The Fiddler's Dagger

by W H Lock

  "I didn't steal from--"

  "Karen did. I asked the Art Crimes division of the FBI about Max. Did you know they think he’s responsible for fifteen percent of the fakes hanging in galleries in the US? He has defrauded museums and charitable institutions of millions of dollars."

  "Well, I mean, that's not the same--"

  “Eno? He ripped off a widow selling her dead husband’s rare coin collection to pay for a new roof. This may shock you, but the cashier’s check Eno used was forged and she didn’t get a new roof!”

  “I don’t think that’s quite—“

  "Yes, it is, Quinn. How much did you get from Gartrell? Do you intend to hand that over as a part of the investigation and returned to him or did you just steal over a million dollars?"

  "Hey, he deserved--"

  "NO! No one deserves that, Quinn. Gartrell may be a complete bag of shit, but being a racist bag of shit isn’t illegal. What about his family? Do you know about them? Are they dependent on him for support? You have no idea what you’re doing to people. You are the most talented sorcerer I've ever met, and I've met a few. You could make the world a better place but what do you do?"

  Quinn looked at her wide-eyed,

  "You make it measurably worse." Elly turned and walked away from Quinn.

  "Hey!" Quinn said after a moment.

  "What?"

  "You don't know where I come from," Quinn said as he caught up to her. "Where I'm from, I'm the nice guy. I don't trap people in pocket dimensions for a hundred years and let them back out into the world after everything they knew and loved has crumbled to dust. I don't let them bargain for eternal life and make them age all at once. I was given to Hell as part of a rental agreement. I was forced to fight in the Pits of Hell for entertainment. So don't tell me I'm a bad person! I've seen real evil, Elly. And I'm nowhere near it."

  Elly turned back. She burned with an icy fury and said, "No, you're worse than evil. You've seen all that, and you still steal from people. You know the difference between right and wrong yet you still choose to do wrong. Because you think it's fun. You're right. You're not evil. You're worse ."

  Elly turned and walked out the door, leaving Quinn by himself. After a moment of stunned silence, Quinn walked outside. Rube had pulled the car around to the front of the building. Eno was already sitting in the front of the car with Rube. Elly held the car door open for Quinn. Without a word, she shut it behind him. Rube put the car in gear and drove away. Elly didn't wave goodbye as they left.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Quinn sat in the car's back seat. He shifted a little to get more comfortable. When that didn't work, he sighed with annoyance and shifted again. He fidgeted around like a small boy by moving the satchel down by his feet and shifting his weight. Then he moved the satchel to be up on the seat with him, and he leaned against the door. Soon, he moved again and put the satchel on the floor but on top of his feet. After a few more moments, he set the satchel back up on the seat next to him. He unbuckled his seat belt and moved up to lean on the front seats of the car as Rube drove them back across town. He rested his head on top of his folded hands and stared out the front of the car.

  After a moment Eno asked, "What's up, boss?"

  Quinn shook his head with a frown.

  Rube and Eno looked at each other and shrugged. If Quinn didn’t want to talk about it, neither did they.

  After a while of riding in silence, Quinn said, "I don't know. What do you think?"

  The two men looked at each other out of the sides of their eyes and volunteered nothing.

  "Do you think I'm a bad guy?"

  Neither man answered.

  "I mean, I'm not a bad guy, right? I don't like… I mean, I don't go around drugging people, stashing them in a hotel bathtub filled with ice and leaving a note on their chest about how I stole their kidneys. It’s just… I mean…."

  Rube and Eno kept their eyes straight ahead.

  "I mean, I get it, right? Like, I get involved in a few shady things, like two or maybe three. Three things that are a little shady. I’ll give you shady. A little shady. But overall? I mean? Really? I'm not eating children so how bad can I be? And it’s all a game. People love a good card trick. I do card tricks, just on a bigger scale. People are entertained by what I’m doing."

  The two men in front of the car nodded.

  Quinn settled back into the rear seat of the car. He looked out the window and watched Savannah pass. After a moment of reflection, he said, "I'm not a bad man. I'm not." He met Rube's eyes in the rearview mirror. "I'm not bad."

  "Hey, boss, do you mind if I ask you a question?" Rube asked over his shoulder.

  "Sure, Rube."

  "How does magic work?"

  Without missing a moment, Quinn said, "I have no idea."

  "Well, Karen says magic is a series of quantum interactions accessible at the organic level and that you exploit those interactions to induce multiple refracting extrusions that appear to defy the natural order but in fact reinforce it."

  "Wow," Quinn said. "That sounds complicated. That sounds like a magician."

  "Elly says magic is working in coordination with the natural and supernatural powers of the world to create results that achieve a harmonious balance that build mutually beneficial relationships."

  "That sounds like a witch, all right."

  "But those things don't sound like they can exist together. I mean, like Eno here can turn into a freaking great big wolfman, how does that work?"

  "The spirit of Fenris grants me the power,” Eno said without hesitation.

  "See? But Karen says werewolves are using specific and localized refracting extruding algorithms that allow them to alter their shapes and move mass to different parts of the body. Elly says each werewolf has a wolf spirit that cohabitates the body and they can take on each other’s traits."

  “That’s not true at all. It is by Fenris’s grace that I can take on his form.” Eno dismissed both explanations with a flick of his hand.

  "Yeah, it doesn't make any sense to me either," Quinn said. "What do I know about magic? You don't need all the things they say you need. Like chalk made by girl orphans in the light of a blue moon to inscribe a circle on slate harvested from a lightless mine in Cork on a midsummer's night? You don’t need any of that. You just need some sidewalk and some chalk. And need it harder than the rest of the world needs it not to be."

  "What?" Rube said.

  Eno turned to look at Quinn, who was still staring out at the city.

  "You know that feeling when you're a kid and wake up in the middle of the night and you really have to pee? You want your mom to come and turn on the light for you but she won't? She'll just tell you to go pee and go back to bed by yourself?"

  Rube and Eno nodded.

  "But you're too scared to get out of bed because you know something will snatch you up and eat you? Then you reach down inside yourself, screw your courage up and make yourself get out of bed, anyway. Even though you know you will get eaten by the monster under the bed. That feeling?"

  The two men in the front nodded.

  "Well, magic is like that, but you reach down further. Further than your guts, than your feet, further than you think is possible and you need the light to turn on. You need the light to be on more than the world needs the light to be off." Quinn looked at Eno and Rube, and with a snap of his fingers he said, "And then it turns on."

  The three men rode in silence.

  "That's what I think magic really is. The rituals, the wands, and the squared circles; they’re just ways to focus your need."

  "Okay," was all that Rube had to say.

  He pulled the car to a stop in front of Gartrell's house. Quinn got out with a nod to the two men. He turned and knocked on Eno's window.

  "You're sure you will hear me, right?"

  "Pretty sure," Eno said.

  "Pretty sure? I don't want to go in there with pretty sure."

  “Leave the front door open.” Eno shrugged.
"I'll be able to hear you. Don't worry."

  "You're sure?"

  Eno thought about it for a while and said, "Yeah. It smells like he just shampooed his rugs, so if I don't hear you, I'll be able to smell that you shit your pants. How about that?"

  "That doesn't help," Quinn said. He sighed, squared up and hoisted the yellow leather satchel to his shoulder. Quinn held the door to the car open and looked back inside. Once he had caught Rube’s eye, Quinn said, “Make sure to get Max out of here. Things will get very messy, and he doesn’t do well with messy.”

  Rube nodded and turned back to drive.

  “And Rube,” Quinn said.

  Rube turned back around.

  “Make sure you get away too, okay? This won’t be a place for normal people.”

  When he turned around, Quinn was the smiling dealer of dubiously sourced antiquities. Quinn pushed his glasses up his nose and walked through the iron gate and wards that surrounded the Gartrell house. He knocked on the brown door and waited.

  Del opened the door and said, "It’s about time you got here, poppet. I was worrying you'd skipped off with the gold."

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Nothing had changed in the Gartrell House. Everything was where it was supposed to be. But something was different. Something had changed while he was gone. To Quinn, it seemed as if the house seethed with anger.

  "Where's Gartrell," he asked.

  "He's upstairs. He can’t keep his eyes open," Del said with a wink. "Let's go. We have little time."

  Quinn frowned as he followed her through the house to the hidden basement room where Gartrell kept all of his treasures. Quinn's ears popped as they passed through the second set of wards that enshrouded the hidden room. Again nothing had changed, but everything had.

  “Del?”

  “What, dear?”

  Quinn waited until she turned around to ask, “Do you think I’m a bad person?”

  “What?”

  “Am I a bad person?”

  “Poppet, what kind of question is that? Why does it matter?”

  Quinn shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just…am I a bad person? I don’t think that I am. Am I?”

  "That is easily the dumbest thing I’ve heard you say. It doesn’t matter if you’re good or bad. What matters is how much money you have. Now, the question you should be asking yourself: have I figured out how do deal with that thing yet?" Del pointed at the pedestal.

  Quinn bit his lip for a second and nodded. He said, "Well, this place is clean, and Gartrell isn't the sort to do the work himself."

  Del rolled her eyes and said, "Tell me about it."

  Quinn gave her a sympathetic look. "Rube thinks that thing," he pointed at the pedestal and continued, "has a command word so the maid can come in here to dust and clean. Gartrell says the word. They come in. Clean. And everything's fine."

  "That sounds like a guess, poppet. Are you willing to guess on the opinion of a high school drop-out mechanic from Tennessee?”

  “Mississippi,” Quinn said.

  “What?”

  “Rube. He’s from Mississippi. And I think he’s got a good idea.”

  “I think it's a bad idea. It's not worth it. Tell you what, my love; what say we pack it in now, eh?" She closed in, running her fingers through his unkempt hair. "We leave the dagger, the gold, all of it behind and go to my place in France. We can have our breakfasts in bed, fuck until lunch, and then hunt for dinner in the afternoon." She whispered the last into Quinn's ear, wrapping her other arm around his chest.

  Quinn turned and looked at her. The overripe plumpness that Gartrell had liked was gone, leaving only behind the woman that Quinn had loved. She was tight, lean, and more than a little dangerous. Her ruddy brown hair was short on top and shaved on the sides. He reached up and traced the tattoo on the side of her head.

  Quinn knew that he could do it. He could just walk away. Leave the gold to the team. He and Del, his first love, could live in luxury in her small castle in France. It was everything they’d talked about when they were young. They would have money, servants, and anything they could imagine. It could all be his, right now. All he had to do was say yes and walk away.

  "I can't do that, my lovely," he said. "I have to get that dagger. It's important."

  "How can that be more important than you and I living happily ever after?" Del pouted at Quinn.

  Quinn wanted to take her in his arms and kiss that pout away. Instead, he said, "Things have changed."

  Quinn turned away from Del and walked to the dagger. He set the satchel on the small table nearby. He opened the hidden compartment in the back of the satchel. He pulled out the real forgery and took a hard look at it. He held it next to the real one without touching it or the pedestal.

  They were impossible to tell apart. Max had outdone himself. The dagger was a perfect replica of the real thing. Even holding the fake one in his hand, Quinn had a hard time knowing which dagger was the real one and which one was the fake.

  "What if, now hear me out, what if I switch it now?" Quinn didn't look at Del. He rubbed the fingertips of his free hand together as if he were warming them. “If Gartrell’s asleep, we make the switch and he never knows.”

  Del sighed in exasperation and said, "Again with guessing, poppet? That never works out."

  "What are you talking about, Del? I'm the world's best guesser." Quinn could feel the beast inside the pedestal pressing against its constraints. It was waiting for him to break the seals. It wanted him to do it. The beast wanted to kill anything and everything.

  Quinn heard the soft click of a gun hammer being pulled back. Sometimes it's the smallest sounds that make the most noise.

  Without turning around or raising his hands, Quinn said, "You're Renard, aren't you?"

  "A Kitsune named Fox the Fox? You have to admit, darling, the joke just writes itself. "

  Quinn chuckled. The joke did write itself. He half turned to look at her over his shoulder. She had a small pistol pointed unwaveringly at his head.

  “I should have known. You knew about the dagger and the mark in the car that first night. I hadn’t told you anything yet, but you knew. You knew everything. It was all right there." Quinn shook his head. “And I missed it.”

  Del frowned and took a half step forward. "Step away from the dagger or I end this. I don't want to, my love, but I will."

  "Gartrell's dead, right?"

  "Of course. He was a loathsome toad. I consider ending him to be pro bono work for the world. Now, why don't you sit over there whilst I consider what we'll be doing next?"

  "You're not going to shoot me and take the dagger for yourself?"

  "Darling, if I wanted you dead I would have done it some time ago. For once, this isn't about you, poppet. I need to consider how I'll be transporting the dagger and where it will be going." She gestured with the gun for Quinn to take a seat on one of the low overstuffed benches around the room.

  "Who's paying you to steal it? Are you working with Oscar? I bet I can get double what you're getting if we work together," Quinn said as he took a seat.

  "Dearest, I'm not stealing this for money." She paused and thought. "Well, I am well paid, but I'm not stealing this. I’m on retainer. I'm making sure that no one steals it. My employer was very emphatic on that point, you see." She pulled a cell phone from her back and looked at it. She sighed again. "Absolutely no signal down here. If I hadn't killed him already, I'd shoot him now for this. All right then, let's go. Upstairs with you."

  Quinn stood up and held up his hands. Del stepped back around to give him plenty of space to walk up through the door. They strolled up the short stairs from the hidden room, up out through Gartrell's study, and back up into the main house.

  "Why did you kill Freddy?" Quinn asked over his shoulder.

  "He was a vampire, dear, he was already dead. I just made the body stop moving."

  "Yeah, but why?"

  "Because vampires are gross. Because Freddy was
the sloppiest grease I'd ever seen. He refused to clean up after himself when he ate and when he was working. Sloppiness. There's no excuse for it. Proper greasing means cleaning up on the way out. Makes it easier to touch them again. He relied on that gaze of his to do the work for him. I did you a favor, honestly."

  "Grossness and work habits aside, why kill him? There wasn't a reason to do that."

  "Look, poppet, I know that you take these things very personally, but it wasn't. I swear. I'd been sent to protect the dagger. I discovered, easily because of his sloppiness, he was asking around town about Gartrell and his house. I didn’t know who he was working for. Freddy wasn’t the sort to pull something on his own. He doesn’t have that kind of motivation. If it makes you feel better, I ambushed him as he was about to feed on a lovely little family out for dinner and bowling. It was a charming little boy, reminded me of you, now that I think about it. He and his parents were about to have dinner together and go bowling. But, I knew whoever he was working with would show up. So I waited. Imagine my surprise when you and your little team poked around? Now be quiet, dear. Mommy has to do her job. Once I have the dagger in a secure location, we'll take the private jet back to France. You’ll love France this time of year."

  Quinn said and looked at the ground. "I can't let you do that, Del. I need to get that dagger."

  "Poppet, I don't see how you can do that. I'm stronger, faster, and better armed than you are. You seem put out. We can wait in the kitchen if you'd rather. You can make yourself a nice snack!"

  "Eno!" Quinn shouted. He cupped his hand up by his mouth and shouted again, "She killed Freddy."

  There was a moment of silence as Del looked at Quinn with her head cocked to the side in surprise. Then the anger and understanding set in. She set her jaw with a sneer and raised her small pistol to shoot Quinn in the head. But the front door exploded as a massive werewolf rampaged into Gartrell's house. Before Quinn could take a breath and duck, Del spun to face Eno and emptied her gun into his chest.

  If Eno felt the tight grouping of bullets in his chest, he didn’t show it. The wounds bled freely as he charged down the hall. He roared as he leapt at Del, his fanged mouth open and clawed hands out in front to catch her. Then something happened that Quinn had never seen. Del changed into a fox woman. She ducked under Eno's leaping charge, raking his side with her black-clawed hand as he flew over her head.