METALLOPHILIA

by Ricky Barca

CHAPTER 1

BOAT ON THE RIVER

Near-death on the drive back home gave Brand this job.

That’s what he got for having one too many with his bud in the next town - a couple of imported beers from north of the border, plus some shots of homemade elderberry melomel from the acoustic bassist who’d shared a few tunes with the house, along with his wife on the electric mando. Brand had to delay his return trip back to Hemibore an extra hour or two. Only five miles of freeway, and five miles of state highway, but the latter was where the real challenge lay. The five hundred foot climb in altitude, the ten degree drop in temperature, they both made the turnoff back to his place hellacious as the snow just piled up and up in the nighttime absence of plows.

He became a boat on the river for a long and terrifying second, the frozen current of slush and powder nearly carrying his car into the corner of another house’s property. He couldn’t be certain he hadn’t mowed down some ornamental bush, or maybe a loose chicken or two - those birdbrains always liked to cross the road at this particular T-junction. But he did eventually find his lane again, and with it, a couple more miles to go at half his usual speed before he finally parked in front of the house and disappeared inside.

Before going to sleep, he stayed up for another hour or two checking his DMs and emails. The emails in particular were full of job postings. Some from all the way in the nearest suburbs and major cities, each one an hour away or more over long and sometimes windy highways that would be almost impassable at this time of year.

But also a few here in Hemibore.

Like the position of Clerical Assistant at Hemibore Hospital.

Not totally Brand’s cup of tea, but after a few weeks in this town with no bites on the job search, he understood that he needed to cast his line a little somewhere different.

Only after he read the actual job posting did he go ahead and look up Hemibore Hospital itself. Interestingly, it wasn’t really in the heart of town itself - he’d assumed it, like the larger St. Amenadiel Hospital, was lower on the terrain, below the typical snow level at this time of year, unlike the neighborhood in the foothills where he currently lived. He’d also assumed that Hemibore Hospital was a general medical facility as well. No, according to the website he’d found for the place (and used to confirm the job posting was real), it was a bit more specialized than that. The website for Hemibore Hospital was, almost deliberately, vague about what was truly done there, other than suggesting that it was a place of “rehabilitation.”

Still, though. A job helping keep the records going at this place, it’d be something to help him pay the bills while he searched for a job a little closer to the industry he truly wanted to break into.

He always said it like that. Like being a filmmaker, screenwriter, etc. was a secure bank vault or something. Having first struck up their friendship on a fantasy writing forum, Eli would agree for sure.

So as Brand drove his car up the sloped, winding path towards what he hoped would be his future workplace, he thought of how much it’d be worth it just to pass this interview. Just for the scenery alone. Gravel crunching under the tires, sunlight filtering through the faint mist under the trees, a stone bridge with a river beneath it.

There was a boat down there, like a kayak but not quite, with two people sitting inside it and rowing leisurely with their oars.

There had already been an archway over the turnoff from Bigelow Road bearing the name of this place, but just in case anyone had forgotten, there was another one right before the parking lot. Black stone this time, or maybe metal. Or maybe polished marble somehow standing up against the elements, other than a crown of thick snow that, as soon as the vibration of Brand’s car touched it, rained a bit of chunky slush onto his windshield.

His mom would call that a blessing, but she also said the same thing when he first bought the car and it got splotched by a piece of seagull shit almost immediately after he drove it home.

Brand had to circle the parking lot a few times before eventually finding a space big enough for his car. It wasn’t paved except for more gravel - the same reddish gravel which Hemibore Public Works, as well as their state and county equivalents outside city limits, liked to lay down on the local roads after snow. Did they source it from this parking lot? Was there a cinnabar or porphyry mine somewhere in town?

The cars in the lot were staggered at somewhat irregular intervals, though at least most were lined up straight. The spacing between them was the real crapshoot.

Brand gravitated towards the left hand side of the parking lot. The side where the cars looked, in general, less pampered. The ones that looked like they came from a dealership in this town, one of the more mainstream marques. Not that the cars on the right hand side were particularly luxurious, although at least one person on staff here drove a sporty blue M3, and another had a blood red Genesis.

After he parked, Brand stepped out of his car and stepped across the gravel so he could get a better look at the river. Maybe even a picture or two which he could show to Eli for filmmaking inspo. He stopped on the side of the bridge, looking down to the water about twenty feet below. Unlike the parking lot, which sloped down from right to left - westward - the river flowed eastward. Bit strange, and it only contributed to Brand’s subtly increasing sense of disorientation. But he was able to focus a bit better by watching the kayak as its two passengers kept on paddling.

Then something else caught Brand’s eye a little better. A shadow under one of the misty trees off to one side of the river. It looked like it could’ve been a bear or wolf or some other carnivorous wildlife. But it also looked like a cold weather mirage.

“Brandon Renato?”

He looked up and back to the building, appreciating the sight of it like never before. A mansion of mostly gray stone, but some bits and pieces of other colors in the walls. Towers on top, arranged in a many pointed star with lines of metal connecting them. So many hypnotic details, exactly what he didn’t need when he was about to go in for that interview.

On top of a wide ramp, made of similar gray stone to the castle walls, stood a tall, heavyset man with a black parasol perched at a precise angle to block out the sun. His voice carried pretty far, at least a hundred feet across the parking lot. As Brand approached the man, he saw him in greater detail. Pale skin, bald head, business casual.

Brand may have been pale for an Italian, but he had nothing on this guy.

“Are you…” Brand racked his brains for a moment, remembering the name he’d seen in the email inviting him to today’s interview. “Are you Dr. Darknell?”

“Dr. Forest Darknell, at your service.” He pronounced the “k,” which Brand hadn’t, having erroneously assumed it to be silent. Darknell gave an almost theatrical bow after closing the parasol and laying it on the wall at the side of the ramp. He was, however, very quick to put that parasol back in place, this time holding it in his left hand so he could shake Brand’s with his right. Both hands, Brand noticed, were gloved in black leather, and as he shook the man’s hand, he saw and heard the faint jingle and sparkle of a pinkish metallic bracelet hiding underneath the cuff of Darknell’s shirt. An unusual choice, though it also matched the tie he wore, which stood out against his black shirt and contrasted very strongly with his aquamarine eyes.

“Interesting, isn’t it?” Darknell asked. Brand noted the bracelet’s carvings: images of elegant birds in flight. “It’s a family heirloom. My grandmother wished she could pass it along to a granddaughter, but she never had one. So I inherited it as a reward for my contributions to the field.”

“Which field?”

“Hmm?”

“Which field?” Brand repeated. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Genealogy.” Darknell smiled. “You know all the DNA scanning companies? I helped build at least two of their databases. But I don’t like to brag.” He gestured at the castle, standing tall over the end of a bridge which began at the top of the ramp. “We’re here to learn more about you today, aren’t we?”

Brand followed Darknell over the bridge, taking another look over this other edge. He half expected to see a moat full of gators. Never mind that they wouldn’t survive in this climate, unless the climate was controlled to the level of a world class zoo. Or they developed world class burrowing skills, in which case they might just undermine the foundations of the castle. Instead of stagnant water and reptiles, the castle’s moat had twisting hedge mazes and open garden patches with benches where people sat with books in hands, or tables with chess games in progress.

Brand almost had to sprint to catch up to Darknell as the doctor reached the castle’s front door. It was mostly wood - redwood, Brand supposed, making him think of the famous forests back home. But it had decorative little dots of black metal stretching across the face of it in several rows, as well as a black grate over a square viewing hole, and long black handles of the same metal.

“Wrought iron?” Brand asked. “That’d be my first guess, but it doesn’t look quite right.”

“It’s sometimes called darkiron here, and astrium in its native land. My idea, to be honest, because the original owners were timber people, so they used a lot of wood that didn’t really age well. Those silly Sleddas.” Darknell pushed the latch with his thumb and ushered Brand in with a flourish. “But again…we’re here for you.”

Brand couldn’t quite repress a shudder at the good doctor’s tone.

That said, though, he walked through, into a lobby full of light from golden stained glass windows ringing the ceiling. Those windows also had silvery-looking pieces, arranged to depict a variety of angels with white wings, and at least one with black wings instead.

Like Brand was back in St. John the Baptist Church in San Castiel all over again.

Darknell closed his parasol and pressed the top point to the ground, using the whole thing as a walking stick. “This way,” he said, raising it to point to a door across the circular entrance hall. “Hardly a quorum we’ve got today, but let’s have you meet one of my council counterparts.”

Darknell laid a hand on Brand’s shoulder, the glove’s soft leather covering a clawlike grip.

It was all Brand could do not to give his new boss a much needed hip check.

CHAPTER 2

THE SMALL PRINT

The room beyond that door had a round table in its center. Opposite from the door sat another man, this one Black, also bald, but slightly less casual in his three piece suit with blue pinstripes and piping.

“Brandon, may I introduce Fabricio Villanueva?” Darknell said as the other man rose from his seat, laying down a sheaf of papers. “He’ll be your direct supervisor, if you get the job.”

Villanueva shook hands with Brand. His hands weren’t gloved, though they were rather cold to the touch. Still, though, it was a decently firm handshake, most reassuring compared to the curiously reptilian nature of close contact with Darknell. “Encantado,” Villanueva said in a deep voice. “¿Vi en su currículum que usted habla español?”

Brand stared at him for a second, somewhat blankly. He’d sort of understood what Villanueva said, but he’d spoken so quickly that it was much more difficult to follow than he’d expected. Haltingly, Brand responded, “Sí, pero like, uh, no estoy muy conversacional.”

Villanueva smiled at Darknell. “I like the way this one thinks.” When he spoke English, his Hispanic accent - Cuban, if Brand had to guess - mostly disappeared in favor of a standard American one. Turning back to Brand and gesturing at the seat next to him, he added, “You sounded pretty Brazilian there at the end, I have to say.”

“Well…” Brand shrugged as he sat in a pleather chair. “I used to work at Newton’s Books in Palo Alto. You’d be surprised how many Brazilians came through there.”

“Ah, Newton’s.” Villanueva folded his hands together and clapped them gently a couple of times before turning to Darknell. “Have you ever been there?”

“No,” Darknell said somewhat sourly as he sat on Villanueva’s other side.

“Yeah, I forgot you had familial reasons not to.”

“It’s not as if they’ll cannibalize Karl’s business. Smythe & Darknell is a Gold Country bookstore, not a Bay Area one-”

“Okay, okay,” Villanueva said with a snicker. “Forgive me, I’m no expert on this country’s geography. But did you ever meet my friend Eliza when you worked there?” he asked Brand. “She was always a frequent visitor, as I remember.”

Brand shrugged again. “I don’t think so. I’m sure I’d remember, though.”

“Oh well.” Villanueva consulted the papers in front of him. “I see you wound up leaving that job about a year ago, though, and then you were a supermarket shopper until you moved up here. Let me guess-”

“The nightmare of Californian bureaucracy,” Brand said stiffly. “Yeah, it’s exactly what you’d think.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Villanueva nodded aimlessly. “I did take the liberty of contacting your old manager there. She said it was a shame to let you go, but her hands were tied-”

Brand bit his lip. “I’m sorry, but that’s something…I’d really rather not talk about it.”

Darknell leaned over slightly, reading the printout of Brand’s CV over Villanueva’s shoulder. “Well, I wouldn’t blame you. Fabricio recounted that conversation to me too. Lovely lady, Julie Little was. As for your Californian troubles, well, far be it from us to understand the processes of the random number gods.”

Brand cocked his own head at the two men. “Hang on, I thought I checked the box that said it wouldn’t be okay to contact-”

“Don’t forget, I’m old friends with Eliza Vidraru,” Villanueva said. “She’s the one who connected me to Julie for that conversation. Eliza says you sold her a good novel once.”

“Oh yeah? Which one?”

“Jade City, if I remember correctly.”

Brand smiled, thinking about the trilogy box set he had still sitting in a box at his place because he hadn’t been able to build himself his new bookshelf yet. “I did sell quite a few of those.”

“Now you tell me, though,” said Darknell. “How would you consider that your experience as a bookseller has prepared you for this job?”

Brand choked up. On the one hand, Villanueva, his actual future boss, already had done his own homework and appeared to have made up his mind in Brand’s favor. On the other hand, Darknell, the big boss, made it such a point of acting like this whole thing was beneath him. This after he’d made it an equally big point of welcoming him into the castle. Talk about hot and cold.

“I’ll be honest,” Brand said after a minute’s consideration. “I came to this town hoping to continue where I’d left off as a bookseller. But the local indie doesn’t have any openings, and I can’t drive out to the city on a daily basis, not until I find a place there.”

“Or in Burnside Bluffs,” said Fabricio. “Suburbs would do your finances better.”

“So I found this job,” Brand continued. “And you offered full time, plus benefits, plus a better salary than anything I ever got back home. I may not have a great deal of clerical experience, but I do have a BA in English-”

Darknell cleared his throat to interrupt Brand, then reached out with a pair of pens, wielding them like improperly weaponized chopsticks. Or some archivist’s pincers, especially fitting given the gloves on his hands. With the pens, he picked up Brand’s résumé and examined it more closely. “‘Creative Writing Option,’” he said, overpronouncing each word as he sneered. “Did you do that to maximize your time in virtual classes?”

Brand couldn’t help but retort. “If I did, wouldn’t that prepare me better for a job on the computers at this place?”

Villanueva smiled. “He’s got a point, Doctor.”

Darknell grimaced, then laid the paper back down on the table. “On your own head be it, Fabricio.” Then he stood up, turning hard enough on his heel that if he were wearing a cape or duster, he would surely have tangled it around his own ankles and tripped himself up. He departed the room, slamming the door behind him.

“Well.” Villanueva carefully tucked all the papers into a black leather ledger. “I do apologize for him. It was his idea to conduct the meeting here, as he thought he’d be able to scare you off first. Maybe then he could’ve caught his ride to Beteldin on time…” He tucked the ledger under his arm, but left one paper and pen out on the table.

“Hmm?” Brand asked. “I have no idea any of what you’re talking about, boss. Uh, is it presumptuous of me to-”

“No, I don’t think so. Frankly, you’re hired,” Villanueva said. “If you sign.”

Brand took the paper and pinched his glasses slightly as he read it. It looked like a pretty standard employment contract, except… “Where’s the small print?” he asked.

“We’ll get to that later.” Villanueva sat down again. “After your probationary period.”

“How long would that be?”

“Three months. But I believe you’ll last that long and then some.”

Brand fought the urge to suck on the pen’s click handle. Instead, he perused the bare bones contract for another minute or so before scrawling his messy signature on the dotted line.

“Perfect.” Villanueva tucked that paper into his book as well. “Today’s Monday, right?”

Brand checked the date dial on his watch. “The 7th, yeah.”

Villanueva gave Brand a thumbs up. “Haha, if only Forest had seen that on you. He can’t stand smart watches. Analog only. Would’ve maybe been a point or two in your favor, and then he wouldn’t have been such a shithead today.”

“We have much in common.” Brand let his arm hang loosely, the dress shirt’s slightly too large sleeve dropping over his chronograph again. “Too bad I’ll never be able to afford one of those Swiss divers to which he appears partial.”

“I don’t understand the point of those things. It’s not as if humans can dive to 300 meters. Or anyone else, for that matter.” Villanueva offered Brand one more handshake. “But I’ll see you this time next week. Just ask for me when you get to the front desk.”

“There’s a front desk?”

“Well, it’s not where you’ll be working. But yes. Hasta el Día de San Valentín.”

Brand shook Villanueva’s hand again. “Soy demasiado joven para usted, jefe.”

“Voy a morir de reír,” Villanueva said, utterly deadpan.

CHAPTER 3

GOLD DUST WOMAN

“Damn, bro. You barely interviewed and you got in? You’re a goddamn wizard, you know?”

Brand smirked at his best bud Eli Stashwick as he stepped over a small sinkhole on the trail, which they were fortunate enough to be able to walk today because the constant cold snap had finally ended. Temporarily, anyway. “You call me that all the time.”

“‘Cause it’s true, b.”

“If you say so.”

Eli stopped on the edge of the cliff overlooking an even bigger sinkhole, one where the local watering hole lay. Literally. A cascade from Wesson Creek poured down into what locals called “the Pit,” or sometimes “the Armpit,” especially in summer when the water level was low and the little pond filled with smelly algal blooms.

“I’m surprised you didn’t apply for that same job,” Brand said. “I thought you were looking for something new too, so we can both save up to move to Great Raven.”

“Across more state lines? Easy for you to do, bro.”

“Tell that to Myrtle. She’s practically a citizen of this state already, when she’s not living in Rivermill.”

“But I’m surprised you didn’t tell me sooner. ‘Cause honestly…if you had, I probably would’ve suggested you try something else.”

Brand raised his eyebrows. “Why? When nobody else has reached out to me even for an interview?”

“Do you even know what they do there? At Hemibore Hospital?”

“They wouldn’t tell me, even when I actually went there.”

“You said you were doing a clerical job, right? With a guy as your boss?”

Brand delivered a light slap to the back of Eli’s head. “You say that like it’s not possible.”

“What?”

“A guy heading up the clerical department at this place. Or any workplace, for that matter.”

Eli burst out laughing so hard that he almost slipped and fell, forcing Brand to grab him around the waist and drag him back a few feet. Even then, Eli shook with laughter until he threw off Brand’s grip. “You’re a nutsack, bro! That’s not what I was saying-”

“I know that.”

“Oh. Okay. Cool, then.”

Brand dusted some imaginary dirt off Eli’s shoulder, but couldn’t hold back on another chance to cuff the back of his head. “So, for real, though…why do you think I shouldn’t work at Hemibore Hospital? Serious answers only.”

“Why are you talking to me like I’m a Reddit question?”

Brand started walking further along the trail. “Seriously. Is there something wrong with this job that nobody’s telling me?”

“I’ll tell you now!” Eli cried.

“Okay.” Brand stopped and did a flourish so Eli could walk past him, though he hated how much it resembled Dr. Darknell doing the same thing. At least, unlike Darknell, he wouldn’t suddenly turn nasty to his friend and make him want to fuck off back home and never come out.

“Okay, so…” Eli paused as he collected his thoughts. “So, I’ve never actually known anyone who got a job at Hemibore. No clericals, no technicals, no medicals. None of the above. But everyone else in this town, pretty much, knows someone who has, and many of them have, let’s just say, well-”

“What?”

Eli hemmed and hawed, somewhat uncharacteristically. “They’ve disappeared, dude.”

Brand stopped, suddenly feeling a bit dizzy, as if he’d foolishly had a couple of beers or ciders with Eli before going on this hike. “What? You mean to tell me-”

“People who take jobs there don’t last long,” Eli said. “Medicals last the longest of all, they’re just too knowledgeable. Even the technicals and clericals, they say it’s got a high turnover. All anyone really knows is that the patients there, they came from bigger cities, so they got bigger wallets.”

"And that means…?"

"Dude. You’re from Cali. You do the math."

"I barely had a C in calc when I was in college."

"Better than me, b. But listen. Rich peeps getting spendy shit. Staff that nobody hears from again. Calc? That’s goddamn grade school arithmetic right there."

“Okay…” Brand drawled.

“I’m not kidding, bro. You just got here. I don’t wanna see you be the next one to disappear.”

“You wouldn’t see me at all if so.”

“I’m serious.” Eli looked him in the eye. Painful for Brand, but for his best bud and his piercing, sky blue gaze, he powered through that discomfort. “If you disappear on me, I’m gonna be the saddest sack this side of your nuts.”

“What is it with you and nutsacks?”

“Nothing, nothing, nothing…NUTSACK!” As he shifted to shouting for a second, Eli playfully shook Brand’s shoulders. “But you did your research before you moved up here. You know more about this town than I do.”

“Trivial esoterica, my dude.”

“But for real…you gotta know what you’re getting into.”

Brand gently pulled away. “Where do you suggest we go to find out more?”

“Well…” Eli’s voice grew deeper, imitating his neighbor, the Canadian elder.

“I thought you’d go there. You sure he’d know, though?”

Eli kicked up a bit of dirt as he took off running back the way they’d come. “Jerry’s gotta know, dude. Everyone tells him everything.”

They made their way back up and down the trail to the spot where Brand had parked on the side of the road. Back up the hill they went to the expansive (and currently, bare of leaves and fruit alike) cherry orchard where the Stashwick fam (Eli, his sibs, his ‘rents, and sometimes his girlfriend, when Myrtle wasn’t with her family in the distant valleys of Rivermill) lived in a farmhouse so old that the only in-house bathrooms were downstairs while most of the occupants slept upstairs.

Next door, in the barn, was Jerome Greenwood.

Jerry lived in a converted barn set back a bit further from the road than the farmhouse. He’d supposedly taken the idea from a man (or a vampire, if the story was to be believed) whom he’d met in his frequent travels all over the coast and mountains before ultimately settling on this plot of land and populating it not with offspring of his own, but offspring of the queen bee whom he had found infiltrating the walls of the other barn. The one less livable, in part because the ceiling had at least one huge hole in it, with a lump of insulation hanging by a few carcinogenic threads. Also, the bathroom sink in that barn only dispensed boiling hot water. As Brand found out the hard way.

But Jerry, he lived in the much more weatherproofed of the two barns. The one with an actual sense of organized clutter to its habitable space. And the one with all manner of amazing movie-based props and signage, acquired from breweries in at least six states and three provinces that Brand could see at a second’s glance.

Brand, as always, saluted the most recent acquisition: the metal-plate, enlarged to show detail “Welcome to Fukuta” postcard design from Los Diablo. He’d brought that to Hemibore with him, but Eli advised him to part with something of great value to earn his acceptance with Jerry. Given that the postcard was signed by none other than series star Olivia Miralo Grayson herself, it held the greatest sentimental value to Brand. How he hadn’t fainted from pleasure the time he met her in San Jose - and obtained that autograph, plus a photo op and hug - he still had no idea.

Inside the barn, Jerry himself sat at a bar-like table, stirring a grainy golden substance into a steaming mug of water.

“What’s that?” Brand asked. “Instant beer, instead of instant coffee?”

Jerry peered at Brand and Eli under the bill of his Batman ball cap, narrowing his eyes. “You think I’ll subject my gut to powdered alcohol?” he asked in his gravelly voice. “If I wanted to do that, I’d buy your domestic piss.”

“Yeah, dude.” Eli nudged Brand. “Besides, who wants hot beer?”

“Not I,” he and Jerry chorused in unison.

Jerry’s tanned, weatherbeaten face took on a real smile. “No, Brando, this shit is home sourced honey dust. But not my home, see.”

“It’s the queen’s home, right?” Brand asked.

“Not the one you’re thinking of. But it’s my gambit to take from hers.”

“Whose is it, though?” Brand asked. “Is it that other hive you keep near Lake Steelhead?”

“Not even. That one’s all but closed for business now, at least till April when the snow there finally melts. Though given how much we’ve been getting back to back this winter, I’d be surprised if Steelhead wasn’t all melted till July this year. Like that time I bounced for Rush in Regina.” Jerry reached under the table and pulled up another couple of cups - these two etched with images of Betty Boop - and pointed at a door off to one side. “The kettle’s still full, boys. And I got a can of cinnamon sticks on the shelf over it.”

“Are we gonna walk in on another frog party in that sink?” Eli asked.

“If you do, just leave my familiars be.”

Eli and Brand filled their glasses, then returned to Jerry to fill in the honey dust as well. “Sweetest cider this side of Queen Thea’s,” he said. “That includes the soft subset, obviously.”

“So which hive did you say this dusty honey was from again?” Brand asked.

“I didn’t,” said Jerry as he lit a cigarette and held it in one hand while sipping his honey cider with the other. “Because,” he added, “y’all filthy Yank boys won’t stop interrupting me.” He took a drag and blew the smoke into his honey cider. “She’d hate me for doing this, but I don’t care. She’s hotter when she’s angry.

“This honey dust comes from the house of Dr. River Darknell.”

Brand stared at him. “Wait, is that her real name?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Any relation to Dr. Forest Darknell?”

“Husband and wife. But how do you know about F…” Jerry went freakishly still. “No. Don’t tell me, kid-”

“I’m working at Hemibore Hospital now. Just interviewed there the other day, and they offered me the job,” Brand said. At this, Eli reached for a cigarette from the pack next to Jerry’s glass and handed it to Brand. “Dude, no. I don’t smoke.”

“I know, but I’d rather you hold that in your mouth and lose it from there when he says it,” Eli said. “Better that than losing your drink.”

Brand shrugged and placed the cigarette between his lips. The tip of his tongue picked up enough taste, even with the filter, to make him want to spit it out immediately.

“Those Darknells?” Jerry said. “Those rich fucks what run the hospital? They’re vampires.”