The Curious Case of the Cursed Crucible

by Constance Barker

  Actually, I’d wondered that myself.

  “Bel has always been the helpful sort,” Edgar said. “The whole time I’ve known him he’s been that way. I suspect it’s just the way he was raised, you know. It’s who he’s become—a helpful person.”

  “You knew him when he was growing, or whatever a homunculus does?” I asked.

  Edgar looked puzzled. “I’m not at all sure. I know that information, but I don’t know how I know it.”

  That wasn’t unusual with Edgar. “Sometimes it seems that your connection to the world of cursed objects is one of longer standing than I can imagine, Edgar.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” he said. “Things, information about people and objects seems to pop into my head sometimes, although there isn’t often any context for it. All I can tell you, in regards to Bel, is that I feel a strong kinship with him. It’s almost as if we were related or something. Of course, that’s absurd. He was created and doesn’t have any real family.”

  Thinking about that made me wonder. “Has Bel ever indicated that he might know more about you and your past than he’s mentioned to us?”

  Edgar considered that. “Not really. Best to ask him directly, I’d think.”

  “When this is over,” I said.

  “Is it ever over?” Clarence asked. He sounded tired.

  “I meant rescuing Leopold, not everything to do with artifacts.”

  “Oh,” he said softly. “Just that, then.”

  Later, we stopped to get something to eat. Bel found a place that had cold milk for him and burgers and fries for Clarence and me.”

  “When we get to Relic Redoubt, how do we find the DuLac family?” Bel asked.

  “I have an idea,” Clarence said. We watched as he opened the laptop and connected to the restaurant’s free wifi. A moment later, he wrote an address on a napkin and slid it over to Bel. “It’s right here,” he said. He grabbed another napkin. “I’ll locate in on an online map and write out the directions.”

  That trick had me going. “Where did you get that address?”

  He smiled. “The DuLac family has a website,” he said. “I figured they had to have one.”

  “Advertising miracle cures?” Edgar asked.

  He turned the computer so we could see the screen. “The DuLac Family Estate,” it said above a picture that showed a silhouette of a mansion.

  “They mention that they have ancient curios that are reputed to have interesting abilities, but they play it as curiosities. They know it pays to advertise, but they are subtle about it. Those who know what they actually sell will just be looking for contact information.”

  The modern era sometimes could be overwhelming. “A website,” I muttered. “The villains have a website?” I shook my head. “Of course they do.”

  “You know, we need to make one for the store,” Clarence said. “It’s an important marketing tool and something else we’ve neglected. I’ll set that up as soon as we get back.”

  “For now, let’s eat and get on with the rescuing,” I said.

  Bel finished his milk and smiled. “Take your time. I don’t mind waiting.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The DuLac family mansion was exactly what it should be... assuming you’ve spent a lot of time watching a lot of Gothic horror movies and then flipped over to watch shows about the rich and famous. Someone, back in the history of the family, had a dark sense of what ‘grand’ meant and far too much money. In short, it was just as large and pretentious as it had looked on the website. In addition, it was perched on a hill overlooking the entire area, which gave it an even more menacing look.

  “It’s situated exactly as a redoubt should be,” Clarence said. “This family is pretty thorough with their branding.”

  “Branding?”

  He smiled. “I think that a lot of this stuff is for show... they sell the application of cursed objects, after all. You don’t do that from a shabby mobile home in a trailer park. They are consistent in name, image, and product. Customers would think that sinister is as sinister does, and the house should look the part.”

  “This place definitely looks the part,” Edgar said.

  It did.

  We’d left our car at the diner and were once again riding in Bel’s car again, with him driving. He stopped to take stock at a single, paved driveway that snaked up the hill to the main house. At the foot of the hill, directly in front of us, was a metal gate. Next to it was a guardhouse manned by a grumpy, bored private security cop. At least he looked bored, and when we got to the gate, he acted grumpily. As Bel rolled down his window to talk to the man in the guardhouse, we could see that he had a desk that held a bank of monitors that showed the grounds of property from every angle. They had to have a large array of cameras stationed around the place. Security was, as we’d expected, a serious matter with the DuLac family.

  The stout, rather red-faced man in a security guard uniform scowled at us through an open window, scoping us out carefully, peering into the back seat so intently it made it seem like he had X-ray vision. “This is private property,” he said. “What’s your business here? No one is expected.”

  I leaned over past Bel to smile at him. A smile never hurts and it can be disarming. “Good morning,” I said, sounding cheerful. “It’s true that we don’t have an appointment,” I said, “but we do need to see the DuLac family.”

  “No you don’t,” he said rudely.

  “We have important business with them.”

  “No you don’t,” he said again. He took a ballpoint pen from behind his ear and tapped on a clipboard meaningfully. “Every person who has important business at the house is listed on the this... list here. Anyone making deliveries is on another list. And, as it happens, there are no names on either of those lists this morning. So you can back up, turn around, and leave.”

  “Could you call up to the house and tell them...”

  “Lady, protocol is pretty set here. If your name is on the list you get to go in; if it isn’t you don’t. If you are stubborn, I call the cops.”

  “You could call Mr. DuLac and ask him if he wants to make an exception.”

  “You’re right, I could do that, but that ain’t the protocol.”

  “But he will want to see us.”

  “Well, if you think someone has made a mistake and your name should be on the list, you can call them yourself. Ask the administrator to call me and let me know. That’s how it works.”

  “Can you give us the number?” Clarence asked.

  The guard smiled a self-satisfied smile. Our ignorance confirmed his suspicions. “If seeing you were important to the DuLac family, if you had any legitimate business with them, then you’d know how to get in touch with them. Now wouldn’t you?” The last sounded awfully smug.

  “Damn it,” I said. From his perspective, he was right. If I couldn’t even let the family know we had arrived there was no way to get through this gate. And my idea depended on getting past this gate, up the hill, and into the mansion.

  Bel turned toward him and gave him an enigmatic stare. “Be that as it may, I suspect that Mr. DuLac would like to know that Belial Hohenheim is on his doorstep. It would intrigue him to know that I would like to speak with him. Enough so that he will happily make an exception, regardless of what you think. I do understand your initiative however if you don’t wish to do that, to see if what I’m saying is true, I understand. But I hope that adhering strictly to your protocol is worth losing your job over. For I assure you if you chase me away, when Mr. DuLac learns about it, that little exercise of power will earn you Mr. DuLac’s wrath. I rather think that would make things unpleasant for you. It is your call, however. If you insist, we will leave. Our mission is, in the final analysis, more important to Mr. DuLac than to us.”

  The guard gave him a dark look. “You’re saying that your name is going to mean something important to the people up at the house?”

  “I am. While it is absolutely true that they had no reason
to expect us, and didn’t know I was coming, I can assure you that they will be upset if they learn I was turned away. And, as we don’t have any way to contact them, they will learn about our attempt to visit far too late for it to help them.”

  The man was nervous now. Bel’s understated confidence was doing the trick. He picked up the phone. “I’m going to call, but if they don’t know you up at the house I’m calling the cops and having you arrested for trespassing,” he said.

  Bel faced forward, his hands on the wheel. “That’s fine. Just tell them Belial Hohenheim would like to drop in for a visit.”

  Unsure, the guard made the call. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but I have a visitor at the gate. No sir, he isn’t on the list. Yes sir, I’m well aware of the protocol, but this, rather strange looking gentleman insists that you would want to know that he was here. He says his name is Belial Hohenheim and... what? Yes sir, right away, sir.” His eyes were wide and a look of mild astonishment covered his face as he hung up the phone and turned back to us. He pressed a button and the gate swung open.

  I watched the gate. Somehow its slow motion, opening to admit us seemed menacing. Once we were inside, that gate would keep us there.

  The guard pointed. “If you will drive straight up the driveway and park in front, they’ll be expecting you at the house, Mr. Hohenheim.”

  “Thank you,” Bel said, putting the car in gear and heading slowly up the drive.

  “You seem to be a pretty well-known person, Bel,” I said.

  “I suppose that’s true. In certain circles, at least. I’ve been around quite a long time of course, and, as a result, I’m familiar to most of the people who deal with artifacts. It’s rather inevitable, don’t you think? It’s not a large community.”

  “It seems larger every day,” I said.

  “What about Edgar?” Clarence asked him.

  Bel looked back over his shoulder at him. “What about Edgar?”

  “Do you know anything about him? None of us do, including him. He seems to know something about you, but not why he knows it. I just thought...”

  “I do know some things, however, Edgar’s history is rather complicated. And here we are at the mansion.” He stopped the car and turned the engine off. An old man, well dressed in a severe sort of way, and ramrod straight, stood on the front step, awaiting our arrival. “It seems that we really don’t have any time to discuss it now. There are more pressing matters to deal with.”

  “I’d appreciate hearing anything you know,” Edgar said.

  “Then perhaps later,” he said as the old man, using a cane, came toward us. “Welcome,” he said, holding out a hand. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Hohenheim. I am Leopold DuLac the second.”

  “I know,” Bel said.

  “My grandfather told me many stories about you. I never imagined I’d actually meet you.”

  “And of course, I am well aware of you and your family,” Bel said. “I’d like to introduce my friends, Cecilia Parish and Clarence Copperfield.”

  The old man’s face turned into a scowl. “Friends? As I understand it, these two are Antique Dealers. How are they friends of yours?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, spurting the question out.

  “Have you got Belial’s vessel now, or has Ulrich finally turned on his compatriots? What could you offer him to betray the Cabal?”

  “There’s a vessel of some kind?” Clarence asked.

  “They are simply friends,” Bel said. “They asked me to come with them.”

  “For what purpose?” the old man asked, a sternness in his voice.

  “To negotiate a trade,” I said.

  “What sort of trade? Why would I do business with an Antique Dealer?”

  “For your son, Leopold,” I said.

  The old man rapped his cane on the hard flagstone, making a sharp click. He was irritated now. “What would you trade me for him?”

  I looked at him, trying not to show any fear. This old man was like a mad dog and the slightest weakness would cause him to attack, although I felt the metaphor was unfair to mad dogs. “We have the crucible.” I watched his face. “We are offering to return it to the family in exchange for Leopold.”

  “Of course, you have it with you?”

  “We do.”

  “So I could simply have it taken from you. Then I could keep my son. It is, after all, rightfully our property, as is he.”

  The idea made me wince. “I’ll concede that,” I said. “I doubt, however, that you really want to start a war between your family and the Antique Dealers. We have come here in good faith to offer a reasonable trade, one that favors you. We offer a recent acquisition of ours, one that you want, in return for you freeing a son you don’t seem to care about at all.”

  He tapped his cane irritatingly as he considered the options. I had no idea if war with the Antique Dealers would result or if the idea even bothered him. It did, however, give him pause. Finally,

  “You are right. You’ve come here and laid your cards on the table and I’ve muttered threats. Where are my manners?” He turned and pointed his cane at the door of his mansion. “Please come inside so that we can discuss this in a civilized manner.”

  Bel shrugged and headed up the steps with Clarence right behind him and me trailing behind. As I heard the click of Leopold Senior’s cane on the marble steps I found myself hoping that I had judged the situation correctly. Otherwise, we were probably making a huge, terrible, possibly dangerous mistake.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Leopold Senior ushered us into a large sitting room. “My son should be joining us soon,” he said. “I just got the call that he’d been found a short time ago.”

  I saw Clarence cock an eyebrow. “Too bad we didn’t know where his hotel was,” he whispered to me. “Might’ve saved ourselves this trip.”

  “In the meantime,” DuLac went on, “I’m sure that, as Antique Dealers, you’d like to see what the family has acquired over the last few hundred years. It’s a modest collection, of course, but very profitable.”

  The suggestion surprised me. I wondered why he was so willing to show us his prized collection. And he did seem eager, although his smile seemed more predatory than vain. I assumed he had decided that he could trust us. Apparently, there had been some sort of long-term peace, or truce at least, between the family and the Antique Dealers. Given our willingness to show up and expect him to treat us well, he could assume we wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize it. Whatever the agreement was and whether it was formal or just an informal understanding, from my point of view, he was right. The agreement was our only protection.

  Now we followed the old man as he clicked his cane along the marble floors of a long, cold hallway. A few paintings hung on the wall, but otherwise, it appeared empty. I saw a few cameras like the kind that displayed the grounds of the mansion on the guard’s monitors. I assumed we were watched, probably from another security monitoring location inside the building. The idea made me nervous, still, I let him lead the way to a room deep inside the mansion. A heavy door, suggesting the room was actually a vault, opened at the touch of his hand and swung silently aside.

  Inside were objects on display. “Lot’s of artifacts here,” Edgar said.

  “This is where we keep our collection,” Leopold Senior said, seemingly oblivious to Edgar. That was helpful. Far too often the bad guys could see and hear him and that wasn’t fair. He was supposed to be a secret weapon.

  The old man pointed out an ornate quill, resting on a silk pillow. “This one isn’t particularly useful to us in our business,” he said. “It’s more of a museum piece, really.”

  “Why is that?” I asked. I figured that anything I could learn about the family and its treasures might be useful later.

  “Because it’s more haunted than cursed, although it is a curse. Feel free to touch it, but be aware that anyone who picks it up becomes possessed by its original owner.”

  “Who was that?” Clarence a
sked, beating me to it by a heartbeat.

  “Tomas De Torquemada. He was the chief inquisitor of the Spanish inquisition and, as you might expect, a very unpleasant character. Once a person is cursed by touching it, they can’t get away from it until they manage to pass the curse along, or die.”

  “Sounds like us,” I whispered to Edgar, feeling a shiver. The situation was similar, although I got to keep my own personality, at least.

  Edgar didn’t answer and I saw that he was staring intently at the quill.

  “Where and how did your family acquire this quill?” I asked him. He gave me an odd look. “I’m just curious. I’ve heard of it before, but...”

  “Actually, it was a gift—from the Antique Dealers.”

  “Really?” That surprised me. It didn’t seem right. But I couldn’t even figure out Enid and my Uncle Mason, much less other Antique Dealers, so what did I know?

  “It was something like two centuries ago,” he said, musing. “Apparently, the quill was recovered from an experimental laboratory.”

  “Laboratory?” The mere mention of the word caught Bel’s interest.

  “Yes. Apparently, the Cabal established it an attempt to create artifacts. It failed, of course.”

  “Of course?”

  He smiled, thinly. “The Cabal is good at many things, but practicing magic is not one of their strong suits. They can use artifacts, to a degree, to achieve their ends, and they are cunning, but the practice of magic requires far more dedication, practice, and... cleverness.” I wondered if he’d been about to say intelligence. “The family, I’ll admit, is not better at doing more than applying existing curses on the objects we’ve collected, but then, we’ve never really aspired to more than that. The artifacts have provided for us nicely. At any rate, the Cabal abandoned the experiments and the lab, and it lay in ruins until some Antique Dealers excavated it and discovered the quill. For reasons lost in the inky mists of time, gave it to my ancestors.” He grinned. “I’ve waited all my life to use that phrase sensibly.”