The Harbinger PI Box Set

by Adam J. Wright

  “You did? I was only joking when I said….”

  “Yeah, I know you were, but I didn’t mind doing it for you.”

  I grinned at her. I probably looked terrible covered in rain, mud, and blood, but I knew Mallory didn’t care. “Thanks.”

  We bumped along on the dirt road. Mallory put on the windshield wipers, but by the time we hit the highway, the rain had died.

  “Tunnock,” she said. “Is he…?”

  I nodded grimly. “Yeah, he decided to use himself as werewolf bait and lead Timothy and Josie into the basement.” I paused and then said, “See, you always get the easy jobs. All you had to do was get the werewolves into the basement and you let Tunnock do it for you.”

  She shot me a disapproving look.

  “Too soon?” I asked.

  “Yeah, too soon. The guy died.”

  “That’s his own fault. He should never have threatened to hurt you.”

  She went quiet for a few moments before asking, “Who do you think he was? And what’s this box he was talking about?”

  “I have no idea. Whatever it is, someone thinks I have it, and they’re willing to kill me because of it.”

  My phone rang. It was Leon. “Hey, Alec,” he said when I answered. “That job is all taken care of. We buried them in the cemetery behind the mausoleum.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Are you okay? You sound tired.”

  “I’m fine. How is James?”

  “He’s confused about what happened. Felicity is talking with him and Sarah now. Then Mrs. Robinson is going to call the police and tell them that she found her husband like that and she has no idea how it happened.”

  “That’s probably the safest story,” I said. “It’s easier for her to stick to that than a fabricated lie with a lot of false details. Leon, you did a really good job tonight. Thanks.”

  “No problem, man. If you ever need me again, you know the number.”

  I ended the call and sat back in my seat, looking through the windshield at the stars and the full moon as we drove to my place.

  Mallory saw me stargazing and said, “It certainly is beautiful around here.”

  “Yeah,” I said, nodding. “It certainly is.”

  An hour later, I was sitting at my kitchen table while Mallory poked my wound with a stainless steel probe. As soon as we’d arrived home, I’d taken a long, hot shower to wash away all the mud and blood and dirt that covered my body. My muscles ached and the wound in my right arm throbbed.

  Mallory had showered after me and was now wearing only a gray t-shirt and pink panties while she examined my wound. I was dressed in a fresh white T-shirt and a pair of boxers.

  “The bullet went straight through,” she said. “It isn’t too bad.”

  “That’s easy for you to say; it isn’t your arm that’s wounded.”

  She poured some iodine onto a cotton ball and dabbed it onto my arm. “Does that sting?”

  “No,” I lied.

  “Liar.” She applied a dressing to the wound and said, “There. Good as new.”

  I moved my arm experimentally, grimacing at the pain that flared all the way to my shoulder.

  “It’ll take some time,” Mallory said, “but it will heal eventually.”

  “Thanks. Maybe you should drive me around for a while so I can rest it.”

  She threw a cotton ball at my face. “I’m not your personal chauffeur. If you want a driver, get your lovely assistant to do it.”

  I threw the cotton ball back at her. “Why would I do that when I’ve got you?”

  “Because if Felicity was driving you around, you could stare at her legs like you do all time anyway.”

  “I do not.”

  “Yes, you do.” She poked the dressing on my arm playfully.

  “Ow, quit it, that really hurt,” I said, putting a pained expression on my face that was obviously exaggerated.

  “I bet you wouldn’t tell Felicity to quit it.” She poked it again and laughed.

  “Of course I would,” I poked my finger at her stomach but she moved away quickly and backed into the living room. Putting on a high voice, she said, “Oh, Mr. Harbinger, may I poke your wound?” Her voice deepened and she said, “Of course, Felicity, poke it as much as you like.”

  Laughing, I stood up and said, “That’s it. The final straw. You are going down.” I grabbed a cushion from the sofa and held it in my left hand, ready to throw at her.

  She adopted the high voice again. “Oh, Mr. Harbinger, you’re so big and strong.”

  I threw the cushion and Mallory karate-chopped it away. But as soon as I’d thrown it, I’d also jumped forward at her. I grabbed her waist and we tumbled to the floor, me on top of her.

  I looked down into her hazel eyes and suddenly I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted any other woman. She looked up at me with a hungry expression and lifted her head to kiss me.

  Nothing else mattered in that moment; not the fact that the Society had banished me, or that I was indebted to the Lady of the Forest, or that someone was trying to kill me. The only thing that mattered was my bond with Mallory and its physical expression in a kiss.

  When our lips parted and we looked into each other’s eyes, the atmosphere in the room had changed from humorous to serious.

  “Alec,” Mallory whispered, “let’s go to bed.”

  “Sure, but nothing is going to happen, okay?”

  She pouted. “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want you to feel afraid tonight. I don’t want you to think about the shadows or ghosts of the past.”

  She nodded. “That sounds perfect.”

  Later, when we were lying in bed next to each other in the dark, she said, “Don’t forget, you owe me a new Jeep.”

  “What? How do you figure that?”

  “Those werewolves wouldn’t have been in the back seat if I hadn’t been doing your job for you.”

  “Doing my job for me?”

  “Hell yeah, doing your job while you were taking a moonlit stroll in the woods.”

  “I was fighting changelings.”

  “Well, whatever you were doing, that doesn’t change the fact that my car got wrecked while performing your duties.”

  “I’ll get you a Society of Shadows expense claim form,” I said, jokingly. “But somehow, I don’t think they’ll buy you a new Jeep.”

  “Ugh! They suck.”

  “Yeah, they do.” I rolled over to face her. “I thought that maybe after work tomorrow, I’d have a party here to celebrate my first case closed in Dearmont. It’d be a housewarming party, too.”

  She smiled. “Sounds great. Am I invited?”

  “Of course. Everybody who helped out is invited. You, Felicity, Leon, and Michael.”

  “What about the witches?”

  “Nah, I don’t think so. They’re probably not partygoers anyway.”

  “You never know. Looks can be deceiving.”

  “I think I’ll stick to the people I mentioned,” I said.

  She looked at me closely. “You’re worried about what Devon Blackwell saw in her vision, aren’t you? About you being under an enchantment. That’s why those witches freak you out so much; you’re afraid of what they said.”

  “Well, I don’t like to think that part of my mind has been locked away behind a magical door. Seeing those witches reminds me of it.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said, snuggling against me, “we’ll figure it out somehow.”

  After Mallory had fallen asleep and was breathing deeply next to me, I lay looking at the ceiling and wondering what had happened in Paris that I couldn’t remember.

  It was a long time before I fell asleep.

  20

  The following morning, Mallory and I drove to McDermott Farm. The sky was overcast with gray clouds, but at least there was no rain. When we got to the farm, Tunnock’s Bentley was gone. I wasn’t surprised; whoever he was working for made sure they left no trail behind.

  Mallory i
nspected the remains of her Jeep Renegade while I went into the house through the broken front door. I had clothing belonging to Timothy and Josie that they had given to Mallory the night before, after being told that turning into werewolves would destroy the clothes they were wearing.

  There were more tracks in the dust than there had been yesterday, a couple of sets of boot prints that led to the basement door, and then away again. Someone had probably come in here to find Tunnock, heard the werewolves in the basement and then left again. They’d probably come back at some point to remove what was left of his body.

  I unlocked the door, expecting to find Timothy and Josie sitting at the top of the stairs waiting to be released, but there was no one there. Voices drifted up from the darkness below. The two were chatting with each other. I went down the wooden steps and found them sitting naked against the wall, talking. They both looked up at me with sheepish faces, as if I had caught them doing something they shouldn’t.

  “Hey, you two, how’s it going?” I asked.

  “Fine,” Timothy said. “So I guess we’re werewolves, huh?”

  “Yeah.” I tossed them the clothes. “Get dressed and we’ll talk about it on the way home.” I went back upstairs to let them get dressed in private.

  Outside, Mallory was trying to flatten some of the dents in the Jeep’s bodywork with her fist.

  “You need a mechanic for that,” I told her. I went over and looked at the damage. The back window was smashed and the roof had taken a pummeling, but it wasn’t too bad considering two werewolves had broken out of there.

  “And what am I going to tell said mechanic?” she asked.

  “Tell him you have a couple of rowdy kids.”

  “Very funny.”

  Timothy and Josie came out of the house, blinking at the morning light. Josie was about Timothy’s age and had ginger hair and freckles. They both came over to the Jeep. “We want to apologize,” Timothy said to Mallory. “We know we did that to your car and we want to make it up to you. We’ll pay for the repairs.”

  “Thanks. Are you sure you can afford it?” Mallory asked.

  “Yeah,” Josie said. “Timothy works at the game store and I have a job in the coffee shop. Neither of us spends much because we don’t go out much.”

  “Sounds like you two have been getting to know each other,” I said.

  “We’re very alike,” Timothy said. “I don’t just mean the werewolf thing, either. We both live with our moms and look after them and we like a lot of the same movies and books.”

  “That’s great,” I said, wondering if I should advertise my werewolf security work as a matchmaking service. “Let’s get out of here. You guys ride with me and I’ll explain what I know about werewolves. There’s some stuff that’s pretty cool. But first, I have a question for both of you.”

  They looked at me expectantly.

  “Who wants to come to my party tonight?”

  They grinned. They seemed like good kids, and I liked them. Maybe my party could be their first date together.

  As I got into the Land Rover, Mallory looked at me, smiling and shaking her head.

  “What?” I asked innocently.

  “You make out like you’re some tough guy, but you’re actually quite sentimental.”

  “You know me,” I said, starting the engine. “I love a good romance.”

  The party was in full swing by eight. I’d set out snack food on the kitchen table along with beer, wine, and soda. Mallory had programmed her iPod to play a selection of pop music after deciding that the music on my phone wasn’t suitable because there was way too much classic rock.

  At eight o’ clock, Felicity was on the sofa, a glass of white wine in her hand, talking with Leon and Michael. Mallory was chatting with Timothy and Josie and a Taylor Swift song was drifting out of the iPod speaker. I’d been moving from one group to another, butting into conversations and telling everyone about my bullet wound.

  The doorbell rang and I frowned at Mallory. “Did you invite anyone else?”

  She shook her head.

  I went to the door and opened it. Sheriff Cantrell and his redheaded deputy stood outside.

  “Sheriff,” I said, sounding as surprised as I felt.

  “Mr. Harbinger?” he asked. “Alec Harbinger?”

  “Yes.”

  “May we come in?”

  “Yeah, sure. If it’s about the noise….”

  He stepped into the living room, seeming to fill the room with his bulk, followed by the deputy, who looked even more gorgeous in real life than she had in the photo I’d seen on the internet.

  “It isn’t about the noise, it’s about this,” the sheriff said. He showed me a package he was holding. It was about the size of a toaster and wrapped in brown paper.

  Mallory paused the music. Everyone looked from the sheriff to me.

  “What is it?” I asked him.

  He sighed as if I was trying his patience. “I have no idea what it is. I’m here to tell you that the Dearmont police station is not your personal postal service.”

  “I’m aware of that,” I said. I wanted to add, “Yet here you are with a package,” but stopped myself.

  “Is that right?” He looked at me with his steely eyes. “Well, let me tell you a story. Three weeks ago, Gus, the town’s mailman comes into the station and he tells me he has a package to deliver, but there’s no address on it except ‘Dearmont, Maine, USA.’ He wanted to know if I recognized the name on it. I told him I didn’t. So imagine my surprise when, three weeks later, the person named on the package moves into town.” He thrust the package into my arms. I winced when the wound on my right arm flared.

  I looked down at the address written in blue pen across the top of the package. Alec Harbinger, Dearmont, Maine, USA. The postage stamps were French.

  “Don’t ask people to mail you something and address it to the town,” Cantrell said. “Things like that usually end up on my desk and I don’t like it.”

  “I promise you, it won’t happen again,” I said. “You really didn’t have to bring it here in person. I could have come to the station to collect it. You could have called me, or come by my office. I work….”

  “I know where you work,” he said. “And I know what you do. I came here tonight because I wanted to take a look at you and where you live. I have a feeling that you and I are going to be butting heads, and I like to know my enemy.”

  “Enemy? That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”

  Without answering me, he turned on his heels and left the house. The deputy followed but I said, “Wait, please. What does he mean by ‘enemy?’ I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  She looked at me with a pleading look in her eyes. “Please don’t take it personally, Mr. Harbinger. It isn’t who you are that makes him mad. It’s what you are.”

  “What?”

  “Amy!” the sheriff shouted from the driveway.

  “I have to go,” she said, turning away from me and going out onto the driveway. The sheriff’s patrol car was parked at the curb, and the sheriff was glaring at her through the driver’s window.

  I went back into the living room with the package and placed it on the kitchen table next to the snacks.

  Everyone gathered around it. “It’s from France,” Mallory said. “Do you think someone in Paris sent it to you?”

  I sighed. “Yeah, I do, but there are two things very wrong about this package. Three week ago, when this was sent, I was in Paris and hadn’t yet been sent to Dearmont, so how can this be addressed to me here?”

  We all thought about that for a few seconds but nobody had an answer.

  “What’s the second thing?” Felicity asked.

  “The handwriting on the package,” I said. “It’s mine.”

  Mallory leaned in to take a closer look. “Oh my God, it is yours. You sent this package to yourself?”

  “Apparently, I sent it to myself, to a town I’d never heard of.”

  “You don’t rememb
er sending it?” Leon asked.

  I shook my head.

  “So open it, man,” he said.

  I went to the kitchen drawer and took out a sharp knife. Returning to the table, I cut through the cardboard and opened the package. Inside, there were shredded strips of French newspaper that had been used as packing material. I thrust my hand into it and contacted something solid that felt like metal. I brought it out and held it up to the light.

  It was an ornate box made of silver and gold and inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs. It had no latch or keyhole or anything else that suggested it could be opened. I had no idea what it was but I had mailed it to myself from Paris before the Society even decided to send me to Dearmont.

  I placed it on the table, where it glinted in the light.

  “So,” I said, “this must be the box that someone wants to kill me for.” It was pretty, sure, but it looked insignificant sitting there on the table next to the party snacks. It certainly didn’t look like it was worth dying for.

  I needed some air. I grabbed a bottle of beer and went out into the yard, looking up at the starry sky while I tried to think straight. Why the hell was this box so important?

  Felicity came out with a bottle of beer of her own and smiled at me. “Hey, want some company?”

  “Yeah, sure. I was just thinking about that damned box. I don’t know what it is or why it’s important but I must have known something about it when I was in Paris because I mailed it here. I have no idea how I even got my hands on it in the first place.”

  “I’ll do some research. If it’s some kind of artifact, there’ll be a record of it somewhere.”

  “Yeah,” I said, looking at the stars again. “It’s been a hell of a couple of days, huh?”

  “A couple of days for you, a week for me. You were in Faerie for five days, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. So how was the first week in your new job?” I looked at her and grinned.

  “Well I can’t say it was boring, that’s for sure. Scary, dangerous, and worrying, yes. Boring, no.”

  “Worrying?”

  “Yeah, mainly waiting for you to get back from Faerie, not knowing if you were okay or injured, or dead.”