by Anela Deen
“Quite the contortionist with the facts, aren’t you?”
He turned his hands palm up. “Et alors, we must exploit those talents of which we were bestowed. If your intention was to open the box, the incantation should give you no trouble.”
“Nothing like what happened that last time?” I asked warily, thinking of the mausoleum incantations I’d tangled with the night I’d met the witchdoctor.
“Not at all, not for someone like you.”
“Yeah, I’m a real skeleton key.” I tucked the paper back in my pocket, pausing as a thought came to mind. “Hang on, you met Genghis Khan before he was Genghis Khan?”
“Oui.”
“Hundreds of years ago.”
“Correct.”
“Moreau,” I said, “exactly how old are you?”
He tilted his head in a way that said I should know better than to ask. “Let us discuss instead the favor you owe me. I believe I shall redeem it now.”
“Er, we haven’t agreed on what I’m willing to do yet.”
“You allowed me to complete the favor of information without any stipulation for what you would do in return. Therefore, there are no stipulations, mon petit.” He smiled. “In future, you must be more careful, yes?”
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
“Yes,” I swallowed. “Can this wait for another time? I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“It will take only a moment. Do not look so worried. It is nothing that will cause harm to others.”
“Okay,” I said, worrying anyway. “What do you want?”
“Due to some disagreement with a former client, I am unable to alter the appearance of myself and my shop.” He gestured around us. That explained the closed sign and the guard-snake. “This has caused me some inconvenience thus your visit is well timed. A binding spell is much like a lock.”
“What was the disagreement?” I asked.
“Merely a misunderstanding.”
“Well, that’s vague. How do I know you didn’t deserve it?”
“You don’t, but that is the exchange. An extravagantly fair price, in my opinion.” A warning glittered in his dark eyes. “Unless you’d prefer I arrange another task to have you complete for me?”
“No, no, this is fine.”
“Excellent.”
He extended a hand toward me as if he held the lock in his palm. I supposed that was the best way to access it. When I clasped his hand, he glanced at Maggie where she still fussed over the python. Then he jerked me toward him. Startled, I tried to pull back but he gripped my shoulder with his other hand and leaned close enough to speak into my ear.
“I give you this parcel of advice for free, young saint,” he whispered. “Be wary of the shadow you champion. Sympathy misplaced can lead to ruination just as surely as its lack.”
Chapter 31
The day had begun to wane as we left Moreau’s shop. I checked my phone. Four o’clock. Later than I’d hoped, but our information gathering mission was a success. Now we knew opening the box wouldn’t cause some global catastrophe, though I wasn’t sure how to tell Nick that his brother had died protecting a placebo box created for a conqueror who’d suffered from a confidence issue. How little we knew of the great lives that came before us. A handful of facts with the gaps filled in with fabrication. It made me think of Jo’s book about history and the twists and turns it made of the truth.
“Too bad that box doesn’t do what you thought,” Maggie commented as we headed to my truck parked around the corner.
“How do you mean?”
“If it could really make people do what you say, and you’re the only one who can open it, you could’ve gotten rid of the guys bothering your friend by telling them to jump off a tall bridge or something.”
“Inciting a mass suicide isn’t what I’d call a solution, but I see what you’re saying.” Better the legend of this thing was only that. People manipulated each other enough through non-magical means. Imagine the temptation of having every word obeyed.
“So, where to now?” Maggie asked.
I paused at the driver’s side door and pulled out my phone. “Now we call Nick and tell him what we found out.” But as I scrolled to Nick’s number, his name showed as having called while I’d had it on silent. I tapped to call him back. It barely rang once before someone picked up. Not Nick.
“Hello Don,” Foster’s casual voice answered. “Or should I say, Sam? Sam Alvarez, right?”
It took a moment before I could unlock my jaw enough to reply. “Where’s Nick?”
“He’s right here. Hey Nick,” he called, voice slightly displaced as if he’d turned the phone aside, “Tell Sam you’re with us.”
A scream followed, the voice twisted with agony, but I recognized it as Nick’s. Horrified nausea crawled up my throat.
“You misbehaved, didn’t you, Sam,” Foster returned fully to the phone. “We told you not to call the police, but you did anyway. The same night as our conversation. Rather galling, actually.”
“Sam, you’re white as a sheet. Who is that?” Maggie stepped closer when I didn’t answer and leaned her ear toward the phone. “Is it them?”
“I didn’t call the police,” I told Foster.
“Now, now. I find lying more irritating than ignoring my instructions.”
Another scream.
“Stop!” My hands were shaking, my fingers numb. “I didn’t call—”
Maggie nudged me in the ribs with a significant look. Oh no.
“There was an accident on the road,” I said. “A car accident. Someone was hurt. I called for an ambulance and the police came with them. That’s all it was. They don’t know anything.”
“That’s bad luck,” Foster said good-naturedly while Nick’s cries became a hoarse refrain in the background, “especially since it doesn’t matter to me why you called. Only that you did. Poor Nick has suffered quite a bit because of your carelessness.”
Had they taken him right after the accident? Had they been hurting him all night? Stomach acid burned the back of my mouth. My thoughts scattered.
“Tell them you have what they want,” Maggie said, and jabbed me again with her elbow when I stared dumbly. “Pull it together and tell them you have the key.”
“I—I have the key.”
“What was that?” Foster’s tone sharpened.
“I said I have the key.”
Maggie made a keep-going gesture with her hand. “Now tell them to stop beating on Nick or they’ll never get it.”
I muted the phone. “They’ll hurt him worse if I threaten them.”
“Don’t you know how to bluff?”
“Not really.”
She made an annoyed sound. “Just repeat what I tell you, starting with threatening to lose the key.”
I unmuted the phone and did as she said.
“There’s only one key, Sam,” Foster said, voice low and dangerous, but Nick’s pained cries ceased immediately. “It’s an ancient relic. Are you trying to tell me there’s a copy in your little Iowa town?”
“I’m telling you I have a way to open the box,” I said, parroting Maggie’s words verbatim. “What do you care how I found it or where?”
“A valid point. Let’s arrange a drop-off spot where you can leave it.”
“This is an exchange, Foster, not a donation. The key for Nick.”
“You’ll drop off the key where I tell you and in exchange, I won’t take your family on the drive Nick’s about to go on.”
“Unless I see my friend in person and alive, you’ll never get that box open.” Maggie’s tone softened then, and I copied the hint of fear and uncertainty she put into it. The girl definitely knew what she was doing. “I’ll meet wherever you want. Just please, stop hurting him.”
A lengthy pause followed during which I forgot to breathe. Maggie gave me a confident nod.
“There’s a vacant factory about half an hour outside of Bellemer,” Foster said. “You know it?”
“The old paper
mill.”
“Get yourself here in thirty minutes, alone and unarmed. If your key checks out, we’ll leave you and Nick to your small town lives.”
“That’s all we want.”
“Better get on the road then,” Foster said. “And Sam, don’t make any phone calls this time. Nick won’t survive another misunderstanding.”
“No calls,” I promised, but he’d already hung up.
Chapter 32
“Awesome job,” Maggie said, stepping back. “Now you can send the police out there to pick them up.”
“By the time I explain all this to the cops, Nick’s thirty minutes will be up,” I told her, hopping into my truck. After a couple of illegal maneuvers on a one-way street, I was speeding down the road out of town.
“The point of arranging a meet with them was so you could report where they’d be,” Maggie said from the passenger seat. “If you go walking in there, they’ll kill you, especially since you don’t have any key to give them.”
“The box is a fake. It doesn’t matter if they have the key. Once I open it for them, they’ll see that.”
Maggie ran a hand through the pink highlights of her hair. “You don’t really think they’re going to let you live, do you? They probably killed your friend after you hung up.”
I almost swerved off the road. No. No, they wouldn’t do that. They wanted the key and they had to know I wouldn’t give them anything before I saw Nick alive.
I glanced at Maggie, an idea forming. “Do you think…Could you scout ahead for me?”
She squinted uncertainly. “How?”
“The same way you show up in the truck without opening the door? The place is called Hudson’s Paper, an old mill that closed down about ten years ago. It’s the only building in that area.”
She pursed her lips, closed her eyes.
And disappeared.
A blank canvas of farmland stretched out on either side of the road. Doubt took Maggie’s place beside me. She wasn’t wrong. I had to have a better plan than walking into what was surely a trap. Foster didn’t exactly give off a keeps-his-word kind of vibe. I needed a scheme that would get us both out of this alive.
By the time Maggie reappeared a few minutes later, I knew what to do.
“There’re four of them,” she said. “Two are watching the road. They all have guns.”
“And Nick? Did you see him?”
She paused with a speculative look.
"Well?"
"He was tied to a chair, but...I'm sorry, Sam. They killed him."
I jerked like I’d been cuffed in the head and my foot slipped off the accelerator. " I don't understand. Why would they—Why…"
I didn’t know what made me look at Maggie, or what made me question the stillness of her expression, but with sudden clarity I realized what was going on.
“Maggie,” I said, sharp, “why are you lying to me?”
She didn’t answer.
“Let’s not do this game, okay? Nick’s alive, isn’t he?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and flopped back against the seat. “Fine. Yes, I saw him. He looks pretty beat up but alive. I was only,” she punched the dashboard. “Going there is a stupid idea. How can you not see that?”
“You think I should just leave him to die?”
“Yes! Your friend got himself in this mess and dragged you with him. You don’t owe him anything.”
“Friendship isn’t a spreadsheet of debts and repayments, Maggie. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. People are not commodities to use toward your own gain. That way of thinking is why you’re in danger of losing your soul.”
“People only do good when they’re forced into it. When they have no choice.”
“That’s not true, though, is it,” I shot back. “The ones you hurt, they helped you for no other reason than because you needed it.”
“Pity, you mean. They did it to feel better about themselves.”
“Wrong. It was kindness, Maggie. One of the rare things in this world that uplifts us in both the giving and receiving.”
“Sam,” she shook her head. “How can you believe such fairytales?”
“Do you think I’m headed to negotiate with a pack of murderers because it makes me feel good about myself? Do you honestly think I crossed a line with my mentor, someone I care about, to help you because of pity?”
“No, but,” she looked at me, “you’re different.”
I had to laugh at that. “Am I? All your life, you told yourself a dark story about the world. Then you made yourself part of it. Stop believing the lie. It’s the only way to save yourself.”
She fell quiet a moment, tilted her head back with a huff. “Going there alone and unarmed is still crazy. You won’t find any of this enlightened thinking with those goons.”
“I realize that,” I said dryly. “So, here’s what we’re going to do.”
Chapter 33
The last light of the day bled from the horizon as I pulled into the cracked cement drive of the old paper mill. Hudson Paper had gone out of business ten years before when the river had been diverted by a dam up state. In high school, some of us used to throw rocks at the grimy windows or scout around inside at night for the scare factor.
No one loitered here anymore, not since the place was condemned after a tornado clipped the building five years ago. The front portion looked like it had been stepped on by a careless giant, the roof caved inward, the brick walls half crumbled. Chunks of machinery were strewn about like shrapnel. Toward the back, on the half that still stood, a trio of smokestacks pointed from the roof of the complex like the prongs of a rusted fork. Two non-descript black sedans sat parked beside that area and light glowed through the shattered windows.
“A good wind could knock this place down,” Maggie commented as I pulled in a good distance back from the sedans. “This is not a smart idea.”
It definitely looked like a body-dumping locale.
“They didn’t give us a choice of venue.” With sweat-damp hands I put my truck into park, eyeing a shadow that stepped outside. “We’re clear on the plan?”
“If you want to call it that, sure,” she said and vanished from the seat.
The big guy who’d cornered me at the bar moved up to my side and opened the door.
“Out,” he growled.
I obeyed, noticing again the skull tattoo on his burly arm as he patted me down. I really hoped it was just a random design and not some symbol for his talent at making people dead.
A brisk November breeze blasted across the empty lot.
“Doesn’t Foster let you guys wear coats? Or do muscles keep themselves warm at a certain girth?”
He pushed me against the side of my truck. “Where’s your phone?”
“Left it behind. They don’t deliver pizza this far out of town.”
He clamped a meaty hand over my throat. “Your smart mouth annoys me.”
“I hear that a lot,” I wheezed.
The outline of another person appeared in the doorway, the light behind blinding me to their identity.
“Just check his truck for anything and get in here,” Foster’s voice called.
Tattoo-Guy gave me an impressive glare, then shoved me toward the entrance. Another man in black boots loomed beside it.
“Thank you for being on time,” Foster said. He swept a hand across the threshold as if inviting me into his office instead of an abandoned building where he likely planned to kill me. Several LED camping lanterns lit the space with chilly white light.
“Well, you know what they say about country roads,” I muttered, moving swiftly past him. “Speed limits are more of a suggestion than…”
I caught sight of Nick and my words dropped away. They’d bound him with bungee cords to a rusted metal chair. He sat slumped, his head tipped to one side and his face so swollen he barely looked like himself. Distantly, I noticed the third of Foster’s gang lurking nearby. No one stopped me as I rushed to Nick’s side.
>
“Nick,” I breathed. “Can you hear me?”
“Sam.” He whispered my name between cracked lips. He couldn’t seem to lift his head.
“Just hang on, buddy. We’re getting out of here.”
“There are a few things to work out before that, Sam,” Foster said.
“You didn’t need to do this. Look at him, he needs a hospital.”
“Probably.” He shrugged with phony regret.
Clenching my jaw, I untied the restraints that cinched Nick to the chair. Foster’s goon, a guy with red hair, took a step toward me but his boss twitched a hand and he fell back. I guess they weren’t too concerned we’d make a run for it since Nick couldn’t even stand up.
Gently, I guided Nick to a prone position on the cold floor. He groaned, one scraped up hand shielding his side. A spectrum of purples stained his abdomen where his shirt rode up. I almost feared touching him for worry that I’d press on a broken bone. Without a doubt, he had some.
“All comfy? Let’s get to business then.” Foster extended an open palm. “I want the key.”
The expression on my face grew hard. How much trouble would I be in if I took a swing at the guy?
Nick shivered against the ground. I shrugged out of my jacket and tucked it around him.
“S-Sam,” he stuttered, peering out at me from swollen eyes. “You have to r-run. Go.”
“Not without you.”
“Shouldn’t be here,” his voice was nearly inaudible. “I’m sorry. Tell my parents…I’m sorry.”
“I made you a promise. We’re getting out of here together.”
His eyes fell shut.
“I don’t enjoy repeating myself,” Foster said sharply. “The key. Now.”
“Don’t worry, I have a plan,” I told Nick quietly, unsure if he heard me. He seemed to have passed out. I squeezed his shoulder and then stood to face Foster.
“If you want the key,” I said, “you’ll need to show me the box.”
“You’ve seen it already.”
“Not a picture. The actual thing.”
“What makes you think it’s here?”
“You wouldn’t go back to your client without making sure it works first. I know I wouldn’t.”