A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark

by Harry Connolly

  “Oh no. It will all be over very soon, yes indeed, but it will end because I’m going to end it. You won’t tell me what you’re looking for or who you’re working for, dear? That’s fine. You just tell your employer that whatever this plan is, no more lives are going to be lost. You all should quit now. Or else.”

  “That’s it!” Dominic swerved onto an exit ramp and raced down to the street. There was no traffic on the road below, and he pulled to the curb, brakes screeching, beside one of the massive concrete supports for the highway above. “Nobody tells me or else! Nobody!”

  He drew his brand new Springfield XD-S—at last, a chance to shoot someone!—as he turned around. He wasn’t supposed to kill the old woman, but his employer never said anything about shooting off a finger or two.

  But she wasn’t there. She’d vanished from the back of his car like a ghost.

  * * *

  “Albert, turn around.”

  He did. His aunt stood on the sidewalk, surrounded by people flooding toward the explosion. Albert moved close so they could talk without anyone passing between them. “What just happened? I swear I saw you get in that taxi—have you been here the whole time?”

  “What a question to ask! Of course I’ve been here. Couldn’t you see me? I’ll be disappointed if you say no.”

  “I’m going to have to disappoint you, then, because I was freaking out. You got in the car, then you were beside me, telling me to be quiet, then I couldn’t see you anywhere. It made me feel like a Flatlander.”

  “Oh, well,” Marley said, moving against traffic toward Belltown. Albert followed. “And you did so well with the bomb, too.”

  “That was magic, wasn’t it?” Albert asked, keeping his voice low. “You created something unreal—a copy of yourself.”

  “Yes of course, dear, but telling me this now is almost like backsliding.”

  Albert stopped walking. “Oh. Can’t we call it a review instead?”

  Marley took out her phone and started dialing. “I didn’t learn as much from him as I would have liked, but it appears they believe I have something they want.”

  “Like Aloysius’s files? Or his key ring?”

  “I don’t think so. Dominic—that’s the name of the man who tried to kidnap me—emptied my purse onto the front seat. The key ring was right there, but he didn’t take notice of it. And of course they broke into the office and stole his files last night—Hello? I’d like to order a taxi.” Marley finished the call and then hung up. “Unless...” She thought a moment. “Unless he was looking for a specific key ring and thought this wasn’t it. Something with a particular chain or charm on it?”

  “No, I don’t think so, Aunt Marley. If he was looking for any key at all, he would have taken all of them to sort out later.”

  “You’re right, Albert, I know you’re right. Now I’m the one being disappointing. Oh look, here’s our cab. How prompt.”

  “Are you getting in this one?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “Since Ubeh can’t lease us any more cars, we should buy one. Let’s get something with a high clearance, something a little rugged. I think it’s time we went up to the cabin, met the ‘guy on the scene,’ and saw this plot of land Aloysius was so concerned about.”

  Albert opened the door for her. “You mean, the really, really dangerous guy on the scene? The one who maybe killed people?”

  But Marley was already in the cab and didn’t answer.

  “Well,” Albert said as he hustled to get in the other side. “That’ll be a nice change of pace.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Sincerety Is Key. If You Can Fake That...

  Marley amazed Albert by walking onto a used car lot and walking off with a title to a Jeep Cherokee only twenty minutes later. She gave him the keys, he opened the door for her, and they drove off the lot.

  She asked for quiet on the drive so they rode in silence, although this time she did not use the time to create any potions. She simply sat and looked out the window, speaking only when she needed to give directions.

  Albert didn’t think consciously about the people who had come to his aunt’s house to burn it down, or about the conversations they’d had. He did his best to think about nothing at all except the road and the traffic, and how much he missed the GPS with his aunt’s information on it.

  He hoped that, by turning his attention to other things, his subconscious would churn over everything that had happened in the last few day and present him with a sudden realization that would make everything fall into place. Then he would realize who had killed Aloysius and why.

  It didn’t happen. Instead he followed Aunt Marley’s directions toward I-90 and North Bend, driving through the evening twilight until it turned to night. Eventually, he parked beside a turnoff and shut down the engine. The sign in front of him indicated that a quick right would lead to the Cedar River Watershed Education Center, but his aunt sat silently in the backseat and, remembering what she said about living gasses devouring them to their bones, Albert sat quietly, clearing his mind.

  Suddenly, everything around him seemed to go fuzzy. The Jeep Cherokee became indistinct and the steering wheel felt slippery in his grip. He himself began to feel cloudy, as though the boundaries between himself and the universe were breaking down. He wondered if it was safe to interrupt whatever his aunt was doing to tell her he was having a stroke.

  “There!” she said suddenly. “That was complicated, but I think it will last until sunrise. Let’s pull in to the center now.”

  The ignition key was difficult to grasp, like picking up cold gravy with a baseball glove. “Did you put a brain-damage spell on me?”

  “Not quite and thank you for helping. I’m afraid we’re going to have to break into the watershed, and we’re going to have to play a trick on the workers to do it. Go ahead, Steve.”

  The engine started, and Albert carefully steered the car around the corner into the parking lot of the Education Center. If he focused on what he was doing and who he wasn’t—Steve, a municipal employee with important business on the far side of that gate—the car was much easier to manage. He drove toward the gate as if he’d always known it was there and stopped in front of it.

  He found it unlocked, which his real self knew was a clever trick of his aunt’s but which annoyed his pretend self Steve to the point that he mentally composed an angry report he would never write to a supervisor he didn’t have. Albert drove through, stopped again, then closed the gates. He locked the padlock out of a habit his pretend self thought he had, and felt a little ashamed as he climbed back into the Cherokee.

  “I locked us in,” he admitted sheepishly, the car seeming to go indistinct again.

  “I should think so,” Marley said in a voice that was very different from her usual pleasant tone. Albert felt suddenly reassured about his role; his pretend self solidified around him, and they drove down the hill toward the water

  The roads were rough and crooked, with trees close by on both sides. It took all his attention to drive safely. Rattlesnake Lake was behind them; they were moving away from the public tourist spaces past the administration buildings, alongside the powerhouse, penstocks and toward the Masonry Dam. Albert had never seen any of this before, but Steve knew this was the major source of water and power for the Puget Sound area.

  Albert began to feel agitated, as though he’d stumbled into an operating room mid-surgery. The risk of being caught—

  “Albert, dear,” Marley said, suddenly sounding like herself again, “you’ve been such a help to me these past few days, and you’ve been doing so well, too. But if you can’t handle playing a little trick like this one, I’m going to have to find someone else to drive me.”

  Albert’s real self blushed. Why was he trying to make water flow uphill? “I’m sorry,” he said. “Let me get my head in the game.” He reminded himself why he was here, and that he was playing a simple trick. He centered himself, letting his pretend persona waft off him like perfume. Sudd
enly he felt more in control of himself, of their shared trick, and of the car he was driving.

  Marley directed him toward the bridge that separated the Masonry Pool from Chester Morse Lake. They passed two women in uniform working in the dark by the side of the road, but the women didn’t do more than glance at them. Marley’s trick was indeed working.

  Except for a pump station, they’d left all municipal power and water installations behind them to the west. Albert followed the twisting road along the southern edge of the lake, always taking the turns Marley indicated.

  Finally, as the waters narrowed to a river, Marley indicated Albert should pull over. He shut off the car and let her out into the road. There was no rain but the mountains all around them blocked off all city and street light. The woods were dark and Albert’s eyes hadn’t adjusted yet.

  “Is this the place where the construction crews were?”

  “No, dear.” She held up her phone; there was a little pin stuck in a map and the label for it read PHILIP’S DANGEROUS MAN. “We should talk to him first, don’t you think?”

  Marley held the phone up before her as though taking a measure, then marched off the road into the woods.

  Albert rushed after her, trying to blink his eyes to make them adjust to the darkness faster. Marley didn’t stumble once. It must have been that she’d ridden in the backseat without lighted dials or headlights, so her eyes were better prepared for the darkness beneath the canopy. At least, that’s what he told himself. If she was walking so confidently because of magic—or even just certitude—he would never keep up.

  The trees were thick here and their branches so densely intertwined that the ground below was bare of everything except fallen, rotting branches—nudum, Steve informed him. His pretend self seemed much smarter than he was.

  After about seventy-five yards they came to a dilapidated old cabin set at the edge of a tiny meadow. Marley took an LED flashlight from her pocket and lit it up. The cabin was one story high, made of weather-beaten wood and shattered glass. The roof couldn’t have kept out the rain any more than the walls could have kept out the wind. A bit of blue plastic was visible through the broken window.

  “You know, Albert, in some cultures it’s considered rude to knock on someone’s front door. Interrupts what they’re doing, you know. It’s much more polite to stand outside and wait to be noticed.”

  It began to rain. “We’re not going to do that here, are we?”

  “We just did. If no one responded to my light shining in their windows—which isn’t terribly nice but I am a nervous little old lady after all—there’s no one here to respond. Let’s try the door in case they’ve gone to sleep. Life in the country, you know.”

  Marley stepped onto the porch and Albert followed, half-expecting to fall through the floorboards. He didn’t. Marley gestured for him to try the doorknob. Albert had a terrible feeling about it, but he did. The knob turned and the door opened half an inch, but a hook held it shut.

  “Hey!”

  They turned toward the voice and saw that a man had entered the tiny clearing. Marley shone her flashlight on him. He dropped the small stack of wood he was carrying to shield his watery eyes. He was middle-aged and balding, with torn, filthy clothes and a modest pot belly. “Oh, hello—“ Marley said pleasantly, stepping off the edge of the porch.

  She didn’t get a chance to say more. “This is my place!” the man shouted. His voice grew rougher—like a growl—with every word. “This is mine!”

  With astonishing speed, white hair sprouted all over his body, he grew taller and more stooped, his jaws extending outward like a snout, and long, wicked fangs unfolding from his gums like the fangs of a snake.

  Fear ran down Albert’s back like ice water. The transformation had finished before he realized it had begun. The dumpy, balding man had changed into a powerful, hairy one—with clawed hands and the head of a wolf.

  The werewolf leaned forward and growled. It was a sinister, vicious sound. Then it started toward them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  An Uncomfortably Large Dose of Nature

  Albert leaped from the porch in front of his aunt. There was a part of him that didn’t believe it, that was sure the transformation he’d just seen was a trick, like ones his aunt used. He sidestepped and the thing changed direction toward him, jaws wide and drooling, clawed hands outstretched.

  An even smaller voice inside him thought: Your disbelief is going to get you killed.

  It lunged at him, arms outstretched, and Albert’s training took over. He threw his weight backwards, brought his hands up, caught the creature by its wrists—that wiry fur isn’t a costume, this is a real damn werewolf—and rolled onto his back. He brought his foot up, planted it on the creature’s stomach and, its garbage breath hot on his face, he kicked.

  The werewolf was big, but it wasn’t so big that Albert couldn’t throw it around. It flew over him onto the wet grass.

  Textbook. Albert had always thought that move was as ridiculous as Captain Kirk, and that practicing it had been a waste of time, but it had gone off perfectly. He hadn’t even needed to think about it, and part of him was convinced he could not have done that again if he had a hundred chances. His old DI was going to get one hell of a thank-you card, assuming Albert lived through the night.

  With that thought, Albert panicked. While the werewolf was still tumbling in the mud, he did a kip to regain his feet, then he grabbed his aunt around the middle—while she was bending down, for some reason—and threw his shoulder against the cabin door, bursting the hook from the jamb.

  Marley gasped in surprise. “Albert! Stop!”

  But he wasn’t listening. He swept her into the darkened room. His hand fell on a chair even before his conscious mind realized it was there, and he kicked the door shut, then jammed the chair beneath the knob.

  “Albert, put me down this instant!”

  The chair turned out to be an old cafeteria chair, made of steel pipes. It was sturdier than he would’ve expected and thank you lord for that.

  It was too far to run to the car, not in the dark with tree branches and roots he couldn’t even see. Albert’s back was covered with gooseflesh and sweat ran down the side of his face. His breathing was rapid and shallow; he knew he needed to take control of his fear but they needed to get someplace safe first. Was there some way he could hold the creature off in the cabin? Some weapon he could use? A back door?

  The room was so dark he could only see the shapes of the windows, which were starlit grey against impenetrable black. “Do we need silver?” Albert gasped.

  “Albert! Put. Me. Down.”

  “Where’s your flashlight?” he nearly shouted at her. “We need to find some sort of weapon to hold it off! Do we need silver?”

  The door rattled and bucked, and the werewolf snarled and roared on the far side of it.

  The hair on the back of Albert’s neck stood on end, but his aunt only sounded aggravated. With him.

  “What we need is for you to put me down! Honestly!”

  He did. He moved to the far wall but there was no back door, just a pair of windows with jagged glass along the frames. The monster outside still roared as it battered against the door. Albert’s stomach was in knots and sweat kept pouring his face. “I can lower you out the window, and we can circle around to the car—

  “You want to sneak by a werewolf, Albert? In the woods? At night? Please.”

  He rounded on her, fear and desperation pouring out of him. “Then what do we do?”

  The floor board beneath the back legs of the steel chair cracked. The chair slid an inch beneath and the door swung open slightly. The noise of the monster snarling and slashing its claws against the door was astonishingly loud.

  Marley wagged her finger at Albert. “What we do not do is carry me around like a flour sack. I realize you did exactly that once before and saved my life from the driver of that car, and I’m grateful for that, dear—“

  The door bent ope
n just enough that the werewolf could force its snout through. It snarled and clashed its massive teeth in animal rage. “Aunt Marley, please.”

  “But I can’t have you slinging me under your arm every time you feel a little frightened!”

  The floorboard broke and the chair slid down into the crawl space below the house. The door itself began to batter against it, smashing back and forth against the jam and the chair. The werewolf’s frenzy reached a pitch, and the slamming of the door echoed in the cabin like thunder.

  Albert had never been more terrified in his life. The idea that he was about to be torn apart by fangs and claws made him want to jump out of his skin. He couldn’t understand why Aunt Marley seemed so calm. Had she lost her mind? Was he talking to a copy of her, sent with him into danger on one of her impulses?

  No. Albert took a deep breath. Whatever his aunt might do, she wouldn’t do that. And he couldn’t lose control of himself. Not now.

  He smashed a broken pane with his elbow and shouted. “Keep running until you reach the treeline!”

  The snarling and battering against the door suddenly stopped, and the creature withdrew. Through the darkened windows, they could see a flash of white as the werewolf raced around the house.

  “I’m sorry,” Albert said, his voice still quavering. “I’m kinda freaking out right now. Werewolves freak me out.”

  “Thank you,” Marley said. She sounded uncharacteristically prim. “And it’s perfectly understandable that you’re afraid! Once again you can get through this just fine if you’re willing to do exactly what I say.”

  “All right.”

  “Give me your hand.”

  Albert lowered her onto the floor so she was lying on her back. She patted the spot beside her and he dropped to the rough, splintered wood. Marley flipped on her powerful little flashlight and rolled it into the corner so they were lit by the reflected light.

  When he returned, the werewolf crashed against the door like a shotgun blast. Splinters bounced against their faces. “Hands over head,” Marley said, raising her voice to be heard over the wild screams, snarls and bangs of the shattering door. “Heels to butt.”