Doc Occult Vertigo Visions....

DOCTOR OCCULT

Cursing the Pharoah

Part 2 of 2

Vertigo Visions:
Doctor Occult 		Written by Alan Strauss

So there I was flat on my back, ankle sprained, staring up at a half naked magician about to plunge his dagger into me.  To think I’d been excited about this case only a few hours ago. 

It had all started well enough, with a beautiful woman sauntering into my office in need of help.  She was the kind of potential client no red-blooded male could turn away.  Not even one unfortunate enough to share a brain with a wife, a wife who thinks looking is every bit as bad as touching.  Her name was Taia and she wanted to know where her husband was spending his off-hours.  Private Investigations 101, you’d think, except this is occult detection, and that always means headaches.   

Ibis couldn’t just be a wayward husband.  No, he had to be centuries old Egyptian royalty with a talent for spell casting.  Now, normally, I’d avoid cases involving ancient sorcerers like the plague, being an unpredictable lot in general, but…well, did I mention the skirt his wife was wearing that afternoon?  I figured a little shadowing shouldn’t be too challenging for a detective of my vast experience.  I’d stake out his house, trail him to whatever seedy rendezvous he was sneaking off to every night, and then maybe snap a few incriminating photos.  Simple. 

I should have known better.

Because simple is what led me here.  A small hotel room in Fawcett City and a scene that was very hard to describe in terms that didn’t sound disturbingly homoerotic.  Truth be told, I was even a little alarmed, especially as Ibis reared back with that knife of his clasped in both hands, a vacant expression on his face.

“I, ah, don’t suppose we could talk about th-”

And down it came.  A sibilant hiss like a punctured balloon filled the room.  My lungs springing a fatal leak, I figured, until I realized it was just my own panicked wheezing.  The dagger stood straight up from my chest but hadn’t actually pierced me.  It was stuck in my camera.   And to think Rose had been criticizing my love of risqué photography just a few minutes ago.

Ibis wasted a moment staring then tried to jerk it free for another try.  I collected myself enough to connect a hard right with his chin and send him sprawling.  By the time we were both standing up, his expression had changed again.  Gone was the zombie-like glaze and in its place something more like outrage. 

“You fool!  Do you realize what you’ve done?”

I shrugged and collected my hat from the floor. 

“Your actions may have just doomed the human race!”

Which is not, as it happens, the first time I’ve had this shouted at me. 


Here’s one of those things about occult detection.  Call it a rule if you like. Simply put, it’s this: you can’t let the little things get you down.  Where magic’s involved, you just have to roll with the punches, and accept that nothing can really be taken at face value.  Everything is just another goddamn gimmick with these people, façade on top of façade on top of façade. 

So I was working hard not to second guess myself or lose my cool while Ibis explained to me just how I’d ruined everything for everyone everywhere.  How I’d interrupted his carefully arranged ritual, one that took years to prepare, all on the eve of destruction, naturally.  Even his would-be sacrifice, now untied, modestly dressed, and seated on the sofa, was shooting me acid glares.  Turns out she was part of some ancient order that had been nobly sacrificing themselves to the cause for years and here I’d ruined her big debut.

Figures, really.  I manage to save a beautiful maiden from being stabbed by a lunatic and all she does is complain about it.  My life in a nutshell.  
 
Serves you right, Rose noted, always leaping in headfirst, especially where a pretty face is involved…

“Yeah, well, I don’t recall you objecting at the time.”

Or maybe I do actually.  All the complaining kind of merges together after while, I find.  Whatever the case, my little outburst got Ibis seething at me again.  Probably figured I was talking to him, given how Rose’s voice is audible only to myself.  Lucky me.

“Objecting?  No, I suppose I was too busy completing the Rite of Containment, trying to keep the Ageless Pharaoh, Anon-Tet, from escaping his centuries long imprisonment and overrunning our realm with his undead legions.  How silly of me.  I should have cleared it all with you first, the hotel detective, or whoever you’re supposed to be…”

“Dr. Occult,” I corrected him.  “Private investigator.  You may have heard of me.”

Apparently not though as he rolled his eyes and barked a laugh.  “A doctor!  Of what?  Dentistry?”

“Occult science.”

Ibis crossed his arms, his face a grotesque of haughty skepticism.  “A likely story.  I’ve never heard of any university teaching the subject.”

“Who said anything about a university?”

“Then who granted the title?” he huffed.

“Only the foremost expert in the field.”

“And that would be?”

“Me,” I replied simply. 

This didn’t exactly impress Ibis, who merely threw up his arms in exasperation, but I felt better saying it at least.  For a man approaching a hundred, you certainly can behave with a remarkable lack of maturity.  Rose again.  See what I mean? 

Meanwhile, Ibis turned to his erstwhile assistant, prattling something in rapid-fire Arabic, to which she nodded primly and took her leave.  But not before giving me a parting look that would have scorched Teflon. 

“Well, how apt then, seeing that you caused all this by your bumbling interference….”

“You were about to stab a woman to death in your underwear.  Call me crazy for getting the wrong idea.”

“…a blood sacrifice is a necessary part of such a powerful ritual as any true occult expert should recognize.  Without it, the seal will be broken.  Anon will surely return and his bloody vengeance will make one mere willing sacrifice seem like a day at the park in comparison.  Unless…”

There are a lot of words I don’t like.  Often that just has to do with pronunciation or tricky spelling but sometimes it’s because they’re rarely followed by good news.  ‘Unless’ tends to be like that in my experience.

“Go on,” I grumbled.

“Unless someone convinces him not to leave the underworld.” 

“And how would one do that?  Bouquet of flowers?” 

Ibis smiled coldly.  “One would have to be extraordinarily clever, doctor.  Anon would have to be tricked or made to believe that continuing his confinement was in his best interest.  A confinement he has sought to escape for going on two thousand years now.”

“Sounds like a fun time, alright.”

“I’m very glad you think so as I’m going to need a capable assistant.” 

I held up my hands.  “Hey, I didn’t volunteer for anything, I was just hired by…”

“My wife, I know.  I couldn’t risk having her involved in something so dangerous.”  Ibis latched onto the cuff of my overcoat and yanked me forward.  He had a surprising amount of strength hidden in those bony fingers.  “But you, on the other hand, why, you’re the top of your field, right?  And, since we only have a few hours left, we’d best get moving…”

“Moving?  Wait, hold on!  Moving where?”

He flung the closet doors open and, where moments before his assistant’s raincoat had been hanging on a lonely peg, now loomed an elaborate onyx stairway spiraling down into an impenetrable gloom.

“Why, the realm of the undead, of course!”
 

Now, understand, private investigation in general involves a lot of legwork.  There’s only so much information you can gather while seated behind a desk.  Sooner or later you have to hit the streets, connect the dots, talk to people face-to-face.  It isn’t always glamorous, often it’s downright tedious, but that’s the job I do.

In other words I’ve done my share of traveling.  New York, Paris, Tokyo.  Not to mention Olympus, Faerie, and Sigil.  It takes a lot to make an impression on me.  So when I say there was something about this place I didn’t like, something that made my hair stand on end, understand we’re talking years of experience.  I think it was the age mainly.  This looked, felt, heck, even smelled, old.  A relic not just from the past, but the most ancient of all pasts. 

I think it’s rather beautiful, Richard.

We were presently walking through a garden of turquoise.  Stately blue sycamores surrounded by delicate strands of blue reed grass.   The experience was sort of like walking through a Picasso painting.  Nice and all but if I tilted my head just a little to the west, I could also see an enormous lake of fire spitting twenty-foot licks of flame into the superheated air.  Just to the south of that, along the road we’d crossed, was an enormous iron gate where a gazelle-headed keeper was tearing a screaming petitioner limb from limb and devouring the pieces.

“Yeah, it’s a real feast for the eyes….”

Ibis, who had been jaunting along several steps ahead of me, paused to give me a thin lipped smile.  He was dressed in his jogging suit and swami hat from earlier, which struck me as a heck of a getup to be visiting Hell in.  In fact it irritated me.  That and everything else about the man.

“What you need to understand about Duat, doctor, is that it is not like your Christian underworld.  It is not merely a home for demons and the damned.  It is more like a middle world, one intimately connected with the surface, where gods and spirits frequently pass on their peculiar errands, and sometimes even reside.”

“Real fascinating.  So what’s the deal with this Pharaoh anyways?”

“Anon-Tet was a master of the black arts who discovered the secret to eternal life.  Not the sort of prolonged lives we enjoy but true immortality.  Mentally and physically eternal.  He was, truthfully, a great man, but also ruthless, perverse, and quite mad.  If he had been allowed to reach his full power on the mortal plane he likely would have enslaved the entire world.”

“Ain’t it always the way.  What stopped him?”

“His hitherto loyal magi finally realized the depths of his corruption and so betrayed him.  They trapped his astral form in Duat and entombed his human body under miles of sand and rubble.” 

“That means he’s beatable then.”

Ibis laughed.  “Oh, most certainly.  The royal court’s magi managed to catch him off guard that day.  Of course he is likely to be somewhat more prepared now, having had some several centuries to go over events in his mind.  Plus there were nearly fifty of them and only two of us…”

“Fifty, huh?  Couldn’t we just call them in?”

“They perished,” he answered nonchalantly.  “Most were killed by Anon-Tet in the first few minutes of their battle.  The rest sacrificed themselves to seal his tomb.”

Which seemed like quite enough questions for the moment.  Besides we’d arrived at the end of our trail. It had taken us through the garden and onwards to the foot of a forbidding gray mountain. It looked impassable to my thinking and neither of us had brought along climbing gear.   Ibis began to scratch his chin.  

“It should be here somewhere…”

“Well, at least we tried, huh?  Might as well head home, maybe give Dr. Fate a call, seems more his kind of deal a--”

“Ah, yes!” Ibis announced, drawing a crude circle on the stone’s surface with a stub of chalk he took from his pocket.  The white quickly seeped into the rock, leaving a large black hole.   “Here we go.”

I think the idiot was actually about to wave me in -- as if I was going to lead the charge or something -- but he didn’t need bother.  From the hole he’d just created a leering jackal’s face had suddenly emerged.  Saliva dripped from its savage yellow teeth, although the clear blue eyes that hung about its maw were as intelligent as those of any man.  It gave us both a cursory glance before retreating several steps back into the gloom and waiting.    

“One of Anon’s servants.  I think it expects us to follow.”

“Super,” I said dryly.


Following an uncomfortable trek through tight corridors blanketed in darkness, we eventually found ourselves in a vast stone hall illuminated by pale white torches.  Despite being tall behind measure and so wide I could barely see the distant walls, there was hardly room enough for us to pass.  An army of undead creatures stood shoulder to shoulder across in length -- soldiers with shriveled skin like gray parchment wielding spears as long as their bodies, others with torsos as tanned, oiled, and muscular as billboard lingerie models, entirely human save of course for the fanged serpent heads that rose above their shoulders.  At their feet gathered packs of scruffy jackals far too large to exist anywhere on Earth.

“His personal guard,” Ibis explained to me in a whisper, “two thousand strong at the time of his death and feared across the land for their unbridled savagery and intense loyalty.”  According to him, the whole lot had marched willingly into the pharaoh’s tomb as soon as they’d heard of his death, forgoing any attempt to seize power or seek revenge on their own.  That’s how certain they were of their master’s swift return. 

So, all in all, a less than friendly audience, although a surprisingly attentive one, I’ve got admit.  Hardly a sound echoed in that massive hall as a path was cleared for our approach.  The tunnel that emerged through their ranks led us directly to the foot of a large onyx throne upon which sat a small gnarled cadaver of a man with skin like white papyrus and hollow eyes.   Immediately, Ibis launched into his appeal by prostrating himself on the stone floor and addressing this ugly little mummy in such obsequious terms it would have made ten queens blush. 

“Your greatness, we are humbled before you august presence and awed by the generosity with which you choose to grant us mere mortals an audience!”   

And it kind of went on like that. Ibis laying it on so thick he ought to have brought a trowel.  I found it all a bit much myself, but I then was never one for formalities.  He certainly had the room’s attention, I’ll say that much.

“We have traveled here from the upper world to plead mercy, oh majestic one!  We know you once vowed to return to the surface world and resume your rightful kingship, and that the time of your ascendancy has now come again.  Yet I beg you in your wisdom to reconsider!”

I scanned the pharaoh’s face for any sign of emotion or even recognition but found none.  I saw only the same empty-eyed stare hovering above his slack-jawed mouth.  Anon-Tet sat dumb and immobile, engulfed by his own throne, his skinny arms laying atop the massive stone rests like dried willow branches.  I wondered if he could even hear us.  Ibis continued, undaunted.

“I implore you, Anon-Tet, listen well!  For I tell you that too much time has passed!  The old kingdoms have crumbled to dust.  Men no longer believe in the ancient ways.  What need has one as powerful and old as yourself with such simple fallen creatures now?  Let your mighty armies rest at last.” 

I think he’s doing rather well, actually.  He has a nice speaking voice, don’t you think?

I rolled my eyes under cover of my hat brim.  Leave it to Rose to take a fancy to this arrogant windbag.  For my own part, I just kept reflecting on how well a stiff drink would suit me right about now.

“Let go of the past.  Forget the old grievances…”

With a dry crackle not unlike decaying leather, the pharaoh shifted upon his throne.  First he bent his wizened head forward on his stalk of neck as if to study Ibis more closely.  His twig-like arms then slowly raised the bejeweled scepter from his lap until it was held aloft to twinkle coldly in the dim lighting. 

“…release your vengeance and g--”

A strange unnatural thrumming sound filled my ears and something imperceptible crackled through the air around us like electricity.  Ibis paused a moment, searching for a suitably pompous phrasing I figured, until wisps of smoke began to stream off his turban.  All at once his skin pealed back and he lit up in flames, screaming hideously before crumbling into a pile of black ash at Anon-Tet’s feet. 

The hall stood silent again and all eyes now turned towards me. 

“Huh.”

There are a number of skills vital to the occupation of occult detective.  Quick wits, a fast right hook, a talent for unusual languages, an eye for detail.  They all come in handy at times.  I’ve found, however, that the one that prevails, time and time again, is good cardio.  Spells are nice and all but sturdy legs and a good set of lungs have yet to stand me wrong in a time of crisis.

Ibis’s ashes had not even quite finished wafting to the floor before I’d lit out of there like a startled cat.  Muscle memory, my subconscious, or maybe just plain dumb luck carried me through the crypt’s darkened passageways and back outside so fast that I barely had time to think.  Which was fine because when I finally did, while weaving my way through those turquoise gardens, brittle flowers crunching under my heavy loafers, nothing good came of it. 

The situation seems rather dire, Richard.

“Ya think?” I bellowed, holding onto my hat, as I bounded over a hedge of razor sharp mulberries.  Behind me Anon-Tet’s foot soldiers were already giving pursuit.  They moved through the garden with an eerie agility that sent a cold shiver up my spine.  I might be able to make it to the rift we’d entered through, just barely, but what then?

I’ll think of something.  Hopefully.  You just do your best to keep us from getting killed, dear.

Good advice or good enough at least.  Retracing our path from before, I passed through thickets of tall reeds, racing along the banks of a glassy black river.  Its surface was dotted by large lily pads whose pale flowers looked disturbingly like human skulls.  Behind me, something began to claw at the flapping tails of my coat. 

I fished my hand into my pocket, snatching up the Sign of Seven, and turned sharply.  A skeletal beast with the antlers of a ram lunged past me as I reflexively dodged what would have been a deadly blow.  I had no time to rummage through my thoughts for a spell but fortunately that’s the power of the Sign.  It knew what I wanted, or rather what I needed, and dredged it up from my memories for me.  I just had to say the words it fed me and watch the results.

What happened next was not the least bit pyrotechnic or flashy.  The spell was a simple but powerful one aimed at negating the chronal distortion aura that kept the ancient creature whole.  All at once its protection was breached and the true effect of time came crashing in.  With a silent howl, its bones crumbled to powder and it fell forward in a whiff of aged dust. 

Nice and all but one down out of two thousand could hardly be called a victory.  I couldn’t simply keep doing that all day long either.  Both me and the Sign had our limits.  So snatching up the creature’s sickle-shaped sword -- a Khopesh, Rose informed me ever so helpfully, as if she had nothing better to do -- I hacked off the arm of the next encroaching monster and lit off again in a mad run. 

That was the pattern from there on in.  Just pure mechanical energy.  Hack.  Run.  Spell.  Hack again.  Run some more.  I was sweating like a pig and my arm ached all the way up to my shoulder by the time the rift came within sight.  Behind me dozens of the pharaoh’s undead minions were bounding into sight as I stumbled to a stop.

“Now what?”

We need to cast a ward about the rift.  Quickly!  We can’t let them enter it!

I followed Rose’s instructions, drawing archaic symbols in the dust with the hilt of my borrowed sword and reciting the appropriate words of power, trying to keep a sense of hopelessness from setting in.  “This isn’t going to hold forever, you know.  What do we do next?”

You have to keep them back while I attempt to contact the outside world.

Which wasn’t exactly simpatico to my own line of thinking.  “Are you kidding me?  What we need to do is get the hell out of here!  We can worry about making social calls later!”

But we cannot just flee and leave the portal wide open for Anon-Tet, Richard!  If I can just call in help, perhaps Dr. Fate or Z-”

Her words were cut short as a javelin, black as a pitch, tore directly through our protective warding and sunk itself in the sleeve of my coat.  The force of the missile knocked the Sign from my hand, sending that thin stone disc rolling across the dirt while the shaft pinned my arm to the ground.  I was still struggling to free myself when a chariot rolled forward, led by two pestilent black horses with bleached skulls and hollow eyes.  At their reins stood the skeletal Anon-Tet.

The ageless pharaoh gazed down at us for the briefest of moments and then turned towards the rift.  Something almost like a smile seemed to cross his sunken face as he raised his scepter high and motioned to his legions.  With a huff of the steam, his horses plunged forward, carrying him onwards through the portal and up to the surface world.  His army followed their master’s lead in a silent march.  


Only when the last of the pharaoh’s men had disappeared, could I once again hear Rose’s voice echoing in my thoughts.

Oh, God, we’ve failed Richard!  He‘s gone through…

“Yeah, well…at least we’re alive…”

He probably didn’t think we were worth the bother of killing.   We may even wish he had finished us off once we discover what’s going on topside.  It’s our fault, you know.  If we hadn’t interfered… 

It stung to admit it but Rose was right for once.  A lot of innocent people were about to die in a no doubt gruesome manner.  All because I had to barge in and play hero where I wasn’t welcome.  “I guess I bungled this one but good…”

“Quite the contrary, doctor,” a familiar voice replied as the javelin was tugged from my sleeve.  “You filled your role perfectly.”

I looked up to see Ibis fading into view, looking surprisingly fit and in one piece, goofy turban and all.  Not so much as a mild sun burn could be spotted on him.  There was, however, a disgustingly smug expression on his face.  I had a feeling I wasn’t going to particularly enjoy what he was about to tell me, even if it was technically good news.
 
And I was right.

“So that was a decoy I saw getting toasted back there?  Not the real you?”

“Of course and a very convincing one I must say.  I had to gamble that Anon-Tet wouldn’t detect the fraud, but it’s been so long since he’s seen an actual human being, I thought it a safe bet.  The other risk of course was you.”

“Right, I’m surprised I didn’t detect the switch myself…”

“Oh, no,” Ibis chuckled, rather ungraciously I thought, “I wasn’t worried about that, doctor, not at all.  It was just a matter of whether or not I’d read your character right.”

“Figured I’d come through in the end, huh?”   

“Well.  Rather I guessed that if things went badly inside the tomb, you’d go running for the nearest exit, without a second thought for saving me or stopping the pharaoh.  Anon-Tet would of course follow, assuming that you would lead him straight back to our world.”

I frowned.  It wasn’t an inaccurate description of what had happened, technically, but somehow this telling seemed to get the tone all wrong.

“Although,” Ibis added reluctantly, as if loathe to give me any credit at all, “I was rather surprised by your show of courage at the end.  Of course there’s no way you could have stopped him from passing through but it certainly made my little charade all the more convincing.  The real rift of course, I hid over here.”

Ibis waved his wand and a second portal appeared, its stairway presumably leading back up to the apartment we’d left hours before.  Which meant that the one Rose and I had been guarding was a fake.  I studied its outline with a queasy feeling deep in my gut, picturing just how close I’d come to leaping through it. 

“So where does this one lead?”

“Oh, I simply opened a passage to the most horrible place I could imagine at the time.”

“I thought you said you didn’t send him to Earth?”

Ibis just ignored me as usual.  No sense of humor, apparently.  Anyways, according to him the portal led directly to the Plains of Leng, a place even hardened veterans of the occult trade like myself shy away from.  By reputation I knew it to be a deceptive, unpredictable realm, home of dark gods and vengeful spirits.  Ibis figured Anon-Tet would find plenty of like minds to keep him busy there and might never even realize he’d been tricked.  It’d been so long since he’d seen the surface world, how was he to know the difference anymore?

“Say, and how’d you know I wasn’t going to enter it?  I mean, weren‘t you running a pretty big risk there?”

To which Ibis only smiled in reply. 


So much then for thousand year old Egyptian curses and underworld tourism, at least for me.  It hadn’t turned out so bad in the end but I was still happy to be back in my office just the same.  What made it all go down a little easier is the fact I actually got paid for once.  Magicians in general aren’t exactly the most trustworthy clients, believe me, all that sleight of hand inevitably crowds their judgment when it comes to paying their bills, but no sooner was I through the door then I spotted a check waiting on my desk with Taia’s name on it.  Meaning I’d be able to keep the lights on for at least few months longer.  Maybe even afford a new camera, if I was lucky.

“Told you I knew what I was doing,” I informed my wife as I kicked my heels up on the desk and lit my pipe. 

You always tell me that, dear.  Still, it could have gone worse, I suppose.

“Sure.  Ibis and his wife are safe and sound, and we apparently saved the world in the process.  Not bad for a night’s work.  Sometimes I almost think we make a pretty good team.”

We do have our moments, don’t we?

I smiled and leaned back, flipping to the Sunday crossword puzzle in the Daily Arcane.  Working it had become something of a ritual for us, a way to unwind after a case.  I nibbled at the end of my pencil eraser as I scanned the hints. 

“An nine letter word for crazy…”

Committed, dear.  Committed.

 

Stories © 2011 Alan Strauss and may not be reproduced without permission.