Cocktails at Seven, Apocalypse at Eight: The Derby Cavendish Stories Read online

  “Nicely done!” I gasped as we finally broke free.

  “You don’t spend three years following Lilith Fair without slogging through a few mud pits,” she said. “The smell of dirt in the rain still makes me horny.” She pushed aside the shirtless hockey star where he was making out with two of the gladiators, and I threw open the door to the community hall.

  “I’m looking for Braden Anderson!” I shouted.

  There was no response—for good reason. As I’d expected, the frat boys and sorority girls gathered in the hall were well past worrying about their big dance number. Lacking the long-standing shame and pent-up lust of their elders, they’d apparently skipped the preliminary craziness taking over the casino floor and gotten right to the orgy. The warm air in the community hall smelled of sweat, sex, and floor polish as knots of nearly naked forms slid together in languid sensuality. For a moment, I wondered if Edie and I were doing the right thing. When it came down to it, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and surely it would just be rude to interrupt. . . .

  Edie poked me sharply. “Quit staring, you pervert!”

  “I wasn’t staring, I was assessing the situation,” I told her. “You can’t rush these things.”

  But Edie had a point—we didn’t have all night. And while it was one thing to let people get their freak on of their own free will, what was happening at the Royal Dom was not natural. Being careful not to step on anyone, I ventured through the door and called again, “I’m looking for Braden Anderson.” Nothing. I tried once more. “Is there a Braden here?”

  A young man groaned with frustration and separated himself from his partners. “I’m Braden. Braden Vail.”

  His hair was copper-red and dishevelled, his face flushed with arousal. The toga he wore might once have been carefully wrapped, but the evening’s exertions had left it hanging as loose as the hinges on a bathhouse door—except below the waist, where it stood out in a tent big enough to entertain a circus. Even Edie let out a low whistle of amazement.

  I wrenched my gaze up to his face and tried to think about Margaret Thatcher in leather gear. “Are you Mavis Anderson’s grandson?” I asked.

  He rolled his eyes, which was answer enough for me. “What’s she done now? I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

  “You’re in the middle of it, alright!” I told him. “What made you suggest a Roman theme to your grandmother?”

  Braden shrugged. “Caesar’s Palace, man.”

  “That’s what I said,” commented Edie.

  “Still not helping.” I looked back to Braden. This wasn’t adding up. I could see in his eyes that he didn’t have the arcane knowledge necessary to manipulate people on this scale. And as I’d pointed out to Edie, this was Saturnalia, not Bacchanalia. A festival of freedom and role reversal, but not orgies. “There must be something else,” I said.

  “It’s just a big toga party,” said Braden, adjusting his costume with the effect of revealing even more sweat-streaked skin. Margaret Thatcher in leather, I thought desperately. Winston Churchill in bondage. Braden just shrugged again. “Everybody loves it.”

  Suddenly I had the answer, unlocked by those three little words. “Everybody loves it,” I repeated. “This isn’t about Saturnalia at all.” I pointed at Braden. “You’ve roused the spirit of Filthy Camilla!”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded. “Yeah, Camilla Vail was my great-grandmother on my father’s side—you don’t think we’re reminded of that every time we watch a hockey game? You think I’ve done something? You think she needs any more disrespect?”

  “Not at all. And I don’t think you’ve done anything deliberately, but Saturnalia is a date of power. Camilla’s descendant fulfilling the Saturnalia ritual of gambling on holy ground? You’ve definitely roused something.”

  “Holy ground?” asked Edie. “Derby, it’s a hockey arena.”

  “And I guarantee it’s seen more prayers than East Sykes United.” I grabbed her with one hand and Braden—John A. MacDonald in a gimp suit, I told myself—with the other. “If I’m right, we’ll find the answer with Filthy Camilla herself!”

  The organ console was upstairs in a booth overlooking the ice surface. Before we’d even reached the top of the stairs, I knew my hunch had been correct. There was a tension in the air. When I opened the door to the booth, that tension exploded with a pressure that made us stagger.

  Inside, the gaudy gilt and ivory of the keyboards shimmered and it seemed to me that I could hear the swelling, full-throated music of the pipes. A woman stood by the console, shimmering like the organ. She wore a dress from the 1930s and her hair was copper-gold; it was clear that Braden got his looks from his great-grandmother. Desire rolled off of her in waves, eighty years of sexual craving finally finding a release. With each wave of lust, the sounds of depravity from the casino below built in volume.

  “Oh, shit,” said Braden.

  I stepped forward, raising a hand. “Camilla Vail, you must stop this! I command you!”

  The phantom pipe music rose. Camilla just smiled and caressed her breasts, then spread her arms in loving invitation.

  A chill of horror spread through me. I felt my testicles signal full retreat. Surely she didn’t . . . “Oh, shit,” I said and froze.

  But Edie pulled me back. “Hold my purse, Derby,” she said, “I’ve got this.” She slapped her clutch into my hands and I realized there was a gleam in her eye. Camilla’s smile faltered for a moment, then she raised an eyebrow and the smile came back.

  Before I could stop her, Edie had stepped through the door. The last thing I heard before it slammed in my face was her husky greeting of “Yo.”

  ※

  I’d like to say that the fundraiser was a success. Perhaps in the end it was: the Up with Our Organ campaign was fully funded, though I’m sure it was more through guilt and hush money than anything else. The police chief—who I last saw crawling under the roulette wheel with a bottle of vodka and one of the slave girls—promised a thorough investigation into what was clearly a mass roofie-ing, but that promise just faded into obscurity. The board of directors of the Royal Dominion Arena quietly passed a motion prohibiting gambling in the building, and the East Sykes Ladies’ Senior Auxiliary banned charity casinos from their fundraising repertoire. Even bingo attendance in the city plummeted for a time, and while it eventually recovered, no one giggles at O69 anymore.

  And we owed it all to Edie’s sacrifice. Within moments of the door to the organ booth closing behind her, I felt the tension in the air ease. Braden and I waited, though, and only when the sounds of Saturnalia chaos gave way to awkward silence—as well as the occasional exclamations of “Kathy, how could you?” or “But I was wearing pants when I walked in!” and “Madam, kindly remove your tongue”—did we break down the door and go after her.

  I found Edie lying underneath Filthy Camilla, her dress hiked up around her thighs and a satisfied smile on her face. She looked so peaceful and content that I almost couldn’t bring myself to disturb her. Fortunately, I didn’t have to.

  “Quit staring,” she said without opening her eyes.

  “I’m not staring,” I told her.

  “You’re checking out my cooch.”

  “Trust me, Edie. I’m not.” I held up my jacket while she rearranged her dress, then Braden and I helped her to her feet. “So,” I asked, “how was it?”

  “I’m buying myself season tickets for Christmas,” she said.

  “Oh? You’re into hockey now?”

  “Hockey? No.” Edie trailed her fingers fondly across Camilla’s keyboard. “But I’m a big fan of the organ.”

  “It has to be just right,” said my friend Matthew Plumper. “Big, but not too big. Long and smooth and glossy. And the thicker, the better.”

  “Matthew,” I said, “please just pick one. It’s only a Christmas tree.”


  “Only a Christ-mas tree?” Matthew paused in the snow and gave me a haugh-ty look. His breath steamed in the wint-ery air. “My, my. Is Derby Cavendish getting testy? Does Derby Cavendish not like the cold?”

  “Derby Cavendish,” I told him, “sees nothing wrong with getting his Christmas tree like decent, normal people: from a parking lot or a grocery store, not some—” I gestured around us. “—forsaken wilderness.”

  To be fair, the forsaken wilderness in question was the famous Wood Family Christmas Tree Farm, well-known for their seasonal sleigh rides, roaming carol singers, plentiful hot chocolate dispensers, and vintage advertising featuring such classic slogans as wood christmas trees: wake up with wood on christmas. Matthew has been dragging me along on his annual excursion into the winter countryside for many years, but it never gets easier. I’m a city boy by heart, and I’d rather be toasting my buns by a fire than chilling them in the snow. As far as I’m concerned, the only proper place for ice is in a cocktail.

  But that wasn’t the only reason I was on edge this year. Like people who leave their shopping until Christmas Eve, Matthew waits until the last minute to get his Christmas tree and this year he’d left it even later than usual. Christmas was only four days away and that meant we were outdoors in the countryside on December 21: the eve of the Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, and one of the most dangerous of the ancient dates of power.

  And Matthew was dithering over a Christmas tree.

  I glanced at the late afternoon sun as it dipped toward the horizon. “They had some very nice trees ready to go beside the front gate,” I reminded him. “Firs as thick as the bush on a ’70s porn star.”

  “It’s not the same,” Matthew said as he wandered deeper into the winter wonderland. “Unless you chop them down yourself, they’ve just been sitting and getting stale. Like I always say, everything is better uncut.”

  I sighed and paused long enough to top up my rapidly cooling hot chocolate from the whisky flask—don’t go Christmas shopping without one!—that I kept in my pocket. As I returned the flask to its hiding place though, I noticed a strange stillness had fallen over the tree farm. The jingle of sleigh bells seemed suddenly distant. The off-key songs of the carollers were as faint as their hopes for a musical career and getting fainter.

  “Matthew,” I said, “something is wrong.”

  “Oh, Derby, calm down. There’s nothing here to worry about.” Even as Matthew spoke, however, his voice grew muffled. I couldn’t see him anymore—the thick branches of Wood’s famous trees had swallowed him up. I started after him, but then I heard a silvery tinkling laugh that froze my already cold blood. I knew that laugh. I whirled around.

  Standing in the pale light of the setting sun were four teenage girls. One of them was a willowy redhead with eyes like glowing embers. She hissed like a snake. One of them had black hair and green eyes. She growled. The third was pale as brittle, age-yellowed linen. She was silent but she grinned at me with sharp teeth in black gums.

  The fourth was my nemesis. “Hello, Bethany,” I said.

  “Derby—it’s been so long. I’d say you’re looking well, but it looks more like you’ve been hitting the weekend buffet seven days a week.” She smoothed the front of her puffy pink vest. “Notice anything different?”

  Bethany may look like a high school cheerleader, but she’s everything dark and evil with lip gloss and white yoga pants. If she was around, something was definitely wrong. “Well, the last time I saw you, you were a stain on a barroom floor, so there’s that,” I said. I squinted at her. “Are your boobs finally coming in?”

  Bethany’s face darkened. The pale girl with sharp teeth made a dry rasping sound like something long dead trying to laugh. Bethany shot her a nasty look. “Cleo!” she snapped and the girl fell silent. Bethany turned to me again. “Take a closer look, Derby,” she snarled. “Take a real close look.”

  I didn’t need to. The moment I’d glanced at her, I’d seen the amulet she wore around her neck. Worked in iron and silver, it showed the kind of rectangular maze pattern found on certain Bronze Age vault barrows, ancient tombs with doors through which sunlight shone only once a year—when the sun died on the winter solstice and passed the long night in the underworld.

  My mouth went dry. “What do you want, Bethany?”

  “What do I ever want, Derby?” she said. “Your meddling do-good ass in a box six feet underground!” She snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “Girls, go get him!”

  I threw my hot chocolate at her.

  It wasn’t remotely hot enough anymore to hurt her, but as the sticky brown mess splattered over her white pants and pink vest, Bethany wailed like a siren. “That’s going to stain like a motherfucker, you bitch!”

  But I was already turning and charging into the trees where Matthew had gone. “Matthew!” I shouted. “Matthew! Run! Bethany’s here!”

  From somewhere not too far away, I thought I heard Matthew curse. I followed the sound and Matthew’s footprints, but before I’d run thirty feet, a vast roaring rose around me and a howling surge of wind knocked me flat. Snow and loose pine needles stung my skin. Battered by the wind, I tumbled across the ground before slamming hard into something very solid. The wind died away as suddenly as it had risen and I found myself staring up into another of the tree farm’s friendly ads—wood christmas trees: get wood for your family. I hauled myself upright and looked around.

  The wind had scoured away any trace of Matthew’s passing. I called his name again and again, but there wasn’t even the hint of a response. The long rows of trees were more silent now than before. And, I realized, significantly darker. I turned around and found the sun just in time to watch the last of its red disc slip below the horizon. In that moment, all of the heat and light seemed to go out of the world, leaving only cold moonglow behind. The true winter solstice had begun.

  I heard Bethany’s laugh again. I looked up to find her floating among the tree branches. There was no sign of her three harpies. “Where’s Matthew?” I demanded.

  “Safe at the farm gate, I imagine,” she said. “He was gone before we even started talking—I don’t give a shit about him. This is all about you, Derby.”

  “You don’t think I’ll find my way out?”

  Bethany smiled, her teeth flashing in the thin light, and touched the amulet around her neck. There was another rushing roar as wind shook the trees—except that I felt nothing. With an ass-puckering chill as cold as a rim job from a snowman, I realized that the movement wasn’t wind at all, but the trees rearranging themselves. In an instant, I was surrounded by thick, green walls. Here and there I could see openings among the trees, but I knew in my gut that any passage wouldn’t lead far. Wood Family Tree Farm had become a labyrinth just like the one on Bethany’s amulet.

  I glared up at the teenage witch. “I suppose your girls are waiting to hunt me through the maze?”

  “Oh hell, no,” said Bethany. “We’re going somewhere cozy with popcorn and watching Love Actually.” Her smile got a little wider. “You’re going to have a very long, very cold night, Derby.”

  I snorted and felt in my pocket. Like a Boy Scout, I’m always prepared, and my whisky flask wasn’t the only useful thing I had on me. “We’re in the woods, Bethany.” I held up the lighter that I carry. “I can make a nice toasty fire to last the night.”

  Bethany only yawned. A nagging doubt took root in my stomach. I looked at the lighter in my hand, then flipped it open and flicked the wheel a few times.

  Nothing happened.

  “The long nights of winter terrified the ancients,” said Bethany. Her voice took on a rolling, hollow tone as if she spoke with the weight of ages. “As the season turned colder and died, even the sun grew weak. Nights became longer and darker until surely it seemed that the sun would never return again. It had passed for the last time into the west where all dead things go. In
the underworld, the wolves of legend would devour it and all of the fires of the world would go out. Forever.”

  She looked at me with dark and empty eyes—then laughed her tinkling laugh again. “So good night, Derby Cavendish. Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite!”

  “Bethany,” I said, “you are a stone-cold cunt.”

  “You say the sweetest things.” She smiled again. “You know, I hate mixing mythologies, but if you really feel like being hunted through a maze . . .”

  I felt a subtle shift in the air. Hidden by the trees, something bellowed like a bull justifiably angry at being pulled from someplace warm into a chilly death trap. “A minotaur?” I asked Bethany. “Not very original.”

  “Sometimes you have to go with the classics.” She blew me a kiss. “I’ll check on your corpse in the morning.”

  Then she was gone and I was alone in the night. Well, not entirely alone. The snuffling and grunting of the half-man, half-bull was getting closer. Standing still wasn’t going to do me any good. I turned and plunged deeper into the tree maze, thinking desperately. I was never going to outrun a minotaur in a labyrinth, and even if I did, I’d certainly freeze before morning. Bethany had chosen a perfect time to strike: the primeval magic of the winter solstice, all but forgotten in the modern world, was more powerful than anything I could invoke to defeat it.

  And yet those winter-fearing ancients of long ago had survived. They might have had fire, but what had they done when the fire died?

  A sudden bellow from the minotaur as he caught my scent startled me. I looked back for a moment—and the answer hit me in the face. Or rather across the chest. One moment I was running and the next I was on the ground, staring up at the wayward fir branch that had laid me out like a stripper ready for body shots. Snow drifted into my face from the thick-clustered needles and I laughed.