The Scent of Desire (Pt. 2)

John Dillinger Connelly had been named for a legend. His mom, a wild young firecracker, had been enamored with stories of the notorious gangster’s Robin Hood persona and with the romance of rebellion. JD had grown up with a name as heavy as a mantle of state in a revolving household of well-meaning but dysfunctional relatives, and while he had not become a steely-eyed gangster, he was not without his own set of shadowy skills. The irony of his life was that those skills had made him an asset to Nick and Tess, setting him on a path of legitimate employment that even helped people. It had been the other thing, the coyote trickster in him, that had got him killed. He sat on the cane seat of a ladder-backed chair in the corner of Tess’s bedroom with his hands on his knees watching her drag shirts and leggings from her backpack and sling them onto the bed. She was angry, probably with him, and he felt the familiar sting of remorse that had so often followed his ill-considered adventures while he had lived.

Tess pulled the compass from the tangle of clothing and sat on the end of the bed with it perched on her open palm. JD leaned closer, trying to read the face of the compass. He’d seen her use it before to find objects of power, and even certain spirits. He wondered if his own presence would make its needle-like sliver of quartz wobble or spin. At his stirring, Tess looked up, her dark gaze falling on him like the heavy paw of policeman.

“What did you do with it, JD?” she asked. “I’ll find it, you know. But maybe not before that creature kills someone else. You’ve really messed up this time.” She glared at him, then softened. “I’m sorry this happened to you. You can still help us. Just tell me where you hid the jar.”

A frigid shudder of fear and longing shook him. He couldn’t tell Tess what she wanted to know. Even thinking about the cursed perfume jar felt dangerous, as though the demon he’d unleashed could smell like a hound along the thread of his thoughts and find him. If that happened, he knew, Malika would snuff him like a candle-flame and his love for her be damned. Torn between terror, desire, and belated loyalty to his friends, he could only look at the floor and shake his head.

Tess growled and cast the compass aside. It bounced into the pillows, the needle wagging with the force of her anger. JD bounded from his chair with a squeak.

“Get out,” Tess said. Frost crept over the windowpanes.

JD, shoved backward by the cold, his sneakers slithering over the red silk of the antique rug, allowed himself to melt through the door. A heavy smell of oak and varnish, the rough pleated drapery of the growth rings in the wood, a hushed sound of splintering, and he stood in the hallway gaping in astonishment at Tess’s undisturbed door. He hadn’t known he could do that. Maybe being dead had its consolation prizes. He stepped forward and put a hand on the door, meaning to fade back through. A flash of blue light met his touch, and a tingle of electricity coursed through him, causing his hair to rise on his head like vapor. A warding spell. He snatched his hand away, grumbling, and went in search of Nick.

Nick understood him. Maybe it was a guy kind of thing, JD surmised. Maybe it was their distant relation, a marker in the blood that opened a line of sympathy unavailable to Tess. The Firestones were a far flung and varied clan, notable for the scholarly hell-raisers that sometimes rose to prominence among them—or to notoriety. JD wished he’d been gifted with the name, but his mom’s one nod to propriety had been to label him with his father’s. He glided down the stairs and into the library where he found Nick stretched on the sofa, suspended in the twilight anteroom of sleep.

“I’m here, Nick,” JD said, remembering what Tess had once told him about the dead finding that twilight state in the living conducive to communication. “I’m okay, you know, considering.”

Nick stirred, and his near-dreaming mind opened. He sat up, leaving his body lying heavily on the sofa, and turned to regard JD where he huddled in the big wing chair. There was a feeling like slipping onto a warm current of air, the details of the familiar room were altered and fuzzy. The missing Egyptian perfume jar sat on a table at JD’s elbow, a glowing alabaster accusation.

“You hid the jar, didn’t you? Just like Tess said you did. What the hell, JD? We trusted you.”

JD stared at the lambent perfume jar in chagrined horror. The lean, inscrutable cat carved on its lid stared back at him, its upright posture and tall ears speaking of a vigilance belied by the calm curve of its tail. A heady vapor of lily, cinnamon, and myrrh wound, like the cat’s tail, about the squat body of the jar and expanded to fill the air between him and Nick. Egyptian night, with its sultry caress, surrounded them.

“I’m sorry,” JD stammered, his ghostly flesh yearning toward the promise inherent in the scent. This was not the hour for lies. He fixed his gaze on his clasped hands and whispered, “Malika’s not what you think, Nick, no matter what happened to me. I love her.”

Nick snorted in derision and looked away, but even in this place on the edge of dream he could feel the spell of the perfume, a ghost itself that haunted them now from a time when gods walked among the people. Sighing, he fixed his attention on the young man across from him.

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

***

JD, shuffling his sneakered feet on the pavement outside the stiff opulence of Dr. Simon Warburton’s Palladian fastness, considered the wisdom of approaching the door. He knew the old man expected him, but he’d never gone alone to an acquisition. Always, Tess had accompanied him, or Nick if she were not available, but today they had entrusted him with this job.

“Dr. Warburton asked for you, JD,” Nick had told him. “He knows you’re learning about antiquities. You’re about the age his grandson would be. He lost him a few years ago, an accident of some kind, on his last trip to Egypt. The poor guy’s barely left his house since. You might be good for him. Besides, you’re ready to take on a little more responsibility,” Nick had told him.

“Does Tess think so, too?”

A moment of awkward silence told JD that his readiness for responsibility might still be debated between the partners. Tess, occupied with her research, was not present to veto the decision, and JD seized the opportunity.

“I can do this, easy. Gimme the address Nick. I’ll be back with your old jar before you can miss me.”

Now, looking up at the little round window in the brick peak of Warburton’s mansion, JD felt a sudden cowing inadequacy. He adjusted the strap of his messenger’s bag, drew in a lungful of the gloomy air, and ascended to the tall black door. He applied himself with vigor to the weighty doorknocker, listening to the echo of his cannonade bounce about the marble entry hall inside. He had time to turn and watch an ominous grey bale of cloud tower like an angry djinn over the denuded park across the street, then the sound of measured footfalls approached the door. It opened. JD faced the impeccable dark suit of Dr. Warburton’s assistant. The man’s crisp bow tie quivered with disdain.

“Yes? May I help you?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m here to see Dr. Warburton. To collect an item?”

JD’s throat felt dry with embarrassment, which led to his assuming a belligerent stance on the doorstep. His voice, uncertain and conciliatory to his own ears, he now admitted might have sounded challenging to the suit. The man’s eyebrows rose a millimeter even as the thin line of his mouth drooped in a frown of distaste.

“Indeed? Have you a card?”

“Huh?”

Bow Tie now stood squarely in the doorway, frowning like a champ. JD had a distinct impression of a storm of surprising violence gathering beneath the urbane features.

“A card,” the man repeated with icy precision. “Do you have a business card on your person?”

“Yes,” he nearly shouted, so relieved was he to produce the correct answer. “Yeah, it’s right here.”

Bow Tie perused the card JD thrust toward him. The eyebrows rose another millimeter, this time ratcheting the frown back up into a neutral slash of bad humor.

“You are from Firestone and Cranwell?”

The astonishment, though lightly played, stung. JD nodded. The man stepped back on his glossy heel, indicating the mirrored polish of the marble hall.

“Do come in. I was expecting, perhaps, Ms. Cranwell. It is she who last spoke with the professor.”

JD stepped inside, prepared to feel a wintrier breath in the entry hall than the one he had endured outside, but the house seemed cozy despite its grandness. A warm, tasseled carpet in muted greys and scarlets graced the floor and a wide bowl of roses blazed from a central table of some dark carved wood. Through open doorways, JD spied rich walnut wainscoting and, in one room, the dancing flare upon the ceiling of a real fire.

Bow Tie, the business card tweezed between his fingertips, motioned toward a burgundy chair.

“Wait here. I’ll let Dr. Warburton know you’ve come.”

***

Warburton reminded JD of a sleepy crocodile, benign in his luxurious doze but possessed of a nimble ruthlessness should hunger prick him. The old man stood close to the fire, leaning on a rosewood walking stick, his soft grey hair stirring in the updraft from the flames.

“Come in, my boy, come in. Have a seat and be comfortable. My old bones don’t take kindly to this cold weather. They miss the desert sun.”

He chuckled. JD advanced into the room and perched on the edge of an immense leather sofa. Warburton turned his attention to Bow Tie, who hovered at the door, a fine black wool coat and red cashmere scarf draped over his arm.

“Well, Edward,” Warburton chirped, “off with you, then. I won’t need you again until after the weekend.”

Edward inclined his head, turned on his heel, and marched away across the entry hall. Warburton waited until he heard the big, black door close behind his assistant before addressing JD.

“It’s a fine thing, to have some youth in the house. I don’t count Edward, who’s a bit of a dry stick. How old are you, my boy?”

JD cleared his throat. “Twenty-six, sir, just last month.”

Warburton beamed. “Fine, fine. It’s a fine age. You put me in mind of my grandson. He was a strapping lad like yourself, full of the love of adventure. I hope you’ll have a bite of luncheon with me before we get down to business. I’m curious to know what you think of all this rummaging about among old things and dead philosophies.”

The heat of the fire was like a hand that had closed with gradual malice about JD. His face felt swollen with it, his eyes turned to sandpaper. The thought of a cool, white kitchen, or even a cavernous, draughty dining room, was an elixir.

“Sure,” he said. “I could do with a sandwich.”

...to be continued