The Other Crowd

by Alex Archer

  Eric reported the town was just ahead, beyond a field of grazing sheep.

  It was time to find Beth Gwillym and hear her story.

  ERIC LET ANNJA OFF at the door to West County General Hospital, then drove off, looking for a parking space.

  What the hospital offered was standard issue. Drab green walls enclosed the sick and their caregivers in a dreary environment. The smell of antiseptic and bodily discharges permeated the air. Fluorescent lighting cast over the staff, who were clad in more drab green and looking as downtrodden as the sick.

  Annja walked with purpose. She bypassed admissions, knowing she’d be asked if she was family. After determining the entire first floor was for emergency and outpatient services, she took the stairs to the second floor.

  Would Beth’s family know their daughter had been admitted to the hospital? she wondered. Wesley had seemed a little too clueless when it came to information about his employees. He should have files with addresses and emergency contact information.

  Reading the charts fitted sideways into metal holders outside each door, Annja finally located Beth Gwillym. Just as she touched the door marked See Front Desk for Visiting Regulations, a stern voice stopped her in her tracks.

  FIVE MINUTES LATER Eric found Annja wandering the hall some distance from Beth’s room. He’d left his camera equipment in the Mini, which was smart. No need to draw more attention to what they were doing. “No luck? Is she sleeping?” he asked.

  “I’ve been firmly told by a nurse that I’m not allowed to visit unless I’m a relative.”

  “That rules out questioning her.”

  Annja took the measure of the hallway. The nurse’s station stood four doors down from Beth’s room. The receptionist was out of sight. Annja had noted the woman wore thick glasses and had to lean in close to read the computer monitor. It would be easy to slip past her. But nurses came and went from all directions, including the occasional nun. She could risk slipping in and waking Beth, but would she even speak to her? She may not remember seeing her yesterday afternoon after coming out of the forest in her ravaged state.

  And if she did, that didn’t guarantee she’d speak to a stranger about her experience.

  She needed a friendly face to ease Beth’s possible distrust.

  “Why don’t you take a peek at her chart?” Eric suggested, gesturing to the metal file holder near Annja’s head. “I have a digital camera in my pocket. If we’re sneaky we can take shots of the whole thing, then duck out and read them.”

  “Eric, that’s illegal.”

  But beyond dressing up as a nun, Annja was out of ideas. She only wanted to help Beth, and learning anything about her condition could lead to who had done this in the first place.

  “In there.” Annja gestured to the men’s bathroom across the hall. Sneaking down the hall and slipping the chart from the rack, she pushed open the bathroom door. Eric was waiting in the handicapped stall. “Hurry.”

  Obviously shocked at her daring, he clutched his digital camera near his chest and gaped.

  “This freaks you out?” she said as she opened the file and held it for him to snap a shot. Page after page they worked. “You’re the one who suggested it.”

  “Everything about you freaks me out, Annja. Turn.” He was snapping faster than she could turn. “I was just kidding. Sort of. Maybe. My leg still aches from last night. And you dispatched that behemoth security guard with your bare hands. This is cool, in a freaky kind of way, you know?”

  “Make sure you get a clear, high-resolution shot.”

  “I am the cameraman. Don’t worry about my work. You just hurry. I think I hear someone coming.”

  “Turn and face the door.” Annja stood on the toilet seat and crouched so it would appear that only Eric’s feet were inside the stall.

  The door creaked open. Someone came in and used the urinals, then left.

  “He didn’t wash his hands,” she said, and jumped down. “I think we’ve got it all. Let’s go.”

  OUT IN THE CAR, Eric moaned about his wound tingling but Annja didn’t offer sympathy. She scanned the hospital records on her laptop. Eric’s handiwork had produced clear and readable images; it was as if she held the actual records in hand. Medical terminology was not her thing. It read like hieroglyphics—yet hieroglyphics she could decipher after some study.

  “Anything?” Eric asked.

  “Not sure. She’s diabetic. I wonder if she might have missed an insulin dose, got disoriented and wandered off?”

  It was possible, but Annja felt sure Beth would have been in much rougher shape upon her return. And diabetics always carried an emergency kit on them, didn’t they?

  Then she read something she understood.

  “It wasn’t lack of insulin. Overdose on lysergic acid diethylamide.”

  “LSD?”

  She narrowed her brows at Eric. “I don’t want to know how you know that.”

  “Come on, Annja, everyone who’s been through high school knows that. And look at you, acting all Goody Two-Shoes when you just stole private hospital records.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “So she was on LSD?” he asked.

  “Sounds like it. And she overdosed.”

  “Is that the same thing as magic mushrooms?”

  “No. They would have made a notation if they’d suspected as much. I think you’d have to eat a lot of mushrooms to actually overdo it, anyway. A drug overdose may have led her to wander away from the site and get lost.”

  “Sure,” Eric said. “But I didn’t pick up any ‘hey, you want to get high?’ vibes from anyone in the camp.”

  “Neither did I. And it feels wrong. Wesley mentioned magic mushrooms, and insinuated that maybe a few of the crew members had eaten them, but this is different.” She tapped the laptop with the tips of her fingernails, thinking. “Maybe it wasn’t voluntary but administered? If Beth had been kidnapped, and taken forcibly from the site, then drugged—that would explain her thinking she’d been taken by the other crowd, don’t you think?”

  He shrugged. “It’s not as cool as the real thing—captured by faeries—but I can dig it. But she was gone, like, what? Almost two days? And would they have kept her high on LSD that whole time? That’s one hell of a trip.”

  “No kidding. I’m missing something here, and I’m not sure I’ll have it until I can talk to Beth and get the truth. I wonder what the residual effects of an overdose are?”

  “Do you think we should go for a hike through the forest edging the dig?”

  “That’s not a bad idea. It’s where Beth emerged. She had to have come from somewhere.”

  “Maybe down by the river?”

  “Yes, but what’s down there?”

  “We won’t know until we look.”

  Impressed by Eric’s dedication, Annja closed her laptop. “All right. I think we should wander down during the day, though. Makes for easier sleuthing with the sun out. I’m going to talk to Wesley first when we get back to camp and see if he has any more information about Beth and…”

  “Magic mushrooms?” Eric winked.

  “Right. Magic mushrooms. Remind me why I agreed to this crazy assignment?”

  “Because you are a professional with the ability to maintain decorum even in the most bizarre of situations. And you always uncover the truth.”

  “I’m really starting to like you, Eric.”

  “Cool. Wanna make out?”

  She shot him a look.

  “Psyche. You’re way too old for me.” He grinned and turned onto the gravel road.

  SLATER SLAPPED his cell phone shut and shoved it in his front pocket. A call from Frank Neville was never pleasant. The bloke was not rational, by any means, but he disguised it with alarming calm. With him threatening to come out to the site, Slater had to cool down Neville’s ire before he thought to step foot behind the wheel.

  He thought he had things under control. Then random dig workers had stumbled onto Frank Neville’s private busi
ness. And he felt he’d taken control of that problem, as well. Until that woman from the American television show had arrived all perky and snooping about.

  One wrong move and this operation could go up in flames.

  Striding into the cool shadows of the supply tent, Slater located the security guard he’d found that morning sprawled by the truck. At first, he’d thought Peter Donovan was sleeping on the job, but closer inspection determined he’d taken a beating. The man had whined about some woman with a sword sneaking up on him in the middle of the night.

  Slater pulled out his pistol and pressed it to the guard’s neck. The man startled from a snooze on the cot.

  “Whoa, mate, what did I do? I told you everything I know.”

  “A feeble woman came creeping about the site late last night and beat you up. Did she have wings, too? You know the whole faerie story is just a front. They’re not real, idiot.”

  The guard nodded, but his eyes shifted as he considered the statement. “One of the fair folk? No. She was big—I mean, normal size. She was smaller than me, so that makes her feeble.”

  Slater shoved the pistol barrel deeper into flesh.

  “Wait!”

  Slater recited the guard’s idiot confession from the morning, “And she had a three-foot-long battle sword, which explains the cut on your neck.”

  The guard nodded frantically.

  Slater tilted the guard’s chin up with the pistol barrel, none too gently. “You sure you didn’t cut yourself shaving last night, Donovan?”

  “I’m telling the truth, boss.”

  “So why’d you go and call Neville about it after I thought we’d cleared things up? You know I run this camp. You got a problem or concern, or someone trespasses, you come directly to me. What, about those simple rules, don’t you comprehend, Donovan?”

  “I’m sorry, boss, I forgot. Neville’s number came up first in my phone and I thought he should know.”

  “Yeah? Well, that’s my job now, isn’t it? Communicating with Neville. Yours is to guard the camp and keep out trespassers. Good work, Donovan. Bang-up job. You fell asleep last night and woke up in the middle of one of your sex fantasies to battle the metal-bikini-wearing warrior woman.”

  “No, uh, it wasn’t like that.” Donovan eyed Slater’s trigger finger. “She was real. And she had a kid with her. He was filming, like with a movie camera.”

  Now that was new information. Slater tilted the gun barrel to point straight up. If he pulled the trigger now it would go through the bottom of Donovan’s mouth and come out through his nose, shattering cartilage and gifting him with a permanent hole in the center of his maw—if he was lucky.

  “Keep your eyes on the site and your hand on your gun, not your phone, got that?”

  Donovan nodded profusely.

  “I’ll need you to be on top of things tonight, Donovan. We have another midnight run. I don’t want any witnesses.”

  “No problem, boss. If I see that woman again, I’ll shoot her.”

  “No, I don’t want you drawing attention to what we’re doing here. Detain and secure her, but do not injure her. Just like the others. Got that?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  “Good boy.” He patted the man’s cheek with the gun’s barrel, then turned and strode from the tent. “Idiot.”

  15

  Despite wielding the sixteen-digit credit card number that Roux should have been more careful giving to him, Garin couldn’t resist the compulsion to walk the sidewalk before the brownstone. After looking over the four-story walk-up, sandwiched between two equally bland, brick-fronted brownstones, he scanned the houses across the street.

  It was midmorning. The nine-to-fivers had left hours earlier in their pursuit of another dollar, another pat on the back, another missed subway train. A few dog walkers pranced the sidewalks, but most of the residences appeared unoccupied.

  The best vantage point for his target was the red house across the street and to the south. The third-floor window was shielded with white lace. Little old lady must live there, he thought. Which meant she was likely home.

  Garin noted digital security pads on all the buildings near the front doors. Old wrought-ironwork screen doors preceded most of the entry doors. No doubt, the neighborhood was populated by geriatrics who kept a tight fist on their fortunes. But that never dissuaded a determined thief.

  He knew little about Mrs. Banyon, who had purchased the painting via a proxy yesterday afternoon. There had been but a few mentions about her on the internet, although he did find generous donations had been made to the Metropolitan Opera and half a dozen libraries in the various boroughs in her name. To Garin, that meant she was either very generous, charitable or she needed a tax write-off.

  Unfortunately, he hadn’t managed to obtain Banyon’s phone number. Garin knew approaching without a call could be risky. And door-to-door salesmen probably didn’t go over at all in this neighborhood. The delivery-man act was beneath him, so a direct approach it would be.

  Buttoning his suit coat so his movement would not reveal the Glock holstered under his arm, he took the steps to Mrs. Banyon’s residence and rang the buzzer. It was immediately answered by a man’s cough crackling through the ancient intercom.

  “Excuse me. Who is it?”

  “Mr. Garin Braden. I don’t have an appointment, so please forgive me. Mrs. Banyon acquired a painting yesterday at Christie’s that I am keen to discuss with her. If I could have but a few minutes of her time?”

  “She’s not seeing anyone.”

  The intercom static abruptly ceased, leaving Garin staring at the bronze-slotted cover. He raised a hand to knock, but relented. He buzzed again.

  “Mrs. Banyon has no interest,” the voice intoned gruffly. Another cough followed.

  “I understand,” Garin said. “And I certainly do not wish to be a bother, but I’ve been authorized to double the price she paid for it if she is interested in letting it go.”

  Hell, it wasn’t his money.

  Long moments passed. Garin was almost ready to buzz again, when the front door opened. An emaciated yet tall man in butler’s livery managed an ingratiating smile.

  Money always talked.

  16

  Annja strode into the cool shade the canvas tent offered. The sun was high and bright. But rain could arrive on the Emerald Isle at any moment. It offered a dream scenario for a dig. Lots of sun during the day with light rain in the evening to keep the work area moist and workable.

  She’d decided to use the opportunity that found everyone out enjoying the weather to snoop about the camp base. A clue linked to Beth, or even that the crew was imbibing in magic mushrooms, was what she hoped to find.

  Wesley’s field notes were scattered on a table in a couple of hardback notebooks. Various pieces of wood, pottery and metal had been sorted into black buckets. A few larger samples lay on the table. Annja had been told that one of the girls had unearthed a carriage wheel rim and had been so excited she’d tripped and bent the frame.

  Annja recalled a few of her first digs. She must have driven the dig director nuts with her constant, “Is this a find? Is this anything? Should I keep this?” questions.

  She touched a plumb bob and measured its solid weight in her palm. It was used to dig level stratigraphy into the earth and for squaring up drawing grids.

  “No faerie spears. Yet,” she said with a bemused tone, and set down the tear-shaped lead bob.

  It wasn’t as if she expected the dig to not find a faerie spear. They might find any means of ancient weapon under the dirt and peat. That wouldn’t surprise her one bit.

  But a magical spear once wielded by a race of people believed to be faeries? That would take some doing.

  On the other hand, Mrs. Collins supposedly already owned the spear of Lugh, and kept it above her television right next to a Doctor Who tin lunch box and a mint-condition 1972 Kennedy silver dollar.

  And who was she to question the existence of an ancient magical weapon capabl
e of appearing when needed?

  Once, she’d thought it strange that she, of all people, had managed to take possession of Joan of Arc’s sword, and could utilize it to fight the good fight. She’d initially dreaded needing to use it because that meant something bad was happening, and usually to people who didn’t deserve the aforesaid something bad.

  Now, she had grown into ownership of the sword. The sword was hers. She was comfortable swinging it at enemies and liked seeing their initial reactions. A chick with a sword? Seriously?

  She never got too cocky with the power she wielded. Okay, ninety percent of the time she avoided cockiness. The sword was there for a purpose and she wouldn’t abuse that power.

  So why did the funky dream about the sword not being her power to own bother her so much?

  Perhaps her subconscious was checking her pride, making sure she did not go over the edge with it all. And although she was confident owning it, she also knew she’d never completely understand any of it.

  Especially the pair of five-hundred-year-old immortals who had happened into her life along with the sword.

  She wondered what Roux and Garin were up to. Roux was likely sunning himself off the coast of France, surrounded by a couple of supermodel types with tans as deep as their cleavage—and not apologizing for his playboy lifestyle.

  And Garin, well, Annja could never be sure if the man was up to something no good, or downright evil. Sure, he had occasions to good, but deception and betrayal came easily to the man who wanted to get his hands on her sword and shatter it. And if he wasn’t trying to trick her, he was trying to kiss her.

  Suddenly swung about by the shoulder and shoved against a hard plastic packing case, Annja felt the barrel of a pistol against her temple at the same time she processed the fact that Michael Slater stood before her.

  “What the hell are you up to, Creed?”

  She was not intimidated. Only angry that Mr. Slick had managed to sneak up on her.

  “Taking a look around,” she offered. Admittedly, feeling the barrel of a gun pressed to any part of her did make her nervous. “Any rule against that? This isn’t even your camp. What happened to staying on your own side?”