And my knowledge is more dangerous than a weapon.
Timor firmed his voice and faced the king. “Old Hemly’s gone mad. Killed everyone except Derk and me. He said that he’d poisoned the well at the mine fort and everyone there would be dead before he could get back there—but that was where he was going. Gave me a horse and told me ride here and deliver the message. He said if you want your nephew back, you have to come there yourself and negotiate. Said he’d kill Derk if he saw any face other than yours come through that gate.”
The king narrowed his eyes at Timor while he considered the words. “Very well. You may go. Leave my hall and clean yourself next time prior to coming before your king.”
Timor nodded, casting his gaze to the flagstones in an effort to hide his lie.
“General!” the king called out.
“Yes, Your Grace?” The armored general clattered forward.
“Ready my horse.”
“Yes, Your Grace. Ready the king’s horse!”
Timor turned and strode from the king’s hall as a pair of soldiers hurried past him toward the royal stables. He suppressed a smile, thinking of a dwarf’s gold, of his mother finally free from her lifelong burdens, and of a worthless king’s comeuppance in the belly of a dragon bereaved.
SCREAM
Anton Strout
SO…” THE WOMAN said, drawing the word out with the long, slow hiss of a snake, her eyes dancing with mischievous curiosity. “What is your secret, Mister Canderous?”
The crowd of tourists and hipsters seated around us in Katz’s chattered away like a gaggle of geese as they stuffed their faces with copious amounts of New York’s finest deli fare. I, on the other hand, remained silent as I flecked crumbs of rye off my Ramones ‘Gabba-Gabba-Hey!’ t-shirt, much to the redhead’s annoyance.
I wasn’t in the habit of ignoring questions, especially when they came from someone as attractive as the woman who had introduced herself as Mina Saria as she slid in the seat across from me not five minutes ago. Then again, I usually didn’t have gorgeous women tracking me down through some of my art dealing fences, either.
Her hawk-like eyes peered out from under bangs of dark red that was a color found more in a bottle than in anything in nature. When I didn’t answer her, she sat back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest.
Illustration by OKSANA DMITRIENKO
“What makes you so special then?” she asked, changing her tack slightly.
“It’s all in the hands, Miss Saria,” I said, sliding off my thin black leather gloves and laying them on the smooth surface of the table.
“You’ve earned quite the reputation out there among the forgers and the fakers,” she said.
“Have I?” I asked as nonchalant as I could, trying to mask the swell of newfound pride that rose up in me.
Mina gave me a single nod and a smile. “Yes. It appears they don’t like how easily you see through their frauds.”
“Sucks to be them,” I said, flexing my fingers.
“Most people say you have to have a good eye to do what you do,” she said. “Spotting forgeries.”
“Well, there are some fakes you can tell right away by sight,” I said, going for the bowl of pickles a waiter had set down before us, biting into its briny goodness. “For me? It’s all about how it feels.”
The fact that a bit of psychometric tinkering factored into it was not something my potential employer needed to know, but I couldn’t help but feel that swell of pride again. This time I gave into it. And why shouldn’t I? I had turned a near crippling preternatural power I could barely control into something that was proving quite lucrative among the arts and antique stores up and down Broadway. Not to mention classing up the walls of my newly acquired SoHo loft. Now my growing reputation had put this gorgeous redhead at the table with me, and that was far from something that normally happened in my day to day.
The woman’s face was full of skepticism, but I said nothing and continued eating.
“Can you prove how talented you are?” she asked. I raised an eyebrow and she leaned forward. “I like to see things for myself. After all, my team and I want the best at our disposal. Please don’t take offense, Mister Canderous.”
“None taken,” I said with a dismissive wave. “And please, call me Simon. As far as proof…”
The moment I had hoped for, which was why I had picked so notable a meeting spot as Katz’s Deli. I gestured to the sign overhead. A red arrow pointed down at where we sat.
Where Harry Met Sally… Hope you have what she had! Enjoy!
Mina looked back down at me, so far unimpressed. “So?”
“We’ll see about that,” I said and laid my hands back down on the table.
It had taken what little control I had over my power to keep it in check when I had taken my gloves off, but now I gave into it and let the electric connection lash out as it always did, wild and barely containable.
Some objects in this world barely held a psychometric charge, but the fame of this film location saturated the entire deli, allowing me to focus all that raw power down and better direct my vision. My mind’s eye filled with a thousand images in an instant. Every person who had ever touched this supposed famous table over the years flickered through my thoughts, and I fought to push through them, sorting as I went.
Like my own personal DVD player, I rewound through the images trying my best not to be pulled in any specific direction. When I caught the bright lights and camera equipment of the film shoot, I focused in until the familiar movie scene was upon me, seeing it from an entirely different perspective than I was used to from watching the film.
I had forgotten how ‘Eighties’ the Eighties truly looked, but the clothes of the extras were a perfect reminder. It was odd to see a young Rob Reiner directing an equally young Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal in the now famous scene, but one thing was immediately clear. The table I was reading was not the one actually being used in the filming. It instead sat about fifteen feet away in use by one of the film’s grips to raise and focus a lighting unit on the actual film scene itself.
I had everything I needed and with a force of effort I pushed myself out of my mind’s eyes. The strength of the vision held me transfixed in it longer that I would have liked, but with one final struggle I tore free from the historic moment. Gasping, I opened my eyes wide to find Mina Saria staring expectantly at me.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “You looked like you were stroking out.”
I wasn’t sure how long I had been in the vision, but by the way I was shaking and my head swam, it had been a bit too long. I grabbed my corned beef sandwich and began scarfing it down.
“Blood sugar dropping,” I said between bites.
“Hypoglycemia?”
“Something like that,” I said and fell back to eating, allowing me to dodge discussing it further, which was fine by me. Why my blood sugar plummeted while using my power was as much a mystery to me as it would be to her. It wasn’t like I could just take the issue to my doctor to ask about.
When I was done eating, I licked the last few drops of mustard from my fingers.
“You want to tell me what that was all about?” she asked.
“Let’s say this table was up for auction,” I said, slapping my hands down on it. “As a piece of Hollywood history. First thing I’d tell you is that this table wasn’t used in the film.”
Mina looked up at the sign overhead and pointed to it. “It wasn’t?”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t even in the shot,” I said.
“Bullshit,” she said, and waved a waiter over.
A heavy set man in his late forties lumbered up to our table. His ring of what remained of his black hair was wild and curly, his eyes kind. He smiled at Mina.
“Yes?” he said, the hint of something European in his voice.
“This is the table from the movie, right?”
The man hesitated, then pointed to the sign overhead as Mina had, saying nothing.
“Be honest now,” I added.
His gaze shifted back and forth between the two of us, then he cautiously looked around the room before leaning in to us, whispering.
“Yes and no,” he said with some reluctance.
Mina looked annoyed. “Meaning…?”
“This is the spot where they filmed the scene, yes,” he said, “but actually the owner took the original table off the floor long ago. It’s in his home or the Smithsonian, I believe. Anything else?”
Mina shook her head and the man told us to enjoy our nosh and walked off to clear a table.
When I turned back to her, she appeared suitably impressed, and I tried to contain my smug smile.
“Well?” I asked.
The redhead looked me over. “All that from just the feel of the table, huh?”
“Like I said, it’s all in the hands.”
Mina leaned forward and held her hand out to me. “Then I do believe we have a deal, Mister Canderous.”
“Hold on now,” I said, moving my bare hands away from her by leaning back in my chair. “I didn’t say I was ready to seal the deal.”
“Oh?” she said, dropping her hand to her side.
“You haven’t told me what you expect from me,” I said.
“Just some light thievery and breaking and entering.”
“I don’t know what your contact told you about me,” I said, pushing my chair back, “but I’m in the business of identifying fakes and forgeries, maybe perhaps keeping the occasional rare find for myself. Why would I steal for anyone’s benefit other than my own?”
“Because it pays remarkably well…?”
I stood. “I’m not sure there’s a price you can name. Sorry.”
“Please, sit,” she pleaded. “I work for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”
“Tsk tsk, Miss Saria,” I said. “You want me to help you steal from your own job? What must your bosses think? I don’t think any price you name is going to talk me into even going near the Met, sorry.”
The first rule of Psychometry Club was ‘no museums’. With my power and limited control of it, a location so full of history would drain me and leave me a flopping fish on the floor before I could barely make it past the main lobby.
“Thanks, but no thanks.”
I turned away from our table and started toward the turnstile exit at the front corner of the restaurant.
“You misunderstand,” she called out. “You wouldn’t be stealing. Think of this more of a recovery.”
I stopped and turned back to her. I leaned over the table, lowering my voice. “If this were legitimate, lady, you wouldn’t be trying to hire me.”
She paused as she collected her thoughts before once more speaking. “This is a delicate situation,” she said. “You’ve indeed heard of The Scream, yes?”
Intrigue got the better part of me at the mere mention of the macabre piece of art and I slid back into the seat across from her. “Sure,” I said. “Who hasn’t? Der Schrei der Natur. The Scream of Nature. Gaunt fellow, pulling a Home Alone face slap on a long, haunting road. There are four versions by Edvard Munch.”
One of Mina’s eyebrows raised, disappearing behind her long, red bangs. “Impressive,” she said.
I shrugged. “It’s a sort of Holy Grail in art thieving circles. They’ve all gone missing at some point. Always recovered, I might add.”
She laughed, but quickly regained her composure. “There are art thieving circles?”
“Not really,” I said. “They’re all too paranoid, but you get the idea.”
She nodded. “One of them is currently on loan from the National Gallery of Oslo to the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” she said, then her face fell. “Or was.”
“Was?”
“You misunderstood me before, Mister Canderous,” she said. “I don’t want to hire you to steal it. It’s already been stolen. We need your help retrieving it.”
I sat back in my chair as I took her request in, surprised at the nature of it. “From who?” I asked. “From where?”
“As you said, it is highly sought after by the wrong crowd,” she said. “Forgeries of it abound. We have some leads, but we need help if we’re going to conduct our investigation in an expedient and covert manner. Time—forgive the cliché—is of the essence.”
I shrugged. “So send the cops out, round all of them up.”
Mina paused before proceeding, and when she spoke, I could see in her eyes the care with which she chose her words. “My higher-ups would appreciate some… subtlety in the handling of this,” she said. “If we can recover the painting before it needs to be returned to Oslo, we can avoid a tangle with the Norwegians.”
“There’s something I never thought I would hear,” I said with a chuckle, but Mina didn’t laugh, her face remaining stern. “Sorry.”
“An international incident would reflect poorly on our institution and the city of New York, Mister Canderous,” she said. “Years of diplomacy would be undone.” She leaned in and finally let a smile cross her lips. “And be honest…wouldn’t you like a chance at getting your hands on The Scream, even if it’s only for a few moments? How many men can say that? Not to mention the service you would be doing your city…”
She had a point… more than she truly knew. Under the security of a museum’s watch, The Scream was untouchable. But if I could find it with ‘the someone’ who had already saved me the trouble of getting it out of there, I just might be able to pull off this dream heist for myself. I’d check out whatever forgeries Mina had in mind, and if I came across the real one, I’d misdirect her until I could secure it for myself.
Mina studied my face, and when she saw me smile, she extended her hand once more.
“My services don’t come cheap,” I reminded her. “To validate the right painting, especially one as famous as this…”
“Price is no concern,” she said, smiling.
I slid my gloves on and took her hand in mine, the sensation of my power dulled to the point where I was back in control of it now. I shook her hand with a wide and wicked grin. “Getting paid to steal The Scream,” I said. “Who said crime doesn’t pay?”
THE MOVIES ALWAYS made breaking and entering look oh so easy and yet it was anything but. Especially with three people watching. Luckily, they were also covering me while I knelt on the steps of a townhouse working the tumblers on its main entrance.
“Can you hurry it up?” Mina asked, her voice hushed under the rustling of wind through the leaves of the tree-lined Upper East Side cross street. “I would think after the first dozen places, you’d have mastered picking locks by now, Mister Canderous.”
“Can the three of you kindly fuck off ?” I asked, but kept my concentration on my tension control driving the pins under the shear line within the lock.
“Ooh, feisty,” she purred, which seemed appropriate given the tight leather cat suit she had managed to squeeze herself into for our evening of burglaries. “I’m sure that mouth will do you well in prison.”
“I can feel the three of you watching and it’s not helping,” I said, not bothering to look back at them. “It’s like being pee shy.”
“All right, let’s all turn away,” the one called Kreuger said. His voice sounded as heavy and thick as the man himself. I could picture him behind me, hulking and no doubt buttoning and unbuttoning his black leather coat as he had done a thousand times tonight so far, a habit that I found both annoying and distracting—even when I couldn’t see him doing it.
I didn’t appreciate Mina bringing along goons for this, but at least they knew how to keep watch so it was one less thing to worry about so I could get my job done.
“Hope you’re faster with the interior alarm on this one,” the other goon said. Meyers, I thought his name was, although he had spent most of the night watching me in silence.
“Much faster,” I replied as the outer door finally clicked open with one last push against the tumblers in the lock. “In. Now!”
> The long slow countdown of the alarm system arming beeped away. I ran in before the others could even move and slapped my hand down over the keypad. My psychometric connection snapped to, and my mind’s eyes traced the history of the keypad’s recent use.
A pale man with dark hair worked the numbers, but at a speed that seemed more than human. I rewound the instance over and over in my head until I could slow it enough to see the number he was keying in.
1337.
I pulled myself out of the vision, only a little shaky from the psychometric reading. Over the increasing tones of the beeping, I keyed the number in, silencing it. My hand shook from my power depletion and Mina held up several rolls of Life Savers.
“Here you go,” she said. “I have a diabetic friend who swears by them.”
I took a few and crunched them down, surprised at how quickly I felt better. By then she and her cronies were already moving through the dark interior of the townhouse. The main floor looked posh yet normal enough, but once upstairs the building had more of a museum vibe, the walls thick with art and the floor dotted with display cases filled with a variety of antique looking pieces.
“Who is this guy?” I asked. I slid my gloves back on, not wanting to trigger off anything in the townhouse by mistake.
“Just another eccentric collector,” Mina said, stepping carefully through the room.
On the far wall of the main upstairs room hung The Scream, prominently displayed at the focal point as it had been at four of the previous places we had visited tonight. The four of us crossed to it, mindful of disturbing anything as we went.
Not every replica had looked all that genuine, but upon a cursory examination this one held up under my initial scrutiny.
Krueger and Myers kept back, but Mina settled in at my side, examining the painting herself.
“Well?” she asked, her eyes dancing with an anticipatory hope. “What can you tell me about this one?”
“We’ll see.” The painting itself had its own keypad alarm next to it. I pulled my gloves off, grabbed its code psychometrically to disarm the alarm. I reached for the painting, but before my fingers touched the edge of it, my power crackled to life like tiny jolts of lightning.
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