by Debra Dunbar
“If it’s required of me to take a life, then I’ll do it. No moral considerations are relevant.”
“Is that your honest opinion?”
Vincent nodded. “It is.”
Dominguez lifted his chin at Sebastian. “Bring her in.”
Sebastian withdrew to the entry door and knocked twice. In a few seconds, the door opened. Gertha shoved Betty into the room. The glass pincher’s arms were tied in a bizarrely convoluted series of knots, the rope lashed in a series of cuffs up her arms. She was gagged with a length of brown leather.
Dominguez reached beneath the blanket covering his lap to produce a revolver.
He handed the gun to Sebastian, who popped open the cylinder and fed it with three bullets. He positioned the cylinder carefully and slipped it closed.
And he handed the gun to Vincent.
“There, Mister Calendo,” Dominguez declared with a gesture to Betty. “To finish today’s assessment, we require that you shoot your cottage mate.”
Gertha released Betty and stepped away. Sebastian followed suit.
Vincent stood with the revolver gripped in his right hand. Even as Betty struggled to catch up with the developments in this room, Vincent realized that the length of time it took for him to comply was as important as the act itself. There was no time to debate this. No room for error.
Shoot. Dominguez didn’t say to kill her.
Before Betty could muster a muffled protest or even lift her hands in defense, Vincent lifted the revolver and pulled the trigger.
The hammer slammed home.
The gun released an authoritative click, and nothing else.
Sebastian snickered from the corner as Betty flinched, then launched into a tirade of Biblical proportions. Her muffled monosyllabic invective seemed even to tickle Gertha, who released an uncharacteristic grin.
Vincent, on the other hand, found no humor in the situation. This was what they wanted him to be. An obedient weapon. And although his aim would have put the bullet through Betty’s shoulder, he still would have shot her.
Dominguez stretched out a hand, and Vincent returned the gun.
“We file down the hammer pin,” he explained. “In case you were wondering if it was a simple malfunction. Though sometimes it does go off.” He continued as he wheeled around the desk, “Creates a terrible mess, and of course a loss of a potential asset. Which is why we only bring in our long shots.”
Vincent eyed Betty, who stiffened at this comment.
“Very good, Sebastian,” Dominguez concluded as he closed the book. “This one has promise, though I hope you recognize the signs?”
Sebastian shifted on his feet. “What?”
“It’s all in the posture, mijo. He’s holding out.”
Sebastian scowled “But the auction. He needs to be at the auction. That was the agreement.”
Auction? Vito hadn’t traded him? He was to be sold at auction like a masterless slave? What was going on?
“You and I can discuss this later. Until then,” Dominguez declared, “he’ll require more reeducation. Up the intensity. Don’t let your bias interfere with the method.”
Sebastian’s eyes twitched.
“You may return them to their dormitory.”
Gertha waited for a nod from Sebastian, then collected Betty, nearly lifting her off the floor as she pulled her from the room.
Betty’s eyes were wild, incensed, and locked onto Vincent.
As Sebastian stepped forward to collect Vincent, a real panic set in. For the first time in his days at Ithaca, Vincent felt a real temptation to pinch time and just run for the forest. The elixir hadn’t been administered for a full day. He could feel the flow of time against his skin again. It was possible.
But he knew he couldn’t, no matter how much he wanted to. They’d track him down. They’d find him. And then they’d either kill him, or haul him back here and truly break him.
All he needed to do was survive, but what was he even surviving for anymore? Auctioned off and shipped out, whether that was in weeks or months. He’d be in a new city with a new famiglia and a new handler who wouldn’t let him out of his sight. He’d never see his friends again.
He’d never see Hattie again.
Before they reached the front of the chalet, Vincent was nearly bowled over by a group of men rushing down the hallway. Sebastian held out an arm, pressing Vincent against to wall to give them clearance.
One of the passing men shouted, “He’s on hoof. Bring the car around.”
As they filed through the end of the chalet, rushing through the exterior door, Sebastian shook his head. “Nothing to worry about. Come on. We should get you back.”
A car spun its wheels in the snow just outside the catering entrance. Vincent watched as it swung around and drove off for the back of the property.
Had there been an escape attempt? A reasonable one at that, by the reaction he’d witnessed. Escape seemed utterly impossible without powers.
Vincent fell into a slower plod back to the cottage. Even Sebastian had set a more languid pace. The experience had been a blow to him as well. Vincent pondered his fate at the hands of this man who could pulverize every bone in his body with a snap of his fingers.
What sort of bias had Dominguez meant? Vincent had assumed the preferential treatment was part of the method. But what if it wasn’t? Was that finally a chink in the armor of this place?
Sebastian deposited Vincent in his cell. He paused, the ring of keys in his hand.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“So am I,” Vincent replied.
“Tomorrow will be difficult.”
“So I gathered.”
With a nod, Sebastian left the cell, locking the door behind him.
Vincent sat on his cot, thinking back on the people he’d never see again. Lefty. Tony.
Hattie.
At least she was safe. He hoped such was the case. With his absence being permanent, and likely no new pinchers to take his place, would Baltimore completely collapse? Fall to one of the New York families who coveted the territory and were eager to put one of their own at the helm?
Auction. That seemed…wrong. Vito wouldn’t sell him unless he had another pincher, and a trade wouldn’t require an auction. Did Vito even know he was being sold? Vincent caught his breath at the thought, and suddenly it all made sense.
Luciano had wanted to buy him, and Vito had refused. If the events that had transpired to bring Vincent to this moment were orchestrated by some master plan, then the first act had been conducted by Floresta. He was Luciano’s pincher.
And Luciano’s agents would no doubt be invited to that auction that Sebastian was so eager to sell him at.
That was the agreement, he’d said to Dominguez in that unguarded moment.
A voice carried through the masonry wall, but Vincent was too deep in thought to hear it.
“What?” he said.
Betty’s hate-fueled tremolo repeated, “I am going to kill you, Calendo. It’s how it will end. You and me. I’ll have glass in your gut, and I’ll watch the life slip from your eyes.”
“They didn’t give me a choice.”
She swore loud enough for a bird outside the cottage to raise a protest.
Vincent laid down on his cot. “I don’t think you have to worry about me, Betty. Worry about these monsters instead.”
“All I can think about is the way your blood will feel as it spills from your guts. Hot. Wet. The sound you’ll make when—”
“Oh, shut up.”
After a moment of temporary peace and quiet, Betty concluded, “It’s coming, Calendo. Maybe not today. Maybe not this week, but it’s coming.”
Chapter 21
Hattie woke in fine cotton sheets. The mattress was broader than any she’d slept in before, firm where it counted and soft where it didn’t. Rolling to her side, she angled her knee to crack her back. The sunlight filtering through the drapes indicated it was far too late in the day to just be
waking up. But that was okay. She wasn’t home, and she wasn’t expected anywhere.
It had been a gamble spending the night in Pennsylvania. But with the Hell pincher so close she hadn’t wanted to sleep in the Runabout, and driving the six hours back to Maryland wasn’t an option. Not when the address Absalom gave her as only twenty minutes up the highway.
A hotel. She’d never stayed in a proper, clean hotel before. A girl could get used to this sort of thing.
Kicking the sheets off her legs, Hattie took one last stretch before hauling herself awake. The front desk of the Scranton Hotel was accommodating as could be expected when she descended the stairs in a light-pinched illusion of high-class finery. With a grin as dismissive as it was disdainful, she signed her bill and paid in cash, hurrying back into the street before they realized the dollars she’d handed over were, in fact, yesterday’s newsprint.
Brigid O’Toole had proven to be a reliable cover, with the full force of her Old World brogue unleashed against the gentle folk of Pennsylvania. The only change she’d made between here and Wilkes-Barre was to pinch the light around her hair into a shining coal black.
The address Miles Absalom had given her proved to be a two-story in a town about twenty minutes north of Scranton. It was a Colonial Revival style house with wide porches, suitable more for a family than a single Hell pincher. Hattie sat in the Runabout a block up the street from the house, coat pulled tight around her shoulders to stave off the cold. The morning passed without event, much to her chagrin and she wondered how long she could maintain this vigil with the winter chill seeping through her wool coat. She reached for the ignition just as a figure stepped along the sidewalk to turn up the path to the porch.
Hattie tucked down a little, watching a well-heeled gentleman in his fifties pause on the porch to sweep the snow from his shoes. He produced a set of keys and unlocked the door.
There he was.
The name on Absalom’s register was recorded as Assam al Ghasawi. The figure from Sadie’s old codex flared in Hattie’s memory. The old guard wizards from the Levant, with their robes, sashes and scimitars. This man, as he turned to cast a cautious glance up the street, fit the bill. He was dark-skinned, suitable for a man from the Near East, though his clothes were modern and distinctly American. He sported a tidy beard ear-to-ear.
As the man withdrew inside the house, closing the door behind him, Hattie found herself caught with the singular question she hadn’t voiced since she began this fool’s quest.
What to do now that she found him?
There was no clear answer. Note down the address and wait? Alert DeBarre that there was a potential threat to the Philadelphia crew up here? In broad daylight, the man didn’t look that menacing. Maybe he wasn’t a Hell pincher after all, but instead was someone just interested in the occult, one of those practitioner people Absalom had talked about.
How horrible would it be to sic the mob on a man who was just dabbling in the magical arts only to find the actual Hell pincher was someone else?
But how to prove that? She only had the Runabout for a few days. It’s not like she could follow him around doing light pinches to hide herself until she caught him in the middle of summoning demons and burning down buildings.
Hattie rubbed her eyes. Who was she kidding? She might as well ring his doorbell and ask him right to his face.
She pinched light around her clothes to adopt the O’Toole persona once again, then dropped the illusion. What sense would it make to approach a man as dangerous as this this under any sort of pretense? She’d have to reveal herself eventually, and a man capable of leaving demonic pit traps for nosy observers might have an opinion on the matter.
And so, Hattie Malloy stepped across the street and up to the door of this modest home to simply ring the bell.
The door opened a couple inches and a face peered out at Hattie. His eyes were wide, the whites encircling his irises giving him the look of permanent astonishment. His beard was neatly trimmed, a black sash surrounding pencil-thin lips.
He simply stared at her.
“Excuse me, are you Mr. Assam Ghasawi?”
“Al Ghasawi, to be more accurate,” he replied in a voice of polished onyx. “Salaam.”
“My apologies. I understand you have purchased items from a mister Miles Absalom in the past?”
He squinted, then cocked his head. “How did you find this address? Did he give it to you?”
She didn’t want to hang Absalom out to dry like this, but she had also lost patience with the long con. “How I got it doesn’t matter. That I found you does.”
He opened the door a bit more. “What can I do for you, miss?”
She went for broke. “Hattie Malloy. I’m looking for a Hell pincher. It’s my hope that you can help me.”
A smile crept over his mouth. “Is that so?” He glanced up and down the street. “This is not a conversation for the public.”
Ghasawi opened the door and gestured for her to enter.
Hattie glanced inside. The house looked lived-in. Furniture. A radiator had filled the inside with heat. She could feel it leeching out into the air of the porch. She had to choose at this moment whether she trusted a Hell pincher enough to step into his abode.
With a deep breath, she entered.
Ghasawi closed the door, leaving it unlocked. “Please.” He gestured for a divan.
Hattie took a seat as he lingered behind a wingback chair.
“So, ah…Miss Malloy, was it?”
She nodded.
“There are very few people who would use a term like that. Hell pincher. It implies an understanding of dark practices most often hidden from the public.”
“I’m not the public.”
“So I gathered. Can I assume, therefore, that you are a servant of one of the Powers That Be?”
With a smirk, she replied, “I’m no one’s servant. Though they’ve tried.”
Ghasawi’s smile broadened. “But you have powers?”
She lifted her hand and pinched light to change the color of her hair to blonde.
He nodded in appreciation. “A light pincher? Or is that more than an illusion.”
She dropped the illusion and completely changed the interior of the room to something more befitting a business transaction. A bank, with tellers in green caps and adding machines. One large desk between them. Hattie crossed her fingers and offered a sassy lift of her brow.
“Illusions, then,” he muttered, taking it all in. “Immersive. You are practiced.” He lifted a finger, waving it back and forth in thought. “Which indicates training. But you do are not beholden to any of the great families of American crime?”
“I am my own woman, sir.”
He nodded. “I see. You can…dismiss this. If you like.”
She waved a hand across her face and dropped the illusion. It was starting to tug at her guts, anyway.
“What would a woman like you want with a Hell pincher, Miss Malloy?”
Here’s where she needed to tread carefully. “Recently I’ve stumbled across several of the Hell pinchers…minions? His demons. I don’t believe I was personally targeted but it’s concerning nonetheless. Innocent, and some not so innocent people have died in these encounters. I want to know who or what this Hell pincher’s target truly is, and perhaps discuss a way his goals can be achieved without so much wholesale destruction and loss of life.”
There. That sounded just like one of those politicians giving speeches downtown.
He stared at her. “You must be joking.”
She stared back. “I’m not joking.”
“You’re planning to sit down with this Hell pincher over a cup of tea and reach a compromise about his demonic activities.”
Well, when he put it like that, it did sound ridiculous.
“Perhaps not tea.” Now she was joking. “I’m tryin’ to give this man the benefit of the doubt here. There are times in my life I’ve had to do horrible things to keep my freedom, to protect tho
se I love. If this Hell pincher is doing that, then perhaps I can help find a way for him to be safe without frying up an entire hotel full of people.”
“And if the Hell pincher has other motives? You must realize it would take more than illusions to protect yourself from one, or even to slay it.”
She thought about asking him flat out if he was the Hell pincher, then decided against it. No need to assert herself quite so hard. This man could very well be a heartbeat away from releasing a beast of hell to gobble her up in one bite. Best to continue tip-toeing around the issue until he was willing to get down to nuts and bolts.
“I’m more than just illusions, you know.” She reached into her pocket to produce the marble-sized soul trap. As she held it up, the vein of red glinted in the sunlight.
He took a step back, his eyes widening. “What are you doing with that?” he demanded. “Do you know what that is?”
“A soul trap, capable of housing a demon.” She rolled the marble in her fingers, watching the light glint off the red. “I found it in a burned-out house in Absalom, Pennsylvania.”
Once learning what it was, she’d assumed the Hell pincher intended to return to Absalom later to pick it up. But far from seeming to want the item back, Ghasawi seemed to not want it anywhere near him.
Maybe he wasn’t the Hell pincher? Or maybe there was a second Hell pincher and this soul trap belonged to him? Visions of dueling Hell pinchers sprung into Hattie’s imagination and she grimaced, thinking of the horror and destruction.
“And this item, does it still contain a demon?” Ghasawi’s voice held a note of fear.
Hattie regarded the marble. “To be honest, I’ve no bloody clue.”
“Then what are your intentions.” He nodded to the soul trap. “For that.”
The red glint caught her eye, momentarily mesmerizing her. She’d picked the marble up as a clue, as an item too intriguing to leave in the ashes of that burned out house. Learning what it was, she’d entertained the notion of returning it to its rightful owner, if that owner was a reasonably decent person, that is. But now, something warned her to keep this thing close, and never let it go.