fact that this all seemed to be real would have been impossible if not for her displays of mystical power and the fact that he was, himself, the walking dead.
Then it dawned on him. He looked at her with a grimace of shocked revelation. “The gas line murders, the animal attacks, that’s it isn’t it? It’s these things.” He concluded with a stunned tone.
“E has a farm that he inherited from his parents. His mother was Streghe, too. That’s where he keeps them. It’s in Cumberland County. That’s only about thirty miles from Beesly Point, where construction began on the gas line project. For these mastiffs, that’s nothing. They're hyped up on primordial energy; they could run thirty miles and not break a sweat.”
“Drina, what did you do?” he asked in a strained whisper.
“This was an accident, Dan,” she insisted. “I think it was our combined power that made the ritual so strong. None of this was meant to happen, but it’s become a nightmare.”
“I’d say so; three people are dead.” he agreed.
“That’s why I approached you. I know we don’t know each other, and I really have no right to put this on a stranger from another tribe but, after all I’ve learned, I thought you might be the one person who might help.” She was visibly trying to control her emotions; she had powerful feelings for her friend.
Dan felt that the deaths of the workers genuinely weighed on Drina but, ultimately, Dan didn’t know her. It went against every iota of common sense he had left to trust everything she was saying. “Why would you think that?” he asked.
“Can I ask you a question first?”
“I suppose,” he said warily.
“All this time we’ve been watching you. We genuinely thought you were an agent of the Council of the Dead watching our coven. It’s the kind of thing they often do. Now I find out you were clueless all the time. What have you been doing for the last nine years? You are an undead beast who can toss forklifts. Yet you go to work every day and go home to your mother’s house afterwards. Why?”
He didn’t answer at first. She knew by the look in his eyes she had touched on a sensitive subject. She dearly hoped she hadn’t pushed too far. She was surprised when he suddenly just answered.
“Look, this is going to sound crazy, but I think your glowing stone proves I’m honest. For the last nine years or so, I have had no idea what I actually was. I didn’t really figure it out until I helped Pete that day. For the last three months I’ve been trying to keep it together and fit in. The truth is, I don’t even remember my own murder. I can’t remember the last meal I ever ate. I can’t remember how I got home that day. I can’t even remember what it’s like to breathe.
“I don’t know how it happened. I had the scars from the bullet wounds for nearly a decade, but I convinced myself I got them in a fireworks accident. I spent years after my own murder in a kind of dream of denial, going on as if nothing had happened. I assume it's because of the trauma; I mean, I died. When I lost my grandmother, my heart broke. When I lost my dad, my world ended. When I lost my grandfather, I never felt more alone. How am I supposed to react to my own death?
“Now... now I think about things I don’t think any breathing person could understand. Now I wonder if I’ll ever see them again, the people I loved and have lost. If I live forever, how can I get to Heaven, if there is a Heaven? What would they think of me if they...” He stopped, unwilling to go on.
While he stared at her from across the table she could tell he wasn’t looking at her. He was a million miles away. His heart was with those people he had obviously cared so much for, and so were his thoughts.
“No one in your family knows, do they?” she asked reasonably sure of the answer.
“Hell, no!” he shot back emphatically. “My mother can never know. How could she ever understand? How could my sister, much less my niece and nephew? No, they can never know.”
They lapsed into a long, uncomfortable silence.
Finally he told her, “Look, I’m sorry if that’s a bit much to lay on you. We don’t even know each other, and here we are talking about personal issues.”
“It’s all right, Dan. I’ve always had people in my life to talk to about things that normal people could never understand. You’ve been out there alone. Sometimes it's easier to open up to a stranger, someone who won’t judge you. After everything you’ve told me, I feel I’ve made the right choice coming to you with this, even if I shouldn’t be putting it on you.”
“Why?” he insisted.
“Because you died literally saving Larry’s life. Because you almost revealed yourself by saving Pete’s arm in that forklift accident. Because for nine years you’ve never left home. You stayed with your mother and, as Far as Mama Cat and I can tell, you looked out for her. Now I know that you did all that when you believed you were just human, and that’s the point.
“When you took that bullet for Larry, you didn’t know you would rise as a revenant. When you lifted the forklift off Pete, you still thought you were human and, even though it should have been impossible, you tried anyway. You protect people, Dan, at least so far as I can tell after watching you all this time.
“If this goes on much longer, more people are likely to get hurt. This isn’t E, I’ve known him since we were kids. He’s been like a brother to me for years. It’s the focus, Dan. If it’s destroyed, it will lose its power over him and, hopefully, the mastiffs won’t be so dangerous.”
“Will they go back to normal?” he asked.
“No, not completely, magic doesn’t work like that. It’s not like the movies. But, if the skull is destroyed, the dogs will almost certainly stop being so aggressive.”
“Why do you need me to do this? You have magic; can’t you counter-spell it or something?”
“If were that easy it would be done already. The focus... it's sentient to a degree. It has a will of its own. Because its spirit is so potent, it's incredibly powerful. I know this is hard for you to understand, but what it did to the dogs is not normal, not even in our world. For them to have grown so huge so quickly means its anima has a terrifying potency.”
“Anima?” he asked.
“Its spiritual essence,” Drina explained. “We tried binding them, E and the skull, but they were too strong. E was always a talented crafter but, by themselves, no witch could have resisted a ritual casting from a whole coven.
“As for physically destroying the skull, that would be impossible for us. An enchanted object like that changes after it's ritually bound. You can’t just break it; destroying it requires a special ritual based on its nature, and that ritual has to be created. That could take weeks, and we don’t have weeks.
“What’s worse, the coven is afraid E will break the Silence. It’s the oldest and most sacrosanct rule the councils have. Ancient legend says that thousands of years ago — no one is sure when — the councils of all the tribes formed to enforce a specific law: The Silence of Night.”
Dan intervened: “Let me guess; it means you don’t talk about the tribes.”
“Exactly,” Drina confirmed. “It’s self-explanatory. Each council has a cadre of adjudicators, kind of like supernatural cops. Their job is to deal with anybody who breaks the rule. The coven has called them in, the council is furious, and they’ll be here any day now. My grandmother is afraid they’ll censure me, and I’m afraid they will do far worse to E.”
“So, what does a censure mean? What will they do to you?” Dan asked with genuine concern.
“They could forbid me from using magic, and exile me from the tribe. To us, it's kind of like dying.” She tried to keep from trembling when she said it.
Finally, her veneer of calm slipped completely, and Dan could see her fear as easily as he could sense it. “And E, what would they do to him?” Dan inquired. The hopeless look in her dark eyes and her refusal to answer told him all he needed to know.
“So it's safe to assume that, under the influence of the skull, he’s not listening to reason,” Dan deduced.
“He thinks he can stop them,” Drina replied.
A long pause passed between them. He genuinely felt she was telling the truth. The workers’ deaths, her magical powers. Though it was all insane, the pieces fit, except one.
“What makes you think I can do this, that I can help you? And don’t tell me it's my helpful nature. All the good intentions in the world aren’t going to help fight against dire dogs or unstable witches.”
“Dire dogs?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
“What else do you call them?” he countered.
She decided it wasn’t worth arguing. “I brought some things with me, a couple of talismans,”
“I sure as hell hope they aren’t like the skull!”
“No, Dan!” she said in an exasperated tone. “The skull is a focus, you cast magic through it. A talisman isn’t nearly so powerful. It’s an enchanted object that usually only has one spell vested in it, that does one specific thing.”
“Okay, what kinds of things?”
She bent down under the table, reached into a duffle bag, and pulled out an unwieldy, heavy iron bar about two feet long. It had a perfectly circular hole crafted into it at one end with two spike-like nails jutting from one side that made it look like it was meant to be hammered into something. It looked like some kind of a medieval torture device.
Despite the fact that Dan knew no one was watching, he unconsciously looked around, afraid that Drina would draw attention to them when she put the strange device on the table. “What the hell is that?” he asked, reluctant to hear the explanation.
“Relax,” she told him. “We call it a chaer hevita, it’s a mystical door lock.”
Dan looked on with a skeptical expression. Undaunted, she continued, “A crafter hammers it into a door, puts a lock through the hole — a big one, obviously — and says the power word that activates it. After that, the door its attached to can’t be opened or broken down by any means other than magical ones.
“My ancient ancestors created these to use against the Inquisition. A historical fact that the Day Children don’t know is that the Inquisition rarely — if ever — could catch real witches and, when they did, they usually didn’t fare too well against an angry crafter unless they severely outnumbered them.
“The problem was that they would condemn and torture people who weren’t supernatural in any way. We created a kind of Underground Railroad that helped the accused escape. These archaic talismans were vital to those efforts.”
Dan’s demeanor towards the contraption changed. He reached out and picked it up. “So these things saved lives in the dark ages?”
“Many.” She nodded.
“Okay, I admit, that’s a pretty fascinating history, but why tell it to a revenant you’ve just met?”
“Because I want you to break it.”
“Why?” he asked incredulously. “It’s a part of your history. Breaking something like this would be like ripping up an old black and white photo of Harriet Tubman.”
Drina answered in a hurry: “Because I’m desperate, because I’m out of time, and I can’t afford to be subtle. I have to know if you can do it. That artifact is all but indestructible. My great-grandfather once ran it over with a steamroller back at the turn of the last century to sucker some patsy in a bet, not that my great-grandmother was happy about that. He didn’t even scratch it. If you can break this, you can break the skull.”
He looked towards her and asked, “You really think I can do this?”
“If you had asked me that this morning, I would have said probably not. After watching the sooth stone in your hand, after watching you lift the back end of a fork lift over your head like it was nothing, after discovering the Council of the Dead doesn’t even know you exist yet, now I’m not so sure.” When she was done, she stared at him with wide, pleading eyes.
It was at that moment he knew she had him. Given the threat the dogs posed to the public at large and in view of her desperation, he knew he had to try.
He looked down at the bar in his hand. He gripped it with both hands and proceeded to bend it. Before their eyes, the bar not only snapped with a loud clang but suddenly turned into a pile of rust on the table before them as it fell through Dan’s fingers. The candles blew out when a phantom breeze from Dan’s effort snuffed them instantly, breaking Drina’s charm.
Drina gasped and sat back in shock at the power that Dan had just so casually displayed. That bar had held back both fanatical inquisitors and even rival witches, a fact she had not told him. Apparently, its mystical power was no match for the revenant that sat before her. She looked on him with wonder-struck eyes.
“Whatever you are, Danny Collins,” she stated in an awed tone, “I’ve never heard of your like before. Of all the tales of the Undead that my coven has told me, there were never any legends of anything like you.”
She reached out across the table and gently took his powerful hand in her own. “Please, will you help me?”
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Copyright © 2021 by John Rossi
