Cunning Devil (Lost Falls Book 1)

by Chris Underwood

  And it had been taken. That’s another nugget of cunning folk wisdom, passed down from generation to generation. Get out your pencils. Here it is: inanimate objects don’t get up and walk away on their own.

  Obvious as it is, it’s an important thing to remember. Because while the object itself might be hard to track, people and creatures are a different story. They leave a trail. Scents, hairs, sweat, skin cells. Thoughts, emotions, memories.

  So if I could find some hint as to who or what had taken the rattle, I’d be halfway done with this job.

  I paced up and down the south wall, all the while keeping an eye on the pendant. The rattle hadn’t gone out the window or the door. It’d gone through the wall.

  Pocketing the pendant, I ran my hand along the peeling wallpaper. In the bottom corner, the wallpaper was lifting away from the wall completely. I took hold of the corner and pulled it back.

  There was a wide crack in the wall, where it had rotted through. It stretched from the floor to about waist-height, maybe six inches across at its widest point.

  I already had my suspicions, but that crack cemented them. I pulled out my phone, turned on the light, and crouched to shine it into the crack.

  There wasn’t much to see in the wall space. It hadn’t been insulated, and I could follow the trail of rot from some leak in the ceiling.

  But the smell, that was more than the smell of rot. Something had been living in these walls a long time.

  “A kikimora? Or a domovoi?” I muttered to myself, but then my light caught on a few strands of long black hair stuck to a nail. That was unusual.

  I pulled off my jacket, set down my phone to cast the light as best I could, and stretched my arm into the wall space. It was a tight squeeze. Early’s girly little arms would’ve fit in here no problem.

  With gritted teeth and straining muscles, I finally snagged the hairs with the tips of my fingers. I drew them out and looked at them in the light.

  The hairs were thick and kinked, with a wet shine to them. I touched them, then rubbed my fingers together. The hairs had a waxy feel.

  “Hobgoblin.” I smiled to myself.

  Hobgoblins were suckers for shiny things, especially silver. I’d bet my left foot that was our thief.

  I peered into the wall space as far as my light could penetrate. The stud closest to me was rotten through, but I couldn’t see what was beyond.

  I stood up and dusted myself off. Moving slowly around the edge of the room, I knocked on the wall, trying to determine exactly where the passageway led. It took me out of the empty nursery and back along the hallway.

  Mr. Mills stuck his head out of the living room, apparently drawn by the sound of my knocking. “Do you…uh…need anything?”

  I held up my hand, silencing him. “Your kitchen’s through here?”

  Without waiting for the answer, I went through the door at the end of the hall. It was the kitchen, all right. It had been renovated more recently than the rest of the house, so it was only forty or fifty years old.

  Mr. Mills started following me in, but I shooed him away, shutting the door in his face.

  “Just need to check something,” I said through the door. I heard a grunt, then the man’s footsteps shuffled away.

  Early always says my manner leaves a little to be desired when I start getting excited about a job. I can’t help it. Despite the sometimes sporadic paydays and the occasional bursts of danger, I really do love what I do. The thrill of discovery. Of exploring a world most people no longer believe in.

  The stove was electric, the kind with manual dials and a bell that rings when the timer’s done. I took it in both hands and hauled it away from the wall.

  There was another crack in the wall here, another strip of wallpaper peeling away. I pulled it back, widening the crack, exposing the space inside.

  What do you know? A perfect little kikimora hole.

  I grinned. “Bingo.”

  5

  A kikimora is a peaceful, benign kind of Stranger. Some live in the woods, but most prefer to make their homes inside human houses. They live off whatever scraps they can scavenge, and in exchange they keep rodents and other pests away.

  They usually make their homes behind the stove, because that guarantees them food and warmth. But they also move about the house by making passages in the walls and floor, like the one I’d found in the nursery.

  There was no kikimora here, though, and I doubted there’d been one for years. My guess was that the house had fallen so far into disrepair she’d cleared out in search of better accommodation.

  And then some hobgoblin had come to take her place. Hobgoblins were like that: opportunistic. They were generally harmless as well, but hobgoblins had a mischievous streak. The hole behind the stove was littered with trinkets the creature had stolen: a single pearl earring, a couple of mismatched socks, and a torn hospital wristband.

  No sign of the rattle, though, and no sign of the hobgoblin either. Strange, that it would leave without taking the rest of its haul with it. But then again, maybe it’d been so transfixed by the silver rattle that all these other bits and pieces paled in comparison. Hobgoblins aren’t blessed with an overabundance of intelligence.

  I would’ve rather been chasing a kikimora than a hobgoblin. Despite their stupidity, hobgoblins are sneaky little bastards, and overly chatty to boot.

  Still, I figured it could be worse. I could be dealing with one of their larger, smarter cousins: a goblin. Hobgoblins are mischievous, foolish, but ultimately no threat to anyone. Goblins, though, goblins are treacherous. As smart as a human, but with a cunning and a complete lack of conscience that make them extremely dangerous.

  Vampires hunt because they have to. Chorts and hellhounds and fiends are beasts, acting out of instinct. Trolls and ogres are brutish, but they can be reasoned with.

  But goblins are devious. Goblins scheme, goblins plot.

  Goblins are too damn much like us.

  So I was pretty happy to only be dealing with a hobgoblin, all things considered. I was pretty sure the hobgoblin was no longer here, but it couldn’t have gone far. It couldn’t drive—it wouldn’t have been able to reach the pedals even if it had the necessary brainpower. Which meant the hobgoblin would’ve toddled off on foot, weighed down by the rattle and anything else it took with it.

  I began to stand up, but I paused as I cast one more look inside the kikimora hole. That hospital wristband was awfully small. Almost like it’d belonged to…

  I picked it up, looked at the information, and felt my heart sink a little as I saw I was right. The patient’s name was Michael Mills. His date of birth was just under two years ago. The wristband belonged to Brandon’s son.

  By the look of the admission date, he’d had a rocky start in life. He’d been taken back to hospital less than two weeks after he was born, the poor kid. I didn’t know what he’d been admitted for, but Brandon Mills had said his son was eighteen months old when he died, so the boy must’ve survived a while at least after this admission. I wondered if whatever he went in for was the same thing that’d eventually killed him.

  I stood up and shoved the oven back into place. Brandon Mills was feeding his mother spoonfuls of instant soup when I returned to the living room.

  He looked up expectantly, and I beckoned him over. As he put down the bowl and joined me in the doorway, his gaze lingered over me. I realized he was studying the tattoos on my arms—I’d taken off my jacket when I went rooting around in the wall space. And they were pretty unusual tattoos, I guess. No Harley Davidson logos or half-naked pin-up girls for me. Mostly occult symbols and words of power from a dozen languages—some of them non-human.

  They were mainly designed to prevent others from tracking me like I was intending to track the hobgoblin. I figured it was worth it to keep the witch-finders and any other nasties off my back. And if nothing else, I supposed they made me look a little more mysterious.

  “I think I can help you,” I said.

 
He had a look on his face, like he wanted to be relieved but couldn’t quite shake his skepticism. “You can?”

  “You were right. The rattle’s been stolen. But I believe I can track it down.”

  “How?”

  I shook my head. “My method’s a secret, I’m afraid. Let’s just say the thief left some clues.”

  His skepticism didn’t dim, but he was desperate enough to know he had no other choice. He glanced over at his mother, then back at me. “All right. How…um…how much do you charge?”

  I told him my usual rate. He paled.

  It was worth a shot, at least. Sighing internally, I held up my hand. “Look, I don’t normally do this, but I understand how much that rattle means to you.” I couldn’t believe I was going to do this. Early had poisoned me with all his talk of how a cunning man has to look after his community.

  I gave him another figure, a pathetically small one. It would only barely cover my costs. Maybe not even that. I just felt so damn sorry for the guy.

  Oh, well. I could always eat at Alice’s if money got too tight. She owed me for clearing out her basement, anyway.

  Relief swept across his face. For a moment I was afraid he was going to hug me. “Thank you. If you really can do what you say… Thank you.”

  “You just sit tight,” I told Mills. “This could take two hours, or it could be a couple of days. I’ll call you when I’ve got something.”

  “Thank you,” he said again.

  I raised my voice, waving to the old woman by the window. “Goodbye, Mrs. Mills!”

  Nothing. The woman stared out the window, oblivious to my shouting.

  “Don’t mind her,” Mills said. “She really should be in care, but I just can’t afford it at the moment.”

  “Well, I hope things start looking up for you soon,” I said.

  I couldn’t wait to be out of that house. Mills followed me to the front door, and watched for a couple of seconds as I struggled with the handle. I couldn’t get the door open.

  “It sticks,” he said, taking over. He did some complicated maneuver that involved twisting the handle with both hands while he pressed one foot against the bottom of the door. He gave a grunt of pain as he did it—the guy must’ve had a bad back or something—and the door finally creaked open.

  “I’ll call you soon,” I promised, and I started down the overgrown garden path toward my van. But Mills kept following me.

  “Mr. Turner,” he said. “Can I ask you one more favor?”

  I pulled open the gate. “What?”

  “I want to talk to this thief. I want to know why they did this to me.”

  I paused, glancing back. There was something I didn’t like in his eyes. Something unsettling.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not?” he said.

  Because I don’t think you’re stable enough to find out that hobgoblins exist , I thought.

  “The important thing is getting your boy’s rattle back,” I said, avoiding the question. “Let’s just focus on that.”

  That reminded me. I took the hospital wristband out of my pocket and handed it to Mills.

  “By the way, I found this when I was looking around.”

  “Oh my God.” He took the wristband carefully, like it might disintegrate at any moment. “I thought we lost this in the move. Where did you find it?”

  “Just lying around,” I said.

  Mills nodded, barely listening. Eyes fixed on the wristband, he dragged the pad of his thumb across his son’s name.

  “He was born with an intestinal blockage. We didn’t catch it until a few days after we got him home. He got so sick, so fast. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe how scared I was. I’ve never been that scared of anything in my life.”

  I nodded. “Was that how he…?”

  “Hmm?” He finally seemed to remember I was still standing there. “Oh, no. They fixed the blockage. We took him home. We were happy. For a little while, at least.”

  I wanted to ask how the boy had died, but it didn’t seem right, somehow. I clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  He nodded his thanks.

  He was still standing there when I started to climb into the driver’s seat. Which meant he was there to hear the screeching growl coming from the back of the van.

  I cringed. The sleep charm had done its work on Lawrence, but he had woken when I opened the door. I glanced back and saw the blanket had partially slipped off the cage.

  Mills frowned. “What was that?”

  “It’s just…uh…never mind. I’ll be in touch.”

  I slammed the door and brought the van coughing to life. Just before I pulled away, I glanced in the mirror and saw Brandon Mills looking through the back window, frowning at the shaking cage that wouldn’t stop growling.

  “Quiet down back there,” I said as I drove away. “Or we won’t stop for ice cream after all.”

  I headed home. If I was going to track down the hobgoblin that’d stolen Mills’ silver rattle, I’d have to act quickly. All I had of the hobgoblin were a couple of hairs, after all.

  What would’ve been really nice was a big jar of the hobgoblin’s urine. You’d be surprised how useful urine is in my line of work. It’s potent stuff.

  Properly treated, a jar of someone’s piss does a damn good job warding off minor witchcraft. It’s even better for tracking. With a few drops of urine fresh from the source, I could brew up a potion to track down the producer of said urine to within a couple of feet.

  It’s a glamorous job, being a cunning man.

  But without even a single drop of piss to work with, I’d have to make do with the hobgoblin’s hairs. They would do the trick, but the trace would be a little harder.

  Lawrence complained the whole way home. I was either going to have to gag him or get myself some earmuffs. I’d never intended to have him sitting in that cage for so long, but I couldn’t offload him on Alcaraz until I made a start on tracking this hobgoblin.

  Maybe he was hungry, and that was why he was so cranky. With luck, there’d be something at home that the thing would eat.

  Home for me was a little one-bedroom riverside house—a cabin, really—just outside town. It was on Early’s property, around the back of his slightly more impressive Victorian. I guess it wasn’t much, but to me, it was a mansion.

  I owed Early for an awful lot in my life, and the house was no exception. The old bastard would probably let me live rent-free if I wanted, but I wasn’t going to let him get away with that.

  I headed down the bumpy, forested driveway and parked on the grass outside my cabin. It wasn’t until I was hauling the dog cage out of the back of the van that I saw I wasn’t alone.

  Rhodes was looking particularly menacing today. He was holding a tree saw in one hand as he stared at me from the shade of a willow. He was a little guy, but strongly built, with dark weathered skin and a face that really could’ve done with a second try.

  Early had hired the guy a year or so back to tend to his herb garden and act as an all-round dogsbody. That was Early all over: collecting strays and assorted losers like me and giving them something to do and a place to lay their head.

  Of course, it’d been the best decision he’d ever made when he took me under his wing and taught me the tricks of the trade. Rhodes, I wasn’t so sure about. He lacked my charm and dashing good looks, that was for sure.

  While I struggled to keep the growling, shaking dog cage from leaping out of my grip, I raised my hand in a wave.

  “How’s it going?” I called to Rhodes across the garden.

  He just grunted, turned around, and started hacking at the tree again.

  No doubt about it: Early had picked a lemon with that boy.

  Juggling the dog cage, I finally got my keys out of my pocket and into the front door. I staggered inside, kicked the door closed behind me, and lugged the creature into the kitchen.

  “Settle down, goddamn it.” I put the cage on
the table. “I’ll be back in a second.”

  The cage continued to rattle as I retreated to the bathroom. It was good just to have some peace and quiet for ten seconds. I splashed some water on my face, then examined the state of the wounds I’d suffered in Alice’s basement.

  Early’s ointment seemed to have done the trick. I wasn’t bleeding anymore, and none of the cuts looked infected by any sort of otherworldly rot. I noticed one of the tattoos on my shoulder had been disrupted by a particularly deep claw mark. Pain in my ass. If it scarred over, that meant a trip to the tattoo artist to fix it up.

  “All right, you little shit,” I said, coming out of the bathroom. “What do you eat?”

  Lawrence didn’t respond, of course. In fact, he had grown awfully quiet. Had he gone back to sleep?

  I went over to the cage, peered inside. The creature had pulled himself into the very back corner of the dog cage, like a wounded animal. He spat and hissed at me.

  “What’s got you so worked up?” I asked him.

  A voice came from behind me. “That would be me, I’m afraid.”

  6

  I jumped so high I nearly slammed my head into one of the ceiling beams. Spinning, I staggered back, reaching for a weapon.

  “Oh, did I scare you? I am sorry, Osric.”

  His face was not the sort of face you want to find suddenly appearing in your home—or anywhere else, really. It was a mishmash of features: a squat, fat nose below two eyes of different shape and color; lips that were too red for the tone of his skin; teeth that looked like they’d been arranged at random.

  The rest of him was no better. I called him a “him”, because he spoke with a male voice, but his body neither confirmed nor denied that assumption. He had the wide hips of a woman, but the broad chest and thick neck of a lumberjack. Even though he was sitting, I could see his arms were too long—they would’ve hung nearly to his knees if he’d been standing.

  He was sitting on the stool in front of my piano. As I stood there gawping, he took off his top hat. The guy was wearing a real, honest-to-god top hat. On a Saturday afternoon, no less.