Chapter 12:: Shadow Diaries

Mexico, 1875.

Garcia hated the heat. It gave him heat rashes like an unholy crown just under the brim of his hat that always had to be at an angle so that it lent a sinister shadow to his face and hid his eyes.

The things you do for vanity…

But, there he was anyway, standing on a pavement, in the dead Mexican town of Quintal and still hesitating before taking that step to cross the street and enter the bar which for some odd reason was called Gloria.

There was nothing glorious about it. It had pale salmon walls which were peeling plaster wherever a gap was noticeable among the various posters in a dialect which he couldn’t decipher completely. It said something like killing and communists. Which was strange because he didn’t think communism in Mexico was a big problem in that part of the century. The doors of the building were glass-paneled and just about hanging on to its hinges.

As he walked to the door, he cast a long shadow before him and the dust raked up a cloud around his now bellowing trench-coat thanks to his tramping boots.

I’m getting too old for this….he though with a sigh.

The door creaked open at his push and he stepped into a room which was just as dark as the outdoors had been sunny. The chill in the room almost instantly seeped into his skin and sent a faint shimmer of winter down his spine. In the moment that it took his eyes to adjust to the darkness inside, he rolled his shoulders and tested the grip in his knuckles. As the room faded into his vision he noticed the walls which seemed to be made of pure shadows and papered with sweaty people who sat around small tables speaking in a mild din of the same dialect which he hadn’t aced yet. The bar at the center was manned by a bald man with a terrifically oiled mustache and a hideously scarred guy who seemed to be counting money. They, and the bar, seemed to be lit up in a macabre fashion by a yellow light that seemed to emanate from the row of bottles that were arranged for display behind the tender on glass shelves which had lost all pretense of trying to look like glass.

The din dropped to a moment of utter silence the moment he stepped in. People seemed to stop doing whatever they were doing for a second, and took the moment to stare at him. Then the voices rose again.

Here we go…..

And a small sliver of a smile turned up the corner of his mouth which no one noticed because he angled his head a bit more to the floor.

The patrons of the Gloria just saw a man of shadows with his coat preternaturally bellowing slightly standing against the light of the door in a silhouette that seemed to press in the gigantic shoulders he possessed underneath the trench coat. No one saw his face. Yet some, who were paying attention though they saw a look from those eyes that logic said was impossible to see in the shadows. And it filled them with uneasiness which they couldn’t explain for he hadn’t done anything to bring trouble.

For those eyes were dark and had the universe and time peering out of them.

He walked up to the bar and asked for beer. The bartender slid it to him. He picked it up without a word and strolled to the last unoccupied table in the corner that seemed to have been waiting for someone like him to occupy it. It had just one rickety chair. The man occupied it and pretty much melted into the shadows. And the men in the bar, miraculously, instantly forgot everything their memories had recorded a minute or two ago, where a mysterious stranger had walked in carrying in the darkness that did not belong to this world and had ordered a drink of beer which everyone knew was what the bartender, Ramon, called his piss.

A man with silver hair walked into a bar in Mexico. His skin was the color of burnt and burnished amber. He walked with a slight limp and something in the way he walked said that his place wasn’t in a seedy bar somewhere life hid under the desert rocks. His clothes, though, said that he really needed to be there and would do whatever possible to blend in. Unfortunately, he couldn’t part with the principle that cleanliness was a virtue and he stood out like a woman in a bunny suit at a diplomatic dinner party. And the ears weren’t even the problem.

He laid claim to a table at the center and crouched down in his seat.

A second man walked in within moments to join him. To the valiant act of blending in, this one didn’t even try. He wore medieval robes of bright wine red and carried with him a slim package rapped in strangely innocuous brown paper. The men sized each other up as the sat in silence for a minute or two. Then the second man spoke.

So, you say you’re ready…… the voice that uttered the words seemed not to be a voice at all. The words seemed to hover around the first man’s ears like invisible yarns of electric current. The man cringed slightly but seemed to have enough proficiency in masking his reaction to do so only minimally. The rest, he hoped, it was too dark to see.

“Si. Let there be no doubt in their minds about their servant’s loyal servitude—“

Come, let us dispense with the ceremonial language. Please don’t try our patience by pretense. I think it is quite evident that both parties are quite aware of the truth of someone like you. The mouth that did not speak these words curved into a small smile of pure disgust.

“But…. But---“

Enough! The man glared. He had fine golden hair and skin the color spun gold. A light scar slashed his full lips. He had gray eyes which now narrowed. And Diaz felt himself give a faint shiver. Tonight you go. Be at the gate of the Gods half past the time the moon reaches her full bloom. It will be done tonight. Take this. And guard it with you’re life. Because if this doesn’t survive the journey……. Just hope to whatever God you prey to, that it does. For otherwise, you won’t either.

He slid the package to him and rose. And giving Diaz a last look he disappeared the way he came.

Diaz smiled a small and uneasy smile. It was finally happening. And there was no way he could stop it now. And for some reason, he had a sudden mad urge to actually want to. For just like some men who had sudden and very sure premonitions of death before they do, he had a sudden feeling that things would go very wrong indeed. And that it was already too late. They didn’t have enough information. But that’s ridiculous! No one could be around right now to hear them plan. And he convinced himself that it would be alright. Really. Things would fall into place as soon as he had done his bit. And with this thought, he shoved the package into his pocket and strode off.

A body was found by local woodsmen, somewhere at the edge of the forests on their way back after a long night’s work. It was a man with silver hair. The men swear on their mother’s grave that there was a phantom of what looked like a book hovering about his clenched right hand. Yet he was alive, but only long enough to say a single sentence:

“It’s gone. No…one..can…stop…”

And he was gone.

The man in the table in the corner emerged from the shadows. He rested his elbows on the table top and drummed his fingers against each other.

So…that’s the way is going to be….

He appeared deep in thought for a moment. But the next moment saw him burst into a flurry of motion, as he stood and took a last look around the room. The men doing plaster duty were doing what they did best and the bartender kept polishing what must have been, someday, a rather beautiful rifle.

Places to go....things to see…..

And he turned to the darkness and narrowed his eyes and disappeared into nothingness as if he never existed.

And the only thing left behind was the memory of the electric lightning that seemed to have been sizzling right over the edges of his fingertips.

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