The Fiddler's Dagger

by W H Lock

  Max and Rube shook their heads no.

  “Thank you, Mr. Fred. I sure do appreciate you asking,” Max said.

  “Hey, I’m a groovy guy like that!” Freddy pulled the small hair pick out of his back pocket and fluffed his dense curly hair. He smoothed his mustache out with a swipe of the back of his other hand.

  “Nah, I’m good,” Rube said.

  “Well, suit yourselves. I might get some bowling done afterwards.” Fred waved to Max and Rube has he headed out into the early evening.

  “You know,” Max said as Freddy walked out. “For a vampire, Mr. Fred is very nice. Mother didn’t like vampires much when she was alive. Now she’s dead, she doesn’t care as much.”

  Rube nodded and grabbed one of the shop towels. After a few pages of silence punctuated by Karen laughing at whatever she was watching, Rube said, "So, how long have you known Quinn?"

  “Oh, I’ve known Quinn for a long time. Him, and Oscar and their friend Ms. Delilah, they go way back. I used to make copies of that Master of Light fella, the one who did all those paintings of cottages in forests?”

  Rube nodded.

  “Well, they would take those paintings and sell them to collectors in Los Angeles.” Max chuckled at the memory. “Mother never did like that fellas work. She said it was too maudlin and not representative of anything. I thought they looked like they’d go really well over a couch or something beige.”

  Rube nodded. “If you don’t mind my askin’, how did you get started making forgeries?”

  Max sat for a moment in silence then he said, “Well, I imagine as most people do, you know. You start off with Mother buying you a lot of art books to look at in your own room when she would bring a fella home for the afternoon. I liked the pretty pictures, you see. Pretty soon I wanted to make my own pictures, but I didn’t know how. So, I copied what I’d seen in the books.”

  Max moved his stool further down the line and kept wiping down the pages with brake fluid. After a moment he said, "Of course, I like to get into mischief. Mother thinks it’s just being a boy, but not every mother would have been so understanding in that regard. The judge thought I needed more bible in my life. So, I got sent to work for this traveling preacher fella. He would have these great big tents set up outside of town where he’d preach about the end of the world and all that. I and a few other boys were to hand out fliers the week before he arrived."

  Max paused to go back to re-examine one of the pages he had laid out. He stared at it with a critical eye and wiped down again. Max would repeat that same process again and again. He would start a new page, stop halfway through to go back to an earlier page to tidy that one. Once the previous page met his requirements, Max would go back to the new page.

  "Anyway. I traveled with him. He would eventually roll into town with the choir and the songs. They'd perform a couple of times in the center of town in the evening. Then they'd lead everyone to the huge tent he'd set up outside of town. The man couldn't do much, but he could do that."

  "What's that?"

  "Prestor could raise a tent by waving a hand. It was something to see, all right. The points where the tent poles would go would rise first. The rest of the tent would follow along as if it were being lifted by strings."

  Rube nodded. "So he was a magician or something to that sort?"

  Max shook his head. "No. He wasn’t a sorcerer or a magician. He could only do a few things like the tent and light it. And make his voice fill a room of any size. That's it. He used to joke it was the only grace God had given him, and he would do his best to make money from it."

  The two men worked in silence. Max would check on Rube's work from time to time. He would inspect each page and nod. After a few times of checking, Max put his cloth and bottle aside. He went back to the first sheets of paper he had laid out. He pulled out a large razor blade and scrapped the ink off the pages.

  After a few minutes of silence, Max started talking again. "Even as a boy, I didn’t have a very good voice so I would help out around with the ushering and the like. Well, until Prester John, the preacher they sent me to work with a traveling preacher that called himself Prester John. Well, anyway, once he found out I could make copies like that. He’d come up with this idea of painting on a photograph. Well, he got this old camera, and he’d have someone take a picture of people out in line. They’d develop the photos, but they’d have me paint with acid a little angel or a Jesus standing behind someone. Just a harmless little joke, you see. Just some mischief. Anyway, he’d develop it up on stage while talking about the end of the world and all. Then, sure enough, there’d be a picture of one of them with an angel hovering behind them. They’d eat it up with a big spoon.” Max chuckled at the memory. “Then he’d tell them how the world was going to end and all that. He’d get up there and preach fire and brimstone. And they’d just eat it up and buy picture after picture of themselves with angels floating behind them. Just a harmless bit of mischief, of course. No one got hurt making them angel pictures so that makes it okay.”

  Max thought for a while and then he went back to working on the pages. Karen finished whatever it was she was drinking in her flask and quietly passed out. The video channel continued to stream.

  "But you know what I think? I don't think people really want the end of the world. I would sit there behind the curtain and look at their faces. They would stare at Prestor with this rapt expression while he talked about the end of everything. But he never talked about the world ending for them. It was always about how others would suffer."

  Rube stopped rubbing pages with brake fluid to listen to Max. Max stopped scrapping ink off the old pages. His eyes focused on the dim and misty past of his youth.

  "I think what they really wanted was the world to end for everyone else. They wanted everyone outside of their town to suffer more than they had. What they wanted, really, was vengeance. They wanted all the pain the world had dealt them to be inflicted on everyone else. And Prester John sold it to them. He gave them the fire and brimstone that was already in their hearts. And they threw all the money they had at him. And then we'd leave town."

  The two men went back to work. Rube would wipe down the paper with brake fluid to loosen the ink from the old pages. Once the brake fluid had time to set in, Max would scrape them clean with a razor. Together the two men worked through the pages, moving down the line.

  "But Mother says it always makes me mopey when I talk about Prester John. She can’t abide moping about. So we had best change the subject. How long have you known Quinn," Max asked.

  "Oh, not long," Rube said. "Not more than a month or so. He hired me to run cars and transportation for him for a job in LA. We stole a skull from a necromancer."

  Max nodded.

  "Is he always like that?"

  "With all the dancing and everything needs to be way too complicated?"

  Rube nodded.

  "Yeah. Mother thinks he’s cute, and the dancing is fun to watch. Sometimes I think he’s got ants in his pants, the way he can’t keep still.” Max hid his mouth behind his hand as he chuckled.

  "So he's always been over thinking things?"

  Max nodded as he cleaned the blade of brake fluid and ink. "That boy ain't met a plan yet that he couldn't add more layers to it. Thing is though," Max waved the blade around in the air. "Is they had a way of working out. He'd pull out one last thing that turned it all around. And he'd grin like he’s always meant to do that."

  Rube nodded. He'd seen that grin. "Right? But the thing I noticed is that it really did seem like he planned for it to happen that way."

  "Don't let him fool you, Mr. Rueben. Mother says he’s gifted at recognizing localized shifting patterns of chance and has the self-confidence to advantageously position himself to reap the greatest benefits. Of course, I don’t know what a lick of that means, but he sure is confident all the time, and that seems to work for him. I sure do wish I had that kind of confidence. Don’t you, Mr. Rueben?"

  "Aw, you can jus
t call me Rube, Max. I ain’t no mister, at least ways not yet. He was a sorcerer when you met him?"

  "Mother says that Quinn's not a sorcerer." Max frowned. "Well, not like me, anyway. I'm not sure what he is. He learned them circles from somewhere. You don’t learn that by sitting in a room making copies of pretty pictures."

  "So where do you think he learned how?"

  "I think he's a changeling," Karen said from the couch. Her eyes were still closed. She fumbled along the floor by the couch with her hand until she found her flask.

  The two men turned to look at her.

  She found the flask, opened her eyes and sat up. She unscrewed it and tipped it up over her mouth. When nothing came out, she flung it away and stood. She walked with a surprising amount of steadiness.

  "He's a changeling. I've been taking notes. Those circles are the hallmarks of fae magicks. And the words he uses to name them." She leaned against the table and pointed at herself with a thumb. "I'm fluent in four out of the six magical languages. And. And! I can tell when I hear the other two. He uses none of them." She looked Rube over from head to toe. She licked the center of her lips. She moved in and sat on his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck.

  Rube frowned and leaned away from her.

  "So, what are you doing, big guy?" she said in a salacious whisper.

  "Karen. You're drunk. Again," Rube said. "Why don't you go sleep it off, huh?"

  Karen sneered and slid off of Rube's lap. "Fine. I'll go find someone who wants to have fun." She staggered toward the door. After a few steps, she gained her footing and walked normally, albeit slower. When she reached the door, she turned around and shouted at the two men, "You two assholes can sit here and jerk each other off for all I care! Fucking dicks!"

  After she'd been gone for a few minutes, Max turned to Rube and said, "I sure do like Ms. Karen, except when she drinks. She reminds me of the second father that Mother brought home."

  Rube just nodded.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Freddy killed the engine on his 1978 C3 Corvette in the parking lot of Family Bowl. It hadn’t taken Rube long to locate one for him. Rube repainted the Corvette from the factory light blue to a silver that matched Freddy’s jacket. The car had the optional side exhaust pipes that could burn your leg if you weren’t careful getting out.

  In Freddy’s opinion, it was the perfect car from the perfect era of humanity. It suited him perfectly. Rube was an all right kid. When he got a little older, Freddy considered turning the boy as a reward.

  Freddy looked at his reflection in the mirror and took the pick to his naturally curly hair one more time. It didn’t do to show up to dinner not looking your best.

  Most vampires turned into sloppy messes over the decades as they stopped connecting to human society. But not Freddy. Freddy knew it was important to keep the look going. He’d learned over the years that his best options for the right clothing were the second-hand shops that took donations. As long as Freddy was around, Disco would never die.

  It was bowling night, so Freddy had gotten properly dressed. He’d found a brown patchwork shirt that went with his brown plaid pants. He’d even gotten out his Florsheim black leather ankle Beatle buckle boots for the evening. Tonight was going to be a good night. Family Bowl had advertised Disco Night, and there was no way that Freddy would miss that.

  On his way past the front of the car, Freddy stopped to polish the front slope of the Corvette. From behind he heard the scrape of a boot on asphalt. From the sound, someone was running as quiet as humanly possible straight at him.

  Whatever else Freddy was, he was still a vampire. Maybe he’d have dinner first and then bowl. The night was looking up.

  Freddy spun to snatch whoever it was by the throat. He liked to lift them up with one hand by the throat. Show his fangs and scare the crap outta whoever this was. Fear and adrenaline made for a heady cocktail.

  Freddy discovered, too late, that the assailant had already ducked down below his reach. They came up from a roll right inside Freddy’s arms. The last thing Freddy felt was the wooden stake plunging into the only functioning organ he had in his body; his heart.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Antonio glared at the witch and the sorcerer as they strolled down the street. They were still dressed from the pagan ritual they had presided over the night before. This meant they looked like most people in downtown Austin as they went in search of their cars in the morning light.

  "We can kill the witch and her Stregga now, Commander," Antonio said.

  There was no response from the other end of the speakerphone.

  "She flaunts her lasciviousness even now," Antonio said. "It is our Lord's day when all good souls are in contemplation of the Lord and his grace, and yet she strides about in revealing clothing."

  There was no signal or sign that the man on the other end heard or cared what Antonio said.

  "Leviticus commands us to put to death witches and warlocks. We must strike now!"

  "Non."

  "But, commander, the Word of our Lord demands that we--"

  "Allontanati dal parlar falso; e non far morir l'innocente ne il giusto; perciocche io non assolvero l'empio," the man said, quoting Exudos twenty-three seven in Italian. His American accent put an odd emphasis on the Italian words.

  The pair separated as the witch walked into a restaurant. The man, Quinn, indicated that he would be inside in a moment. He apparently had some business to attend to over the phone.

  "Your mission is to observe and report. When the time is right, you will smite the wicked with the fury of your righteousness.

  Antonio sniffed. He and the Stregga had almost come to blows at the Vatican. Antonio had gained the measure of that man and knew that he would easily defeat him in a duel. His shield would resist what evil magic the sorcerer could bring against him, and his sword would mete out the Lord’s Justice.

  Antonio squeezed the steering wheel and thought more about how he would bring the slut-witch to her knees in his service. Yes, they would be punished for their wickedness.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Quinn watched the employee entrance to the Harry Ransom Center while he sat in the car. He finished off his third sports drink. He also did his best to not look at Elly. He had done things like the ritual last night before, but on a much smaller scale. During the other rituals, Quinn had gotten a sense of what he should do or a single clarifying image. But last night had been different. He had felt the presence of a god, Bacchus manifest in the party. Bacchus had granted him a vision of what he needed to see. The vision had shown him a specific man. His name was Gary, and he was a guard at the center. He'd seen a woman that was dying in a bed. Quinn had also been shown piles of empty medication bottles and unpaid bills.

  He cleared his throat and coughed a bit. He reached in the back for one more of the sports drinks that he'd bought this morning.

  "Those things really don't help," Elly said. "It's just sugar water. If you want to restore the balance to your body, you'll need to mediate and then--"

  "Let me guess, I perform a centuries-old cleansing ritual to clear out my god-channels?"

  "No, smart ass," Elly said from behind sunglasses. "Have a high carb breakfast with protein. Like the breakfast taco's I got you. Also the salsa. And lots and lots of coffee. The carbs and the protein will help your body deal with all that wine you drank, and the coffee will wake you up.”

  "Oh. Okay, sure." Quinn shifted around and put the sports drink down. He pulled out one of the breakfast tacos that Elly had gotten him. He looked at the foil-wrapped tacos. He pulled out one of the small plastic cups filled with red and green salsas. He asked, "How spicy are these?"

  Elly quirked an eyebrow at him.

  "No, really, I have a sensitive stomach. Which one is spicy, the green one or the red one?"

  Elly quirked the other eyebrow at him. After a moment she said, "Try the green one."

  Quinn opened the small cup with the green sauce. He gave it a sniff
and recoiled. "This smells really spicy."

  "Then try the red one," Elly said. "But you're not going to find better breakfast tacos than in Austin. I think they got invented here."

  "Really?"

  Elly nodded and said, "I think so. If not, they should have been because Austin has the best breakfast tacos in the world. And just dump the salsa on there. You'll be fine."

  Quinn sniffed the green stuff again and shrugged. He dumped the small cup on top of the egg, potato, and cheese combination. He folded the tortilla back and took a huge bite.

  And immediately regretted it.

  The Verde Salsa burned like green lava. He froze in mid-chew, unsure of what to do about the volcano that had suddenly formed in his mouth. He looked at Elly to see if she was watching him regret having used the salsa. She was. She grinned at him with a delight that said she knew it was hot and dared him to spit it out.

  Quinn quickly finished chewing and immediately reached for the sports drink he'd set down. After drinking half the bottle very quickly, he smacked his lips and sighed. "Ah, that was good. I'm so full now. So full." Quinn quickly rolled up the remaining tacos into the white bag she'd given him and set it on the floor. He patted his burning stomach in satisfaction. Then drank some more.

  Elly laughed at him and went back to watching the Harry Ransom Center.

  Quinn cleared his throat and looked out the front window. After a few moments, he said, "So. About last night."

  Elly held up a hand to quiet him. She never took her eyes off the employee entrance of the Harry Ransom Center while she spoke. "Last night was a ritual. I'm a witch. My mother is a witch. My father is a warlock. I have been to dozens of things like last night."

  "Dozens?"

  "Dozens. And let's be real clear about this: you and me? We're not a thing. Last night was a job. I'm an undercover federal agent that made sure you didn't burn everyone in that building with a half-assed ritual to summon a god." Elly put a lot of energy into the dismissive tone. Most men raised outside the covens couldn't handle the thought of her being in the rituals. Especially when that number went to double digits. "So, I'm not sitting over here thinking about how I want to run my fingers through your hair, what your favorite color is, or if you like to take long walks on the beach or whatever. Got it?"