Dark Moon Blues

By Brian Robertson

Death has made a connection – from another world to our own.
Although some people call him a wizard, private investigator ALEISTER HARPER is, in reality, a classic Mississippi Hoodoo Man and conjurer. In this urban fantasy, he walks the mean streets of Houston’s Old Town amidst vampires, ghouls, demons, blues clubs and angry alleyways, not to mention some of the most successful consumer debt collectors one could ever fear to imagine.
Aleister Harper’s newest client hires him to accompany her to her childhood home to help her dear departed sister who reportedly haunts the family home, an old mansion. Very quickly it becomes obvious that the dangers within the house aren’t limited to the ghost itself and, indeed, run far deeper and darker. The house, in downtown Houston, is connected to the Old Town itself, but what is it that is using that portal to move from one world to the other?
As the journey unfolds, Aleister finds himself hired for a second case. Not coincidentally, a woman asks him to look into the odd death of a common friend. Echoes of previous discoveries reverberate as Alleister discovers that severe and unexplained psychic trauma never seen before has completely ravaged the victim even to the point of turning the man’s body inside out.
What follows are telling discoveries, one after another -- a strange and hidden magical spell, false names hiding dark secrets, yawning portals that promise death and even a labyrinth of ancient hallways that move through time and space. Together, these things result in unmasking deadly forces that mysteriously snake their way through a number of deaths and hauntings. In time, the path leads closer and closer to a feared psychic phenomena, what appears to be an entity in the terrorizing form known as a Skinwalker.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Robertson
• Release date: May 8, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476129617

Brian Robertson

Writer, musician, storyteller. Author of novels such as Dark Moon Blues (urban fantasy) and other books such as Little Blues Book with Illustrations by R. Crumb. Brian has also published various new free ebooks on spiritual subjects that are available at smashwords.com. His most recent book is BUS STOP HAIKU which contains both his haiku and a short excerpt from a workshop entitled ON HAIKU

Book preview

Dark Moon Blues

Brian Robertson

publishing assistance of Charles Evans at Smashwords

Cover Photo by Scott Houg

Copyright 2012. revised edition

Copyright 2015 Brian Robertson

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard workof this author.

"I’ll be glad to get to Hell

so I can lay down by the fire and rest."

Johnny Shines

Dedication

For Kat and Scott, who have the real magic.

And Thanks to those who have kept me going through these troubled times: Ted Daniel, Rory Harper, Gary Griffeth, Charles Evans and the Unsung Vast Angels of Kindness such as Betsy and T.J.and Linda

***~~~***

CHAPTER 1

It was going to be another typical day.

Well, that would have been true if I normally escorted an 80 year old woman to confront the ghost of her long dead sister, now a shade morosely haunting an old mansion used as a meeting place by wedding parties and social clubs.

In truth, when it comes to dealing with ghosts, I’d rather sit on a cross country flight in an aisle seat next to a zombie.

But, then again, the 80 year old woman was paying far more than anything that might drop off the undead, even if we ran into some heavy turbulence.

How often I have to stoop to messing with ghosts has everything to do with my current level of income. No matter what, I don’t like them. They’re either finicky and sullen, like my client’s dead sister, or blustery and dramatic like a teenage stepdaughter. Actually, most of the time they’re really not even there at all. What’s been left behind is an empty image, a repeating tape loop that plays over and over again. A so-called ghost who repeatedly walks the same hall or room is usually psychic residue caused by the combination of a bad temper and some trivial glitch in the cosmic fabric. One thing is for sure -- getting rid of these pests is difficult and usually way beyond my limited patience. In that type of situation, as Lenny Bruce once said, it’s easier to get snot off suede.

But on the plus side, clearing out unwanted or surly apparitions is usually a paying gig.

In rare cases, my encounter with a ghost can be a far more agitating and just a flat-out argumentative encounter. I’ve dealt with those kinds of phenomena in my work only when my bank account – locked in a warded fishing tackle box in my office desk – can’t cover the cost of a Value Meal cheeseburger.

My name is Aleister Harper. The truth is, I really have no idea why that name was chosen. I don’t know if my family had one foot in the real world and the other knee-deep in a swirling swamp of magical power. That wouldn’t be so unusual, since they came from New Orleans, at least according to the tales I’ve been told. Over the years, especially since the Internet, I’ve done a chunk of research. I’ve looked up census reports, old phone books, molding crypts in the back of libraries containing dead out of date newspapers and more. Still, not a single trace of my family has surfaced in any government records or though my magic hacking its way into other official or unofficial sources. In fact, it was as if they never existed at all except in the stories told to me by the only mother I ever really remember, the woman who took me in and raised me after both my parents died.

So, I’m a guy in this life who has a lot of questions and sometimes gets paid for asking them. The reason behind my name is just one of them. In reality, I hope my late parents are grateful that I didn’t end up delving deep into hardcore, black magic necromancy. If I had, I would summon them from the dirt just to give them unholy hell for not having named me something non-magical like Ralph. Or, for that matter, giving them an earful for running out on me without leaving a goodbye note tattooed on my chest. Or at least an instruction manual.

After all, what did they look like? How did they sound? Did they know how to cast a spell to turn a bill collector into a wombat? At least I do, no thanks to them. As for looks, I’m tall and what used to be called lanky with dark hair and a mostly hidden dash of good looks that now and then actually can be enhanced with the right kind of mood lighting. After my parents died when I was about three or four years old, I ended up in eastern Mississippi where I shuttled between the rural world and the out and out magic kingdom of New Orleans. Of course, that was back in those golden years before the big storm. The woman I came to know in New Orleans as my second mother was as beautiful as a dark night rich with stars and her name is one I can’t say aloud without risking the consequences of attracting the heinous powers of her surviving enemies. Her main man, Tyler, relished his role as a father figure and lovingly formed another cornerstone in my life. He was what in the small towns was called a conjuror or, more appropriately, a hoodoo man. Now, to be honest, he was more a second fiddle to my adopted mother and her amazing skills. Although Tyler played up both the reputation and the identity, the woman we both loved overshadowed even his impressive talents when it came to hoodoo. He’d cheerfully admit she was good enough to draw rings of blazing light around him from within her deepest sleep. Together, though, they taught me to be a conjurer. A hoodoo man. The lessons were authentic and unending and included filling me with a deeply felt vibrant respect for the power, the limitations and, of course, the rules and restrictions that came along with the art.

That’s not just paying lip service. It’s true. I’ve seen the results of magic when the rules are broken. You don’t even want to know. And I don’t want to do it. Ever.

Tyler, on the other hand, also had the gift of playing a truly amazing blues harmonica that, at his command, made for a different kind of magic. From the first time I heard him, I was intrigued by his talent for the blues blended with his lazy sense of hoodoo showmanship. The harmonica was a blues art form and he eagerly taught me how to take that small slab of metal and reeds and make it growl, whisper and moan. In fact, if I do say so, he taught me very well. He even told me once that if, when he died, he was able to sneak into Heaven and they handed him a harp, it damn well better not be the kind you plucked or he was heading elsewhere.

As a more than adequate conjurer, he naturally believed strongly in the stuff and power of words. In fact, he was delighted that my last name was Harper which he said was a fortuitous situation, an omen in my favor. After all, in blues talk harp actually means a blues harmonica. (Talk about status, I’ve also seen it referred to as a Mississippi Saxophone.) But the seemingly humble instrument, sometimes along with an occasional friendly guitar player, made me money when I was broke and got me laid when I was lonely. It even led me to the safety of a blues club sheltered away from things lurking outside in the shadows and going bump in the night.

But I’ll get to that.

So, I grew up in the old ways, keeping one foot in my blues and another in my magic and, I suppose, sometimes mixing the two together. I speak with a soft Mississippi accent like Tennessee Williams without the drama unless drama is what I need. It deepens and changes when I sing, turns to honey or barbed wire as required. I get way too bored with small town life and at the same time am often shocked by the vacant heart of the big city. But both my great loves -- blues and hoodoo -- are not outdated, just forgotten. Perhaps that’s what makes me value the sense of underplaying expectations which sometimes works greatly to my advantage. Hey, I play the cards I have been dealt.

After all, in these modern times most of the people trying to practice magic have gone for the flashy kind of stuff and they ultimately fail at it because they have all the talent the spell of the month can give. Magic itself is more subtle, far more an art than a science. The old ways are the best, the subtle stuff that produces results. It also gets me hired thanks to word of mouth plus a reputation I’ve tried to foster for honesty and the almost obsessive dedication to my clients.

But on this particular day the clock on the wall was letting me know it was coming up on one in the afternoon. My ride was in route to pick me up for the appointment with the melancholy ghost of Bledsoe House.

Did I mention that I just don’t like ghosts?

I thought so.

Call this one a favor for a friend. A tip of my white Panama hat to a benefactor in the form of 80 year old Margaret Bledsoe. Over the past few years she had been a workhorse of a referral center directing her friends and chance-acquaintances to my talents, such as they are. Some of my most lucrative cases came straight from her kindness and, ghost or no ghost, I certainly owed her the personal favor of helping her with the perplexing problem of her dead sister.

You understand, not everything Margaret Bledsoe had pushed my way had been equally rewarding, personally or professionally. One of the worst referrals she sent was the one where I lost a tooth when a completely pissed off poltergeist, conjured unwittingly from the tangled psyche of a 16 year old girl, beaned me with a bowling trophy that rocketed across eighteen feet of living room shag carpet. A bit higher on the meter included magic experiments that another client’s Gothic daughter had stumbled into, and that kind of thing makes for a situation that can quickly careen wildly out of control. That is one of the problems that comes from allowing a decent book on magic to be made available through a high school library. The Goth failed to notice that the previous borrower had ripped out the last page of a particularly difficult summoning spell and must have kept it stashed in his or her pocket so as not to forget the words at the wrong time. My client’s daughter therefore unknowingly ended up launching a spell which had no official boundary or ending. It was like gunning a fast car down the freeway and suddenly discovering the brakes had been removed. Or even that the factory forgot to install an off switch. The result was the manifestation of a bush league demon that swallowed a beloved housecat and then started eating the father’s framed and, to his mind, priceless collection of U.S. Quarters. That’s when I was called in, thanks again to Margaret Bledsoe.

And yes, by the end of that particular case I had even retrieved the swallowed cat. The story was the traumatized feline immediately threw its paws up in the air and left town for Chicago.

If the truth be known, of course, the cat took up residence at my house for reasons I’m sure neither one of us can fully explain. He seems fine with his new home and I welcome the mostly unobtrusive company. The Goth’s father stiffed me on paying for my services, so I felt perfectly justified taking the cat as part of the fee.

As I moved to check my smile in the bathroom mirror just to make sure my teeth were presentable, there came a light rapping on the front door’s pebbled glass window which was imprinted with my name and, underneath it, Investigator. The choice of that one word to describe what I do was woefully incomplete, but scrimping on the detail was decidedly on purpose. To advertise I was a sorcerer (as I am on my good days) or a conjuror and hoodoo man (the rest of the time) frankly was not a good idea. If that kind of thing got around in a city as big as Houston, I’d be hounded by more than my share of crackpots who would happily sit in a comfortable client chair and gobble away at vast chunks of my life. Or, worse yet, I’d be constantly bushwhacked by wild-eyed men with a file box full of newspaper clippings, alleged stolen Defense Department files, grainy photographs and strange substances stuffed in glass jars that they think helps back up their unending and humiliating tales of alien abduction. My experience had shown that when an alien stages an abduction, it usually worked out extremely poorly for all parties involved. (If you’re the literary type, think of O’Henry’s The Ransom of Red Chief.) Within a few hours the aliens usually sober up and are stunned by the discovery that somehow they have snatched up a human being. In fact, it’s a little known truth that drunken aliens are the number one reason why people who report their abductions usually are taken from a bass boat on a rural Arkansas creek. Anyway, due in part to the painful volcanic nature of an alien hangover and their traditionally hair-triggered temper, the situation for the human just gets plain nasty.

On this particular afternoon, I was wearing my dark brown tweed sports coat (one said to have belonged to my father), black pants, blue-striped shirt and the standard white on black steel toe brogues. They are my blues shoes usually reserved for important clients or for playing music onstage. To complete my wardrobe and in case a direct need of my magical talents should arise, I carried my cane. It was topped with a smooth ball knob handle reposed with a vaguely floral decoration. The shaft itself was from a natural ash tree sapling, the slightly rough bark still intact in places. Like much that happens in magic, it’s not about the thing you hold in your hand or wear around your neck on a chain. Those are props, of a sort, but the talent comes from one’s training and constitution. By the way, never point that fact out to a magic-user carrying one. They take it as an insult to the arcane art and you will find yourself with an extra set of teeth in an anatomically challenging nether region.

I have to admit the white Panama hat atop my head with the wide black silk band, like my shoes, was strictly for pure affect. I am, as you now know, a Mississippi bluesman at heart.

As I expected, the hesitant knock on my office door returned again, a bit more forcefully the second time.

Showtime, I announced to no one in particular.

The big man at the door was someone you’d bring along in case you bumped into a gang of ghouls on a scavenger hunt, with one of the items on their list being your liver. He was as wide as he was tall, with an oriental face that I could tell was straining to hide something much darker just beneath the skin. What it was that lay barely constrained, I couldn’t begin to tell. I decided to let it pass. It was possibly a good thing I didn’t try too hard to make a more telling magical glimpse at who I was dealing with. I’d just eaten.

Dressed all in black with a dark red tie, he gave a slight bow at the waist.

Nice shoes, he said with no change of expression.

Thank you.

He motioned. I followed and after I walked out I made sure the door swung closed behind me. I moved a few of my fingers in the direction of the silver door handle. After the responding quick snap of the metal lock sliding into place there came the subtle scrape of a protection spell springing to action. That is one thing you really never leave home without. If the man in the black suit heard my manipulations, he gave no indication. Then again, I think if the door had fallen off the hinges and clattered to the hallway floor he wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow. All in all, he struck me as being very focused, not tense. Probably also deceptively fast for someone with the general build of a Russian-era farm tractor.

One flight of stairs down to the street I came to the long, low black limo waiting at the curb. It purred obediently. The oversized driver opened the door, revealing Margaret Bledsoe, and I sat down across from her.

She always surprised me, looking far younger than 80 years of age. That was a good thing since looking older than her age usually upped the chances that I was standing at a funeral home in the midst of attending a formal viewing.

Margaret Bledsoe held out a white-gloved hand and I kissed the back of it.

Still so very continental, Aleister? she asked, smiling.

You bring out my manners, I said.

She giggled softly and with astonishing youth. Thank you for agreeing to help me.

My pleasure. These kinds of encounters are exciting and rewarding. I’ve been looking forward to it all day.

Really? She frowned. I’m sorry. Is business really that slow?

I said nothing.

Well, no matter, she smiled. She reached into her oversized white purse, the one with the black straps, and pulled out an envelope which she handed to me. Maybe this will help things a bit.

My first impulse was to rip open the envelope and whimper, but that somehow seemed to endanger to my carefully maintained continental image.

I placed the money in the inside pocket of my jacket. You were a bit vague about all this, I said. Can you help me out a little? What am I supposed to do?

Provide company, she said. And a possible backup.

Backup for what?

The Bledsoe House contacted me. Not officially. I think it was more of a personal ‘for-your-information’ kind of thing. You do know the place?

I checked it out after you called. It’s some kind of expensive facility that hosts weddings and such.

Well, that’s what it does now. I myself haven’t been there for perhaps fifty years, maybe longer. I do have my own images of how it used to look and feel and I quite prefer to live with those, not with anything that it has become in today’s world. You see, long ago the Bledsoe House was my childhood home.

Ah, I wondered about the name.

She nodded. My family lived here in Houston. My father had some mysterious connections into politics, and did quite well for himself. Times changed, and when I was very young we departed this town and moved to New York. The house we left behind passed through several owners, finally becoming part of the Historical District. She waved a gloved hand in the air like mist. It was preserved and now fulfills its current purpose.

So why did they contact you?

At the time, I had no idea. I was completely shocked. I’d heard nothing from the present owners, of course, but that’s not uncommon. As I said, I hadn’t seen the building for years and didn’t have a clue as to who might be using it now and for what purpose. But out of the blue, one of workers at The Bledsoe House wrote me a note to tell me I might be interested in something that was going on in the old part of the building. As it turned out, I was. She invited me to talk about it. I made the trip down to Houston and the two of us met at one of those dreadful coffee houses that specialize in burnt beverages. The woman who met me said the building had somewhere along the line become home to an apparition, a ghost. It was a fact kept quiet by those who worked there under the threat of losing their jobs.

So how do you know it’s your sister?

When I was five years old, my dear sister Beatrice was returning from England for her wedding to be conducted here in the States. Life was very fragile in those days – perhaps in a different kind of way than it is now. Disease was frightfully common and doctors spent most of their time being, well, very puzzled. Beatrice died from a sudden illness while making the crossing at sea. Putting her name to the ghost in Bledsoe House wasn’t very difficult, given the way the woman described the apparition she had seen. According to the tale she told, everyone who had witnessed it attested to the fact that it is a beautiful but sad young woman and she is wearing a white wedding gown.

Well, it does make sense, I said.

As soon as I learned of the details of the disturbance, I knew I simply must come and see for myself. It may sound odd to you, but I thought I might be of help.

How so?

She appeared surprised. Well, I’ve always heard that people who die can get stuck on this side and aren’t able to cross over. From what I’ve read, it’s usually caused by fear. Confusion. Sadness. If that kind of thing is true, perhaps I can offer reassurance and encouragement to my sister.

Sometimes it works out that way, I said. But these days, that kind of intervention is rarely attempted.

Why not? Is it dangerous? she seemed interested in the concept.

Dangerous? No, not really. It has to do with the way that life unfolds. In most cases as the years go by the living simply move on and go about their lives. They disconnect from their past and spend more time worrying about their future. In short, they don’t want to believe enough to allow themselves to be bothered.

How very odd. I mean, Beatrice is still my sister.

Then she’s very fortunate to have you, I said.

Margaret Bledsoe leaned back against the car’s leather seat and thought about it all. In another moment she sighed.

Fortunate? she said, Well, I suppose we’ll know soon enough.

CHAPTER 2

We were driven through the far edges of downtown and into a stylish pocket of older homes. Margaret Bledsoe gazed out the window without really seeing any of the sights. She was focused on something deeper, something inside of her.

Can you tell me more about your sister? I finally asked.

Beatrice, Margaret Bledsoe smiled. I always loved her. My father was a kind man, but when it came to me he would usually act, well, more than a bit preoccupied. No time to spare. Deals to be made. Towards Beatrice, however, things were completely different and the sky was the limit. I guess that kind of favoritism often shows up in a family. I had my mother’s rapt attention and about my father, I suppose I didn’t mind. Beatrice was always so sweet to me, so protective. My early memories are foggy, but I clearly recall her leaving to go off to England. She stayed there for almost a year, I think. I felt dreadfully lonely and deserted. It seemed as if a very deep and crucial part of me was suddenly missing. I waited for her return. But, unfortunately, that never happened. When the news of her death came, I was crushed. Utterly and completely.

How much longer after that before your family moved away to New York?

After her death? She thought for a second. Oh, it has to have been less than a few months.

I’m sorry for all these questions, I said.

I don’t mind a bit. For the most part, they bring up some very good memories.

Before your family moved to New York, do you recall any appearances or disturbances in the house after Beatrice’s death?

She shook her head. No, nothing at all.

Perhaps she just hadn’t gotten there yet, I suggested.

I don’t know about those kinds of things,

I shrugged. Details about what takes place immediately after a death are not easy to come by. But in other parts of the world, there are several rich traditions. Take the Tibetan bardo, for example. The journey after death. According to voluminous reports, the transition period can take as long as forty-nine days. But, of course, any timetable is a rather hazy measuring stick.

I must say, Aleister. Something in you seems a bit doubtful.

Well, I won’t lie. Sometimes what people experience as repeating sequences are simply psychic energies captured by the house itself. Like a movie film that’s been developed. The light’s on, but nobody’s home. No personality and no possible interaction.

And would you know the difference?

Between a repeating phenomena and the real thing? I nodded. "Oh yes, and so will you once you know what to look for. On the other hand, in cases like this there are subtle things to be