“And he didn’t freak you out?” Keene stood up straight, rain dripping down his forehead and into his eyes. “He made it sound like this place was a death trap.”
Keene wiped his face, thinking about the ominous voicemail.
Don’t go to Tillus, Mr. Keene. Not if you ever want to return.
“What is it?” Strike said, cocking her head.
“Nothing. Let’s walk.”
The wind picked up, ending the conversation. Keene put his head down and slogged down the street. Even in the pelting rain, the small town Americana architecture remained visible. The prim shops were all closed, but the interiors looked well-maintained.
Keene passed by a corner bakery and looked at the green street signs flapping in the wind. Strike came up behind him and touched his shoulder. He shook his head and kept walking. No motel on this street. The wind seemed to pick up as they walked further up the road. Street lamps rattled and shook. Keene accelerated into a brisk walk.
The next intersection brought them to a wide street—Main Street. He glanced down its broad mouth, noting the nineteenth century style brickwork and stout two story buildings. At the end of the road stood the only thing in the entire town above two stories—a clock tower that loomed high above everything, over a hundred feet tall.
The limited visibility had hidden it before, but now its shadowy form loomed over Tillus like an angry, menacing giant.
“Kind of out of scale,” Strike said. “Designers must’ve been drunk when they built that.”
“Yeah,” Keene said, staring at the huge clock face. Eight chimes rang out, indicating that a new hour had come. The sound reverberated through his ribcage and lungs, as if his body were a resonant gong. “Check out the cars up there.”
Strike brought a hand over her eyes, shielding them from the rain. “Cops.”
“What do you figure they’re looking at?”
“I look like a damn mind reader?” Strike said.
Keene pointed up another road, away from Main Street, where a sign flashed vacancy in the dwindling storm.
“We’ll check it out after we rest,” Keene said over the wind. Strike gave a small nod in response. They turned around and walked towards the narrower road. Keene gave a final glance over his shoulder, where the police cars sat in the far off distance, responding to crimes unknown.
There was a lot off about this small, perfect town. And it wasn’t just the storm.
The inn keeper was a young woman of about thirty-five who spoke to Keene and Strike like she was their grandmother. Keene nodded along with the woman’s polite conversation, ignoring her comments about his youth. From where he was standing, she only had a handful of years on him.
He took the rusted key from her and walked up the creaky steps, helping Strike along the way. At the top of the landing was a hallway lined with half a dozen rooms. Theirs was at the end—the honeymoon suite, which the innkeeper had insisted upon. Keene eyed the cracking wallpaper, clad in ponies and cowboys, as he walked towards the door.
“Smells like my grandma’s,” Strike said. She was leaning in hard against his shoulder, having trouble breathing. She slipped out of his grip as he threaded the key into the lock. Her head nodded softly against the wooden doorframe.
“Wouldn’t know,” Keene said. “We had cleaning robots where I’m from. Got all the dust.”
Keene pushed the door open as gently as he could, which still sounded like a family of mice getting attacked by a pack of cats. He lifted Strike up off the ground and put her on the double-bed. She passed out almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.
The room’s wallpaper had faded hearts all over it. It was peeling a little less. Nothing of note besides a bed and a wobbly nightstand. Keene understood why it was billed as the honeymoon suite. A bed was all newlyweds would need. Unfortunately, a bed solved exactly zero of his current problems.
Keene took care to remove Strike’s jacket. He rolled her black tank top up, exposing her mid-riff. She was right. The scar looked like a real nasty son-of-a-bitch. There was a large bruise around her waist from where the belt had snapped her in.
Keene lifted up his own shirt, touching his well-defined mid-section. The seatbelt had gotten him, too, but not nearly as bad. Strike’s recovery had been slow as hell. Almost dying would do that. And it looked now that their little puddle jump into the weeds had severely aggravated her old wounds.
“What, you gonna take off your shirt, now,” Strike murmured, “always knew you were a dirty bastard.”
Keene let his white T-shirt drop back into place. He looked at Strike. Back to sleep. She’d heal up on her own, but there was no telling when she’d be of use. A couple months, at the minimum. And it looked like she had a couple hours, if that, to recover.
Sliding down to the uneven floorboards, Keene contemplated his options. His phone was dead, so getting in touch with Linus—or anyone from the outside world—to haul her away was a no go. Leaving her here alone would be tricky, especially if this portal existed. No telling what would happen to her if he actually managed to get to Shambhala.
If it even existed.
Keene scratched his jaw and tapped his fingers against the wood.
His watch ticked. December 16, 2015. 8:52 PM. The mechanical movement still seemed to work. If this prophecy was real, then the destruction of the world was imminent. Two weeks, at the most. Could be a hoax.
Then again, Ben didn’t seem like the gullible type, prone to chasing ghosts and nonsense. Why would he warn Keene, hide the journal, if there was no Diamond Dragon to be found? And clearly there were others aware of what was going on. Carmen, for one, thought the information in the journal was valuable enough to pursue. Hell, she’d even slept with Linus for weeks to get close to it.
All the pieces together made Keene unnerved. But for now he just needed to figure out what to do with Strike. A knock at the door startled him from his thoughts.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t answer it,” Strike said with a dream-like groan. “Sleeping.”
“Mr. Keene.” The innkeeper. “May I enter?”
“Sure.”
Keene scrambled to his feet as the door opened. The mousy young woman stood in the doorway, clutching a cup in her pale, shaking hands. Steam floated into the air.
“For your young friend.” The woman tucked her chin into her sternum and looked at the floor. “She is not well.”
“Just tired.”
“No.” She came into the room, each step measured. The faint aroma of fresh flowers and strong tea wafted across the bed. “She must drink.” The woman bent over towards Strike.
Keene ran over to the opposite side of the bed. “What the hell are you doing?”
“You will not survive this place,” the woman said, her eyes growing wide with fear. “You must escape.”
“Look lady, I’m not letting you poison her.”
“You will stay here forever if she cannot run.” The woman said it with a tinge of sadness. “We all will.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Keene’s arm shielded Strike’s mouth from the liquid. He gave the mug a suspicious look. “What’s in it?”
“It is from the land you seek,” the woman said, “I saw his journal in your pocket.”
Keene glanced back at the hip pocket of his jeans, where the edge of the journal’s leather cover peeked out from his pants.
“You know about the journals?”
“Occasionally the sheriff allows me to read one that has come through the portal. Remember Martin by. And her, too.” The woman blinked quickly. “Drink. It is made from the root of life.”
“Sure,” Keene said, but let his hand drop away. He propped up Strike’s head as the woman guided the hot liquid down. Strike coughed slightly and tried to move, but she was too tired to put up much resistance. She slumped back against the pillow once the mug was empty.
“Ten minutes,” the woman said. She looked at the ground again as she walked towards the door
. “Will you escape?”
“I’m trying to find this portal.”
“Then you’ll stay?” A slight gleam of hope entered her eyes.
“As long as I need to,” Keene said. “I got a bad feeling about this place.”
“As you should, young Mr. Keene,” the woman said. She looked up from the floor, not so much at Keene but through him. “If you reach Shambhala, I have one request.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Strike stirred on the bed, mumbling incoherent sentences.
“Find out what happened to my daughter and husband.” She walked into the hall. “I came here almost twenty-five years ago, searching for them. But I have never even gotten near the portal.”
There was a long pause.
“The dog, too?” Keene said, trying to confirm what his mind was screaming. The journal, the prophecy, Shambhala—everything was real.
The woman gave a sad laugh. “I don’t suppose poor Baxter is still alive after all these years. Then again, if they fed him the root, as they do with us…”
“Where is the portal?” Keene said.
“There is one within the old clock tower. But you will need a special talisman from the bank vault to direct the electromagnetic field and open the portal. Box 462.” The woman suddenly stiffened, her shoulders shaking slightly. Knocks at the front door below, the unfriendly and aggressive kind—the sole domain of law enforcement. Apparently someone had seen them come this way, and reported them to the local authorities. “You must leave.”
“We just got here,” Strike said, the words slurring together.
“Take her out the window. I will stall them.” She rushed to the top of the stairs and looked back at Keene. “Find them, please.”
“But I don’t even know what they—” Keene cut himself off. The innkeeper was already gone, rushing down the stairs to deal with the threat at the door. “What they look like.”
He said the last words to no one at all.
Or so he believed.
“Who looks like what?”
He glanced over to see that Strike was not only awake, but on her feet, jogging in place.
“Nothing. The locals are after us.”
“What else is new?”
“Lots. I’ll fill you in while we head to the bank,” Keene said.
“What’s there?”
“The key to Shambhala,” Keene said, not believing his own words. Loud voices from below made him refocus on the immediate situation. His gaze fell on a dirty window in the corner. Keene now understood why the innkeeper had insisted upon the honeymoon suite—it provided a direct escape route. He ran over and punched out the glass. “Let’s go.”
Strike hopped through, landing in a thicket of bushes below. Keene leaned over the jagged sill to check on her. She was already up and running.
“Crazy tea,” Keene said.
He vaulted through the broken pane, landing feet first in the grass. The voices grew louder. Like their owners were coming to inspect the commotion outside.
Keene dropped into a sprint, darting after Strike in the rain-slicked night.
The bank was close enough that Keene barely had time to fully explain the situation. Strike nodded along, as if what he was telling her was completely normal. That could be understood, since she too had survived a gauntlet of adventures in the ancient Incan ruins, the remnants of Atlantis and nineteenth century pirate-infested waters.
“You feel okay?” Keene focused on the police cars up ahead—the only sign of human life on Main Street. As he got closer, he realized the vehicles were in front of the bank. “Great. Figures this is the one place the cops would be.”
“Never been better.” Strike skipped for a few yards. “Wish the docs had given me this months ago.”
“Whatever this is.”
“It’s great, is what it is.”
“Slow down,” Keene said. “We need to think this one through. Not raise any alarms.”
“That so, Captain Keene?” Strike shot him an eye-roll and a smirk before taking off straight for the front of the building. “I think the alarms have already been raised.”
Keene could only watch in stunned disbelief as Strike rapped her knuckles against the door. Portable crime scene lamps glowed within the bank, indicating that the local cops were still hard at work inside. No one appeared eager to answer the door.
Keene shivered, his damp T-shirt clinging to his clammy skin. The bank’s awning helped shield him from the rain, but it didn’t do much to quell his concerns about what lay on the other side of this mysterious portal. The warning echoed again in his mind.
Don’t go to Tillus, Mr. Keene. Not if you ever wish to return.
“I know these sons of bitches can hear us,” Strike said. “They’re trying to freeze us out.” She turned to Keene with a shrug. “What’s with you?”
“You think Shambhala really exists?” Keene rubbed his lip. Something about that woman had shaken him deeply. It wasn’t that she had essentially confirmed the journal’s details.
It was what had gone unsaid.
There was something unspeakably horrible about living in Tillus. Keene hoped it was mundanity, but he feared the truth was far more sinister.
“If I was a betting girl?” Strike said.
“For argument’s sake, let’s say you are.”
“I’d bet the house,” Strike said. “Then remortgage it and bet it again.” Her eyes flicked back and forth at the moving shadows. Patches of the bank’s linoleum floor were cloaked in almost total darkness, lending a conspiratorial aura to the investigation.
“Fuck it, then.” Keene reached into his back pocket and extracted the journal. Then he stuffed it into his waistband and covered it with his shirt tail. No need to tip his hand further by brazenly alerting the locals that he was wise to what was going on. Now fully prepared, Keene stepped up beside her and pounded on the door. Over and over and over again—courtesy and caution be damned—until the cops inside stopped moving, distracted by the incessant noise. A wisp of a young man, his oversized suit hanging off his shoulders, came down and stood on the other side of the door.
He gave no indication that he intended to unlock it.
“Please return to your—” He stopped, his eyes flashing with surprise. “Oh. Strangers.”
He immediately reached down and unlocked the door.
“Thought you were all deaf,” Keene said.
“Yes, sorry, where are my manners. The local news has been a terrible bear,” he said, with a homeliness controverted by a wolfish, inauthentic smile. The empty street bore no evidence that the local news had any interest in the bank. “Detective Danny Ferdinand. But everyone calls me Duke.”
“Duke?” Strike said. Her question was more accusatory and pointed than curious.
“Yes. Like Franz Ferdinand.” He shrugged, the rolls of fabric on his arms rippling. “High school world history, you see.”
“Sure, Detective,” she said. “That would’ve been my first guess.”
“So, what can I do for you folks? There’s a nice diner around the corner, twenty-four hours. Tremendous custard pie. To die for, as they say, but we don’t like that expression much. Kind of dour. Especially given the circumstances.”
“What circumstances would those be?” Strike said with a raised eyebrow.
“An unfortunate murder—a death during a robbery,” Duke said, wiping his brow, his eyes shifting like he’d revealed too much. “A private police matter.”
“What a coincidence,” Keene said. “We’re looking for the man who did it.”
He and Strike exchanged sideways glances. This was all improvised, like walking a tightrope without a net. The town might know that strangers were afoot, but they didn’t know who these strangers were, exactly.
Play this right—give off a vibe that it was best to leave them alone, that he and Strike were too much of a hassle to harass further—and they could get information and maybe even save their own hides.
&
nbsp; Play it wrong, and well—what had the innkeeper said about staying in Tillus forever?
Duke moved uncomfortably, like he was trying to determine whether to slam the door or listen further.
“I’m afraid this isn’t nineteenth century England, and we don’t employ amateur detectives, Mr. Holmes.”
“Name’s Keene.”
“Yes, of course. Tell you what. I’ll call ahead, have Brenda treat you folks on the house, since you came all this way to help us out.” Duke turned to close the door.
Strike stuck her boot in the jamb and said, “The FBI doesn’t come to shit stick towns like this for the pie, Duke.”
“FBI?” Duke’s fingers played with the lock, the deadbolt shooting in and out of the empty air. “I didn’t hear anything about that.”
“Agent Samantha Strike. You want to call my supervisor? Agent Jennings, Manhattan Field Office.” She held out her phone, her eyes daring Duke to make the call.
“Phones are down,” Duke said. “Afraid we’re a bit behind you city folks.”
“So you gonna let us in,” Strike said. “Or we need to wait out the storm?”
Duke sized them both up. “You’re not dressed like FBI agents.”
“Don’t want our killer getting spooked. You seen his sheet? Shit, this guy thinks the feds are in town, he goes to ground, we’ll never see him again. Jennings will chew on my ass for weeks.” Then, in a clandestine whisper, “And your precious box will disappear, too.”
“You—you know about Box 462?” Duke’s voice came out in squeaks and stutters.
“Play nice and we’ll get everything back, no sweat.” She winked.
“Sure—sure, we can use all the help we can get.” Duke didn’t seem like he could use the help at all, but he also seemed convinced that he had no other option but to acquiesce to Strike’s demands. “Come on in. And lock the door, please.” He stepped out of the doorway and walked back up the stairs.
Keene caught the closing door and held it for Strike. As she passed by, he said in a low voice, “Quite the performance there, Agent. Nice touch with the box.”
“Training dies hard,” she said with a shrug. “Figured it was the only reason anyone would rob this place. Shot in the dark that it was true.”
The Diamond Dragon (Kip Keene Book 4) Page 4