Firetale (6 page)

The ringmaster didn’t move a muscle. “Sir,
we are not interested in private dances with any of your girls. We
need information.”

“
And who the hell are you?” the
bartender asked. “Her husband?” He looked at Greg and then back at
Mr. Bernardius. “Her father?”

“
Not at all. But I find it odd
that your first assumption was that we are her family,” Bernardius
said without changing his calm tone. The bartender blushed as if
realizing he had blurted out too much.

“
What makes you think we are not
cops?” Greg said.

The bartender put his hands on
the counter and leaned forward menacingly.
“Go back to your table, or get out of
here.”

“
Pity. We just wanted to know
about the girl,” Greg said, and felt a hand on his shoulder. He
turned and saw a man who seemed to be a bouncer. He was taller than
Bernardius, with huge arms, a prominent square jaw, and a mullet.
The bouncer came close to Greg, but the magician did not retreat a
single step. The bouncer was not surprised. He had come across such
folks before. Some people were too drunk or stupid or proud to get
out in an amicable way. He looked down at Greg. The magician only
smiled.

The bouncer looked
Greg in the eye and
thought for a moment that he saw in them not just a shine, but an
actual flame gleaming somewhere deep. The goon suddenly felt a wave
of heat, and took a step back, dazed and confused. Noticing how the
bouncer hesitated, the bartender reached under the bar.

“
Please, sir, don’t. Leave your
weapon where it is. We do not want any trouble,” said Bernardius.
“We have to go,” he whispered to Greg. The magician tried to
protest, but Lazarus took him by the arm and led him to the
door.

“
What are you doing?” Greg said.
“I can beat the shit out of them both.”

“
I know. But I won’t let you. I
do not need you to burn everything in sight, Greg. They are
unwilling to negotiate peacefully, so they leave us no choice. But
the fire is not what we need. Sometimes an easy fistfight is
enough.” Bernardius spoke quietly, as if he were explaining a
problem to a student. “This is a job for the brothers,” he
added.

Lazarus and Greg returned to the
club later
that night, in the company of Blanche and Black. The ogre
brothers’ huge figures were hidden under long cloaks similar to the
one Lazarus wore, and their heads were covered with hoods large
enough to hide the wheel of a truck.

“
The vampire king returns,” said
the bartender through clenched teeth.

“
I told you that cloak makes you
look creepy,” Greg whispered to Bernardius. But the old man only
raised an eyebrow and said nothing. The ringmaster made a small
gesture, and Blanche and Black moved forward. In the shadowy room,
the bartender at first could not see the size of the brothers, but
by the time they were in front of him, he had pulled a shotgun from
under the bar and pointed it at the ogres. A discontented
grumbling, more like a growl, sounded from under the brothers’
hoods. One of the cloaked figures threw out his hand, grabbed the
shotgun barrel right before the barkeep could pull the trigger, and
crushed the steel weapon as if it were a cardboard tube. The
bartender was amazed at the speed at which this lunker
moved.

A moment later, a chair crashed against
the back of the second cloaked figure, showering splinters all over
the floor. The ogre seemed not to notice the blow. He turned
lazily, as if giving the attacker time to escape. The bouncer stood
there, the look on his face a mixture of shock and
regret.

“
Not on the head. We do not need
victims,” Lazarus said to the ogre. The giant uttered a
disappointed sigh and hit a bouncer in the stomach. During his long
career in bars and clubs, the bouncer had taken part in many
skirmishes. Most often it was cold cocking an opponent with a few
punches. Now and then, he took a hard and painful blow. But the
punch from the huge cloaked figure seemed to paralyze his lungs. He
could not even cry out in pain or even whimper. His whole body was
seized by intense agony. The brute doubled over and noticed that
his feet had come off the floor. In that moment, he thought that
this simply could not be like the blows he had seen in movies. The
bouncer flew several meters through the air. Dirty floor, tables,
spotlights on the ceiling, frightened faces of the girls on the
stage—everything mixed in a moving blur before his eyes. He landed
backwards on a table occupied by some bulky truckers, breaking it
in half. The truckers jumped up, a shocked expression on their
beefy faces.

The girls on the stage screamed and ran
off to the dressing room and then through the back door, losing
parts of their costumes on the way, which filled them with a sense
of shame. The bartender, seeing the bouncer lying unconscious,
pulled a bat from under the counter but then changed his mind. He
started throwing bottles at the ogres. Glass shattered against
their bodies, showering fragments all around. A group of truckers,
unhappy that their entertainment had been interrupted, attacked the
two fellows in black cloaks.

Blanche and Black fought back.
The bottle-bombing didn
’t concern them. They ignored the bursting glass
and threw punches at their attackers. Their discontented grumbling
quickly gave way to a satisfied chug. For them, this fight was fun.
They had been spending all their preternatural force on setting up
or dismantling the big top and the stands, and they were delighted
at the chance to stretch their muscles. They were upset that
Lazarus had told them not to punch their opponents in the head, but
the fight was better than nothing. The brothers never attacked
first, always making sure they were acting in self-defense, as
Lazarus had insisted ever since accepting them into the circus. But
whenever they took a blow, they answered it with a harder one, and
the fight ended quickly. The patrons that hadn’t fled were soon
lying on the floor.

Greg and Lazarus found the
bartender hid
ing behind the counter. The brothers blocked the front and
back doors, and the magician and the ringmaster invited the poor
man to sit down at one of the few undamaged tables left in the
hall. The bartender had little to tell about Martha.

“
I don’t know who she is,” he
told them. “Honestly, I don’t know. Came to us one night, all
soaked to the skin, frozen to the bone. Said she was lost and did
not know where to go.”

“
Where did she come from?” Greg
asked.

“
I don’t know. Maybe some trucker
dropped her. They do so with the girls sometimes. Well, you know.
But I guess she’s not that kind. She looked as if she had traveled
a long way before she came here.”

“
And you didn’t ask where she
came from?”

“
Of course, I did. She said she
didn’t remember a thing. Didn’t even know her name. Only muttered
something like Martha. Well, I decided that was her name. She
agreed. She had no ID, so …”

“
And nobody asked after her?”
Lazarus asked. “Not even the police?”

“
No one. There are cops among our
clients. They come here when they’re off work. They notice her. Ask
her name. But nobody ever said there was BOLO on her, that she was
wanted or missing. No one was interested until you showed up!”
Judging by his terrified eyes, the bartender was telling the
truth.

“
Have you … done anything with
her?” Greg asked, his voice dry and angry.

“
No! You saw her, saw her
dancing. I’ve never laid a finger on her, no one has. I don’t know
what her trick is, but everybody seems to change when they see her.
When she performs, we don’t have any problems. No drunken fights,
no nothing. Customers constantly leave her more money than the
other dancers, and the other girls don’t even mind.”

“
Do you remember anything about
the night she arrived?” asked Mr. Bernardius.

“
Yes, yes. There was a very heavy
rain. Thunderstorm, full deal. Real bad weather. The place was
crammed. No one could leave the town, ’cause the rain turned the
road into a river. I still wonder how she managed to get to us in
that weather.”

“
Maybe it’s somehow connected,”
Lazarus murmured.

“
Where is she now? We’re gonna
take her with us,” Greg said, getting up.

“
What? Hey, guys, that will not
do!” protested the bartender.

“
Look, sir, you, your bouncer,
and your patrons attacked us,” Bernardius said. “Granted, because
of the actions of my fellows, your place incurred significant
losses. But they acted in self-defense. Also, to the best of my
recollection, you’ve been holding a female with no ID, suffering
from memory loss. And you did not report it to the police or take
her to the hospital, taking advantage of her state. I’m sure if we
report this to the cops, the story will seem as interesting to them
as it is to us.” Bernardius signaled the brothers, and they uttered
a brutish roar, forcing the bartender to shiver. Bernardius turned
back to the barkeep. “I think we understand each other, don’t
we?”

“
Yes, everything is clear,” the
barman said.

“
And now, if you don’t mind, we
need her address,” said Lazarus.

“
Leaving the life you led before
we met.”

Black Sabbath
, “N.I.B.”

The U
.S., New Orleans. 19th
century.

Lazarus Bernardius was born in
1827. His father was Jerome Bernardius, a large
-scale planter and a descendant
of French settlers. Lazarus’s mother, Margaret, came from the once
glorious Stevenson family, which had been through difficult times
at the beginning of the 19th century and was on the brink of
financial collapse. Margaret’s mother, Elizabeth Stevenson, after
the early death of her husband, raised her four daughters in rigor
and piety. The girls had grown up to be beauties, and all married
early and successfully. The youngest, Margaret, thought she had
some time before she needed to be married, but Elizabeth, feeling
that her days were numbered and wanting to arrange the future of
her daughter as soon as possible, insisted on Margaret’s marriage
to Jerome, who had been captivated by the girl’s beauty and
modesty.

Jerome and
Margaret
’s
marriage was unhappy. Bernardius was a practical man, concerned
only about his plantation, and his work was a greater passion than
his young wife. Deprived of her husband’s attention, young Margaret
spent her days reading books and attending church. She was kind to
the slaves, helped them in sickness, and prayed to the Lord for
them. But her husband did not share her views. Soon it became
obvious to Margaret that Jerome was a violent man who treated black
workers as tools for personal gain. Meanwhile, his wife’s attitude
toward the slaves often infuriated Jerome. Eventually, he forbade
her to communicate with the workers in the field, allowing her to
chat only with the domestic servants. Only books and church were
left in Margaret’s life.

When on the night of October 17,
1827, Margaret gave birth to a son, she named him after Lazarus of
Bethany, who had been resurrected by Christ on the fourth day after
death. But,
in an ironic twist of fate, Lazarus was a weak child, prone
to ailments, and he had twice been on the verge of death. In those
days, Margaret took him to church and prayed to God for the
salvation of her son. His son’s poor health irritated and depressed
Jerome. He had hoped for a strong successor who would help him
manage the cotton plantation. But the child’s weakness did not
allow him to be in the field with his father. Instead, like his
mother, little Lazarus spent all his time reading books on
religion. At the insistence of his wife, Jerome invited a priest
from New Orleans, Roger Abernathy, to teach his son. The young
clergyman was a man of the gentry and had a gift for education. He
became a friend and a mentor to the boy, something Lazarus’s father
would never be.

Abernathy
also became friends with
Margaret. They were the same age, with similar traits of character,
and they quickly hit it off. When Roger wasn’t spending time with
Lazarus or preaching in the church, he could often be seen in
Margaret’s company.

At first, Jerome Bernardius paid no
attention to his wife’s new friendship, but when it was whispered
about even among the slaves in the cotton fields, the seeds of
anger were sown in the planter’s heart. He became suspicious and
angry. At last, he announced to Roger Abernathy that the Bernardius
family no longer needed his services, and he was free to return to
New Orleans. The priest was shocked. He knew people were whispering
behind his back, but the simple-hearted young man believed it was
obvious that his relationship with Mrs. Bernardius was just
friendship. Abernathy tried to explain this to Jerome, but the
planter did not want to listen. When Abernathy persisted, Jerome
beat him, tore off his Roman collar, and threw the priest out of
his home.

Abernathy went back to New
Orleans, and no one in the Bernardius estate ever
saw him again.
Jerome, however, couldn’t move past the quarrel. His confidence in
his wife, despite the innocence of her relationship with Abernathy,
was shaken. He became an anxious and nervous man, and soon had a
stroke from which he never fully recovered. With his health
compromised, his involvement in his business decreased, and the
plantation suffered. In 1842, he decided to hand over the
responsibilities of the estate and the plantation to his wife and
son, and a year later he died quietly. Until the Civil War, Lazarus
tried to manage the business, but with no experience, no real
desire, and no support from his mother, who had become a closed and
inhospitable woman since Roger Abernathy had been banished from the
Bernardius home, he was doomed to fail. Before Lazarus turned
thirty, his mother died, and he finally lost all interest in his
father’s plantation, which had become a burden to him.