The Fiddler's Dagger

by W H Lock

  Elly shook her head. She ignored the shouting going on behind them. The couple ran for a nearby car. The driver was standing in front of the car while he watched the magical battle happening. They said nothing as they jumped into his car and slammed the doors shut.

  Elly threw the car into reverse. She sped away from the battle happening in front of them now. Without effort, she threw the car into a one hundred eighty degrees turn, the tires smoking and squealing in protest, as the car spun. Without losing momentum, Elly threw the car into drive. They sped off into the darkness, leaving the four Templars to fight a thing from Quinn's imagination.

  Chapter Thirty

  Quinn tossed the satchel containing the Oera Linda on the table. The stiff yellow leather bag spun to a stop in front of Max. The quiet older man slid the satchel closer and undid the clasps. He peeked inside and nodded.

  "Whooooeeee," Max said. "That sure is a nice-looking book you found there, Mr. Quinn." Max took the primitive-looking book out and paged through it. He would occasionally stop and run his fingers lightly down a page as if he were feeling the text written on it.

  “Everything go okay,” Karen asked.

  Quinn shrugged casually and shook his head. He looked over at Elly. She shrugged with an equal amount of casualness.

  "It's just we heard a demon or something got summoned in Austin," Karen said looking between the two.

  "We didn't see anything like that," Quinn said.

  "No," Elly said.

  "I think we would have noticed if someone had summoned a demon. That's kind of a big deal." Quinn looked at Karen with a sincere expression of slightly confused honesty. He asked, "So, where do we stand on things?"

  "Well, now that I have the original interior pages to look at, it won’t take me long at all to get this done for you, Mr. Quinn," Max said.

  "That's fantastic. I’ve got to get this book back to Austin before tomorrow evening. We’ll need to take pictures of the pages so you can work on the copy without the original. I need to drop it off before the last pickup at a package store. The club. Alright! What do we know about that club?"

  Everyone turned to look at Del, who was looking at her painted fingernails. After a moment she looked up as if she had waited until she was certain everyone was looking at her. She smiled like a whispered promise. With a stage magician flick of her hand, she produced an antique-looking skeleton key. It was a golden key with delicate filigreed curls and turns.

  After a moment Quinn asked, "What's that?"

  "This, my dear is the very key to your question."

  "So... it unlocks a door or something? I'm not getting it," Quinn said.

  "This, poppet, is a key to the Stephens Club. It unlocks the member’s only elevator that takes you to the upper story. And that, my dear, is where our target shall be taking his dinner tomorrow night."

  Everyone looked around at each other in a moment of shock.

  "How did you get that?" Karen asked, leaning in to get a closer look at the key.

  "When one does one's job properly, such questions are unnecessary," Del said in response without looking at Karen. She made the key disappear with another stage magician's flourish.

  Karen ground her teeth and leaned back in her chair.

  Quinn fired off a quick pair of snapping finger guns. "Great! How sure are you he will be there tomorrow night?"

  "It's Thursday," Eno said. "He always walks to the club from his house for dinner on Thursdays."

  “How long is the walk?”

  Eno shrugged and said, “Not long. Like maybe two blocks? It’s the large building on the other side of his end of the park.”

  "Well, that's sorted out easily enough," Quinn said with a hopeful note in his voice and a sharp clap of his hands. His magical circle flared to life with a triumphant trumpet blast. He snapped his fingers and dismissed the circle with a wave. Quinn did a fast set of finger guns at Max. "I'll need the book in the mail by tonight at the latest. Max, you can make that happen, right?"

  Max shrugged, "Well, that depends."

  "On what?"

  "If you want it to be exactly the same, well that will take me a week or so. But if you want it mostly right, a few days."

  "We don't have a week, Max. Take pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Make it happen."

  "Mother says we can make garbage happen in twenty-four hours if that's what you want."

  "It's not that complicated, Max," Quinn said with a glare at the older man. "If you can't make it happen, get Karen to help you. She's fantastic at actually doing her job."

  “Okay,” Max said with a mumble.

  "Now. Del, you're taking me out to dinner and telling me more about this club."

  "Of course, darling. I know this excellent Japanese place on the north side of the city. They have the best sushi in the state. You'll love it."

  Del and Quinn linked arms and walked out together. Everyone else looked around at each other, each one with unsaid things on their faces.

  "Oh, I hate her so much," Karen said in the silence.

  "Oh, Ms. Delilah has mellowed as she's gotten older," Max said. "You should have seen her when they were younger. Mother always called her a real firecracker."

  Elly raised her eyebrows in surprise. "That's mellowed?"

  Max nodded and said, "Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have to read Mother her night time stories and then get to work on making a copy of that pretty book Mr. Quinn so thoughtfully brought back."

  With no one noticing, Midnight the raven dropped from the rafters of the empty retail space and flew out the door to follow Quinn and Del.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Twenty-four hours later, Quinn walked into the doors of the Stephens Club. Right away, he knew two things for sure. The first is that there was a lot of money floating in the pockets of the patrons of this club. Not new money that had a sharp sense of business but old money. Generational money that thought the world just worked that way for everyone and those who didn't have money were just being lazy.

  The outside world was cut off from the club by wrought-iron gates. The small front yard was a master class in well-maintained topiary. The building itself was straight from the Antebellum South. It was made of white stone. There was a sweeping stone staircase that let up to two wooden black doors with brass fixtures. Every window on the second story had vestigial balconies.

  The side of the club had a small carport that connected to the street with a small brick driveway. Town cars could pull up to the club and be protected by the small roof from the weather. A neatly attired doorman, a middle-aged black man, stood waiting by the double doors.

  Whenever a car would pull forward, a young black man dressed in the colors of the club would dash forward to hold the car door open for the passengers. He would close it after they exited the car, standing deferentially to the side with his head down and hand touching his cap. At the door to the club, the elder doorman would lift his cap and duck his head with a wide and congenial grin. Invariably the people getting out of the car walked past these employees as if they weren't there at all.

  "Just the place we should have dinner every night," Del said as she slid out of the car with Quinn's help. She moved in to squeeze Quinn's arm. "I can taste the money, darling." Del growled in a feral delight.

  Quinn tipped the young man that opened their door and nodded to the doorman as they passed.

  The inside was dark hardwood floors, white plaster walls, and dried plants. A host waited at a podium on the other side of the door. To the left and the right were large dining rooms that were full of quietly chatting diners. A middle-aged white man, his muscles having migrated south to his waist, stood against the wall in one of the dining rooms silently watching over the staff of young black waiters and waitresses deliver food to the diners.

  The host, another white man but this one much younger and far more handsome stood behind the podium. He cleared his throat and said, "I'm sorry, but we're closed tonight for a member-only event--"
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  He stopped cold when Del produced the golden key with a flourish.

  "My dear," Del said in a perfect Georgian drawl. "I believe we'll have a seat in the private room upstairs."

  The handsome young man dropped the condescending grin from his face and stood a little straighter. “Of course,” he said.

  He abandoned his station behind the podium and led Quinn and Del over a set of elevator doors just around the corner from the podium. The doors were covered in a brass relief of a rising sun. The host pulled a small key and unlocked a small gilded panel door where there would normally be a set of buttons. However, there was no button waiting for them to press but a keyhole.

  Without missing a beat, Del stepped forward and inserted her key into the hole. With confidence, she turned the key. She looked back and smiled at Quinn as there was a soft ding, and the doors opened. Without looking at the young host, the couple stepped into the elevator. The doors closed with a soft hush.

  Quinn could feel the magic of the elevator engage as the doors closed. Quinn worked his jaw to balance out the pressures in his inner ear from the magical fields as they pushed against him like the air before a storm arrived.

  The elevator doors opened to another waiting room. This one was equipped with an oak-paneled bar that ran across the length of the room. Bottles of various expensive liquors were arranged along the back wall.

  Behind the bottles wasn't the usual mirror. This was another brass relief of a sunrise. However, this one had more detail. The golden sun rose behind an imperial plantation mansion. Cotton fields surrounded the mansion. In the fields were African slaves. In the shade of a massive oak tree, the plantation overseers lounged on comfortable chairs and held tall glasses of refreshments.

  Unlike below, they reserved the left side for sit down dining but the right was a balcony that looked out over the city. Quinn was about to suggest to Del that they take up a spot at the bar to wait for Gartrell when a few of the staff walked by.

  Like downstairs, they were all young and black. However, there were two key differences to the employee's Quinn had already seen. The first was that these employees were wearing leather collars strapped tightly around their necks. They were two-inch thick brown leather straps, held by a bulky iron buckle locked in place by rivets. The second difference was that their eyes were wide and unseeing as they walked by in a trance.

  It was at this moment that Quinn knew the second thing about the Stephens Club. He hated it with every fiber of his being. He ground his teeth and tried to cover the sneer forming on his face with a cough.

  "Darling," Del said with a light touch on his shoulder. "Why don't you go wait out on the terrace? I will fetch us some drinks before dinner."

  Quinn nodded. Without a word to Del, he marched across the central room and out the French doors. He felt the cool night air as he stepped out onto the balcony. He took a deep breath and unclenched his fists.

  He'd seen collars like this before. When Quinn had been traded to Hell by the Court of Dreams, he'd even briefly worn one. They suborned the wearer's will. Inside you could be screaming and clawing at your throat, but on the outside, you were docile. The perfect slave.

  When he opened his eyes, Quinn was impressed. He didn’t see what he had expected. He saw the city of Savannah laid out before him. It wasn’t the sprawling modern city with its carefully crafted southern charm he’d been living in the last few days. This was a view into the past.

  Horse-drawn carriages moved along the brick-lined city streets. White men and women strolled along in suits and lace dresses while black servants trailed behind them at a respectful distance. This view was of the city as it must have been before the Civil War.

  Professionally, Quinn had to admit that it was a fantastic illusion. It masked the walls that surrounded the terrace. It matched the time of day and weather outside the building. It even masked the sounds so they were era-appropriate. It looked and sounded as if he were standing in antebellum Savannah.

  Quinn knew a third thing about the Stephens Club. When he was done humiliating Oscar and Gwen for what they did to him, and when he proved to Nelson that it had been a con all along, he'd come back here and clean the place out. He'd take every penny the club had, every ounce of gold that its members had, and he'd leave the place an empty husk. And then he'd grind the building to dust.

  More importantly, he'd destroy every single one of those collars and this illusion.

  "Hello, Quinn," a woman said from behind him.

  Quinn's blood went cold at the sound of the woman's voice. It was a voice that was still in his dreams. It was a voice that Quinn didn’t want to hear right now.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Quinn stood still at the sound of Gwen's voice. He fought the urge to spin around to see if she really was behind him or if it was an illusion.

  "Quinn?"

  Quinn slowly turned. As he turned, he pushed the anger and the rage down inside. When he looked up, he smiled his mega-watt smile.

  Gwen was dressed in a white cocktail dress with gloves and simple white shoes. Her hair was perfectly done, pulled back away from her face in a charming sweep down her left shoulder. She looked at her feet for a moment.

  "Hey, Gwen. I am surprised to see you here," Quinn said.

  "I came to see how you were doing," she said.

  "I'm fine. Everything's fine," Quinn said too quickly. "Shouldn't you be with Oscar now? He usually likes an audience for whatever acrobatic nonsense he's going to pull. Or are you the distraction?" Quinn looked over his shoulder in case Oscar was somehow dangling in the air behind him. He shrugged and turned around.

  "It's not like that, Quinn," Gwen said with a sad smile. She took a step towards him with her hand reached out.

  Quinn took a step back.

  Gwen let the smile go with sadness. She said, "I'm sorry."

  "For what?"

  "For not telling you everything. For leaving you."

  Quinn half shrugged and shook his head. "Tell me what? Tell me that we did a good job, but it was over now? I knew that. It was just a job. It ended. Nothing else."

  Gwen shook her head and looked down again. Her golden hair fell in front of her face. "I wanted to tell you. But."

  "But what?"

  "But I couldn't bring you with," she said. "I needed to stay focused. And with you...that's hard to do." Gwen looked up, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. She pushed her hair back up behind her ear.

  "Stealing a dagger isn't hard, Gwen. I'm about to do it." Quinn shrugged again.

  Gwen deflated a little and then took a deep breath to puff herself back up.

  "I'm not talking about that," she said.

  "What else is there? I'm going to steal the dagger before Oscar does. I'll sell it and make more money than either of you could ever imagine. That's all this is about. That’s all this was ever about. Money."

  "No," she said. "I told you before. I'm going to save the world, Quinn. And I can't do that if I'm distracted by," she trailed off as she swayed her hips and gestured at Quinn.

  "And you're going to do that by hanging out with a bunch of racists?" Quinn jerked his thumb back at the people socializing inside the club as enslaved workers served them dinner.

  She looked back at Quinn with a very serious and calm expression.

  "No," she said. "I am going to save the world by bringing back God. He will see us and love us again."

  "Really? Stealing the skull of a saint, an old lantern, and a dagger are going to do that for you?"

  She nodded emphatically. "It was given to me to perform this amazing task. It was not given to me to question the tools. Once I have the dagger, and the right time and place, I will use it to slice open the skin of the world."

  "And then what?"

  She looked at Quinn with that vacant and self-assured stare of the zealous, "I will let the Unnamed Ones that ran from the Word and the Light of God back into this world. They will consume those who are unworthy," She nodded to the room
behind them. "When God hears our cries, he will see Those From Beyond. He will save us once more."

  "What?"

  "Yes. Once Those Who Will Not Be Named enter the universe, they will scour it of the unworthy and the worthy alike. When God hears the piteous cries of his children, he will drive the Unnamed Ones from the world once more, and we shall know that he loves us."

  Quinn stared at Gwen. She trembled with emotion. Her eyes burned as she stared at some scene only she could see. She smiled. It was a smile of joy as she pictured the end of the world.

  "The unworthy will burn at the fury of his love. The worthy will be cleansed and made whole."

  Quinn stood there in silence.

  "That's why I've come to ask you to stop. If you steal this dagger, you will be going against the Will of God. That is the greatest sin of all. I want you to stand with me when God cleanses the world of this filth," she waved her hand at the club around them. "Go back to LA, Quinn. I've kept my apartment by the peer. You know the place, where we were…together. Wait for me there, and when I am done, we can be together."

  Quinn felt as if the air had been sucked out of the room and a rug had been pulled out from underneath them at the same time. He had one startling and singularity revelation: this wasn't a game. She wasn't in this for the money. Gwen was going to destroy the world.

  Then Quinn had a second and even more terrifying thought: Nelson had been right all along.

  "Wait for me there, and we will live in God's Grace for eternity, Quinn." Her eyes were far off, looking at a future only she could see.

  Quinn shook his head and tried to clear the confusion in his mind. He took a step forward and held out his hand, "Gwen, no. This is a bad idea. Honey, no, we can't--"

  Quinn was interrupted by the door opening and Del's voice cutting the through the air.