Die and Stay Dead

by Nicholas Kaufmann

  Isaac narrowed his eyes at Crixton but didn’t respond.

  The vampire looked at Bethany next. “And this one. She’s handled magic. I can smell it on her. And yet, she doesn’t have any inside her. Not a drop. You must have the Sigil of the Phoenix upon you somewhere, woman. So foolish to think you need its protection when you could just let the magic in instead. When you could just let it grow inside you.” He giggled a moment, and then his face grew grim. His eyes focused on Bethany more sharply. “Your vest. There’s magic in it. I can hear it calling to me from every pocket. What do you have in there? Charms? Artifacts?”

  He swallowed hungrily and began clawing at the bubble around him, trying to scratch his way out, trying to reach Bethany. The bubble didn’t yield. He remained floating, scrabbling against it like a rat trying to dig through a metal wall.

  “You’re wasting all that magic, leaving it inside those baubles! Give them to me! Let me drink from them!”

  Bethany stared at the vampire in disgust. “You’re out of your mind.”

  “Once a junkie, always a junkie,” Philip said. “That’s what brought you back here, isn’t it, Crixton? It’s why you risked coming out in daylight. You needed a fix.”

  “It’s been so long since my last one,” Crixton said. “I thought there had to be more here somewhere, an artifact I overlooked, something they left behind by accident. But they know better than to leave anything behind. There was nothing here.” He eyed Bethany’s cargo vest again. “Until now. Give them to me, woman. Let me drink them and I will spare your life.”

  “Hey!” Philip shouted, pulling Crixton’s attention back to him. “Look at me, Crixton, not her. Focus. We want answers.”

  Crixton grinned. “About the Thracian Gauntlet? Yes, the mage mentioned it. I propose a trade. The woman’s magic trinkets for the information you seek.”

  Bethany shook her head. “That’s not going to happen.”

  Crixton shrugged. “Suit yourself. You all heard. I tried to be reasonable. She’s the one who said no.”

  “You know me, Crixton,” Philip interrupted. “You know what I’m capable of. Don’t push me.”

  Crixton laughed. “Oh, I know what you’re capable of. We all do, prodigal son. There might have been a time when your name instilled respect in a member of our clan. Maybe even fear. But not anymore.”

  “I can fix that right now,” Philip growled, taking a step forward.

  “Enough. We don’t have time for this,” Isaac interrupted. “We need answers, Crixton, and I’m running out of patience. So I’ll ask you again, did the Ghost Market steal the Thracian Gauntlet back from Clarence Bergeron?”

  “Let me down and I’ll tell you.” Crixton laughed but tried to keep it under control this time, as if attempting to show Isaac he was sane and trustworthy. It wasn’t very convincing.

  “Not on your life,” Isaac replied.

  Crixton giggled. “How about on yours?”

  “I think we’ve been patient enough.” Isaac moved his fingers in a tiny pattern. The bubble lifted higher, carrying Crixton toward the ceiling.

  “You think I’m afraid of heights?” Crixton said. “I’ve jumped off of buildings three times as high, and landed with the grace of a cat to tear open the throats of humans like you.”

  Isaac ignored the taunt. “I don’t think you’re afraid of heights, Crixton. I think you’re afraid of the sun. Look up.”

  Crixton looked up. The bubble was floating toward a sealed cargo hatch in the ceiling. He glared smugly down at Isaac. “It’s closed.”

  “For now,” Isaac said. “But it would be very easy for me to rectify that and send you outside, right into the sun. It’s the simplest spell in the world to open a door from a distance. The kind of spell a magician learns on his first day.”

  The smugness drained from Crixton’s face. He let slip a strained giggle. “You wouldn’t dare. It would make you a murderer. Do you have the stomach for that, mage?”

  “To rid the world of one more Infected? Oh yes, I have the stomach for that,” Isaac said. “But I doubt it would kill you, at least not right away. First it’ll hurt like hell. I’ve seen what sunlight does to vampires. It’s excruciating, isn’t it? The pain would drive you mad long before it kills you. Or madder, I should say.”

  “You’re bluffing!” Crixton yelled, but he sounded terrified. His legs started kicking uselessly beneath him. The bubble carried him higher.

  Isaac murmured something in the strange, eerie language of magic. I shuddered at the sound of it, but this incantation was short, at least. When Isaac was done, the cargo hatch in the ceiling burst open on its own to reveal the bright afternoon sky outside. A shaft of sunlight speared into the warehouse. The bubble floated higher, heading right for it.

  “I told you, I’m running out of patience,” Isaac said.

  “All right, all right!” Crixton cried, scratching at his own face in terror. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know! Just stop it! Please! I’ll tell you everything!”

  Isaac murmured another incantation. The hatch slammed closed, cutting off the sunlight. With another gesture, Crixton’s bubble started floating back down toward the floor.

  “Big mistake, old man,” Philip said. “You should have sent him out to fry when you had the chance.”

  Isaac ignored him. “Start talking, Crixton. The auction is supposed to be anonymous, but we already know the Ghost Market keeps information on everyone. How?”

  “A telepath,” Crixton said. “He sits in the audience with the others. They don’t know he works for us. They think he’s here for the same reason they are. He scans the crowd to see who’s lying about how much money they have, who’s carrying a weapon, that kind of thing.”

  “I presume he gathers names and addresses, too,” Bethany pressed.

  “Yes, yes, all of that. It’s the kind of information that might prove valuable down the road, if things go bad or a buyer reneges on his commitment,” Crixton said. “Our telepath scans them all and gives us everything he finds.”

  “What about the ones who bid over the phone or by proxy?” Isaac asked.

  “There aren’t a lot of remote bidders,” Crixton said. “Most prefer to be here in person. They like to be near the artifacts. Near the magic.” He giggled, then bit his lip to silence himself.

  “Clarence Bergeron came in person,” Bethany said. “That’s how the telepath got his name and address. It’s how Langstrom got it, too. Am I right?”

  Crixton nodded.

  “And then someone from the Ghost Market went to Bergeron’s home and stole the Thracian Gauntlet. Why? To double your money by selling it to someone else?”

  Crixton shook his head. “You’re wrong. The curators would never allow that.”

  “Why not?” she demanded. “Honor among thieves? You don’t really expect us to believe that, do you?”

  “Nothing so dramatic,” Crixton said. “The Ghost Market has a reputation to uphold. If we compromise that reputation, we stop making money. It’s as simple as that. If the gauntlet was stolen, it wasn’t us. If you want to know who took it, you should ask the man who almost won it before Bergeron swooped in at the last minute and outbid him.”

  “Another bidder?” Isaac asked.

  “Bergeron took it right out from under him,” Crixton said. “That kind of bid-sniping would be enough to tick off any serious collector. Maybe even make him think about stealing the gauntlet for himself.”

  “Who was he?” I asked. “Do you have a name?”

  Crixton shrugged. “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. If I did, it would be in the ledger. And if you want that, you’re going to have to let me out of this bubble. We keep the ledger in a very safe, very special place, you see. A pocket to our dimension. If you want the ledger, I’ll have to summon it to me. But I can’t do that from in here.” He spread his arms to indicate the bubble around him.

  “Don’t do it,” Philip said. “It’s a trick.”

  Crixton gave a shark’s sm
ile. “Do you want the ledger or not?”

  Isaac sighed. “We don’t have a choice. We need that name. Keep him covered, Philip. Don’t let him out of your sight.”

  Philip grunted. “This has mistake written all over it.”

  Isaac lowered his arms, and the bubble came to a rest on the floor. Crixton kept grinning, his eyes locked on Philip the whole time. Isaac gestured, and the bubble vanished.

  So did Crixton. The vampire was a dark blur speeding toward the warehouse exit.

  Philip raced after him, a faster blur. He reached the door first and blocked Crixton’s path. Crixton bounced off Philip’s chest, body-checked, and fell backward onto the floor. The yellow hood dropped back, revealing Crixton’s bald head. A patch of what looked like mottled ivory grew out of the nape of his neck and up his skull. The infection hadn’t just altered Crixton’s mind, it was altering his body, too.

  Philip glared down at him. “You forget who I am, Crixton. My standing in the clan.”

  “What standing?” Crixton spat. “Do you honestly think you’re still the son of an elder? How delusional are you, Renshu?”

  “What are you talking about?” Philip demanded.

  Crixton laughed and wiped spittle from his chin. “Everyone knows a human saved your life. How pitiful. How humiliating. But even worse, you’ve taken up with humans now. You’ve gone soft. You’re weak.”

  Philip frowned. “You know what our law says about the debt owed to one who saves your life.”

  “The debt is not owed to humans!” Crixton yelled, baring his fangs. “What good is the hundred-year debt of service to these cattle? They barely live that long to begin with!”

  Philip gritted his teeth. His hands clenched into fists. I’d seen him angry before, but never like this. He was a ticking time bomb. “I don’t need to explain myself to a junkie like you.”

  “What about your father? How will you explain it to him?” Crixton pressed. “He thinks the way I do about humans. The way we all do. Your father didn’t become a clan elder by being weak like you. He would have thanked the human who saved his life by draining him dry. Instead, you swore fealty to him. When your father heard the news, he was ashamed. He disowned you as soon as he understood what you’ve become. You’re nothing now, Renshu. Our clansmen spit when they mention your name.” Crixton rose to his feet. “So does your father. That is, if he speaks your name at all.”

  The time bomb went off. Philip rushed Crixton and knocked him off his feet. He carried him in a blur across the warehouse floor and slammed him into the far wall. The wall cratered under the impact. A long crack tore its way up to the ceiling. Plaster dust rained down over them. Philip pinned Crixton to the wall and roared like a beast. I’d never seen him this angry before, or heard a noise like that come out of him. His lips pulled back to reveal his fangs. He looked like he was about to bite Crixton’s face off.

  Isaac, Bethany, and I ran over to them. Isaac yelled, “Philip, don’t! We need him!”

  Crixton turned his eyes toward Isaac. “Stay out of this, meat!”

  Philip pulled Crixton off the wall and slammed him into it again. Cracks spiderwebbed through the plaster behind him. More dust rained down.

  As painful as it looked, Crixton only laughed. “Ah, now I see. This mage is the human you serve. Trust me, were I in your shoes, I wouldn’t make the same mistake. I would do what you didn’t have the spine to do.”

  “I’ve got the spine now,” Philip said. He shifted his grip, putting one hand at the base of Crixton’s neck and the other on Crixton’s chin. He pushed the two apart, baring Crixton’s throat. Philip opened his jaws hungrily.

  “Philip, don’t!” Isaac yelled.

  For a moment, it looked like Philip was going to disobey him. He brought his teeth closer to Crixton’s throat. Then, with a frustrated growl, he pulled back and let go of Crixton’s neck.

  “You’re his dog, Renshu Chen. He tells you to heel, and you heel,” Crixton said, rubbing his neck. “I see you still wear those ridiculous sunglasses. Have you shown your human friends your eyes? Have you shown them what the clan elders did to you after your first transgression?”

  The corner of Philip’s lip curled. “Fuck you, Crixton.”

  Crixton turned his head to address us. “Didn’t he tell you? Back in the day, your dear friend Philip was too reckless and violent even for us. He killed an entire family in one night. Four generations slaughtered at a wedding. How young was the smallest of your victims that night, Renshu? Eighteen months?”

  Philip looked like he was just barely managing to keep it together. There was more emotion on his face now than I’d seen in the whole time I’d known him. I wished I could believe Crixton was lying, but there would be no point to it. It was easy enough to picture Philip taking out a roomful of humans. Surprisingly easy.

  “That was a long time ago, Crixton,” Philip said. “I’m not like that anymore.”

  Crixton ignored him. “He left no survivors. He erased an entire bloodline from the earth, and that’s a no-no, even for us. He had to be punished. And so they punished you, didn’t they, Renshu? I’ve seen your eyes. I saw what they did to them. It’s enough to make shit crawl uphill. Tell me, Renshu, what punishment do you think they would give you if they could see you now?”

  Isaac stared at Philip in shock. It was clear he hadn’t heard this story before. None of us had. An entire bloodline…?

  Philip noticed the look on Isaac’s face. He gave Crixton one last shove against the wall, then released him. “You’re lucky I don’t send you into the sunlight myself. Just give us what we need and be gone.”

  Crixton straightened up and brushed the dust and chunks of plaster off his shoulders. “You want the name of the other bidder for the Thracian Gauntlet? Fine. It’ll be in the ledger.”

  “And we can trust what this ledger says?” Isaac asked, composing himself.

  Crixton nodded. “We keep a record of every bid as they’re made, handwritten in kraken ink. It’s hearty stuff, and permanent, even against magic. We use it so the records can’t be tampered with afterward.” The vampire held up one pale hand and began his incantation. I shivered at the sound of it and tried not to listen. There was a sudden flash of light from his palm, accompanied by a puff of sulfurous smoke, and an oversized book appeared in his hand. The ledger, summoned from where it was being kept in “a pocket to our dimension,” whatever that meant. A hole, like a gap in space? Or was it more like a sack where you could store things? Trying to figure it out made my head hurt.

  The ledger looked old and worn, its spine and the corners of its covers reinforced with brass. The metal creaked as Crixton opened the book. I moved to look over his shoulder as he flipped through pages of tiny, cursive handwriting. I kept my guard up. I wasn’t sure it was safe to stand this close to crazy.

  Each page in the ledger had three columns. In the first were the dates of the auctions. In the second were the names of the bidders. In the third were the amounts of the bids. Some of the numbers sported a lot more zeroes than I would have imagined. Though maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. Artifacts were rare, unique, and valuable. Probably, there were a hell of a lot of wealthy collectors like Clarence Bergeron out there.

  My next thought hit me so hard and fast I didn’t see it coming. All those items I’d stolen for Underwood, the ones he’d ostensibly sold on the black market—had they wound up here? What if the things I’d stolen weren’t just pieces of art or precious stones or briefcases full of cash? Given who and what Underwood turned out to be, what if I’d been stealing artifacts? Artifacts that were then sold at the Ghost Market for quick cash?

  How many of the items in Clarence Bergeron’s gallery had my fingerprints on them?

  “Aha!” Crixton shouted. He held the book open for us to see as he drew a finger down one page. “The auction of the Thracian Gauntlet. As you can see here, a single name reappears over and over again, upping the dollar amount as each new bidder gets involved. This man was deter
mined to have the gauntlet. Eventually the other bidders dropped out when the price got too high. For all intents and purposes, he was the winner. It was going once, going twice … and then boom, Clarence Bergeron topped his bid. Can you imagine how that must have felt? It’s a wonder he only stole the gauntlet and didn’t murder Bergeron when he had the chance.”

  I looked at the names on the page. It was true, one name appeared more than any other. The only problem was, it wasn’t a name I’d heard before.

  “Who the hell is Cargwirth Kroneski?” I asked.

  Bethany shook her head. “That name hasn’t come up in our investigation at all.”

  Crixton shrugged. “You asked, I answered. It’s not my fault if the name doesn’t mean anything to you.”

  “Did your telepath have anything to say about Kroneski?” Isaac asked.

  “Nothing,” Crixton said. “There are no notes here on the page, only the name. Kroneski must have bid over the phone.”

  “Damn,” Isaac said. “Who is he? What does he have to do with any of this?”

  “Cargwirth Kroneski doesn’t even sound like a real name,” I said.

  Bethany bit her lower lip and narrowed her eyes, an expression I knew well. “You might be right about that. Hold on a moment.”

  She went over to a window. With her fingertip, she wrote the name in the dust on the glass. The light from outside streamed through the letters, making them glow.

  CARGWIRTH KRONESKI.

  She crossed off the A and wrote it again under the name. She did the same with the R.

  “An anagram?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” she said, still concentrating. “Hold on.”

  The process continued, letter after letter, until she’d rearranged them all. Three new words glowed on the glass.

  ARCHING TOWERS KIRK.