I searched Mills’ eyes and found no hint of a lie. My hands started shaking. I stuffed them in my pockets.
“How did you know?” I said.
“Someone…something came back, after I buried what I thought was my son. It came back in the night, and told me it had Michael. I tried to grab hold of it, demand answers. But it was dark, and it slipped away.”
“And you didn’t see this thing?”
He shook his head. “It seemed almost human. But its smell…its smell was all wrong. And its voice was like sandpaper. My wife didn’t believe me. That’s why I had to leave.” He paused, looking down at the floor. “And then, one night, the thing came back. It said it would return Michael if I gave it what it wanted.”
“What did it want?”
He swallowed. “A hobgoblin. The thing that took Michael, it told me how to trap a hobgoblin. I did what it said. But then the hobgoblin got away, and I had to find it, so I came to you, and…and…”
“All right, all right.” I exhaled, dragging my hand across my face.
“That thing said no one could know. It said there could be no witnesses.”
“All right, I said!”
Blood pounded in my head. I wanted to crush Mills for what he’d done to me. I wanted to squeeze the wax doll until the last of his life was choked out of him.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I believed him.
He’d done all this to try to save his boy. How could I fault him for that, after all I’d done to try to save Teddy?
“What did you do to the hobgoblin?” I said.
Mills was still sobbing. When he didn’t answer me, I shook him and repeated the question.
“The thing told me to leave the hobgoblin tied up in a bag at the foot of my bed that night. I was so tired, I couldn’t stay awake. When I woke up, the bag was gone.”
“And your boy?”
He sniffed and shook his head. “I don’t know. The thing said it would be back. But…but I still haven’t heard anything.”
Of course you haven’t, I wanted to shout in his face. What kind of idiot was he? Changeling children didn’t come home.
Chances were the boy had been stripped for parts within a day of being taken, like a stolen car. Maybe he was still alive, being raised as the slave of some nefarious Stranger. But no matter what orders Brandon Mills carried out, the boy wasn’t coming back. Not unless someone went and brought him home.
I squashed that thought before it could spread. The boy wasn’t my problem, and I had enough of my own to deal with without taking on more. Besides, he was almost certainly dead. The sooner Mills came to terms with that, the better.
But when I opened my mouth to say the words, I couldn’t bring myself to. He was pathetic enough already. I didn’t want to see what he’d become when that one last hope was taken away from him.
Maybe it was stupid to pity the bastard. He’d killed me, after all. But when I looked at him sitting there, sniffing and sobbing, my anger found a new focus.
Mills had been used. He was a pawn, like me. But somewhere out there was a player, and I wanted nothing more than to make him choke on his own chess board.
“All right, Brandon,” I said. “Listen here. Is there anything else you haven’t told me? Because if I find out you’re keeping something from me…”
“That’s all I know. I swear.” He met my eyes, and I nodded slowly.
“Good. From now on, you’re going to sit in this house, tend to your mother, and stay the hell out of my way. I’m going to get to the bottom of this. If anyone or anything contacts you, you give me a call right away. And if you can’t get in touch with me, you talk to my friend Early.” I gave him Early’s phone number. “You understand?”
He nodded. “Okay.”
I gave him one last glare to make sure he got the message, then I headed for the hall. Just as I was about to leave the living room, he called out to me.
“What about my son?”
I paused, sighed. Couldn’t leave it alone, could he?
“Your boy, he’s…” I looked into his puppy dog eyes and sighed again. “Tell me about him. Tell me about your boy.”
“Tell…?”
“Describe him to me.”
Mills licked his lips. “He’s…he’s nearly two. Tall for his age. Dark haired. His eyes were blue when he was born, but they turned green.” His lips trembled. “He has the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. And he smiles at everything. Everyone. I’ve never met a happier child. I don’t know how that happened. How did I make such a perfect son?”
I screwed up my eyes, tried to form a picture of Michael Mills in my head.
But all I could see was Teddy.
“Do you think he’s still alive?” Mills whispered.
No , said the voice in my head.
But what if he was? What if he was?
Teddy was dead. But maybe this boy wasn’t.
Damn it. I grunted. “Look, I’ll do what I can.”
A smile broke across his face. “Thank you,” he said, sniffling. “Thank you.”
“I’m not doing it for you,” I said.
I got the hell out of there before he could start crying again.
As I made my way back down the hall, I heard the creak of bedsprings from behind a half-open door. I paused. After a moment’s indecision, my curiosity got the better of me and I eased the door open a couple more inches with my foot.
The room had a musty, retirement home kind of smell. The curtains were pulled, but they were thin and tattered, letting shafts of light in through the gaps and tears.
Brandon’s mother was asleep in bed, covered in dusty blankets. Her wheelchair sat in the corner of the room, like a watchful guard dog.
She breathed with a rattling hiss. One arm dangled out from under the covers, bathed in a strip of light coming through the crack in the curtains. A band of gold glittered in the sunshine. She was wearing a wedding ring that had been etched with a pattern like naked tree branches.
I wondered what had happened to her husband. Was he dead too?
That led to other questions. Had Brandon told her what had really happened to his son? And if he had, did she believe him?
I felt a sudden wave of pity for the woman. She was already crippled and deaf. She’d lost her grandson, and now she’d been brought here, to this damp wreck of a house to slowly fade away.
Just as I was about to back away, the old woman’s eyelids fluttered open. She turned her head, and in the dim light her one good eye met mine.
Something in her stare made my blood run cold. I stood frozen for a moment as she silently stared at me. Then I pulled the door closed and backed away quickly, cringing at every creaking floorboard.
It was a relief to throw open the front door and emerge into the thick tangle of the house’s front garden. Everything in that place creeped me the hell out.
I enjoyed the cold afternoon sunlight as I strode away from the house. Funny, how sharp the wind seemed now, how bright the light was. I was slowly coming to terms with my fate, and my senses were greedily sucking in every sensation they could, before it was too late.
Part of me wanted to just stay like that forever, staring up into the sky. Part of me wanted to let it all go, just accept that my time was up.
But when I reached the street and saw what was waiting for me, I knew any chance of being content with my lot had gone straight out the window. Because standing there next to the stolen car, watching me approach, was Early.
And he looked fucking furious.
18
It takes a lot to make Early mad.
Sure, he can be a bit of a grumpy old bastard at times. He doesn’t suffer fools, and if he doesn’t get his morning bowl of bran flakes, you can bet you’ll be hearing about it.
But deep down he’s the wise and gentle brand of cunning man. He takes in the world’s problems, gives them a look over, and starts fixing them without complaint.
Must be all the herbal tea he drinks.
It was an impressive thing to watch. There was waving of arms and frothing at the mouth and everything. At one point he even used the phrase “worried sick.” Like I was a five-year-old who’d gotten lost at the mall.
I just sat there behind the wheel with my head hanging, mumbling apologies every so often and hoping he’d hurry up. I couldn’t waste all day getting yelled at.
I probably would’ve got away with a short scolding if I hadn’t stolen Rhodes’ car. So I guess it was my own fault, really.
Sometime during the tirade I started wondering how Early had managed to track me down here. He gave me the answer soon enough, without me having to ask. Get this: GPS again. It was the bane of my life. For some reason Rhodes had actually gone to the effort to fit this damn rust bucket with an anti-theft GPS tracking device. I sometimes wondered if Rhodes was even from this planet.
It was about five minutes into Early’s rant that he finally recognized the coat I was wearing. His eyes widened as he stared at the tattered leather. The anger left his face, and in its place was a disappointment so sharp it cut.
“Why are you wearing that?” he said quietly.
Taking a deep breath, I began to tell him what’d happened. Now that he’d got all that shouting out of his system, he listened in silence while I laid everything out.
I didn’t hold back like I had with Alice. Telling her everything would’ve endangered everyone. Centuries of unspoken law dictated that I kept the full truth hidden from her.
But Early was a cunning man, just like me. So I told him everything: Mills, the job, the betrayal.
And once I started telling the story, it all came tumbling out of me. I could hear the rage in my voice as I told him about the shooting; it tasted like bile in the back of my throat. I swallowed it down.
When I told him about the deal I’d made with the Dealer, Early closed his eyes and let out a sigh like a deflating balloon. He knew as well as I did that a deal like that was final.
Finally, it was all out there. My words seemed to hang in the pickup’s cab, heavy and smothering. I was breathing heavily, suddenly exhausted. I felt like I could sleep for days. If only I had that long.
For a few seconds, Early just sat there, staring out the windshield, hands balled into fists in his lap. Then he turned to me and gripped my shoulder.
“My boy,” he said, his voice thick with sorrow.
“I’m not dead yet,” I said.
He nodded, but we both knew it would take a miracle to save me. The transfer clause I’d added to the deal was a long shot. There were only a couple of people in the whole world who might willingly sacrifice themselves up to the Dealer in my place, and I wouldn’t let them.
Early, for instance, would undoubtedly leap at the opportunity to take this bullet for me. He loved that kind of thing. Even if I agreed to it—which I wouldn’t—I doubted the Dealer would consider his creaky old bones to be worth the same as mine.
We lapsed back into silence for a few minutes. We were still in the cul-de-sac near Mills’ house, and now that I’d spilled my tale I could feel my time ticking away again. Early’s car was parked behind my stolen pickup. I’d gathered from his earlier tirade that my sister had blabbed to him as soon as I’d left the cemetery. Tattletale.
As I watched, Early seemed to come to terms with everything I’d told him. His face hardened and his voice became matter-of-fact.
“This business with the hobgoblin worries me. Did this Mills character say anything about why his tormentor wants the creature?”
“No,” I said, relieved to put aside the issue of my mortality for now. “But I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that whatever it is, the hobgoblin isn’t happy about it.”
He nodded grimly. “I have a bad feeling about this. Hobgoblins don’t make enemies easily, and they’re not much use for anything. Not alive, at least. But I’ve heard of a few very old and very powerful curses that require the flesh of a hobgoblin.”
I’d heard of them too, and as he said it, something came back to me. “Before I got shot, the hobgoblin was screaming something about a curse. Blood and silver and a curse.”
Early grunted. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.”
“Talk to the hag,” I suggested. “She might be able to shed some light on this.”
“I would,” he said. “But she’s nowhere to be found.”
I looked at him. “Still?”
“You’ve heard?”
“Lilian called me just before I got shot, said the hag was missing. Asked me to help find her. I figured she would’ve shown up by now.”
“Well, she hasn’t,” he said with a sigh. “In fact, I just came from her place. Her disappearance is starting to worry people. She’s never been gone this long before. I was asked to have another look. I don’t have your skill with tracking, but…” He shook his head. “Nothing. No sign of her. Some of her wards have been broken, but the place is such a mess I can’t even tell if anything else is missing.”
He didn’t say it, but I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was. Was the hag’s disappearance somehow linked to the hobgoblin and whoever had been manipulating Brandon Mills?
The timing made for an interesting coincidence. Stranger things had happened in Lost Falls. Still, it didn’t smell right.
“I’m going to have to call a conclave,” Early said, his voice heavy.
“What? No. Come on.”
“I don’t have a choice. This keeps getting worse, Ozzy. First the hag goes missing, and now we’re dealing with changelings as well. If someone harmed the hag, they’re extremely powerful. And if they’re working a curse, they could be a threat to everyone. This needs to be discussed properly.”
“No, we need to do something. Not gather up the local freaks and spend the next three days arguing over what font the minutes should be typed up in.”
He frowned and opened his mouth, but I cut in before he could speak.
“Look, the hag’s disappearance is concerning, I’ll give you that. But it’s a dead end. I want to find Mills’ tormentor. And we both know the first place we should go looking for him.”
“We don’t know anything,” he said.
“Oh, come on!” I threw my hands up in the air and accidentally punched the roof of the pickup. “Don’t give me that false diplomacy bullshit. Not now. I don’t have time for it, Early. Literally.”
His face tightened as if he was in pain, but the grimace vanished so quickly I wondered if I’d been imagining it. He turned to me, fixing me with his hard gray eyes.
“This is bigger than you, and you know it. I know you’re angry. I know you want to rip and tear. Believe me, I know. But this is what cunning folk do, boy. Cunning folk have a responsibility to their community. Cunning folk have to be wise. They have to think, they have to talk it out.” He cast an eye over my coat once more, and I was suddenly ashamed of it, of the vials of black liquid stuffed into the pockets and the weight of the revolver pressing against my side. “Are you a cunning man, Ozzy? Or are you something else?”
I licked my lips. Damn the old bastard.
“Well?” he said.
“Fine. All right. We’ll do it your way.”
He nodded sharply. “Good. I’ll call the conclave tonight. It’s short notice, but we don’t have a choice. You’re going to need to tell your story to them.”
“What? I—” I sighed. “Hell. Yeah, okay. I’ll tell them what they need to know. But I swear to God, the first one of them to interrupt me is getting cursed with genital warts.”
Early’s bushy gray beard parted in a smile. “Fair enough. I’ll meet you back at home.” He climbed out of the pickup, but before he closed the door he paused and looked back inside. “This boy. The Mills baby. You think he’s still alive?”
“I don’t know,” I said quie
tly. “Maybe it’s better if he isn’t.”
Early frowned and nodded his understanding.
There were worse fates than death, after all.
19
Rhodes was standing in the driveway waiting for me when I got back to Early’s. Something told me he was a teensy bit annoyed about me stealing his pickup.
I parked beside him, got out, and held out the keys to him.
“Listen,” I said. “I’m really sorry about taking your truck. It was an emergency, and—”
He snatched the keys out of my hand, shot me one last glare, then turned and stalked back around the side of the house. For a guy who was more than a head shorter than me, he sure could stomp about.
I gave him a few seconds’ head-start, then went into the house. Early wasn’t back yet—he was still out making calls and rounding up the usual suspects—so I rooted around in his fridge and helped myself to a beer and half a roast beef sandwich.
It was agony waiting for nightfall, when the conclave would form. I had just over 30 hours to live, and here I was, sitting around and waiting for the town freak show to arrive.
After I’d eaten, I went to my cabin, pulled a selection of my grimoires and occult texts off the shelves, and carried them back to Early’s place. I sat down at the table and started leafing through the books, trying to find some mention of a spell or curse that used hobgoblin flesh as an ingredient. But dark magic like that was beyond anything I specialized in. I found nothing.
I slammed my last grimoire closed, disheartened. To take my mind off things, I checked my wounds. The stitches were all holding. In fact, aside from a dull ache at each of the wound sites, I was feeling surprisingly good. The fatigue was another story, but I chased down my beer with a couple of cups of coffee, and that perked me right up.
Early made it home soon after. He came straight in and started scurrying about the place, clearing away dirty dishes and sweeping the floor like a bachelor expecting to bring his date home that night.
“Why don’t you just have the conclave meet somewhere else?” I said as he hurried past. “Ollie’s Diner, maybe. You know, neutral ground.”
Cunning Devil Page 12