by P. N. Elrod
Clive counted, and Agnes poured sherry into three stemmed glasses, making small talk with Taylor. Alone on the table was the open black box with the Eye still in it.
Even across the room I could tell it was a real gem. The glass imitation in my pocket was a vulgar peasant compared with the elegant royalty over there. Simply lying on its white silk padding, the stone glowed like molten gold. It took light and set it on fire. When I shifted, futilely trying to move closer for a better view—I swear it—the thing winked at me.
That was eerie. The longer I stared, the less I liked it. The damned thing was just a chunk of crystallized carbon in an unexpected color with a fancy name, and for some reason, people had decided it was worth something. They killed and died for such shiny baubles. Insane.
Despite that, I wouldn’t have minded having a few locked up in the safe at home.
Just not this one.
Hecate’s Eye twinkled goldly at me, and I fought down a shiver.
Clive finished his count and closed the briefcase. Taylor said he could keep it along with the cash.
Taylor picked up the Eye and peered through his loupe. Wise of him. He’d been distracted by Agnes; Clive could have slipped a fake in.
“It is beautiful,” Taylor said. “I’ve seen its equal only at the British Museum, and that one had two inclusions, but neither like this simulacrum.”
They made a toast, and everyone looked pleased. Agnes gently took the pendant from Taylor—to have one last look at her darling grandmother’s pride and joy, she said.
“I shall miss you,” she said, holding the stone to the light, gravely wistful.
Clive and Taylor exchanged glances, two men in silent agreement about the frail sentiment of the fair sex, shaking their heads and smiling. By the time they turned back, Agnes had made the switch.
She’d practiced; she was so fast, I almost missed it. She put a pendant in the box and closed the lid, handing it to Taylor. The real stone was still in her palm so far as I could tell. While the men shook hands, she slipped it into her dress pocket.
Slick, but foolish. Sooner or later, Taylor would take another gander at his toy and call the cops. How could she think she’d get away with it?
Someone eased up behind me, and I did not trust it to be Escott checking to see what was taking so long.
I ducked and twisted in time to avoid the full force of the crooked end of a tire iron on my skull. It smashed into my left shoulder square on the bone joint. Most of the time a regular person hasn’t got the strength to damage me, but the application of raw kinetic force on a single spot with an unbreakable tool—something’s going to give. I heard it do just that with a sickening, meaty pop and dimly knew that it hurt, but was too busy to register how much. I spun the rest of the way around to face Riordan. He was ready and punched the iron hard into my gut. It had a hell of a lot more force than a bare fist. I doubled over.
Not needing to breathe, I wasn’t yet on the mat, and I lunged forward to tackle him. He danced back and almost made it, but collided violently into the dining table, tumbling it and himself over with a satisfyingly noisy crash. A woman screamed.
My left arm was completely useless and hanging. I grabbed at Riordan with my right, but he didn’t stop, cracking the tire iron smartly on the back of my hand. I heard bones snap, but again felt no pain, which meant serious, crippling damage. Before he caught me another one—dammit, he was fast—I got a fist in his belly. It was a lighter tap than I wanted, since I was forced to use my right. No pain—things were moving too quick.
Riordan did have to breathe, and slowed just enough that I had time to stun him silly with an open-handed slap on the side of his head. Again, not my full muscle behind it, but it got the job done so well that I wanted to scream as my shattered bones ground against one another under the skin.
The starch left him, but he fought it, his eyes going in and out of focus. I grabbed the iron. It took effort to pry from his grip, and I had to drop it immediately as my fingers gave up working. Everything came to roaring, agonizing life. One arm dead, the other much too alive, I needed to vanish so I could heal.
“Hands up!”
William D. Taylor (the Fourth) had me covered with an efficient-looking semiauto. A .32 or .38, it gave the impression of being field artillery from my angle on the floor.
I froze. I hate getting shot. It hurts like hell, I lose precious blood, and the bullets go right through to hit anything and anyone with the bad luck to be behind me. I also tend to involuntarily vanish. With the damage I already had, I’d not be able to stop the process.
Couldn’t risk it in front of this bunch. None of them needed to know that much about me. In the spirit of cooperation, I tried to raise my one moving arm. Pain blazed down it like an electric shock. I gasped and hunched over it, suddenly queasy. My left arm wasn’t responding at all; a major nerve or something was gone, couldn’t feel it except as a heavy dragging weight. I smelled blood where the skin was broken on my shoulder, but the black shirt hid it.
Clive Latshaw, the outraged man of the house, demanded to know who I was and what I was doing there.
Not having a good answer for either, I told him to call the cops.
Their reaction was interesting. When trespassers demolish your house, most folk are eager to turn them in.
This trio hesitated with an exchange of uncomfortable glances.
Taylor spoke first. “I have to be on that train tonight. It’s vital to my business.”
Clive slowly nodded. “Of course. I can take care of this. We don’t need the police.”
Not too strangely, given the switch she’d pulled and the fact that she’d stolen the gem in the first place, Agnes did not utter a single reasonable objection to this extraordinary statement. Instead, she glared at the wreckage that happens to a nice room when two grown men try to kill each other in it.
“Who are they?” she asked, somehow taking me and Riordan in at the same time.
She’d shown no recognition at all for him, but then neither had Clive. They were both competent enough liars. Were they in on it together or separately? Did she have a reason not to tell her husband about hiring a man, or had Clive retained him and not shared with her?
Visible through the parlor curtains, lightning flashed bright. Thunder boomed, shaking the whole house again. We all jumped a little under flickering lights.
Her hand was in her pocket, nervously touching Hecate’s Golden Eye, and I wondered briefly about the curse. This weather had me spooked.
I’d only looked at the damned thing and had a bushel basket of bad luck dropped on me. Had I been normal, I’d be maimed for life.
I needed to vanish; a few seconds out of their sight would be enough. My best option was to hypnotize them into a nap on their feet, but attempting to take all three at once while they were on guard was bound to fail. I was too distracted by pain, which was getting worse.
Get them separated.
“Call the cops,” I said, looking at Clive, willing him to listen. If just one of them left, I had a chance. “I’m a burglar and this is another burglar. We came here to steal everything, and we should be jailed.”
Riordan roused himself enough to mutter, “Y’daft b’sturd.”
He was soaked through from the storm. He might have entered the house from some other door than the one in the mudroom, but it wasn’t likely. Worry for Escott and Mabel stabbed through me, breaking my concentration. If he’d gotten the drop on them . . .
Riordan won his struggle back to consciousness and dragged himself to a sitting position. “Jesus, Mary, an’ Joseph, for a skinny git, you know how to scrap.”
“Where are they?” I snarled.
“If you’re meanin’ the Holy Family, take yourself to a church, they’ll be glad to inform you. If it’s Charlie an’ his new sweetheart, you’ll find them tight as sardines in the boot of his car.”
Clive looked ready to choke. “Quiet!”
As if to punctuate him, thunder boom
ed over the house, rattling everything and everyone.
Riordan squinted up at him. “Friends in high places, have ye?” With a groan, he found his unsteady feet.
Agnes instinctively retreated behind her husband. “Clive . . .”
“Stay right there,” Taylor ordered, reminding us he was armed.
“I’m no burglar, missus, not t’worry.” Riordan looked at me. “Don’t kid yourself, mate, I had a great pleasure in bustin’ you up, but it happens I’m here on me own business.”
“What business?” Taylor’s aim was steady. A man used to firearms.
Riordan rubbed the side of his head. “Me ears are ringing, but I’ve no time for that phone. It’s you”—he looked at Clive Latshaw—“I want a word with.”
Clive had a good poker-playing face, but not good enough. Riordan was the last person he wanted here, that was plain.
“Clive—do you know that man?” Agnes stared at him.
“Indeed he does, missus. Pleased to meet you. Shamus Riordan, me name is me game, spell it the same. Pardon me manners, but I’ve had a bad night. I want a word with your mister about me payment.”
“Who is he?”
Clive did his best. “He’s a man I hired to follow Mabel. It’s nothing important.” He was desperate for her to take the hint. Mention of Mabel could bring out that she was the real owner of the Eye. Taylor might not care, but then again, he might.
“An’ paid well for it,” Riordan added. “Very well indeed from a man with holes in his shoes. Polish on top, holes on the bottoms, an’ I’ll not mention too loudly the shockin’ state of your heels. You had work for me, that’s all I care about. But I began wonderin’ how you got hold of so much lovely money, when it was clear you were in such need for yourself—”
Clive told him to shut up. I had to read his lips; the thunder drowned him out.
Despite the agony, I started to laugh, getting a collective glare from them. Perversely, I enjoyed the moment. It happens when the adrenaline’s running and certain oddities suddenly make sense.
“Would you let us in on the hilarity?” Riordan asked.
“You already got the joke.” I let the laughter run down. Continuing was too painful.
“I don’t consider it t’be all that amusin’.”
He wouldn’t. No one would. It was hard to read Taylor’s eyes behind those wire glasses. My guess was that I’d said too much already. We were in dangerous waters.
Riordan started to speak, but I caught his eye and gave a fast wink, hoping the others would miss it and that he’d take the warning. If I got shot, I’d vanish. Riordan would bleed out and die.
He gave a snort of contempt, muttered about “bloody Yankee Doodles,” and subsided, turning away. Good man.
Another exchange of looks between Taylor and Clive. I pretended not to see, but Agnes had picked up on things. She backed off to watch them both, her eyes sharp and suspicious.
Clive took charge, speaking slowly, his voice thick. “Mr. Taylor, as this has nothing to do with you, I think you should leave. If you would give me the loan of your gun, I can take care of this situation. I’ll return it later; I have your address.”
Thinking it over, Taylor finally nodded, but didn’t move right away. He blinked several times and rubbed his eyes. Clive extended a hand sideways toward him, but there was an unusual sluggishness to the action.
“I have . . . your address,” he repeated.
Taylor made no reply.
Agnes stepped forward and took the gun from Taylor’s hand. Neither of the men protested; their faces had gone slack in what to me was a too-familiar dead-eyed stare. She rounded on me and Riordan, scowling.
“What am I going to do with you two?” she wanted to know.
One to one, the odds were in my favor. I pushed away the pain and concentrated on her.
But there was still some bad luck left in the barrel. Another lightning flash edged the curtains with white fire for a breathless moment. Thunder boomed seemingly right over the house. The lights failed.
Skunked again, dammit. At least when it came to hypnosis. But if the power stayed off long enough . . .
The parlor candle was far enough away to leave the dining room sufficiently dark. I went out like the lights, and for a few precious seconds the gray nothingness swept me from the weight and pain of physical burdens. It was a little bit of heaven, tempting me to linger. Alas, no.
When I came back, my arms worked just fine again; I was also right behind Agnes, grabbing for her gun. Taylor and Clive continued to stand in their tracks, oblivious as a couple of store-window mannequins. I caught of glimpse of a gleeful Riordan grinning like a maniac in the face of all the impossibilities taking place.
Agnes put up a hell of a fight, screaming, clawing, hissing, kicking, and not letting go of the gun, not giving an inch as we danced around. With a ferocious twist, she broke free and fired at me, the gun’s roar matching the thunder for sheer eardrum-breaking sound.
At less than ten feet she missed, but you can do that if you’re excited and don’t know how to shoot.
However, even an excited, inexperienced shooter can get lucky. Time to leave.
I retreated in haste to the dining room. Riordan, no fool, was just ahead, scrambling toward the kitchen.
She fired again, screaming something abusive. We dashed toward the mudroom, jamming shoulders in the doorway, fighting to be the first out. Riordan slipped sideways and won, slamming through the back door into the rain with me at his heels.
He took off down the drive, presumably to reclaim his car. We should have tied and gagged him. He was too good an escape artist.
He looked back once, teeth white in the darkness. “Till the next round!” he yelled, then sprinted away.
Escott’s Nash was still there, the keys and his Webley on the front seat. Mabel and Escott were indeed inside the trunk, to tell by the muffled shouts and thumping, but they could wait.
I got the car started, shifted gears, and shot out from under the porte cochère. Rain once more pounded the roof with brutal force, but the heavy fall and general darkness would obscure the vehicle from Agnes, hopefully throwing off her aim. I didn’t stop to look.
When I judged the distance to be far enough, I cut the motor, vanished, and beelined my invisible way back to the house. Wind buffeted me, and the rain was a startling unpleasantness. I usually get that kind of quivering discomfort when sieving through solid walls. When it stopped, I made the reasonable assumption I was under shelter.
With great caution, I took on just enough solidity to get my bearings. Clive’s flashy coupe was in front of me. I let myself float up into a dim corner to watch.
In the few moments since Riordan and I escaped, Agnes had been busy.
Wearing hat and gloves, she emerged from the back door, the leather case with the money in one hand, a travel suitcase in the other. She tossed them into the passenger side of Clive’s coupe and hopped in herself. She was laughing, a free and easy sound of pure delight and triumph.
I half expected a fateful bolt of lightning to strike just then, but nothing happened. The storm seemed to be letting up.
Agnes revved the motor, shifted gears, and roared off into the rain.
ESCOTT HAD PAST experience at being locked in car trunks, so he was more sanguine about it than our client. That, or maybe he’d enjoyed being stuffed into a small space with a healthy young woman on top of him. I’d kept a straight face when I’d let them out, though they were rather badly rumpled.
Mabel was livid and ready to strangle Riordan, but I explained he was long gone. I had a lot of explaining to do, but first had her give me the location of the fuse box so I could get the lights working.
She was none too pleased at the state of the dining room, appalled and aghast at the sight of Clive and Taylor literally asleep on their feet, and furious with me on general principles. She visibly fumed as I eased each man flat on the floor. They were breathing okay, hearts pumping steadily, so they didn
’t seem to be in any immediate danger.
“Some kind of curare?” Escott ventured, studying them with his own brand of cold-blooded curiosity. “If so, they might well be aware of everything we’re saying.”
I shrugged. “Just don’t touch the sherry. It might be a good idea to empty all the open bottles into the drain. Agnes could have left a booby trap behind.”
Mabel was ready to explode. “What happened?”
I sat down because I was damned tired. Before dawn, rain or no, I’d have to stop at the Stockyards and have a long drink.
With the promise of fresh beef blood in my near future, I told them everything that happened, including Riordan’s badly timed interruption and the fight, leaving out the part about my injuries. I’d tell Escott later. He’d need to know just how violent his acquaintance had gotten.
“You let her go?” Mabel’s throaty voice rose.
I held up a hand. “She didn’t get away with anything.”
“Only with Hecate’s Eye and all that money. She’ll never come back.”
I took the pendant—the real one—from my pocket and held it out to her.
Mabel gaped, then reached for it, fingers shaking. “You switched them!”
“Said I would. It took long enough, what with Agnes fighting me every inch of the way.”
“You mustn’t touch it. My God, put it down before something horrible happens.”
I put it into her hand and told her how I’d played pickpocket during the tussle. Agnes must have thought I was some kind of masher since I’d had to keep my hands moving. No wonder she’d shot at me.
“She still got away with the payment—Taylor will set the police on her.”
“No, he won’t. He brought a case full of funny money to buy the gem. It’s as counterfeit as the pendant he got. Agnes had two fakes made. Maybe the jeweler cut her a deal for making two.”
That took them both a moment to digest. I used the pause to take the little box from Taylor’s coat pocket and spilled his fake pendant onto the table.