by D V Wolfe
“They’re fine, Bane,” Stacks said. “They’re both trying to help but honestly, they’ve got their own shit to worry about.”
“New shit to worry about?” I asked. I tried not to sound freaked out but I knew I didn’t sound convincing.
“Depends on how you define ‘new’. Tags is still trying to get his insurance squared away and find a new place to call home, so he’s only one foot in the research, and Rosetta’s Hellgate is acting up again, so she’s been preoccupied with that. I swear you can’t get reliable help these days.”
“Ok,” I said, “so they’re fine. So what’s the update?”
“Glad to see where all my hard work stacks up against Tags and Rosetta,” Stacks grumbled. “Sure you don’t want to interrupt me again and ask how Gabe’s doing?”
“No,” I said. The last thing I needed was Stacks and Noah giving me hell about him. “Tell me what prompted this oh so pleasant chat.”
“Well, this morning, I had a breakthrough,” Stacks began.
I couldn’t resist. “You realized that the clothes come off the body to go into the washing machine?”
Stacks scoffed. “Like you can talk. No. Shut up. I think I found a reference that might help us figure out what that blinding white light was about after the cleansing ritual at New Covenant. Do you remember those Akkadian symbols that were carved into Nigel’s fireplace?” I didn’t say anything. “Bane, hello? Did I lose you?”
“No,” I said, “but you told me to shut up.”
Stacks gave an exasperated sigh. “When has that stopped you before? Geez, do you remember the damn symbols? I mean, besides the necklace symbol?”
“Yes,” I said. “That should have been a rhetorical question.”
“Just checking to make sure you’re ‘active listening’,” Stacks said. “Can you picture them?”
I thought back to that day. I remembered Noah running a hand over the symbols, Stacks pointing them out. But most of my focus had been on the necklace symbol, not the others. “Sort of,” I said. “I mean I’m going to flunk a pop quiz if that’s where this is going.”
“Don’t worry,” Stacks said. “Not a pop quiz over the phone. It would be like a bad game of verbal Pictionary. The important thing is that they aren’t Akkadian! They’re Sumerian!”
“Well, that makes a huge difference,” I said. “I’m so glad you took the time to call and tell me that. Great use of time. Now that we have that covered, I need to call Rosetta to tell her it was actually my elbow and not my face that broke her kitchen window…”
“Where are you?” Stacks interrupted.
I paused. “We’re on our way to Pennsylvania, why?”
“I thought so,” Stacks said. “I would now be screaming at you to turn around, except that I need something.”
“Ok…” I said, not sure where this was going to go.
“I need you to go to Philadelphia.”
I sighed. “If this is some elaborate way of asking me to bring you a Philly Cheesesteak…”
“Jesus, shut up Bane, for one second,” Stacks barked. I went silent again and Stacks sighed. “Sorry, I haven’t really slept since...and caffeine makes me cranky. Look, I need something from the University of Pennsylvania’s Archeological Museum.”
“Can it be purchased in the gift store?” I asked, already dreading his answer.
“Nope,” Stacks said. “This is going to be some Ocean’s Eleven shit. Well, probably not Eleven. This is more like the one that has the museum heist.”
I groaned. “Stacks, we don’t have time for prison sentences.”
“Just hear me out,” Stacks said. “Now the Sumerian symbols from that fireplace wall are referencing something that I’ve read before. At least partially. There are a set of cuneiform tablets in the museum. They’re fragmented texts from the Kesh Temple Hymn called the ‘miscellaneous Babylonian inscriptions’. There are nine of these suckers. A guy named George Aaron Barton translated three of them; the fourth, fifth, and sixth tablets. I’ve read his translations and they’re accurate based on my study of Sumerian. I think the answers we’re looking for are on the seventh, eighth, and ninth tablets.”
He paused and I tried to carefully word my response. “And you think you’ll be able to translate three tablets that this expert guy couldn’t?”
“Come on, Bane, it’s me,” Stacks said. I kept my smile to myself and he continued. “So what I need are detailed photos of those last three tablets.”
I sighed in relief. “Oh good, I was afraid we were going to have to steal the damn things.”
“Well, no, but…” Stacks said.
“But what?”
Stacks sighed. “You’re going to have to take them out of their display case. Or at least open it. There are pictures of the tablets online but the cuneiform is so shallow in some spots and the reflection of light off of the case makes it almost impossible to read some of the lines. I need a clear picture with nothing in the way...and you may have to move them to better light to get the pictures I need.”
“So not asking much,” I said.
“Hey, I could have said I needed you to steal them. Taking pictures doesn’t seem so bad now, does it? Look, just snap a bunch of pictures with your phone and text them to me. Though with the camera you have on that ancient phone, you’d better get really close to the thing.”
We’d been doing eighty and there was a black speck on the side of the road ahead. As we got closer, we could see that it was a black Mustang...with a light blue horse decal on the back window. I slowed down.
“Bane, it’s on your way. This could mean you’d be off the hook on the god research I’m still waiting on from you. And we aren’t going to figure out what the hell those bright lights and the earthquake in New Covenant were about without it. This is how we get answers. Aren’t you tired of chasing your tail with this shit?”
“Oh you have no idea,” I said. I turned on my turning signal to pull off the road behind the Mustang.
“Great,” Stacks said. “Call me if you have any trouble. Just send me the pictures and then you can go on your merry way.”
“Will do,” I said. And then I hung up, not waiting for a reply. Stacks was probably going to be pissed, but I couldn’t care right now. There was a red Lamborghini pulled over in front of the Mustang and I could only see the outlines of two “people” for lack of a better term.
“Shirts,” I said to Noah. It wasn’t needed. He was already pulling his over his head and turning it inside out.
This was exactly what we needed right now. On top of big baddie demons in Noah’s hometown, an avenging rampage, pre-heist anxiety with a side of uncertainty about what the hell was still on the loose in Messina, and a healthy dose of horniness courtesy of Gabe. Puca-flavored bullshit really tied the whole mess together.
7
I threw the parking brake so hard that both Noah and I jolted forward in our seats an inch or two.
“Grab the silver knife out of the glove box,” I said to Noah. I reached behind my head and grabbed the wooden box off the rack.
“What, why?” Noah asked.
“Because you need to be armed for this,” I said.
“But it’s Vix and Sprig. We know them. Vix saved you in Messina.”
It was true, but I couldn’t keep hoping we’d run into them before they could do harm to more innocents. I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter. I told them what would happen if they went back to trying to kill innocents.”
“You’re going to kill them?” Noah asked.
I looked at him. “Noah, we don’t have time to babysit them every minute of the day. Kess was supposed to be keeping an eye on them. Mea culpa on that idea. Kess, keeping an eye on anyone is a pipe dream. I should have sent them to Rosetta’s.”
I pulled the silver knife out of the box and kicked my door open. Vix and Sprig were watching me and I could feel their uneasiness pulsing across the distance between us, interrupting their fairy song. Noah and I were more susceptible
to it without the dried out bread we usually carried. About a week ago, we’d spilled soup on ourselves and everything in the seat, including the bag, during an ill-advised drive through soup and sandwich venture, and we tossed it. Luckily, I was pissed. This helped with the airy-fairy bullshit that was humming in my ears.
Rather than having me drag them away in front of the dumbstruck innocents, Vix started moving towards me with her hands out in front of her. Sprig stomped along beside her looking like he was tasked with the job of looking guilty for both of them.
“Now Bane,” Vix said, her voice still the musical tone she’d been using with the innocents.
“Shut your horse hole,” I spat. “What the fuck are you and Sprig doing?” Vix didn’t immediately answer and I looked at Sprig. “You want to field this one, Hoss?” Sprig looked at me and I swore I saw a tumbleweed roll by behind his eyes. Sprig was sharp enough when it came to being Vix’s toady, but Kess had told me, and I believed her, that Sprig had had a much harder time crossing over from the Celtic Otherworld than Vix. Sometimes it felt like half his brain might have been left behind.
“Bane, we weren’t doing anything wrong. You told us to not...toy….with any more innocents, right?” Vix asked. I nodded and she gave me a look like I’d proven her point.
I narrowed my eyes at her and nodded at the Lamborghini. Standing beside it, looking classically fae-dumbstruck was a silver-haired businessman and a woman who was twenty years younger and squeezed into a short red dress. “Those are innocents.”
“No!” Vix said quickly, her open hands closing to point her index fingers at me as she tried to make her point. “He cheats on his wife with his mistress and she got a puppy from a breeder and then dumped it at the pound when it peed on her carpet. So neither one of them is innocent!”
I gave my head a little shake to clear off Vix’s voice. She was turning up the fae-charming, probably hoping that I’d just nod my head and tell her to carry on.
“Vix, whatever mundane terrible crap they’ve done in their lives doesn’t change the fact that they aren’t supernaturals. They are still innocents. You can’t kill them,” I said. “I told you what I’d do if you kept trying to kill innocents.”
“But we weren’t trying to kill them,” Vix said quickly. “We were just going to scare them.”
“To be honest,” I said, ignoring Vix. “I should have just killed you back at that rest stop.”
“But I didn’t hurt any of the innocents that were trapped in the bathroom with me,” Vix said.
“By the grace of...whatever,” I said.
Vix crossed her arms. “By the grace of me being able to fight the damned ‘will sickness’.”
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s go with that. Regardless, this was strike three.” I drew the silver knife and looked at Vix.
“Hang on,” Sprig said, finally joining the party. I wondered if it hurt for his brain to slingshot back and forth across the void.
“Hark, he speaks,” I said.
“Now, we didn’t come out here, looking to hurt innocents,” Sprig said.
“Oh you didn’t,” I said. “My mistake, why did you come out here?”
Vix was staring at her brother as if she was trying to shut him up with her eyes. “On account of Vix. She was getting stir crazy.”
“Uh, huh,” I said. “So you’re at Kess’ house and you just decided that you needed to stretch your limbs, huh?”
“Yes,” Sprig said, stepping squarely under the box and kicking the twig it was being propped up with. “So when she was in meditation, we left.” Vix cleared her throat, but her brother plowed on. “We were just going for a drive.” Vix made a move for her brother and I tapped her on the arm with the flat side of the silver dagger. Her skin hissed at the touch of the cool metal and so did she.
“Go on Sprig, so you’re driving,” I said. Vix glared at me, her mouth a thin straight line as I let her brother tighten the noose.
“And we see these two, not innocents and we get them to pull over. And then...well, then you showed up,” Sprig finished. He was smiling fairly smugly for someone who just admitted what everyone else already knew.
“I see,” I said. “So let me see if I got this right. You drove all the way across Indiana, Ohio and into Pennsylvania, where we now stand, ‘just for a drive to stretch your limbs’, all while Kess was in meditation. Then you see this Lamborghini cross your path. How did you know they were... how did you say it? Oh, ‘not innocents? Did you have a vision, telling you?”
Sprig started to nod and then shook his head. “No.” Vix tensed next to him. “We just asked them. We started talking to them and they told us about what they’d done.”
“Oh, I see,” I said. “So after you pulled them over, you cast a ‘guilt compelling’ curse, forcing them to tell you the most horrible thing they’d ever done and felt guilty over, and then you decided they were ‘not innocents’?” Vix hung her head, but Sprig smiled and nodded vigorously.
“Yes,” he said.
“So you didn’t know that they were ‘not innocents’, as you put it, until after you’d pulled them over. So you were going to mess with them and the curse was an afterthought to try covering your ass after you killed them so that someone like me would, maybe, hesitate in killing you?”
Everything seemed to dawn on Sprig at once and his face fell as he realized what he’d done.
“No! I…”
I held up a hand. “Save it. You two stay right here.” I handed Noah my silver knife. “I’ll get rid of them. Then we’re going to have this out. And if they move, Noah, stab them.”
I pushed past the two Pucas and moved up next to the guy in the suit.
“Sorry for the delay,” I said. “You can go now, we’re part of an elite highway team that evaluates what will force a cheating man in a sports car off the road. Thank you for participating. Get checked for STDs and then either keep it in your pants or stop stringing your wife along and cut her loose.”
As I didn’t possess the fae-enchanting bullshit, the old man snapped out of the fairy tale haze and glared at me. “I beg your pardon.”
“Begging,” I said. “That’s something you could try if you want to keep your wife. Begging and then putting your dick on a lease, but I can’t blame your wife if she tells you to fuck off. Either way, get it figured out.”
“That is none of your business!” He sputtered, his face turning red.
“Thank god for that,” I said. “Now get your ass back behind the wheel before I look up your home number off your plate and make it my business. Capiche?” The man decided not to argue anymore and moved away towards the driver’s side. I turned to the woman still standing dumbfounded next to me. She was taking a little longer to fight her way out of the haze.
“Hey,” I said to her. “Woman to woman, you can do better. In all things.” I decided to channel a little Jo and a little Nya and probably a little Rosetta into the speech I was about to give her. “Don’t get a dog if you don’t want the responsibility. And you can do better than him. If he cheated once, he’ll cheat again. You don’t want to be Mrs. Cheated-On-Number-Two, do you?” The woman shook her head. “Good, now get him to take you home and you get checked for STDs too. Always a good decision.” She didn’t move. I could tell that she had come out of the haze because her eyes had come back into focus, but she still looked like she was in shock. “Come on, it’s ok. Go ahead.” I walked her back to the passenger side and put her in the car. I closed the door and stepped back, pulling my cell phone out of my back pocket. They slowly edged back into the right-hand lane and took off. I waved while I waited for Kess to answer the phone.
“Yeah?” New Jersey-born, Indiana-raised, Park Ranger Kess Dorfin answered.
“Kess,” I said. “It’s Bane.”
“Oh hello, Bane, my apologies. I was communing with Tir Na nOg and didn’t feel your spirit turn to me,” she said, quickly reverting to her airy-fairy tones. I could only imagine how annoying conversations between Vix
and Kess had to be when they were both using those voices. Luckily for Sprig, he was half-checked out all the time and probably didn’t notice.
“So guess who I ran into,” I said.
“The Pucas,” Kess said, simply.
“Yes, actually,” I said. “Which is kind of strange considering I thought you were keeping them, safe and under guard at your house.” I wasn’t asking.
“Yes,” Kess said, “but the pathway opened to me and I saw you would have need of them, so I went into meditation and sent them to you.”
I needed a minute to swallow that one. “You sent them?” I cleared my throat. “Silly me. Passing over for a minute why you think I would need them, you’re telling me that you sent them? They just told me they left because Vix was growing stir crazy.”
“Aw yes,” Kess said again. “We were not able to determine the source of her ‘will sickness’, but once we were able to sever her from the source, I was able to take guardianship of the wound on her spirit and guard it until it healed and her will could not be possessed. As I was meditating, the pathway before you, Bane, showed itself to me and I knew that you would have need of them, so I sent the will through the healing wound which drove them out to find you.”
I paused. “So this is your fault.” I turned to look at Vix and Sprig who were not moving, their vision dialed in on Noah who was tense and poised with the knife blades darting back and forth between them.
“There is no fault, Bane,” Kess said and her airy-fairy tone was less air and more fae-warrior with a hard edge than I’d ever heard it before. “Use them to accomplish your purpose. It is a necessary and vitally important piece of what must be done to spare the innocents.”
Now I was fairly used to Kess making little to no sense. I was also used to her predictions and had learned to put them in the pile labeled, “sometimes, but rarely useful”. It sounded to me like she was telling me to use Vix and Sprig to help accomplish something I was going into. So I tried to phrase my next question to her in a way that would give me the best shot at clarity as to what she was saying.