DIAMOND CITY
BOOK 1: MAD RIVER
PART 1: BABYLON ON THE RIVER
Chapter 1: The Coming of Diamond
It was close to midnight when the academics assembled near the James Rong statue. It overlooked the deepest portion of the Mad River.
There were five of them: three women and two men. All wore white robes with no other markings. As planned, they’d driven in from different parts of the city to the parking area below that evening. Although the parking lot was closed, one of the senior academics knew someone who could provide him with the key for the evening. He’d waited by the entrance until the final car pulled into the lot. Then he locked the gate.
The park where the statue stood was far enough from the main roads to not attract attention.
Professor David Silla was the senior member of the group. It was he who’d found the old book. The one with the information they needed. The others were part of his department at Rong State University. Although shoved away in the folklore department, he’d dreamed of this day for years. Silla was pushing sixty, but it didn’t matter; if everything worked out at midnight, he would have access to wealth beyond anyone’s dreams.
Silla walked over to Dr. Mary Geddis, who was his junior by fifteen years. A key member of the cell, she’d be the one to start things off this evening. The instructions in the book were precise. The words needed to be spoken with precision and only she could do it.
Only someone with Silla’s level of cunning and ruthlessness could pull off what had to be done tonight. But it would be worth it in the end.
“Does the robe fit?” he asked Mary as she walked up to him. She carried a backpack with her. It contained the items needed for tonight’s ritual.
“Not as good as the power dress I wore today,” she laughed. “It will do for tonight. Maybe get a better one next time?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
The robes only arrived last week. Silla paid a lot of cash to get them made the way the book described. It wasn’t how they looked or fit, it was the material the robes were made of that mattered. The fabric was not easy to find, and he’d pulled a few favors to get what he needed.
By now the other academics were waiting for them near the stairway. It led to the statue at the top of the rocks. It was a short walk up there and one that was supposed to be off limits at night. The weather outside was cool this late in the summer, but not so chill to make their robes uncomfortable. Silla looked the others over and nodded. Everything they carried would be used tonight. It was all concealed in the briefcases and packages they carried with them. No reason to be obvious, even as far back from the road they were located.
“Everyone looks good,” Silla announced. He looked at this wristwatch and nodded again. “Almost time. Let’s go.” He placed one foot on the stairs and began to climb.
“What about Harold?” It was Kretch, one of the junior faculty members who piped up. “Isn’t he supposed to be bring the-, you know, participant along? Is he on his way?”
“We don’t need Harold,” Mary cut in before Silla could speak. “We’ve decided to go ahead without him.”
“Well, I know he’s still a graduate student,” Kretch returned, “but… but doesn’t that-?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Silla replied. “It’s all taken care of. Now let’s go.” He returned to the stairs.
I took them another ten minutes to climb the stairs. Once on the platform, Silla walked over the statue and stared at it for a few seconds. He wasn’t pleased with where it stood. Had someone in the past known why this small rise of stones were so important? The statue was placed on the exact spot they needed to draw the symbols. No matter, a few feet to the south wouldn’t make much difference. At least he hoped.
Silla wiped his forehead with a cloth. He’d taken it from the small case brought with him. It wasn’t easy climbing those marble steps. At least there was a handrail along the sides. The platform for the statue was surrounded by another iron rail. Centuries ago, the rail would’ve been an impediment to rocks’ function.
He turned around to the others. “Okay, let’s get started,” he informed them. “We’ve all rehearsed are parts. You all know your roles. Get everything in place."
Fifteen minutes later, everything was ready. Even Kretch pitched in to set up the six black candles on their stands. The other two members of the cell, Marcy Duplex, and her husband Matthew, had the symbols drawn on the floor next to the statue in chalk. The electric lanterns brought along made it easy to see. The final two weren’t originally part of Silla’s department; he’d recruited them from an art school attached to the college.
Silla walked over to the chalk symbols and looked down. He compared them to the ones in the book. Perfect. He ran his hand through his thinning white hair and looked at the others. Other than Mary, the others were young. Not a trace of grey in their hair lines. Unlike him, they didn’t need peroxide treatments.
After tonight, he’d get one of those expensive hair treatments. And maybe sign up with one of those male enhancement doctors. No need to hit a drugstore every other week if you could afford the right clinic. There was a secretary in one of the other departments who’d made eyes at him a few times. Maybe he’d show her the experience of a mature man.
“We’re ready,” Silla informed everyone. He turned to Mary. “You can start the chant.”
Mary took ancient book from him and began to recite. These were words in an ancient tongue not spoken by the hidden folk in thousands of years. Only Mary with her rare linguist ability recognized what they were when she’d first opened the book. It took her fifteen minutes to read the entire passage out loud.
Silla felt the air chill a bit as Mary intoned the words. It was working. They were going to bring the guardian of the treasure into this reality and find out where the gold was located. An entire chest full of coins from a pirate raid hundreds of years ago. The one he’d tried to find on his own with no luck. There was just one final thing he had to do. He placed one thumb on the blade to make sure it was sharp.
All through the ritual, Silla carried the sword needed for the rite. It was decorated with mystical symbols specified by the book for the rite.
Ever since he was as boy, Silla had heard stories about the lost treasure of Bloody Edward, the pirate who’d raided Spanish galleons off the coast of Nova Scotia. It wasn’t the exploits of Edward and his raiders that enthralled him, but the enormous riches taken. Most of what the pirate looted from the king’s ships was never recovered. Some people believed it wasted; others thought all the gold taken was just a myth. Still, a vast amount of literature grew up around the stories. Hundreds of years after the buccaneer’s execution and treasure hunters still tried to find the loot.
Southern Ohio was a weird place to locate pirate treasure. You couldn’t get much further from the ocean.
Silla took his university job years ago because he’d ran across a reference to the final days of Bloody Edward. The Pirate’s crew traveled far inland to get away from the royal navy. He’d found three documents years ago that confirmed the location.
This was the reason he was a history professor. No one thought it bit strange if a historian spent most of his time pouring over old manuscripts. He’d ensured any old records of the treasure horde were bundled with innocent ones for tax records.
Mary knew about his obsession. Neither of them ever married and devoted their lives to research, as was expected of academics. Although there was a definite hierarchy among the university staff, not one group dominated. The University of Brightson wasn’t affluent, but the staff didn’t need to fight over the budget.
It was Mary who’d brought him the book. It was an old grimoire of sorcery and forbidden magic. The sort of thing that floated around university systems all over the country. Nobody knew how to make the rituals in these books work. It was only a special few who could do it. And Mary was one of them. Every so often someone on the outside did find one and figure out a few things but usually they didn’t live long enough for the knowledge to do them any good.
“It’s for finding treasure,” Mary informed Silla when she sat the book down on his desk in the department office. “I thought you’d be interested.”
Silla looked it over and handed it back to her. “I see these all the time,” he returned. “If they were any good, why would someone give one up?”
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“It was sent by a collector from the outside,” she informed him. Every now and then, someone would come to the department to have a historical object vindicated.
“Did you inform the department head?” Silla asked her. “Who approved and who sent it?”
“I can’t tell you on either account,” she replied. “But I’ve looked the book over. It’s genuine. Maybe you can use it for your special project?”
A few weeks later Silla too was convinced the book was genuine. How something like it managed to get to his college, he never learned. All Silla needed was a team to help him summon the guardian of the treasure.
According to his research, treasure guardian spirits were rare. They only protected large amounts of gold, silver, or some other precious metal. In most cases they were placed over the treasure for the specific purpose of keeping away anyone, other than the mage who created them. This could be a problem if something happened to the one who put them in place.
But the book showed a workaround Silla never considered. If the guardian could be transformed into something else, well, then it could move onward. Thus, the treasure would be free to anyone who knew where to look. He suspected the Bloody Edward horde was protected this way. Which was why no one had ever found it. It was hidden before the first settlers reached this area.
Silla picked his fellow conspirators with care. Only certain ones would be suitable for this job. One word to the wrong person and they’d all be locked up. But if the ritual worked out, they could leave this old town. Maybe move to one of the better and more prestigious colleges. Or move to one of the islands in the Pacific where the sea was clean and the air fresh.
“I think we can pull this off,” Silla told Mary after he’d read her translation of the book’s passage. “There’s plenty of gold for us all if it works out. A few bribes placed to the right people, and we can get out of this dirty town.”
Brightson was filled with factories. It wasn’t a college town.
They sat in his office that day and contemplated what needed to be done. The smell of formaldehyde from the old books that lined his office was noxious. He hated strong smells, but there was nothing that could be done. The university didn’t have the money for air conditioning. Eisenhower and the federal government promised plenty of money for higher education but little of it ended up in their department.
“This is no place for an anyone who wants to move up,” she agreed with him. “I never wanted to come here, but I didn’t have a lot of options. It was either this post or take one in Alaska. I hate cold weather.”
She let her blond hair fall down the front of her jacket and looked across at him. Silla noted a few grey streaks. She’d need peroxide treatments soon too.
“What would you do with your share?” he asked her.
“It’s not a question of what I would do,” she replied, “but what I wouldn’t do.”
Now, months later, Silla stood facing the north side of the statue. He waited a few seconds after Mary finished her chant, then starred up to the sky. Perfect, the Dog Star was where it was supposed to be. Only one more thing he had to do.
He held the sword straight up and aimed it at the star. After a few seconds, Silla spoke the words of power Mary had transliterated for him. He admired her work. It wasn’t easy putting a language into phonetics that lacked an alphabet.
He felt the energy sift through him and turned to look at the others. They waited to see what he’d do next. Kretch shook from the anticipation. Perhaps he suspected what Silla had in mind. Now it was time.
Silla stepped in Kretch’s direction and looked at the younger man. Mary watched him from her place in the center of the lit candles. She smiled.
She continued to smile even when Silla swung the sword at her neck.
The second it connected, the blade sliced through it, sending a shower of blood across the marble floor. Her head flew through the air, bounced off the statue and fell to the rocks below. The last thing Silla saw of Mary’s head was its fall into the river below.
By then Mary’s body was on the floor.
No one said a thing.
Five seconds later, Kretch walked over to the prone and headless remains of Mary. He looked down at her, then turned to Silla, who was in the process of wiping the blade clean with the hem of his robe. The robe was now a combination of white and red. It reminded Kretch of a barber pole.
“For a second there,” Kretch spoke to Silla, “I thought the sacrificial victim was going to be-. “
“You?” Silla cut in, “No, sorry to disappoint, but Mary was the bigger threat. I found out she’d put money down on a house in St. Louis.”
Kretch gave him a funny look. “But how would that-,” he started to say.
“And she’d contacted a local gangster to eliminate us all. She wanted all the gold for herself. Don’t ask me how I know about this.”
The Duplex couple hadn’t said a word. They continued to stare at the body on the ground. Silla did need to know something from them.
“You took care of Harold?” he asked both.
They nodded. “He talked too much,” Marcy said. “He won’t be talking anymore.”
“We made it look like a burglar,” Matthew added. “Just as Mary suggested.”
It was all going as planned. Silla lowered his sword and closed his eyes. He could feel the energy rise around him. It was a pulsing sensation and it felt good. The energy felt like power. He was about to have plenty of it.
And then the sensation stopped. Silla opened his eyes and looked at the others. The could feel the energy drop too. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
“So, where’s the guardian of the treasure?” Kretch asked. “Aren’t you supposed to use the sword to make it carry out your will?”
Silla worried. If this whole ritual was bogus, they’d all be in big trouble. It wouldn’t take the cops long to find out what happened. He tried to remember why there was no backup plan for this evening.
“Hello?” a soft voice said outside the light of the candles. “Did someone call me?”
All of them turned to look in the direction of the statue. They could see a shadow form move around it and to where they stood. A second later the shadow stepped into the light of the candles.
Before them stood a naked woman in her thirties. She was pale in complexion and buxom. The moonlight helped to illuminate her. What struck Silla the most was her flaming red hair. It flowed down her back.
She placed both hands on her hips and starred at them. “Alright, you called,” the woman spoke. “Now what is it? I don’t come back unless the right words are used. You said them. What makes this so important.”
Her eyes caught the bright lights of the city in the distance. The woman spun around to look at them.
“Wow!” she exclaimed. “That is a change!”
With trembling hands, Silla brought up the sword and pointed it at her. Now was the time to act with determination.
“By the Holy names of Barabelo and Emberon,” he recited from memory, “I order you to show us the location of the treasure of Bloody Edward the Pirate!”
She starred at him for a few seconds. The others waited for the spirit to give them a map or guide.
Instead, the red-haired woman broke out in laughter.
“Oh, come on,” she snickered. “Didn’t anyone bother to read that script?”
The woman turned and saw the book Mary dropped when she lost her head. She leaned over, picked it up, and looked the tome over.
“You got the wrong one,” she explained. “Not the first time it’s happened. Well, first time for me. Sorry, no gold for the lot of you.” She tossed the book down on the floor. It hit and spun across the marble tiles.
Silla lowered the sword. “You’re not the guardian of the treasure?” he asked.
“Sorry, dude,” she replied. “Not my category. You got the one who protects these lands. But this foul air tells me someone should’ve called a long time ago.”
“You’re not a spirit?” Marcy asked from where she stood. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Diamond,” she told them. “And you’re on my land. By the way, what’s causing all the light over there?” She pointed to the city.
“Brightson,” Matthew responded. “That’s the city of Brightson, Ohio.”
The woman looked at him. “The what of what?” she spoke.
Silla stood there in frustration. At least they’d summoned up something. Perhaps this Diamond character could do the work they needed and find the treasure. If it was a matter of another sacrifice…well…He looked over at the others and tried to figure out which one of them would do. Perhaps she’d want all three?
It was at that moment Diamond noticed the headless body on the floor. She put one hand to her mouth in shock and leaned over it. She shook her head and stood back up. There was fire in her eyes.
“You are disgusting pieces of shit,” she roared at them. “Is this why I needed to return?”
“Wait!” Silla cried out. “Is there something we can do? Don’t you need anything from us?” He held up one hand as protection.
There was a flash of light and heat. The bodies of the four who’d summoned the wrong guardian were turned into ash in less than a second. With them went the headless body on the ground.
“I have all I need from your kind,” Diamond spoke to the empty air.
She reached down and picked up one of the empty robes that fit her. Diamond dropped it around her form and looked again at the lights of the city of Brightson.
“That places smells terrible,” she said to herself. “Guess I need to go over there and have a look.”
Seconds later, Diamond had padded down the marble staircase.
“Ouch,” she exclaimed when her foot hit a rock at the bottom. “I’m going to need some shoes.”