Snake Oil - Henry Gladspoon - 1873

This is a side story created with a character that appears in Vendetta Awakening.  This is a back-story and does not ruin the plot of the main story in any way, shape or form.  This is meant as a supplemental addition.  

They all loved him when they were buying his tonic.  They all adored him when the cure-all helped Mother Jansen's knee feel better.  The people of the newly founded Huntington, West Virginia - the western terminus of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway - praised him for bringing in his medicine and helping the people live their life to the fullest.  Henry Gladspoon had been embraced by the new mayor - the puppet of the railroad - and was given a suite to honor the product he brought into town.

Henry Gladspoon

It was all going well until Mother Jansen took ill, and Gladspoon's cure-all tonic - Euphoria - did nothing to help her through her struggles.  The Jansen family marched to the hotel and demanded he answer for his deception.  By that time, most of the city had been behind them, bottles of Euphoria in their hands.  The mayor tried to calm them, but they would not listen.  Gladspoon heard the whole conversation as he packed his bags.  His pile of coins, gold and greenbacks was in the bag that once held bottles of Euphoria.  He had planned to leave town earlier, and had bought a train ticket.  He paid off the mayor to keep himself protected, and was going to use the rest of his profits to buy more bottles to fill with water from the Chesapeake Bay - once he returned to Richmond.  However, the crowd was now between him and the train station.

Huntington, WV

Gladspoon watched as the torches swayed back and forth among the frothing crowd of disgruntled buyers.  He smiled at seeing them outside the window of his hotel suite.  The mayor was doing his best to keep them from storming the hotel.  Gladspoon walked, luggage and moneybag in hand, out of his room and down the hallway to the staircase.  He was going to use the rear exit to keep himself from being noticed, and gave a little extra tip to the hotel employees to keep them from revealing his departure.

He opened the rear door and made for the trees to hide his disappearance.  When he was a safe distance from the hotel, he took out a few matches from his luggage and sparked the light to signal the mayor.  Once Gladspoon was clear of the hotel, the mayor would let them in to search the hotel for the man who robbed them of their money.  The small flame flickered a few seconds before Gladspoon dropped the match to the ground.  It went out before it t
he ground, and he saw the crowd enter the hotel.  Gladspoon waited a few seconds and then moved towards the train station with ease.  His hat over his shoulder-length hair, he moved quickly through the town, avoiding the glances of anyone looking for him.

He couldn't believe how easy it was.  He thought for a moment that a few people in the crowd would see him, but no one paid him any mind.  They were so focused on the hotel.  He walked by people spitting their hatred towards the suite he once occupied.  He heard their curses that spoke of his deception.  How different it was from the day he arrived and gave them Euphoria.

When he got to the train station, he saw the empty platform and the near empty passenger car waiting for him to board.  He hastily walked on the train and took his seat.  The lanterns lit the inside of the car, and revealed only one other passenger on board.  He smiled as he saw the town gathered around the hotel.  The train was already fired up and was minutes from leaving.  The people would search every room for him before they gave up.  Once they finished, the train would be on its way east.  Gladspoon got comfortable as he felt the wheels turning on the rails.  He heard the grinding of metal on metal, and leaned back in his seat to enjoy the ride away from Huntington, West Virginia.  In minutes, using his plush coat for a pillow, he was being lulled to sleep by the steady racket of the train clacking on the tracks.\

He opened his eyes with a drowsy lull, and saw flames burning a line outside the car.  The train moved through a burning inferno, and horned devils laughed around bonfires blazing beyond the line of flame.  The trees were scorched and the train moved faster than he had ever felt.  He bolted up and wiped his eyes.  He tried to make sense of the scene when it suddenly, drastically changed to a scene of
snow-covered fields.  He saw tall, pale-skinned men, with beards longer than Gladspoon's leg, roasting humans on a spit over smoldering embers.  They smiled at him as he passed them by, moving faster and faster as the train continued to gain speed.

Then, the train shook. Gladspoon yelped in the abrupt change and shot his attention towards front of the passenger car.  The man three seats in front of him continued to slumber, despite the sudden jolt to the car.  A being in a dark robe walked through the door and slowly approached Gladspoon.  The other man seemed not to notice a thing.  The man's face was a torrent of fury and rage, and sent ripples of fear through Gladspoon's spine.  The dark being reached forth shadow hand clasped Gladspoon's jaw.  The face contorted into pleasant anger - as if the being was happy to be so angry.  It laughed a horrible cackle and Gladspoon felt his jaw crack as the being squeezed.

He jolted awake.  The man three seats in front of him was still asleep.  The scenery was dark, but no fires burned outside.  No snow covered the fields.  He looked towards the front of the car, and breathed a sigh of relief as he saw no dark robed man standing by the door.  However, the man three seats in front of him turned around.  The man had a crooked goatee and deep black hair, and a pale skin that seemed whiter than possible.  His sharply angled face was reminiscent of Gladspoon's own features.  He wore a black suit and a black shirt with no tie, and held a cane with a silver goat head.  The goat head gleaming a strange luster that reflected every color of the rainbow.

"So, you're Henry Gladspoon, huh?" asked the stranger in a sinewy voice.  He snorted in derision.  

"Who wants to know?"

"It doesn't matter who I am - I'm just disappointed that you're so easily fooled."

"Fooled by what?"

"Illusion, Henry Gladspoon.  For one who sells an illusion, you sure are subject to believing in them quite easily.  Perhaps it is your human side."  The stranger seemed disappointed.

"What illusion?  The dream?"

"Dream," the stranger laughed.  "That you think you're awake makes me laugh.  You truly have no clue, do you?"  Gladspoon was confused at the stranger's tone.  Should Henry know who the stranger was?

"If you can give me a clue, I might have a better understanding of things."

"Do you remember who your father was, Henry Gladspoon?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"You asked for a clue."

"My mother says he left when I was just a baby."

"She would be right - did she tell you what he did for a living?"

"She said he was a salesman for some big company in Atlanta.  She said he disappeared after I was born."

"Salesman," the stranger laughed.  "What did he sell?"

"She didn't say - I don't think she knew."  Gladspoon was having trouble understanding how the question had anything to with what the stranger was talking about.  "What does it have to do with anything?"

"Henry," laughed the man.  "You have so much to learn.  I wonder if I should lift the veil from your eyes or let you discover it on your own."  The stranger sighed.

"Just who the hell are you, sir?" asked Gladspoon.  "What right do you have asking questions of my mother and father? How does that provide me with a clue?"

"And you're dense as well."  The stranger shook his head with pity.  He tapped the cane on the wooden floor twice.  The floor buckled and bent.  It dipped in the middle and rounded by each of the windows.  The front of the car dissolved and the blistering cold blew in with a swift gust.  A blizzard covered them both as the train car disappeared from around them.  Gladspoon was about the cry out when the scenery changed altogether and he saw a cave in the side of a mountain.  Snow-covered evergreens stood watch over the entrance.  The stranger walked through the snow.  Gladspoon saw no footprints in the snow.  He followed the stranger, having no other option.

He looked around and saw nothing telling of the train car upon which he once rode.  He wondered how the stranger had done what he did.  He wondered where the train car went as he crunched through the ankle deep snow.  When he looked back to the stranger, the man's clothes had changed to a fur-lined cloak and a helm with a two long ram horns spiraling into the sky.

"When you enter the cavern, you will have your answers."  The stranger gestured to the cave.  Gladspoon entered, and was engulfed in darkness.  The shadows consumed him.

When the shadows cleared, he saw his mother, young and pregnant, holding the hand of a man in a three-piece suit.  She was trying to pull him back into her home.  She pleaded for him to stay.  He told her he would return to care for their child.  She asked why he needed to leave before the child was born - he told her it was business, and showed her a letter.  She took the letter, and he left as she read it.  She collapsed on the ground and cried once he was out of sight.

The shadows swirled around him again and he saw the suited man sitting in a train car.  He smiled as he went to New York.  He spoke with a young woman nearby, and kissed her hand in greeting.  The vision followed the man to New York, and back to the woman's family where he introduced himself as Martin Gladspoon.  He did not recognize the woman, nor the family to which she belonged.  Martin Gladspoon introduced himself as a salesman from Atlanta.

The shadows engulfed him once more, and he was back on the train in front of the stranger.  The stranger looked like an ageless version of the suited man from the vision.  Henry Gladspoon realized now why the stranger mocked him.

"You're my father?"

"I am."

"Martin Gladspoon?"

"Was one of my names, yes."  He smiled as he waved the goat-headed cane in a flourish.  He once again became the fur-cloaked man. "My real name is Loki."  In a sudden rush of power, his body grew in stature and glory.  His cloak became a glistening silver fur and his helm turned pure gold.  The train around him became the throne upon which he sat.  "I AM LOKI OF THE AESIR, WHO WATCHES THE WORLD FROM ASGARD.  I AM THE MASTER OF ILLUSION, AND THE LORD OF FLAMES AND DECEPTION.  PROVE TO ME YOU ARE WORTHY OF BEING MY CHILD - MY CHOSEN.  FIND MY SCEPTER IN THE WORLD YOU INHABIT, AND YOUR DIVINE REWARD WILL BE REVEALED."

Gladspoon woke suddenly in the train car.  The image of the goat-headed cane was in his mind.  He had an urge to find it.  He blinked a few times to remove the sleep from his eyes.  He rubbed them in the glare of the morning sun.  The train had just finished pulling into the Richmond station.  The familiar sense of home returned him to reality.  He watched the sun rising over the horizon as he stretched his arms and legs, standing from the seat in which he slept.  The stranger was gone, and the car was empty.  He got off the train and went to work.  He had a goat-headed cane to find, whether or not the dream was real.