Golem in My Glovebox

by R. L. Naquin

Bernice’s emotions leaked from her pores and filled the room.

  I looked from Bernice to the pacing Art and back again, frowning. “I don’t understand. The only board members left are here in this room. Unless...” I glanced at Art again, then shook my head. No. That was definitely Art, not a golem replica. He had way too much personality, and his emotions would be easy to read, even if I hadn’t been an empath. “Who?”

  Riley reached across the space between our chairs and took my hand.

  My eyes grew wide. “No. Not my mother.”

  Bernice shook her head. “No, not your mother. But it was an Aegis.”

  My skin went cold. “No. They don’t kill Aegises. Your sources are wrong. The Aegises were all fine when the Collector was in town, then they were captured and taken elsewhere. Nobody’s killing Aegises. No.”

  Riley squeezed my hand. “Zoey.”

  “No,” I said. “Board members only. And there aren’t any of those but you. So, end of story, nobody dies, as long as you two stay here. The Aegises were kidnapped, and we’re going to find them and bring them all home. You’ll see. It’ll all be fine.”

  I was babbling. I knew it. They knew it. But I couldn’t accept that the killing had started again, this time with Aegises instead of board members.

  Because if somebody was killing the Aegises, well, the next body could be my mother’s.

  I took a deep breath, held it for a ten count, then let it out. “Okay. Let me take a step back. First, tell me who died. Was it another awful scene set up to freak us out?”

  Bernice swallowed hard, her lips tight. “It was Dennis Bloom. He was an aquaphile, meaning—”

  I held my hand up to stop her. “Meaning he could draw water to himself.” I closed my eyes and rubbed my eyelids with the tips of my fingers. “I met him in the Collector’s tent. She’d had him manacled to a desk. How...What did they do with him?”

  Normally, when someone dies under suspicious circumstances, cause of death is one of the first concerns. But this was different. The person—or thing—murdering the board members had arranged them in macabre poses in bizarre, family-friendly settings. The fact that Bernice knew it was the same person who’d murdered Dennis meant there had been an elaborate scene with him, as well. I tried to prepare myself for the disturbing worst.

  Bernice pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “They found him this morning in Texas, outside of Amarillo at the Cadillac Ranch.”

  I frowned. “Isn’t that—uh—a whorehouse?”

  Riley snorted. “That’s the Mustang Ranch in Nevada. You know, where it’s legal.”

  I eyed him, wondering how he knew that. Then again, I was pretty close to getting it right and wasn’t sure how I knew about it. “Okay. So what’s the Cadillac Ranch?”

  Art stopped pacing and joined us in a fourth chair. “It’s a landmark. A work of art to some, though frankly, I think it’s ridiculous. A bunch of cars out in the middle of nowhere are planted on their ends in a row, with their noses buried in the dirt. People come from all over the world to spray paint them.”

  “What?” I said. “Just anybody can paint them? Or do you mean artists?”

  He let out an annoyed chuff and waved a hand in the air. “Anybody. It’s graffiti. Tourists show up with cans of paint and leave their marks until somebody else comes along and covers it up with something new.”

  “How weird.” I tried to imagine the point of such a thing. “So, what happened to Dennis?”

  Bernice and Art glanced at each other before looking back at me. Art’s thumb twitched, as if clicking an invisible ballpoint pen—a habit that drove me crazy the last time I’d seen him, though at the time, he’d had an actual pen in his hand. “He drowned. Right there in the middle of the desert. They found him posed half in and half out of one of the cars, as if he’d been in an accident and was thrown from the vehicle. He held the remains of an ice cream cone, and ants covered his hand and arm. Someone had dressed him like a tourist in Bermuda shorts, black socks and sandals, and a Hawaiian shirt. Under that was a T-shirt that said No Lifeguard on Duty.” He paused and looked into the fire, avoiding eye contact with me. His thumb twitched even faster. “The killer put mirrored sunglasses on him. Real mirrors. And they’d shattered. Bits of glass were embedded in his eyes and cheeks.”

  My stomach flipped, and goose bumps rose on my arms. “Was there...” I stopped, unsure if I wanted the answer to my next question. “Was there a note?”

  Bernice shook her head. “Not a note, exactly. But there was a message.” She reached for her teacup, her hand shaking. It took both hands to bring the cup to her lips and take a sip without spilling. She set it back down and cleared her throat. “Sprayed in red paint across the hood of the car he was in were the words ‘Let’s play.’”

  A violent shiver ran through me. Those were the same words written on the note from whoever took my mother. “The message was for me.”

  Art and Bernice exchanged another glance, then fixed me with serious faces.

  Art’s thumb went still. “That’s what we think, yes.”

  We all sat in silence for a few minutes. I watched the heatless flames dance and crackle while I considered my options.

  “Okay, Art,” I said. “Now tell me what brought us out here in the first place.”

  Bernice clucked her tongue. “A ridiculous theory. The only reason I’m not angry is because he finally figured out a way to get you here. Now you’re safe, and I don’t have to worry about you.”

  I ignored her. “Art?”

  Art straightened in his seat. He folded both thumbs into his fists to keep them quiet. “About sixty years ago, the head of the Board of Hidden Affairs became increasingly...unstable. And then dangerous. People died. The rest of the Board members had to subdue her and lock her away in a cell where she couldn’t do anyone harm ever again.”

  Bernice shifted in her seat. “I don’t see how this is relevant.”

  “It is relevant,” Art said. “I’m sure of it.”

  I leaned forward. “You said a prisoner escaped. This was her?”

  He nodded. “Her name is Kathleen Valentine. There’s no telling how long she’d been gone when they finally noticed. Golems had been taking her meals to her. Everyone she ever knew was dead, so she had no visitors.”

  “Wait.” I frowned. “She was alone in a prison cell for sixty years and nobody ever talked to her? That’s cruel.”

  “Kathleen was the cruel one.” He stared into the fire, as if seeing the events unfold in front of him. “She was too powerful, and she took that power and warped the people around her into killing machines.” He swallowed hard, his eyes wide. “They say the McKenzie sisters cried as they were forced to eviscerate each other while Kathleen laughed. Martin Francis stopped breathing on her command. The order was so strong, his body refused to breathe, even after he lost consciousness. Albert Finney put a hot fireplace poker through his own eye. All four of them had voted against her on whether to cut funding on social services. It was a bloodbath before they finally caught her and locked her up.”

  I swallowed hard, fighting queasiness. No wonder they locked her up. “That certainly sounds like somebody who could—and would—kill off the entire Board.”

  “See?” Art said, turning to Bernice. “Even she understands what I’ve been saying.

  Bernice threw her hands in the air. “Kathleen’s a hundred and seven. She couldn’t have done these things. She’d break a hip.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Then where do you think she went?” The tension between the two stretched taut across the space, vibrating like a rubber band. When I’d last seen the two of them, Art never would have spoken to Bernice that way. The last several months together, under terrible stress and unable to get away from each other, must have been taking its toll.

  “I don’t
know.” Bernice’s face turned pale in the firelight, and her voice softened. “Maybe she crawled off to die somewhere.”

  Art’s disappointment in Bernice puddled on the floor and spread across the carpet. “You know that doesn’t make any sense, Bernice.”

  The Head of the Board of Hidden Affairs stared at her fingers cradled in her lap and said nothing.

  “Art,” I said, breaking the awkward silence. “You said on the phone I might be the only one who could stop her. Why? What kind of gift could make people do such terrible things?”

  Art’s thumbs freed themselves from confinement, both clicking non-existent pens so fast, he might have been playing a video game in a retro arcade. “Because of her powers.” A drop of sweat trailed down the side of his face. “She’s the most powerful empath in human history.”

  * * *

  I wanted to leave at the crack of dawn the next day. A clue is a clue. Whether the killer was a one-hundred-year-old escaped prisoner or some new threat didn’t matter at this point. The faster we could get to the scene of the latest murder, the more likely it was we’d find something useful.

  After a drawn-out argument with Bernice over whether or not Riley and I were going at all, she and I arrived at a compromise. The trip would take about seven hours. If we left by ten, we could get there with some daylight left. Since she couldn’t convince us to stay, Bernice had another job for us to do, and she wanted time to prepare us.

  “Of course, your safety is paramount,” she said. “But I’ll be honest. I’m at the bottom of a very frayed rope. I need the help.”

  I frowned. “If we’re in a hurry, why aren’t we taking the private jet? Art practically kidnapped me in it last year, so I know it’s here.”

  She shook her head. “My pilot spooked when he figured out what was going on around here. And he took the damn plane with him. He left six weeks ago. The Goblin Switchboard managed to get a look at him on their network, but by the time they had their sites on him, he was gone. Probably using my plane to smuggle for some South American drug lord.”

  I was both appalled and amused, and I had to school my face not to either look slack-jawed or burst into laughter. The poor woman had been through so much. My sympathy for her went up a few notches.

  One of Bernice’s golems loaded the back of my car with our suitcases. I shivered and looked away. The construct was a duplicate of a dead board member. I recognized her—it—from my previous visit. The creature was made to look like Darcy Farthingale, the first victim in all this. They’d found Darcy’s body in the funhouse at an old carnival. She’d been strangled with a deflated balloon animal. The killer had posed her holding cotton candy, though rats had come and eaten the snack itself, leaving nothing but the paper cone. The rats had eaten other things by the time they found her, but I refused to think about that.

  This emotionless, empty duplicate of someone who’d died in such a harsh manner made me want to run for the front gate and not wait for my car to be loaded. Bernice’s golems were not cool, as far as I was concerned. They creeped me out. Fortunately, they couldn’t go far from her sphere of influence, so they stayed inside the fence.

  Art, in his element now that he had a clipboard and his clicky pen, oversaw the crew. “I’ve had them refill your gas tank,” he said. “Also, there are fresh drinks and ice in the cooler behind your seats, and snacks are coming out with the next load.”

  He didn’t wait for my startled thanks before moving off to bark orders at an automaton scrubbing bugs off Mabel’s front bumper. At least Maurice would be happy.

  I touched Bernice’s shoulder. “It’s only an eight-hour trip. This seems excessive.”

  She shrugged. “I can’t fly you out there. At least I can make sure you’re safe and comfortable.”

  Her worry hung in the air between us. “Bernice, we’ll be fine. Really.”

  “I have one more item for you.” A golem strode up next to Bernice and handed her an object the size of a large remote control. She held it in the palm of her hand. A tiny man blinked up at me. “Due to a magical fluke, he can sustain mobility outside of my influence. He will be my representative when you are conducting business. Frankly, I have no idea what else to do with him. He should be helpful to you, and you’d be doing me a favor taking him with you.”

  I tried to keep my face neutral. The last thing I wanted in my car was a creepy junior golem. The thought crossed my mind that I should say something to it, but its dead eyes staring at me sent a shiver down my back.

  “Thanks, I guess.” I grabbed it between two fingers and tossed the unsettling thing into the glove compartment through the open window.

  “I wish I could give you some sort of weapons,” Bernice said, opening my door for me. “But anyone who can take down an incubus, the Leprechaun Mafia, and whatever the hell else you’ve run into, is probably safer without trying to add weapons to the mix. Plus, you have a reaper to protect you.” She smiled at Riley. “He’s been pretty good at it so far.” Her words were meant to sound light and confident, but her nervous chatter wasn’t the slightest bit convincing.

  From behind the car, Art muttered to himself and slammed the hatch. “Pretty lucky, is more like it.”

  Bernice gave me a quick hug. “Be so very careful, Zoey. Take no chances. Check in with me frequently. Please, please, please. If anything looks wrong, just run. We need information, and we need to put the O.G.R.E. squads back in place. You don’t need to go off and solve the crimes and then take down the bad guy, okay? In fact, there’s another team already on the way to your first stop.”

  I stepped into the car and buckled in. “Another team?”

  She waved her hand as if the question were unimportant. “They weren’t far from the crime scene, so I sent them to keep an eye on it until you could get there to search. But I need them out of there as soon as possible on another reconstruction assignment.”

  I nodded. “Fine. As long as they know I’m in charge once I get there.”

  Her lips curled in a half smile. “Oh, I think you can handle them.”

  She shut my door and stepped back. The last thing I saw in the side mirror was Art standing in our dust cloud, dangling his beloved clipboard and looking forlorn. I had the feeling being on the Board of Hidden Affairs wasn’t all he’d ever dreamed it would be.

  Leaving the protective bubble around the compound didn’t require any assistance. We could see out into the field. Seeing in had been the problem. The golem attendant opened the gate and waved us through. It was broad daylight this time, and a few tourists having a picnic gave us odd looks as we drove out of a field that, by all appearances, went nowhere.

  We waved at them like maniacs, then turned toward the main road.

  “So,” I said. “If we play good cop/bad cop, will you let me be the bad cop sometimes?”

  Riley snorted. “Like you could ever pull that off.”

  “I could totally pull it off.” I folded my arms and looked out my window. “You don’t know.”

  “Sure.”

  I gave him a playful punch in the arm. “I’m tough.”

  He nodded, looking solemn but not taking his eyes from the road. “You’re tough.”

  As I tried to flip around to face him better, my knee banged into the glove compartment. The door popped open, and the tiny man rolled to the edge of the compartment door.

  His skin looked unfinished, somehow, like unvarnished wood. His features were indistinct, and his eyes were bits of polished turquoise.

  He pulled himself to a standing position, brushed off his tiny pants, and bowed low.

  “Good afternoon, Aegis,” he said. “Griswold Abernathy, at your service.”

  To my credit, I neither shrieked, nor pulled away. I gave myself a mental pat on the back for being tougher than my boyfriend seemed to think I was. Still, the creepy thing was
looking at me.

  “Griswold,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

  He bowed again. “The pleasure is all mine, Aegis.”

  “Aegis isn’t necessary. Zoey is fine.” I couldn’t believe I was conversing with it. It had no emotions, so no feelings to hurt. I contemplated picking it up and searching for an off switch, though I knew there wouldn’t be one. “Is there something you need?”

  I gave a sideways glance at Riley. He had one fist pressed against his mouth, as if trying not to laugh at the new batch of crazy trying to talk to me.

  Awesome. I love me some new crazy. Next up: a pie fight at the Texas border.

  “I should explain,” Griswold said.

  I nodded. “That would be good.”

  He stood for a moment, tapping his chin in thought. “I asked for this assignment. I believe I can help you with your quest. And I believe you can help me with mine.”

  Chapter Six

  I stared at the tiny man without speaking. My emotions were at war with each other. My initial reaction was to slam the glove compartment shut. He was one of Bernice’s golems, so he had no feelings to hurt. This also made him creepy, the same way all of Bernice’s constructs were creepy, so I’d be justified in my actions.

  Except, he wasn’t the same. For one thing, we were outside the gates of the compound and miles down the road. The rest of her creatures would have collapsed in a lifeless heap by now. Yet, here Griswold was, upright and chattering—and seeming to enjoy himself. Which was all wrong, because he shouldn’t be able to feel any emotions at all. Bernice had called him a fluke, but that didn’t explain anything.

  While our Pinocchio wasn’t exactly a real boy, the Blue Fairy had certainly made him autonomous. Or something had.

  I pulled my legs up on the seat and got comfortable, my brow creased in a cynical frown. “So, Gris,” I said. “Explain.”

  He bowed again. “Aegis, the story is not long, but it is a sad, lonely one.”

  I wove my fingers together and settled my hands in my lap. “Make it as long as you like. We’ve got all day. But quit with the bowing, already. Sit. You’re making me nervous.”