Dramatis Personae: Past Tense

By Joseph Lamere

Diogenes Ra, Joseph Lamere’s half-fictional "literary archaeologist," is back, and he's in some trouble. He may or may not have shot his father, the fictional private eye Seamus the Shamus, in a bit of trans-temporal malfeasance. But the cross-dimensional crisis doesn’t end there. Ra's best friend is a writer looking to turn his story into Hollywood gold. Things get complicated when Ra loses the famous narrator of a novel on every high school teacher's Required Reading list. A mixture of fantasy as it’s never been written and noir and mystery, Dramatis Personae: Past Tense takes Diogenes Ra to places he’s never been and that he may never return from.

Dramatis Personae, Volume 3: Past Tense by Joseph Lamere. From Pro Se Productions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pro Se Press
• Release date: Feb 23, 2016

Book preview

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Volume 3:

PAST TENSE

by Joseph Lamere

Published by Pro Se Press

This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters in this publication are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. No part or whole of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing of the publisher.

Copyright © 2016 Joseph Lamere

All rights reserved.

Contents

Part I

The Missing Character

Part II

Found Items

Part III

Full Discolsure

About the Author

PART I

THE MISSING CHARACTER

—

THE FOLLOWING IS AN EXCERPT FROM WEIRD FICTION’S The Unseemly Death of Professor Metaphor from the December 1980 issue:

By the time the team got to Laura’s house the priest had taken over and was in the middle of an exorcism. He had the appropriate passages highlighted—he had been here before, you see. The priest, Father Mills, remained convinced this was a case of demonic possession. He didn’t understand what this really was.

He ignored them and went back to his mantra: The power of the Lord…

Falconer sighed and said, I think I saw this on the telly.

One thing became clear right away: the priest didn’t want to leave the girl in the team’s hands.

The boss’ daughter. The Professor had to fall in love with the boss’ daughter. The boss himself stood frantically outside the door, the Society-issued phone in his hand, his tailored suit wrinkled and torn.

"You called the priest first?" Nyet asked. Nyet had long ago forsworn his Catholicism.

"He came for a visit," the boss said. He looked ragged at the edges. Usually so calm and cool, the old man seemed now ready to call in any number of response teams to save his daughter.

The Professor cleared his throat. Did you tell him…

"No, the boss said. This is still an internal affair."

Grace raised her eyebrows. Falconer caught the look and smirked.

"She’s in here," the boss said, gesturing them through.

The girl writhed and contorted on the bed. One moment she laughed and giggled; the next she gurgled a stream of obscenity-laced invective. Her stomach muscles roiled; a handprint appeared where her heart should have been. There seemed to be a war going on within her. The middle finger of the hand extended.

"Well then," Falconer said by way of introduction.

Father Mills introduced himself as the man who had baptized the girl. There still remains one final act of con…

"I’m sorry, Father, Professor Metaphor said. The others on the team were happy to let the Professor take the point on this one. All of them—with the exception of perhaps Nyet, who was an entirely different set of circumstances—had a superstitious fear of clergy. They seemed to realize a wary sort of God had given their gifts to them. Father Mills was a Jesuit; the Professor had been raised in Jesuit schools. He spoke the language. This isn’t demonic possession. It’s something else entirely."

Father Mills, ancient, wizened, clutched his crucifix. Hal, a monstrous collection of gloom, seemed to wither in the face of it. But… The priest considered the apparatus the team had brought with them, the bells and whistles necessary for this type of fight. Science versus religion: the old conflict. For Father Mills the world existed in rather simplistic terms of good versus evil, and the members of the team were well acquainted with evil. Doktor Reichenbach was evil from waaaaaaay back.

The Professor’s voice was firm. Father, I’d like you to stand outside the door. If we require anything of you we’ll get you. Until then, please.

Grace opened the girl’s bedroom door—the cloying smell of the chick’s perfume was getting to her—and nudged the priest into the hallway. You can say a prayer for us from out there, Grace said. She closed the bedroom door in the priest’s face and immediately felt better. She didn’t like the way the guy looked at her gun bulges. She didn’t like this case all the way around. The Professor had a way of falling for the wrong girl and to her way of thinking this Laura chick was the wrong girl personified. Look at this bedroom. All the religious icons hanging on the wall, crucifixes and ceremonial masks, as though the girl had been grasping at any solution to her problem but the one in which the team had come here tonight to pursue. The chick was a host. There wasn’t any getting around that.

The Professor, his face intent, removed his cloak and administered the sedative to his latest romantic conquest. He stroked her face. He whispered in her ear. The team looked away. The sedative kicked in and the girl’s contortions ceased. Hieronymus Anonymous and Falconer shared a look. Doktor Reichenbach already had his hooks in the girl. He knew what the girl was. He knew how valuable the girl was.

The Professor lifted Laura’s head and placed a small idol around her neck. Falconer leaned in and asked Hieronymus Anonymous what it was. A Shabti, Hieronymus said. He knew because he had carved it himself. It’s from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Falconer picked at a hangnail. That doesn’t sound encouraging.

Hieronymus Anonymous handed the Professor a package he had brought with him from a dig in Istanbul. The Everyman had been asked to join the team because of his time in the desert in search of ancient weaponry. This particular find was considered to be his master work. Doktor Reichenbach’s occult knowledge was well-documented. None of them knew what kind of secret weapon he had managed to uncover.

"It’s not as heavy as I thought, the Professor said, hefting it. It’s about as heavy as my practice foil." The Professor had gone to Oxford on a fencing scholarship.

Hieronymus Anonymous allowed himself the briefest of smiles. That’s what everyone says.

The Professor lay down on the bed beside his girlfriend, the package tucked in beside him. Grace looked away, her hand reassured by the handle of her left-hand automatic. They could hear the priest praying loudly on the other side of the door. Falconer rolled his eyes and whispered to Hieronymus Anonymous. Money changed hands.

The Professor rolled up his sleeve and pulled a fresh hypodermic from the bag he’d brought. Falconer, a man who knew about such things, offered to administer the dose, but the Professor, always the Boy Scout, always the do-gooder, insisted on doing it himself. He tied off like he’d seen it done in the movies and injected the hypodermic. He looked around at the team. I’ll see you on the other side, he said. He reached out and held Laura’s hand. Within seconds his breathing became heavy, his chest rising and falling.

"Dammit," Falconer whispered. He slipped Hieronymus a handful of bills.

"What’d you have?" Grace asked him.

"‘Via con Dios.’"

Hieronymus Anonymous pocketed the money. He considered the bedroom door and said, I’ve never seen an exorcism.

"Really? The usually nonplussed Falconer seemed surprised by this. In none of your guises?"

Hieronymus Anonymous, his Everyman features alight with curiosity, shook his head. I saw a beheading once, in France. The girl on the bed mumbled something incomprehensible. What’s going on now?

Falconer closed his eyes and read the girl’s vibes. Let’s see: I think she recognizes that the Professor doesn’t belong inside her. Falconer gave a sidelong glance at Grace, ready with a witty riposte, And nothing from the peanut gallery if you please.

Grace, Coup de Grace to the uninitiated, gazed upon the Professor’s face, so peaceful in repose. The Professor always goes for the cheerleader type.

"Correction, Falconer said. The Professor always goes for the cheerleader with a back story type. She has to have some damsel in distress secret, which leaves you out, Grace."

Grace reached for her right hand automatic. What’s that supposed to mean?

"Honey, you’re too well read."

Grace didn’t know what to do with this information. She never knew when Falconer was kidding or not. She preferred working with The French Movie, who was handsy but at least she knew where she stood with him. But The French Movie had been assigned to a different team until further notice.

"What else is happening?" Grace asked. Fortnight, the Professor’s domestic, hadn’t been hopeful about the team’s chances on this caper. Because Fortnight existed on a different level of consciousness—that being two weeks in the future—his words carried some weight. But the Professor didn’t pay any heed. Besides, he argued that Fortnight’s predictions weren’t always accurate.

Falconer read the Professor’s vibes. Well, the Professor and the Doktor are in a burning building. Things aren’t going as the Professor had predicted.

"They never do," Hieronymus Anonymous said.

Inside Laura’s consciousness an eons old world was being destroyed. Professor Metaphor grasped the railing of what had once been a place of worship. He had taken the Doktor for granted; he could see that now.

Doktor Reichenbach raised his invisi-sword with both hands in the ancient manner, taking his time, enjoying the moment, this his moment of triumph. Professor Metaphor held up Hieronymus’ ancient weapon with trembling hands, trying to keep the moment from unraveling completely. It hadn’t taken him long to find the Doktor in here, or rather for the Doktor to find him. He was burning Laura from the inside out and the world along with her.

Falconer looked bored. So she carries an entire world inside her, is that how it works? Leave it to Falconer to cut to the chase. They didn’t call him the Translator for nothing. He didn’t so much read your mind—the French Movie had cornered the market on that front, but he was unavailable—as read between the lines and come out with what you really meant to say. He was a prick like that.

"Didn’t you read the dossier?" Hieronymus asked.

"Darling, please."

Nyet, the Russian Novel, grimaced at Falconer’s tendency to reduce every conversation to a jousting match. He mumbled something snide in Mother Russian. It might have been "nostrovia." It might have been something more incendiary. (He had been into the vodka the night before).

"You heard the Professor, the ever-loyal Hal boomed. It’s a carefully-constructed world of metaphor and symbolism evinced in multiple personalities." His voice was an eerily-precise replication of the Professor’s pedantic tone.

"What’s happening now?" Grace asked.

Falconer cocked his head to the side in a listening posture. Our friend the Doktor is extemporizing.

"No deus ex machina, Doktor Reichenbach seethed through his solid gold mask, his face close enough to the Professor’s that the ornate inscriptions could be read. Ancient script slithered around the mask face. No metaphors to find here to get you out of yet another scrape. This entire world is metaphor."

The Professor connected the dots. You lured me here?

The Doktor grinned somewhere behind the mask. Professor Metaphor wished he had taken Fortnight up on his augur reading. He had been vainglorious. He’d thought he had this all under control. No mantra could save him, no metaphor could find him. He had navigated this world for far too long to have made this kind of rookie