by Alex Rivers
“Did he have an opportunity?”
I thought about last night. Two drunken visits to the bathroom came to mind, as well as five minutes when I had nodded off on one of the chairs. “Yeah, several.”
She shook her head. “I find it hard to believe. He seems like… a good guy.”
“Who, then?”
She didn’t answer.
“If he thought it would save his sister, he would take it, even if he was a good guy,” I said. “Besides, both of us know that supposedly good guys turn out bad.” I was exhausted from my earlier meltdown. I wished I could curl on the floor and go to sleep. But I couldn’t.
“What are you going to do?” Sinead asked.
I stood up, placing the empty mug on the desk. My body felt shaky, and the feeling of dread still clung to my gut, but hiding here would only make things worse. “I’m going to get the crystal back.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
It’s weird how sometimes holding a gun can inspire confidence. I’d been dreading this moment since I’d left the offices of HHT on my way to Kane’s office. But, in front of his door, I pulled my gun from my backpack, and felt resolve harden my nerves. I tried the doorknob.
The door was locked.
Compared to a dragon’s safe, this lock was child’s play, and I had it open in less than three minutes. Kane’s office, though empty, smelled like Kane. It brought back memories of the night before, of his lips on mine, his hand tracing my back, sliding downward.
I crushed those memories in anger, reminded myself how Kane had looked when I’d opened the box.
Is this the Yliaster crystal? Is there a soul inside?
I searched the office, checking the scattered papers on his desk, opening and closing drawers, looking for a clue to his whereabouts. Had he left already? Gone to New York? He could have gone last night, after the party, dragon scale and crystal in his pocket.
I could talk to Isabel. She could probably locate him. I’d seen her find a man using nothing more than his hat, a pendulum, and a map.
She’d need something that belonged to Kane. I glanced at the ashtray on the table, overflowing with stubs. Would that be enough? Probably not. She’d ask for something more personal.
I began tossing the office again. The desk drawers seemed to contain nothing more than random stationery, a week-old newspaper, and a receipt for two bottles of scotch. The papers on the desk were a mess. Some of them were related to our burglary—a photo of Ddraig Goch’s mansion, a diagram of the runes that protected the vault’s safe, several sketches of the circle Kane had used to teleport us. There was other stuff that meant nothing to me—a police report about a man who died of an overdose in New York; a hospital bill dated last month for someone named Georgia Baker; a note in his own handwriting that said She has no clue, the word “no” underlined three times. Was this note about me? I got the sense that it was, a fragment of Kane’s thoughts. What did it refer to? To the fact that he had planned to steal the crystal all along?
I went through the drawers a third time, pulling each one out, looking behind them.
The second drawer had a small nylon bag taped to the back. I tore the tape, removing the bag, holding it up to the light. I recognized it almost instantly. It used to contain children’s dreams. I had sold it to Ronald. I remembered seeing Kane there that night. What had he been doing there? It was nearly empty now. Had Kane used it?
I was staring at the bag, trying to think, when I heard footsteps. I drew my gun quietly and aimed it straight at the door, leaning against the desk, waiting.
A key scraped at the lock, but the door was unlocked and opened as soon as the key twisted. Kane gaped at it, confused, and for a moment didn’t even see me. Then his eyes rose and met my gun barrel.
“Step in, close the door. Slowly,” I said.
“Lou, what—”
“Do it. Now. Don’t talk.”
His eyes narrowed, morphing to a dark black. His stare did not waver. This was a man who had faced guns before. He closed the door behind him.
I kicked the chair over to him. It tumbled to the floor, clattering. “Sit down.”
He picked up the chair and sat on it. Then his hand went to his pocket.
“Don’t!”
“I was just going for my cigarettes,” he said. His voice was chilly.
“You can do without, for once. Those things can kill you, remember?”
“Okay. What’s going on?”
“Where is the crystal?”
“The crystal?”
He seemed genuinely taken aback. But I’d seen liars who could convince you of anything. Hell, my best friend was one. It didn’t matter. If there’s a person no one can lie to for long, it’s an alchemist.
I shoved my hand into my pocket, and retrieved a copper vial. It was the truth serum I had brewed before we knew that Maximillian Fuchs was a vampire. I tossed it over to him.
“Drink that.”
“No offense, but I don’t think so.”
“Do it, or I’ll shoot you.”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know me, Kane Underwood. You don’t know what I’m capable of. The potion is a truth serum, nothing more. Drink it.”
He hesitated, then uncorked the vial, and drank it all in one swig.
“Now what?”
“Now we wait.” The truth serum was fast. It would start working in less than a minute.
“Lou, you’ve made a mistake. I didn’t take the crystal. When did it go missing? Last night?”
I said nothing, just looking at him.
“Have you considered that Harutaka might have taken it? A man obsessed by chaos? A man who broke into the library of the Shades, for a reason none of us know?”
I concentrated on my breathing, keeping it steady. Waiting. I wanted to be convinced. Maybe it was Harutaka. That would mean that Kane, the mysterious, sexy man who made my chest feel warm when our eyes met, whose touch made me shiver in excitement, had not betrayed me. I wanted it to be true.
But I also remembered Kane’s eyes when he’d seen the crystal. And the way he refused to talk about his sister. Besides, Harutaka hadn’t known about the crystal beforehand—I’d never told him about it. Kane had known about it—I’d stupidly told him in a moment of weakness.
Kane’s pupils were sharpening, and his entire posture became relaxed, tired. The truth serum was working.
“Kane, did you take the crystal from the box last night?”
A long pause. “No.”
It was possible that the serum hadn’t completely affected him yet. I waited for another minute. His eyes glazed over, becoming distant.
“Kane, did you take the crystal that we stole from the vault?”
“No. You did.”
“Someone took it out of the box last night. Was it you?”
“No.”
I bit my lip. Was I wrong? Was it really Harutaka?
“You have the distilled dreams I made. Why do you have them?”
“Because I needed to stop the supply.”
My phone blipped with the sound of a new message, and I ignored it. “What supply?”
“The supply of the drug to New York.”
I blinked. He made no sense. “What drug?”
“Ice dream.”
The frustrating thing about the truth serum was that people weren’t really engaged in the conversation. They just reacted to questions. It was up to me to make sense of Kane’s answers. I decided to change tack.
“Do you know where the crystal is?”
“No.”
“Can you guess where it is?”
“I thought you had it.”
“Why were you so interested in the crystal?”
A pause. I waited. His fists clenched.
“Kane, answer me. Why were you so interested in the Yliaster crystal? You kept asking about it.”
I saw something in his eye. A glint of consciousness. He was still trying to take control of the conversation. H
e spoke slowly, as if each word was a huge strain. “Lou. I did not… take the crystal. This is what… you wanted… to know. My… interest… is my own.”
“This is about your sister. You were interested in the crystal to help your sister?”
A point-blank question he couldn’t ignore, couldn’t talk around. “Yes.” He clenched his jaw tightly, as if trying to prevent words from emerging.
But as strong as he was, I was a superior alchemist. And my serum was in his veins. A little voice in my mind begged me to let it go. Kane hadn’t betrayed me, and he was entitled to his own secrets. Questioning him about his sister under the influence of the drug wasn’t right.
But I was curious. And I told myself that perhaps his secret would help me track the crystal somehow.
“What happened to your sister? Why is she in a coma?”
For a moment all his body strained, and then he slumped, defeated. “Her soul is gone. I sold it.”
I stared at him, aghast.
“She was dying of cancer. I summoned a demon, to cut a deal with him. It was quite a good deal. My soul for my sister’s life. When he gave me the contract, I read it carefully, and signed. I was bloated with self-importance, thought I was too clever to be tricked by a demon. Assumed my soul was a huge prize for him.”
“Okay, stop,” I said. I had pried into the man’s hidden past, uncovering his shame and hurt. For nothing more than curiosity.
He smiled at me, a joyless, angry smile. “Didn’t you want the truth? Then listen to all of it. After we signed, he healed her body. And then he left, leaving her asleep. She never woke up. Her body is a husk. Her soul is gone, stolen. I had signed it off. That’s the real prize. My soul was worthless, the soul of a jaded, angry man. Her soul was pure. And in my stupidity and cockiness, I had given it away.”
His face was deflated, suddenly tired and sad. “Are you done with your questions? I didn’t steal your crystal, Lou Vitalis.”
I nodded, hating myself. I retrieved a fix-it-all from my pocket and approached him with it. “Drink this,” I said, my voice hoarse. “It’s an antidote to the truth serum.”
He took it from my hand, taking care to avoid touching me. He uncorked it and drank the contents, his eyes never leaving mine.
We both stood, looking at each other. Slowly, his eyes swam into focus, the truth serum’s effect fading.
“Get the hell out, Vitalis,” he said. “Leave me alone.”
Perhaps I should have apologized, but forcing him like that suddenly felt too intrusive for a simple apology. Instead I walked to the door. I took out my phone on the way out, more as a way to avoid Kane’s eyes than anything else. One new message from Breadknife. An image. I opened it, stared at it, trying to understand what was in front of my eyes.
Then I stumbled, the strength seeping out of my muscles. I grabbed the door handle, trying to steady myself, the phone tumbling from my fingers, facing up. Smoke began curling from my palms, a flicker of a flame.
“What is it, Vitalis?” Kane’s cold voice asked behind me. “Need help opening the door?”
“Breadknife.” My voice was hollow, empty of the turmoil in my gut. “He kidnapped my daughter.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
I sat beside Kane in his car, numb, bereft of words. My eyes were glued to the phone screen, staring at the image. My daughter, standing in a stark, gray-walled room, her eyes wide and scared. The text in the message simply said, I want the box. You have 24 hours.
I tried to convince myself that it was a clever image editing trick. He had taken a photo of Tammi in the street and changed it. Perhaps he had used a filter called kidnapped, or maybe he had one of his computer kids change it with Photoshop. Wasn’t there a strange difference in the image lighting, as if my daughter and the background didn’t match? Didn’t her face appear unnatural, as if the image had been manipulated?
But I knew the truth. Her face seemed unnatural because I’d never seen her scared before. The background didn’t match because I couldn’t imagine my daughter in such a place, held by this monstrous man.
“Here it is,” Kane said, his tone grave.
I had asked him to take me to my daughter’s address, hoping to see her already back from school. I had intended to knock on the door, throw caution to the wind, just to make sure everything was all right. But there was no need. There were two police cars parked in front of the house. In the window, I caught sight of Jane, Tammi’s adoptive mother, staring outside, her face streaked with tears. Her gaze was desperate, as if she hoped Tammi would suddenly materialize in the street, unharmed.
“Drive on,” I said, my voice hoarse.
“Don’t you want to talk to the police?”
I shook my head. “ABC has informants in the police. If he finds out… if he even smells a whiff of cops…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t utter the possibility that my daughter would be harmed.
“Where to, then?”
“Park around the next corner. Please.”
I thought he would argue, would try to figure out what my plan was, but he didn’t. He followed my instructions, turned right at the next intersection, pulled up out of the cops’ view.
I opened my contact list. He was always on top, his nickname dictating his position in any alphabetized list. I hit the contact ABC.
Three rings, and he answered. His voice lacked any pretense of warmth, of pleasantry.
“Lou Vitalis. We had a deal.”
“I didn’t break it. I was about to deliver the box to you.”
“And instead you disappeared. Fled through the window when we knocked on your door. That was unwise, Vitalis. I don’t like betrayal. You have something precious of mine. And I have something precious of yours.”
“Don’t hurt her.” I meant it to sound threatening. A Liam Neeson moment, where I let him know that if he hurt my daughter I would find him and kill him. Instead, my words were broken, scared. I was pleading.
“You shouldn’t be worried about it at all. We can meet right now if you want. You’ll give me the box with the crystal, and I’ll give you your daughter, still unharmed.”
Still unharmed. I shut my eyes.
“I don’t have the crystal on me.”
“You sold it to someone else. That’s why you fled when we came for it.”
Once, when I still worked for him, Breadknife had found out that one of the boys had snitched. Nelson, only fourteen, had been persuaded by the police to give them a bit of information, enough to start building a case against Breadknife. However, they didn’t know that one of them was on Breadknife’s payroll. Nelson’s betrayal was exposed. ABC summoned all of us to let us know. His voice had a strange property to it, as if it was the only thing standing between us and an erupting volcano. It trembled and shook in a manner I found terrifying. And Nelson disappeared, of course, rumors of the manner of his death fueling many nights of hushed whispers.
Breadknife’s voice now had the same tremor.
“I didn’t sell it to anyone,” I blurted. “It…” What would he do if he found out it was stolen from me? Would he even believe me? What would happen to my daughter? No. He couldn’t know that. I had to buy some time. “It’s in a safe place. I was afraid the dragon would find me, so I hid it.”
“Hid it where?” The rage was still there, slightly more in control.
“I’ll get it to you,” I said. “I need more time.”
“You have until tomorrow morning, Vitalis.” The line went dead.
I breathed hard, my fingers trembling.
“We need to find Harutaka. Get the crystal back from him.”
“We don’t know where he is,” Kane pointed out. “I haven’t seen him since last night. We have no way to contact him.”
Just like he intended. “Isabel will be able to find him,” I said, desperately believing that was true. “She lives nearby.”
As I guided Kane through the streets of Roxbury, I tried to map out my course of action. If Isabel could fin
d Harutaka, I would go to him, armed with everything I had, get the crystal back and deliver it to Breadknife. If he received his precious crystal, he would let my daughter go.
But what if Isabel couldn’t find him? Harutaka was clever, and knew of Isabel’s powers. Perhaps he could find a way to hide.
Then I would ask her to locate my daughter instead. We could go to Jane, ask her for Tammi’s belongings. Surely Isabel would be able to find her. And then I would free her. Somehow.
I had a feeling that something was wrong as the car got close to Isabel’s shop. The door was hanging slightly open, a crack of darkness. Even as Kane pulled up to the curb, I was already pushing the passenger door open and leaping out, barging into Isabel’s shop.
“Isabel? Isabel!” My shouts hung in the air, unanswered. My eyes slowly got used to the shop’s dark gloom, and my feeling of dread grew. The floor was littered with shards of glass, papers, books, and bits of cloth. Isabel’s wooden furniture had been toppled and smashed. Almost nothing in the shop remained whole.
In the corner, a small limp form was curled, inert. I rushed to it, a sob in my throat as I saw it was Isabel. Her face was bloody and bruised, her hair tangled, her clothing torn. She lay in a fetal position, as if she had been trying to protect herself from the beating. Her right hand was outstretched, two of the fingers twisted at unnatural angles. I was relieved to see her chest rising and falling—she was breathing. But when I whispered in her ear, tried to shake her gently, I got no response.
This was ABC’s doing, I knew, and a molten kernel of pure rage blossomed inside me. He should pay for what he’d done to my friend.
“Is she alive?” Kane was by my side, horror and worry in his voice.
“Barely,” I answered. “ABC got to her. He probably tried to get her to tell him where I was. Maybe he asked her to find me for him.”
“I’m calling an ambulance,” Kane said.
I nodded distractedly, caressing Isabel’s hair, not daring to move her. “Call Sinead too. Tell her to get here.”