by Andy Hyland
I stopped by Eddie’s on the way back home. He works night shift on the taxi lost and found desk, and I’ve helped him out with a few problems over the past year. Thought it might take a while for him to track down that package of Becky’s that I left in the back of the cab, but he grinned and pulled it out from under the counter. That’s service for you.
When I stepped back through my front door (still defenceless – I’d have to get those runes back up) the place was spotless. Show home quality furniture stood where my old shabby tables and sofas had been. It was bland and impersonal, sure, but it beat having the mutilated body of a young bloke lying around in the middle of the room. I bent down and gave the floor my professional assessment. It was great work. Not only was there no blood, but there was no indication that there had ever been blood. Harder than it sounds, to someone who knows what they’re looking for. I bet if I went into my store room and got the black light out for a quick run round it would all show up clean. Clearly Simeon, or his friends, had done this before.
The wall was similarly clean, but I’d have to paint it. It was too beige now, and every time I looked at it I could still see the large bold letters scribbled in blood. That could wait. On my list of priorities it was a long, long way down. I checked my watch. Nearly nine. How long had I been up now without sleep? I couldn’t be bothered to try counting. Or eat. Or shower.
I slipped off my coat, let it fall on the floor, and crashed onto the new sofa. Thought I’d at least see what it was like, get the weight off my feet before heading to bed. I was asleep within seconds.
Chapter nine
Something buzzed and rang, drawing me upwards out of the warm, comfortable numbness of sleep. My unconscious mind tried every trick in the book to keep me down, putting the noise into an unremembered dream, making it all part of the action. In the end, the waking world won out, and I opened my eyes, wondering where my phone could be.
It wasn’t within arm’s reach, wherever it was, which meant getting up and slowly stretching. Sleeping on sofas doesn’t do wonders for my back. Which is odd – you’d have thought I’d be used to it by now. By the time I was upright the phone had stopped, which was a pain, because now it would be that much more difficult to track down.
Outside, night had drawn down on the city. I’d probably be nocturnal for a while now. All the bad things came out at night, but on the flip side all the bad things I could do were so much easier at night. The scales balanced. Or were as evenly balanced as they ever were, which is to say not so much.
I gave up on the phone in favour of a shower, shave and change of clothes. By the time I was ready to head out the door the coat was the only unchanged item about me. The coat always stayed. A man needs some continuity in life, you know? Besides, it had so many pockets. I slipped Becky’s parcel, still unwrapped, into one of the larger pockets, found my phone on the floor near the kitchen – no idea how that happened – and headed out.
Three messages on voicemail. Nine missed calls. Seven texts. None of which, save the last one, had woken me up. I trotted down the stairs, going through everything and seeing if anything needed my attention. Apart from a couple of cute texts from Julie, which I’d save to read all over again later, it was all from the usual suspects. Zack, Arabella, and then most recently Becky, who’d probably been crashed out the same as me. The earlier messages told me to get my British arse down to Simeon’s library as soon as I could. For some reason that changed, and the later stuff instructed me to slide over the Fades and head to Benny’s.
Outside, the upper echelons of the workforce were heading home. The dregs, the despised and the ignored – cleaners, security, all my favourite people – were starting their long slog. The nearest convenient thin spot was four blocks down, at the end of an alley next to a Mexican restaurant. Conveniently out of the way, and a quick check was all that was needed to confirm the coast was clear before I slid.
The street remained unchanged, heading off into the distance before being swallowed by the darkness. No feral kids awaited me this time round, for which I was more than grateful. Only a solitary figure, standing outside the bar, smoking a long, thick cigar.
‘Hey, Arabella,’ I called as I strolled over.
She waved the cigar at me. ‘Hey yourself. Heard you were right in the thick of it last night. Haven’t heard it all yet, but it sounds wild.’
‘Wild? Yeah, I think wild would cover it. What’s up with being out here? Benny didn’t have a no smoking policy last time I looked.’
‘Benny doesn’t, but Becky was bitching like hell. Turns out these Cuban ones are too much for her. It was come out here or end up with her coughing her guts up all over the boots. You like?’
She twisted and posed, showing off the red Doc Martens that came half way up her calves. Above that it was an all-denim affair – short skirt, light blue shirt, and dark blue jacket, with studs, patches and chains all over the shop. It was topped off with shaved hair to the sides of her head and a green Mohawk running down the centre. And did I mention the nose ring? Yep, big nose ring. Reminds me of a bull. Not that I’ve told her that. At nineteen, she’s the youngest of our little gang of misfits, and she lives with an endless regret that she missed out on the early eighties.
‘Not bad. I like,’ I said, to keep her happy. Not exactly my style, but I’m not judging. ‘So you’re up to date?’
‘Only the highlights so far – Becky wants a big discussion, so we had to wait for you. Man, I wish I’d taken your call yesterday. I would have been so up for that, you know?’
‘I can imagine. So what kept you?’
‘Oh,’ she said, looking away and stumbling over her words a bit. ‘You know – stuff. Stuff needed doing.’
‘Yeah,’ I said slowly. ‘I get it. Stuff.’ If Arabella Duval wanted secrets, I wasn’t going to drag them out of her. I’m all for people having a personal life. One day I hoped to have one myself. ‘Shall we?’ I asked, nodding at the door. She reluctantly stamped it out before stamping in after me.
Benny had my pint ready at the bar. ‘And for the lady,’ he said, with an air of amusement, ‘this…thing.’
‘Neutron Bomber,’ Arabella said, picking it up and inspecting it with admiration. ‘Read about it last week. Thought to myself: gonna get one of those from Benny. He’ll make it great.’
‘No comment, no promises,’ Benny called over his shoulder as he walked off. ‘I just followed that magazine article you left. Your friends are out back.’
Arabella sipped the cocktail gingerly. Frowned. ‘Crap. Thought it would be much better than that. Don’t tell Benny. Not his fault.’
‘I don’t know why you keep trying that exotic stuff.’
‘One day, Malachi, I will find my perfect drink. The perfect drink. And when that day comes, my search will be over, and I can live in happiness and contentment all my life.’
‘But until then, Benny’s at the mercy of your experiments.’
‘Yep. Come on, let’s not keep the short one waiting.’
The back room was the same one where I’d first met Jerry yesterday morning. For a second it was him and Stacey I saw looking up at me, hunched over the table. Only for a second. But Jerry was gone and Stacey was off hunting somewhere else for dinner, and only Becky and Zack nodded at me over their drinks.
‘You still stink of that stuff,’ Becky snorted at Arabella. ‘You need to think of your health.’
‘Well, you know, I died once, came back, no big deal,’ Arabella countered. In Arabella’s case it was a completely random and unexplained fit during a hockey game at high school. She’d woken up Aware, and two weeks later packed a bag and headed for the smoke. There was no indication her parents or anyone else had ever looked for her. The same kick in the guts from reality that we’d all had.
‘Anyway,’ said Zack, pressing on with the argument we’d interrupted. ‘You don’t get it. You’re ooolllldddd school, girl. You do, what, twenty of your little toys -’
‘Toys!’
‘Twenty of your little whatevers a week, tops. Me, I can shift over a hundred serious bits of kit in that time. Fed-exed. And the money’s in my account, none of this I’ll-pay-you-when-I-can-honest-Becks stuff you have to put up with.’
‘No, no, no,’ said Becky, who’d clearly been drinking fast and hard. ‘You don’t get it, you see. I’m an arrrtissan. I…create. You, just, you just sell.’ She spat the last word like it was a curse.
‘Okay, that’s enough,’ I interrupted. ‘Sober up, now. You’ve had your fun. Work to do people.’
‘Shpoilshport,’ muttered Becky before closing her eyes and jerking her head. ‘Okay, that’s me back. One thing I’ll say for the Fades: no hangovers. It’s almost worth being around hellspawn for.’
‘Yeah, there is that,’ agreed Zack. ‘Kind of makes you feel that you’ve wasted your money though.’
‘Can we focus, please?’ I asked sitting down. ‘I’ll kick off and summarize. Melanie was abducted, which is somehow related to this Carafax outfit. Simeon’s on that. Why’s he not here by the way?’
‘Later,’ Becky said, waving her hand. ‘Move it on.’
‘So Melanie’s been taken in because of something to do with this mutilated banker. I take Jerry along and the next thing we know Jerry’s…dead, in my apartment. There’s an old guy there who we’ve never encountered but who is more than a match for Becky and could have killed me and Zack if he’d wanted to. Without breaking a sweat. Jerry died so that we could be told to back off.’
‘In other news,’ Becky took over, ‘Sitri is back in town, which is both odd and really not wanted. He’s running – sorry, was running – an operation out of the Staffarian. His guys are running scared and talking about someone or something called the Aleph.’
‘And that brings us up to the present moment,’ said Arabella, sipping her drink in the manner of someone determined to enjoy something they’re hating. ‘Any news from Simeon?’
‘Nope,’ Zack said. ‘Benny was in here asking us if we’d heard anything.’
‘Benny’s out of the loop?’ said Arabella. ‘Oh, that’s not good.’
‘Anyone want to fill me in?’ I looked around.
Zack sighed. ‘We were going to meet at Simeon’s. But the place is inaccessible.’
‘From the chapel?’
‘From anywhere. It’s closed off.’
‘And he’s not taking calls,’ added Becky.
‘Damn.’ I took a long swig from my pint glass. ‘It’s all going down lately.’ We sat there for a minute, each engrossed in our own thoughts, trying to make the connections, plot a path through the forest. ‘Well, the night is young,’ I said at last. ‘What are we going to do?’
Nobody spoke. There was nobody to target. No fight to rush into.
A tapping on the door. It opened slightly. ‘Ahem,’ said Benny. ‘May I?’
‘Please do,’ I waved him in. ‘Any news?’
‘News? No, none of that. But there’s a visitor. Asking for you or Zack. By name. No don’t worry,’ he said, as we rose to our feet, ready for action. ‘You know I don’t allow anything like that in here, anyway. This guy…he’s odd. Turns up every now and then. Likes a bit of a trade. I don’t think he’s leaving until he’s seen you.’
We settled back down. I looked around. ‘No reason we shouldn’t see him. Please.’
Benny nodded and disappeared. A few seconds later came another tap at the door, this one lighter and more insistent. A short figure in a brown hooded cloak waddled in and gave a short bow. ‘My apologies for this interruption. I hope, however, you will find that your patience and hospitality is more than rewarded.’
Plump hands with thick black veins reached up and pulled down the hood. Underneath sat a creased, flaking face of grey skin, with slanted green eyes and narrow pointed ears. Greasy, thin black hair rose from his scalp and fell to his shoulders. ‘I am Eliajel,’ he said amiably. ‘Perhaps you have heard of me?’ Our blank faces must have given the game away, so he shrugged and got on with it. ‘No matter. The barkeep has seen me before and knows I bring no harm.’
‘You’d be the first demon that didn’t, then.’ I didn’t mean to say it out loud, but the words escaped.
Eliajel merely chuckled and nodded. ‘I understand your concerns. My…kind do not always deal honestly, and this has led to certain assumptions being made about all of us.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Arabella snapped. ‘You’re claiming to be an honest demon? You are listening to the words that are coming out of your mouth, right?’
Eliajel merely sighed in a theatrically disappointed manner, and gestured to an empty chair. ‘May I?’ I looked at Zack. ‘Please may I sit down?’ the demon asked again. ‘I promise not to roast you with fireballs, okay?’
‘Fine, go ahead,’ Becky muttered, and kicked the chair towards him. ‘One wrong move and it’s game on.’
‘I’m not sure what you mean, but I’ll take it as a threat. Consider it noted. I am not a warrior or a torturer or a despot or a tyrant,’ he went on in a sing-song voice. ‘I am merely Eliajel the collector, Eliajel the trader. Picking up things. Keeping them. Perhaps selling them on. Surely these things aren’t beyond your experience?’
‘I think you need to get to the point,’ said Arabella, pushing her glass away and her chair back. ‘I’m losing patience and I don’t sit around having polite conversations with hellkind.’
‘Nor I with humans, usually.’ Eliajel’s voice hardened momentarily, before softening again. ‘But, here we are in a situation where I have something you require, and you have something I am mildly interested in, and so…’
‘What. Do. You. Want?’ said Arabella.
‘I understand that into your possession, at no cost to yourselves, has come a certain knife. Hooked blade. Wooden and ivory handle. About so long in total.’ He held his hands about eight inches apart. ‘Am I correct in what I’ve heard?’
We all looked at Zack. ‘Hey, I didn’t go talking to any demons,’ he protested. ‘Only my guy down at the docks, and he’s human. Weird, but definitely human.’
‘Word gets around,’ interjected Eliajel. ‘And I listen closely and attentively. It’s how I find new and interesting things for my collection. May I see the blade? Do you have it with you?’
‘Probably not,’ I said. ‘I think first you tell us what you’re offering, and then we all go away, and we’ll be in touch if we’re interested.’
Eliajel smiled and shook his head. ‘I’m afraid that’s not how I do business. I’m very much a here-and-now trader. In that I’m sure that here and now you have the blade, and here and now I have information that is of great value to you. It may prevent another tragedy occurring. The kind of tragedy that occurred in your abode so very recently.’ He looked at me pointedly, half a smile on his lips. ‘Now, please. I am courteous and come in friendship, but do not take me for a fool or someone to be played. You have the knife. There are four of you. None of us could do violence in this place even if we wanted to. May I see the blade?’
‘What are you offering?’ I asked again.
‘The blade first,’ he insisted.
I nodded at Zack, who reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a canvas-wrapped package. He laid it on the table, close to us and away from Eliajel, and unfolded it carefully. Inside was the knife that the magician dropped after slaughtering Jerry. We must have distracted him enough to temporarily put it out of his mind. The hooked blade was now clean of blood. It shifted in colour as the light hit it, one moment looking steely, the next as black as obsidian, reflecting the room around it. The handle was indeed wooden with ivory inlaid in a swirling, ornate pattern. Despite the blade being flawless, the handle was worn, and had definitely seen better days.
Eliajel leaned forward, gave a quick nod and sat back. He was, I thought, doing an excellent impression of someone trying very hard to look disinterested. ‘Yes, that…that is the knife. That is it.’
‘So,’ I asked, ‘what is it exactly that you’v
e got to offer us in exchange? This vital information?’
‘Give me the knife, and I will tell you where your friend Melanie is being kept.’ He smiled, and waited.
‘I think we need to speak about this privately, if you don’t mind,’ said Becky, eyeing the knife and thinking furiously.
‘Certainly.’ Eliajel rose and walked out the room. ‘I will give you two minutes,’ he added, as he closed the door. ‘I have other places to be, you know.’
‘We give him the knife,’ I said immediately.
‘Hold on, I know you like Melanie…’ began Arabella, but I cut her off sharply.
‘This isn’t about Melanie any more. It’s a lot bigger than that. But at the moment she’s the only chance we’ve got to go any deeper, any further. What do we know about the knife, anyway?’
Zach sighed and picked it up. ‘Not much. Doesn’t tie up with anything stolen or reported missing over the last twenty years. No discernible marks on the blade. It’s interesting, and we’d get a good price for it, but it’s not going to rock our worlds.’
‘And you’re sure about that?’ Becky asked.
‘Of course I’m not sure, I’ve only spoken to one guy and we’ve only had it for twenty-four hours. But unless you’ve got some mysterious insight, O great and mystical one, then that’s all we’ve got to go on.’
‘No, I’ve got nothing,’ Becky admitted. ‘But he wants it for a reason.’
‘And we want Melanie for a reason,’ I countered. ‘Is it a bad idea? Probably. Most of what we do ends up being a bad idea. But if you’ve got any suggestions, I’m wide open to hearing them.’
Becky thought for a few seconds, then threw her hands up. ‘Damn it! No. Oh go on and do it already. Get the creep out of our lives.’
‘I’m so glad you’ve reached that decision,’ said Eliajel, letting himself back in the room without a trace of embarrassment, given that he’d clearly been listening at the door the whole time. ‘Now may I?’ He stretched out his hand.
I slammed my hand down on the knife’s handle before he could take it. ‘For the location of Melanie Carter?’