by Tee Morris
Julie didn’t answer that one. “So what was my big mistake? My perfume?”
“No, it was making coffee.”
That threw her for a loop. “Making coffee?”
“In your note to me this morning, you said you made yourself a cup. Now as you surmised on our first meeting, I’m not from around these parts. To keep my feet rooted in some of my hometown talents, I labeled common things in my kitchen with Elvish script. To everyday people, it would appear like a series of squiggly lines and dots. It would be ‘all Greek’ to them,” I mused with a knowing smile. “But to you, with a flair for the languages? Hardly a problem…especially since you had already seen this script before. My flour and salt containers—even the pepper-jar lid—still had a bit of dust on them. As you might have guessed, I tend to eat out often.”
Julie let out a small sigh, shaking her head. “But only the coffee and sugar jars had been disturbed because I cracked the language engraved into the Singing Sword’s blade,” she recalled, letting out an appreciative chuckle in spite of herself. “Must have been the overwhelming satisfaction distracting me this morning.”
Yeah, bitch. Flattery will get you everywhere.
“Yeah, Julie, that was your major slip-up.” I gave my jacket a tug and straightened up to my full height, making sure she could take in all four-foot-one of me. “Although Daphnie seemed to think that calling on my services was your first mistake. I tend to agree.”
Now that her gun had lowered completely, I could make a move for the axe. But I didn’t trust my grace and agility to reach it in time, plus she was within arm’s reach of the Sword, making me uncertain how to proceed.
“Daphnie isn’t one to talk…anymore,” she said with a cruel smirk. “There was a reason I wanted her working for me, but as I’ve told you before, I’ve never been a terrific judge of character. Tony, Daphnie, Eva…” she shook her head. “But sometimes I can accurately size someone up. Like you, for example.”
Slipping her Saturday Night Special into her coat pocket, Julie took up the Sword in a double-handed grasp. The blade appeared to come alive at her touch, shining brighter than when I had handled it a few short minutes ago.
“Do you really believe I didn’t know that you were a two-bit detective?” she said with a sneer. “A tiny one at that? I knew if a client like me walked through the door, you would go out of your way to please. And as soon as I saw the wall décor of your office, I knew you were uniquely qualified to help me find the Singing Sword.”
“So you used me to get to the Sword…just like you used Tony, right?”
Julie’s expression darkened, her grip tightening on the Sword’s hilt. “I used Tony? You want to make him the victim here? Tony’s no different from any man in this world. Tony used me to get inside the Ryerson. Benny was using me to get to the Singing Sword. Dr. Hammil used me to reach my father.” She gave a harsh, sarcastic laugh. “My father. My father who kept me under his thumb, raising me under his watchful eye, sending me to college, grooming me to be the perfect wife for one of his young go-getters—”
“No one was holding a gun to your head, Julie. You could have left.”
“Not with Henry Lesinger for a father. Even if I were to assume another name, he’d find me and bring me back to our Ivory Tower, just so he could get in the final say on my life. Why, Billi, why should I be the fugitive? I’ve earned my legacy,” she spat. “I played the perfect daughter, even when Daddy put me up for auction to his lackeys. You can imagine my joy when I met Tony. Then…” Her voice trailed off as she turned her eyes to the Sword and raised it up, a prolonged ringing of metal sounding in the air as she did. “This will set things right.”
As I watched her whip the weapon around her body in an advanced form, her swordsmanship didn’t impress me as much as the accompanying chorus of notes that seemed to change in pitch and tone when she cut the air.
Funny. It didn’t make much of a noise when I held it.
“Pretty impressive,” I scoffed.
“I agree,” Julie laughed gleefully. “I didn’t know I could do this, either. I was right. The Sword and its wielder are symbiotic, provided the wielder is willing.”
Symbiotic. Now there’s a word you don’t hear too often in my line of work. So keeping my head clear must’ve been the wrong strategy when handling the Sword, because it wouldn’t have wanted an unwilling partner.
“So I take it your roll in the hay with me last night was just another ruse? Doing a little recon work to see what I knew about the Singing Sword?”
“And are you going to tell me you weren’t using my business to finance your own effort to find it?”
Damn, she had me there.
“As for last night,” she continued, “I was willing to make a sacrifice to get the information I needed, but you were definitely a surprise. You have talent, Billi. Talent that a girl should appreciate,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed on the blade moving elegantly across her body, its humming growing louder as she stepped closer to me.
Then she paused for a moment in her form to look at me. The smile was surprisingly sincere.
“I’m sure I could find a place for you.”
“Oh yeah,” I huffed. “Every goddess should have a personal sex-dwarf on call.”
The notes were still ringing in our ears as she finished her form with the weapon’s tip stopping on my neck. “Now, Billi, how about we go for a walk? I’d like to talk about future plans with you.”
“Future plans?” Somehow, I had to get to my battle-axe. It was only a few steps away, still embedded in the crate. It might as well be have been in New York, Miami, or Gryfennos for that matter! “What kind of future plans are we talking about?”
She was about to tell me when two pinstriped orcs stepped out of the shadows, Tommy Guns primed. I raised my hands while Julie lowered the Sword, a very dangerous smile forming on her face as a larger man, armed only with a fat stogie in his mouth and a cashmere coat across his forearm, stepped into the light.
“When nobody called ta tell me how deliv’ries was goin’, I figyahed dat sumtin’ was up. Maybe I should be a detective too, huh, Baddings?” He chuckled. “Hiya doin’, Short Stuff?”
Capone smiled, casting a quick glance over his shoulder to assure himself his other two goons were close by in case things got dicey. “Side door was open, so me and da boys jus’ came on in. I’m not interruptin’, am I?”
“I never thought I would say this…” I looked to Julie and then back to Capone with a grin, “but am I glad to see you, Al!”
He didn’t bother to reply. He was way too preoccupied eyeing up Julie as if she were a side of prime beef. He gave a puff on his thick cigar and glanced at his four gunmen with their Tommys on us. Then finally, a gruff laugh and a nod. Capone believed that all the runes favored him right now.
“Ya pretty easy on da eyes, sistah. Ya smart as y’are cute?”
The rubenna root was dry. Lousy timing, since the butterflies were kicking up again. Considering Julie’s animosity to the male gender, it was probably not a smart idea to talk to her like she were some kind of tribute or spoil of war.
A quick look over at her confirmed my fears. Although her expression hadn’t changed since Capone’s arrival, I watched her fingers splay for a moment around the talisman’s hilt. As Julie brought the blade up slightly, Capone’s orcs braced their machine guns against themselves, their own fingers around the Tommy’s vertical front grips mimicking Julie’s.
“How ’bout ya hand ovah dat Singing Sword, sistah, an’ I won’ hafta make dis nasty?”
Julie tipped her head back, the smile widening across her face. “Oh, you want this?” She followed the blade from tip to tang with her eyes, then looked back at Capone with a light shrug. “All you needed to do, Mr. Capone, was ask.”
I watched the Singing Sword fly in a graceful arc across the space between Julie and Capone. He easily caught it by the handle, looking surprised at how light it was. The Tommys were still trained on us, but
Capone’s boys were paying less attention to us and more on the Sword.
After passing his coat to one of the goons flanking him, Capone gave the Singing Sword a few awkward swings. He was known as something of a knife-fighter in his youth, or so the more-intrepid Chicago reporters asserted in their columns. Watching Capone handle the Sword gave those guys some validity, because it was obvious that Al was no swordsman. One moment, he wielded it like a baseball bat; another moment, it was a golf club. Capone seemed fascinated by the fact he wielded a sword lighter than his nine-iron.
Then I noticed that apart from the typical cutting of the air that swords will do, there were no accompanying tones. No ethereal voices. No haunting chords. Just the typical “swoosh” coming from a sword traveling through open space.
I was definitely thinking what nobody was saying: Capone looked like an idiot, swinging the blade around like a war hammer. Maybe his boys noticed it, too, but they were smart enough to stay quiet.
“So dis is what everyone’s fussin’ ovah, huh?” Capone lowered the blade and callously tapped his stogie against it, laughing as he followed the ashes to his feet. “Heh-hey, I guess I’ve found a use fa it!”
That was his boys’ cue to join him in his merrymaking. Everyone was having a good laugh, except me and Julie.
“Are you finished?” Julie purred, extending her hand.
Capone’s laugh suddenly broke into a scream so intense that it could have called the demons residing on Death Mountain. After watching him play with the Sword, he now struggled against some invisible opponent for its control. Capone was clearly losing this battle, but didn’t surrender his hold. This little show made no sense. If he wanted the pain to stop, all he needed to do was let go of the damn sword.
The damn sword, it seemed, had other intentions.
Two gunmen continued to keep us at bay while Capone’s bodyguards pulled against his arms. The scent of burning flesh was getting stronger, but still they couldn’t pry his arms free.
His screams finally took the form of an intelligible sentence. “Get dis fuckin’ t’ing outta my hands!!!”
I was in full support of that motion. Between Daphnie’s and Capone’s mishaps, the smell of charred flesh was making my upset stomach just plain mad!
“All you needed to do, Mr. Capone,” Julie smiled coolly, giving her wrist a slight flick upward, “was ask.”
The Sword ripped itself from Capone’s grasp, throwing him to the ground as the prize vanished into the shadows above us. Smoke rose from his palms into the air, passing in and out the dim light of the warehouse before disappearing completely. The odor of seared flesh was so overpowering now that one of Capone’s lackeys couldn’t keep his tough exterior together.
It had to be tough tasting that lasagna dinner a second time.
Then, as the commotion grew quiet, we all heard it: a low, pulsating hum emanating from where Julia Lesinger stood.
The Singing Sword hung above her now, glowing through a thin silver fog that ebbed all around it. She opened her hand wider, and the Sword slipped toward her grasp. The closer the blade got to her, the louder the humming grew. Meanwhile, the fog—comprised of pure 150-proof magic—took on the form of long, opaque tendrils that flowed and fluttered around the Sword and Julie. The tone swelled into a chorus that eventually peaked in its intensity, bursting the lights dangling high above our heads. Sparks fell on us like warm snowflakes, quickly disappearing in the near-darkness around us.
I say “near-darkness” because we were not immersed in total darkness. Julie and the Singing Sword were surrounded now by veils of energy and magic that made every hair on my body—and no doubt, on Capone’s and his boys’ as well—stand on end. Like a maestro before an orchestra, she lowered her other hand, and the talisman’s song softened to a throbbing hum. Through the fog, her eyes appeared as inky black orbs similar to those of a shark—cold, emotionless, dead. She still had that heart-breaking beauty I saw underneath the pale streetlamp outside my flop. Only this time, the enchantress that stood over me on that cool Chicago Saturday night with her pale, cool attitude, now hovered a few feet further above me in the air as the magic of The Sword of Arannahs lifted her, her long black hair whipping around her head like a living shadow.
“Now then, Mr. Capone…” Julie spoke.
And I really wish she hadn’t. The silky, sultry voice that once screamed my name in the throes of ecstasy had been swapped out with a collection of voices, each carrying a different pitch but speaking as one through Julie, a thick chorus of mages and witches long dead but remaining as echoes trapped in the Sword of Arannahs. Perhaps on forging this talisman, they sought immortality and found it by trapping what remained of their souls in the magic of this weapon. Now, the condemned spoke through Julie in a dark menagerie that mingled with her own voice.
“After watching you wield this elegant weapon as if it were a simple club…”
She released this sigh of delighted rapture, tipping her head to one side as she brought her free hand up to the Sword’s grip.
“…let me show you the proper use of the Singing Sword.”
Oh, shit.
At this point, my choices were to either get filled with lead from Capone’s boys, or become a deep-fried dwarf courtesy of the Singing Sword. I had absolutely nothing to lose. Spitting out the spent rubenna root, I bolted as fast as my little legs could carry me behind a tower of crates.
Just then, a sound rose like rolling thunder, and then became rolling thunder, shaking the thin walls of the warehouse. The Sword’s blast shot through one of Capone’s goons, the tower of crates behind him, and was eventually stopped by a support beam that buckled slightly, sending an eerie groan throughout the building. The gunman managed to let out a scream before succumbing to the intense energy that now poured out from his open mouth, eye sockets, and ears. He dropped the Tommy gun and, oddly enough, went to cover his ears, perhaps wanting to cut off the sound of his own unnatural death.
One twist of the blade later, the poor sap was ripped in two. No blood. No macabre display of anatomy. Everything inside of him had already been burnt to a crisp.
The remaining three guards looked at their fallen pal (both pieces of him), then to each other, and finally at Julie, who now looked them over one by one. They didn’t need the order, but it came anyway.
“Whack da bitch!” Capone shouted.
I wish you hadn’t said that, Al. That was gonna just make her mad.
As machine-gun fire tore through the warehouse, Julie merely repeated the basic exercise the Sword had taught her earlier. I couldn’t tell if the bullets were being deflected or merely pausing in front of her—but, as she was still standing, it was safe to conclude they were not doing their job. I waited for the momentary pause in gunfire to move from one tower of crates to another. Regardless of what was going on around me, I had to get to my battle-axe.
Capone’s boys were reloading, but not fast enough. Julie brought the Sword around, a bolt of energy extending like a bullwhip that sliced through two gunmen, both repeating the same gruesome death of their fallen brother.
Two guys at once. It was the angle from where Julie stood that made this magical trick shot of hers possible. Unfortunately, Julie’s angle was also in line with a tower of crates all marked with a single red Canadian maple leaf.
I saw the last remaining gunman grab Capone and pull him into the nearby shelter of other wooden boxes. And that’s when I made a dead-run for my trusty axe. I didn’t concern myself with Julie, Capone, or any orc with a Tommy. My priority was getting my axe.
My fingers were already wrapped around the axe handle when the crates went up. The blade removed itself easily from the side of the crate as, in the same motion, I flipped myself into the open crate, silently praying it would be enough cover from the explosion that was moments away. The box slid from the sheer force of it, growing warmer by the second. Once the box stopped sliding, I leapt free of the flames and crept back into the shadows, battle-axe at the ready.
A bonfire now greedily consumed our corner of the warehouse, turning this place into a giant furnace with crates of Canadian whiskey as its fuel source. Remembering there was also gin somewhere in here, it would only be a matter of time before this chunk of the waterfront went up in a blaze of glory.
Standing out from the all-consuming fire was Julie Lesinger, still emitting the brilliant, ghost-white light of the Sword of Arannahs. I couldn’t help but find it unsettling that this harbinger of doom was the same nimble minx I grundle-malked all last night Saturday and part of this morning.
“Billllllllliiiiiiiiii…” she, along with her other voices, purred.
Okay, now that was unsettling!
“Billi, I could not have ascended to power without you. Because of you, I can now usher in a new order.” And she held the Sword above her and trumpeted in her full voice—or voices—whatever you want to call it. “My order!”
“Glad I could oblige!” I shouted over the roaring fire. “But you’ve still got some payments outstanding, you know that?”
I could see flames licking against another tower of crates, their wood slowly turning black from the heat. Then I caught sight of little fire-trails along the sides of crates that had been pierced by early gunfire. Any minute now, it was going to be the Fourth of July in here.
“But Billi, your translation of the Singing Sword’s blade needs work.”
Excuse me? She’s possessed by the spirits of dark mages and witches…and she’s giving me a lesson in Elvish translation? You’ve got to be kidding me!
