Invasion of the Blanche (Strange Totems Book 2) Read online

  Invasion

  of the

  Blanche

  Corey Mariani

  Contents

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  OTHER BOOKS BY COREY MARIANI

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Author’s Note

  In the following manuscript, I have attempted, with the aid of whorls, to recount my part in the strange and otherworldly events surrounding the Humboldt County Christmas Flood of 2013. Where there were no whorls to guide me, I relied on my memories, grafting to them with all the grace I could muster. To my estranged siblings, if you exist, you are in existential danger. Knowledge of your enemy is herein.

  Chapter 1

  RHODODENDRON PILOT SCARF.

  Lou and I hopped out of the truck. The air was cold, the sky overcast. I rubbed my bare arms to create warmth. My coat still hung in some closet at the Lodge.

  In my mind, I repeated the words Rhododendron Pilot Scarf over and over, a Pictionary poem I’d used to graft to reality itself. I’d tried to encompass my surroundings, my current mood, my outlook on life, my thoughts on mortality, people, green beans—everything. I’d tried to condense the entirety of my existence into one phrase: Rhododendron Pilot Scarf.

  Lou had asked me to do it. The morphine could wear off any minute, allowing Naomi’s wanda poison to take over my mind again. I’d been given several poisons by Naomi’s mummers, causing mixed metaphors in my mind, which was especially dangerous. The grafting was supposed to help keep me grounded. Rhododendron Pilot Scarf, Rhododendron Pilot Scarf.

  ​While we walked, Lou said, “Let me do all the talking when we get to the house. I’ve given this whole Jehovah's Witness spiel a ton. I got it down. Once the otalith becomes angry, we gotta stay in her presence, like at least within fifty feet of her, for a minute to make sure we absorb enough of her cackle.”

  My morphine must have been wearing off because my thoughts took on the shape of one of Naomi’s metaphors again:

  The houses were cheese curds. Lactic acid and cows lived in them, watching daytime TV and fermenting. Lou was mountain lion, listeria, lactose, and cattle dog. I feared him and hungered for him. The cows respected him. They would respond to his barks, his attacks.

  I was having these thoughts, but they weren’t consuming me.

  Yet.

  I still had control. I kept repeating my Pictionary poem, Rhododendron Pilot Scarf. It seemed to give me power over the metaphor, seemed to anchor me to reality.

  Lou and I walked four blocks through the quiet neighborhood, turning twice along the way before he pointed to a two-story yellow house with a running fountain in the front yard and the top of a greenhouse peeking over the backyard fence. We climbed the porch steps and stood side by side. Lou rang the doorbell, but I heard mooing.

  Rhododendron Pilot Scarf.

  Rhododendron Pilot Scarf.

  Lou gently pushed me back, saying, “She spits when she yells.” After waiting fifteen seconds, he hit the bell again—mooooo—Rhododendron Pilot Scarf. This time noises came from inside, sounded like slippers sliding across hardwood floors. The largest woman I’d ever seen opened the door, six-six at least, with broad shoulders, broad nose, and broad forehead. She wore a white T-shirt and Dallas-Cowboy pajama bottoms. She looked sleepy and confused.

  Lou gave the pitch: “Good day to you, sister. We are here to share the message of the Bible for you today. I would like to read Second Corinthians for you: ‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.’”

  The woman waited patiently for Lou to finish, then she smiled and said, “See ya,” and closed the door.

  Now it was Lou’s turn to look confused. “I don’t understand. That always works.”

  I didn’t have much time to brainstorm with him over what went wrong. The morphine had almost worn off completely now. Rhododendron Pilot Scarf was barely working anymore. Everything was cheese-related again. I refused to take another dose of morphine to bring me back from the brink. I stepped off the porch and walked along the front of the house until I found a hose behind a rose bush—milk truck tank, food-grade sanitary hose. A spray nozzle was attached to the end. I lifted the hose off the mount, turned on the water, and dragged the hose by the nozzle back toward the porch. The hose just reached the walkway.

  “Ring the bell again,” I said, barely hanging on to my sanity, the metaphors coagulating in my mind as they had outside the Lodge.

  Rhododendron Pilot Scarf, Rhododendron Pilot Scarf, Rhododendron Pilot Scarf.

  “Relax,” Lou said. “I got this. Put the hose away.”

  I raised my voice. “I don’t have time for this. Ring the bell.”

  Lou put a finger to his lips, shushing me.

  I responded by yelling a line from one of the many cheese documentaries Naomi had forced me to watch with her: “A hot curd makes for a hard cheese!”

  Lou threw up his hands, and I yelled the line again for the whole neighborhood to hear. When the large woman opened the door, she looked irritated, but we wanted her that way. I hit her directly in the chest with a pressurized stream of water/milk. “I baptize you in the name of Jehovah,” I said, “and in the name of cheese everywhere.”

  Her face twisted with rage as she strode past Lou and leapt off the porch, a giant woman moving with the speed and grace of a cat. I tried to scramble around in the yard, hoping to avoid her attack while absorbing her cackle, but she was too quick. She slammed into me with her lowered shoulder and sent me flying. The ground, in collusion with my elbow, knocked the wind out of me, and I rolled over in pain, gasping for air. The otalith was already crouched over me with a raised, open palm. I threw up my arm in time to slow the slap down a bit before it struck the side of my head. Still, it rocked me. As she reared back to slap me again, Lou got behind her and put her in a full nelson hold. She roared, stood up, and spun, flailing Lou’s legs out like stretched fresh mozzarella. After several spins, the otalith stopped, rested her hands on her knees, sweating and breathing heavily, Lou still on her back.

  Afraid she’d calm down before Lou and I absorbed enough of her cackle, I goaded her again: “Accept Jehovah into your heart and you will be forgiven this transgression. Say it now. Say, ‘I accept Jehovah into my heart.’”

  The otalith growled and bucked back, then forward. Lou lost his grip and was flipped over her head onto the ground. I found the Bible in the
grass and winged it at the woman, hitting her in the head. “Fun fact: The Greek titan Cyclops was a cheese maker.” She growled again and turned from Lou to come after me. This time she was tired, and I was faster. I managed to stay out of her reach long enough for Lou to get up and grab her shirt.

  “Run,” Lou said as I heard the shirt tear. “We’ve got enough. Run.”

  I bolted down the street as fast as I could, my mind now completely clear of Naomi’s metaphors. When I looked over my shoulder a half-block later, Lou was right behind me, and I was relieved to see the otalith ten paces back from him, already slowing. At the end of the block, she stopped and yelled, “If you ever come back I’ll kill you!”

  We kept running and didn’t slow down until we turned the second corner and the truck was in sight. Lou had grass stains on his pants and shirt, and his lip was bleeding. We were both breathing heavily. I vibrated with adrenaline.

  “What the hell was that?” Lou said. “It’s going to be ten times harder to harvest from her now. I’m going to have to use a disguise.”

  “I’ll do it,” I said.

  “Oh yeah?” He nodded with a patronizing expression on his face.

  “Whatever it takes.”

  When we got back to the truck, Lou grabbed four lice cages from a box in the bed and attached them to his arms and legs. I asked where my cages were, and he said I didn’t get any this time. I needed all the otalith cackle that was inside me to combat the wanda poison. He promised the cages on him would produce enough to keep Em’s nightmares away for at least six months.

  Chapter 2

  LOU WAS UPSET AFTER our fight with the otalith. As he drove, his curses and complaints about my lack of respect and professionalism mingled alternately with the clicking turn signal, roaring gas pedal, and screeching brakes.

  I had never met my father, and never had a father figure in my life—the closest thing had been May’s high school sweetheart, who liked to get me in headlocks and let me punch his palms. I had been yelled at and even beaten by my mom’s boyfriends, and by my two foster-dads, but I’d never experienced anything like this. There was genuine concern in Lou’s voice and even fear for me and my family. He was scolding me. I’d never been scolded by an older man. Truthfully, it warmed my heart.

  Then he gave me an ultimatum, which wasn’t so heartwarming, but I understood it all the same: If I didn’t agree to be his pupil and obey his orders, within reason, from here on out, he didn’t care what agreement he’d made with Kaliah, he would drop me off on the side of the road right now and wish me good luck.

  I wasn’t stupid. I knew he was my lifeline. I accepted his conditions, and right away he began giving his orders. He insisted I move in with him so that my training could start immediately after breakfast each day. He told me that no one—not me, not him, not my sister—under any circumstances, could ever go back to my apartment to collect my things. And I especially couldn’t go back to Naomi’s. Even with otalith cackle as a defense, she was too dangerous. If I saw her on the street, I was to run the other way.

  “I have to go back,” I said. “My family’s sourdough starter is there.”

  “What?” Lou squawked. “You’re kiddin’ me right?”

  “One of the prisoners that were with your son told me it was important. They said, ‘The secret to defeating the Memoirist lies beyond the cheese danish in the whorl of the sourdough starter.’”

  “You can’t trust that. Are you crazy? Even if that’s true, it’s too dangerous. You’re lucky your wanda didn’t poison you with Shakespeare metaphors. You get the Death-is-an-undiscovered-country routine and before you know what hit you, you’re slicing your wrists up like they’re onions. It’s too dangerous, Doughboy.”

  Despite the risks, going back to Naomi’s was one order I had to disobey. What the prisoner had told me was true. I knew it. But I didn’t try to explain that to Lou. He wouldn’t understand. The sourdough starter had been in my family for over two hundred years. The bread made from it was unique. Generation after generation had kept it alive, replenishing it, feeding it flour and water after each use. In the 1800s, when it was taken in a stagecoach robbery, my great-great-grandfather formed a posse of his cousins to retrieve it. He killed a man for it. Or so I was told. I always thought it was strange how much importance my mom put on the starter, but now it made sense—kind of.

  In hindsight, I wished I had done more to convince my sister to keep her portion of the starter alive. She and I had been a little complacent with the family heirloom for years. It had almost died once.

  I wondered how long she would keep her bakery shuttered and Em out of school. I worried she’d get antsy after a while, refuse to stay at Lou’s, and go back to her life despite the danger to her and her daughter.

  She’d overcome a lot of things in her life by facing them head-on: our mother’s addiction, her own addiction, the absence of her father, the death of our sister, having a batterer for a husband. She fought. That was what she knew. And now I was asking her to hide.

  Lou lived in the hills above McKinleyville, down a secluded gravel road, behind an iron gate, surrounded by forest. He had a huge, box-shaped house, two stories tall and eight windows wide, with a wraparound porch. The front lawn was the size of a soccer field, and it was green, weed-free, and encircled by the driveway.

  “You’re rich,” I said.

  “Ha,” Lou said. “You should have seen me before my second divorce.”

  As I walked through the front door, a stench like ripe roadkill assaulted my nostrils. “Do you have a dead body in here or something?” I said.

  “Sorry about that,” he said. “May and Em went out to dinner and a movie so I had the house to myself. I’ll get rid of it.”

  “Get rid of what?”

  “Durian. It’s an exotic fruit. Puts off a smell like rotten meat. All halamites love it. Strong smells are intoxicating to us. We’re like dogs that way. That’s one of the reasons I like your sister so much.”

  “Did you just say my sister stinks?”

  “Parts of her stinks. “ He had an innocent look on his face. “To me anyway. But in a good way.”

  My mouth dropped open as I considered his statement, and a moment passed before I was able to form words again: “You don’t have a thing for my sister, do you?”

  “What if I did? You don’t think I’m good enough for her?”

  “I think you’ve been divorced three times.”

  “Yeah, but guys like me settle down at this age.” He waved at the air as if he could physically wave away my concerns. “My next wife’s gonna last me till I die. Trust me.” Then he turned his back on me and walked away through the living room.

  I called after him: “You should use those exact words when you propose to my sister. She’ll love it. Trust me.”

  After Lou discarded the durian outside and opened a few windows, he gave me a quick tour of the house. He was one of those clean and tidy bachelors. The floors and surfaces were clean. The furniture was sparse and utilitarian. And there was no clutter that I could see. He had a home gym, a library, and a room dedicated to his collection of guitars and concert posters. Hanging in the hallways, stairwell, and other shared spaces were large photographs of Manhattan landmarks and framed eight by ten glossies of Liza Minnelli, Billy Joel, Frank Sinatra, and other celebrities I assumed were also from the east coast. All of the glossies were signed. Lou boasted that he’d rescued Frank Sinatra’s son from his second kidnapping, the one the public didn’t know about because it had been masterminded by a powerful wanda.

  There was one framed photo of family on the wall, what looked like a senior portrait of Lou’s son, Frank DiStefano, named after “Ol’ Bue Eyes himself.”

  After the tour, we went down to the kitchen, where Lou prepared a small antipasto plate of prosciutto, Asiago, French bread, and pepperoncini. Lou was half Italian on his mother’s side. I avoided the cheese, afraid it would somehow trigger another metaphor fit.

  When we’d f
inished, I asked Lou if we could start my training tonight, which surprised him. I think he was a little tired from the day’s activities, but he agreed to at least get my assessment out of the way.

  He took me to the basement—which had not been a part of the tour. He had a training room here. Mirrors were everywhere, hanging and free-standing. Small, clear spray bottles filled with different colors of liquid were arranged on a Lazy Susan on a desk in the corner. A freezer chest, a table, and a utility sink were in the other corner. Between them was an old TV on a stand. In front of that, two chairs were separated by a small table, and to my right was a punching bag. To my left was a shelf full of Kaliah’s totems from the case we’d gotten from Kmart: shoehorn, oil can, pocket purse, toy boat, candy dish, antique spectacles, small stuffed fox, and short samurai sword.

  I spotted the shower curtain, neatly folded, on the bottom shelf. Its patterns were unmistakable. I walked over and grabbed it. “Do you have any bloom?”

  “You’re not ready for that,” Lou said as he came over. He took the curtain from me and placed it back on the shelf.

  “I’ve been in its whorls before.”

  “Kaliah told me. And I bet you left plenty of corruptions behind. You’re not ready. One step at a time. Here.” He pulled out one of the chairs. “Take a seat.”

  I sat down and looked over the shelves of totems for the shampoo, but I didn’t see it. Lou went to the freezer, cracked a tray of ice, dumped the cubes into a pink tub, filled the tub with water, then brought it over and set it on the table next to me. The cubes clinked against each other and crackled as he said, “The mind distorts reality to avoid pain. It can be insidious, even genius with how it does it. When a shaka discovers a totem, their cackle goes crazy. It should be very painful, but the mind somehow avoids some of that pain by making you feel disgust for the source of it. Sometimes, rarely, a shaka will find a totem that gives them a mystical experience as a distortion. This is called gleaning the ghost, and the totems found while doing that are called Omen Totems. It’s when your shanika’s ancestors are trying to tell you something. That’s why you’re not ready for that shower curtain. You don’t want to get in that whorl with your rekulak and start corrupting things any more than you already have before you get a chance to learn all you can.”