by Alex Rivers
“God, Lou.” Sinead snorted with laughter. “What do you have in there? A lawnmower?”
“Shut up.”
“You should do street shows! We’ll hold a mic to your belly.” She raised her hand in a theatrical gesture, the other pointing to my stomach as if holding an invisible microphone. “Come closer, ladies and gents, come listen to the rumbling-belly woman. Not too close, kids! She’s so hungry, she might eat you up!”
“I’m Lou’s ravenous tummy!” Isabel boomed. “Brrrrrm-brrrrrm.”
“It has more pitch,” Sinead corrected her. “It’s like… brrraaw-merrrrow-wowowow.”
“Flee, mortals, Lou’s belly is coming! Rrrrrooooom-broooaaaaw.”
“Is it an earthquake? A volcano? No! It’s Lou’s tum-tum! Wrrrrrr-rrrraw-brawawaw.”
They were walking side by side, making outrageous groaning and roaring sounds, intermittently collapsing into helpless laughter.
I rolled my eyes, fighting to keep a grin off my face. “Idiots.”
We were walking into a deeply forested area. The tombstones around us seemed older, some broken, mold and moss covering their surface.
“Come on.” Isabel sounded excited. “It’s not much farther. Over here.”
She led us deeper into the foliage, where trees clustered around a small hill, only a few feet high. Isabel climbed it, practically running, and disappeared beyond it.
I climbed after her, Sinead following me, breathing hard. She was getting tired, carrying the cat around, with the enormous pack on her back. I was about to call Isabel—tell her to stop for a bit, because Sinead needed a rest—when I saw it.
A small stone structure, its walls covered with moss and ivy, with thin, twisting cracks decorating its surface. There was one doorway, as uninviting as any doorway I’d ever seen—a metal grid, brown with rust, a huge lock in its frame. Isabel stood next to it, her hand on the wall, looking at it as if she had finally come home.
It was her family’s mausoleum.
I was already reaching for my pocket, where I kept a few bits of twisted metal I used as lockpicks, when she raised an iron key. She slid the key into the lock and pulled open the gate.
She walked inside, but Sinead and I paused at the threshold. Sinead’s ghost story was still fresh in my mind, and I found myself terrified of the dark space beyond the gate—a space meant for the dead.
“Come on,” Isabel said, and a small flame appeared. She held her lighter in one hand and a single candle in the other. “It’s dry here.”
Dryness sounded wonderful. We entered the crypt and closed the creaking, rusted gate behind us.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The mausoleum was there, still looking the same as always. I had no key, but it was an old lock, which had never been designed to keep professional burglars away. I took out my lockpicking kit and unrolled it, selecting a thick, curvy metal rod and a large tension wrench. With this lock, the problem would be mostly the rust, and not the actual lock. I knelt in front of it and inserted the tension wrench, twisting it, then started feeling for the pins with the rod.
“We used to come here whenever it rained and we couldn’t go to a shelter,” I said, nudging the first pin. “After the first night, we always tried to come with some sticks and newspapers.”
“Why?” Kane crouched next to me, watching my fingers as I picked the lock.
“For a fire. It was good at keeping the rain out, but it could get hella cold in there. I guess there’s no real insulation in the floor. The dead don’t mind the cold.”
“Didn’t you find it… creepy?”
“It might sound weird, but Isabel said her ancestors didn’t mind. And it’s not like she meant that they didn’t mind because they were dead. She literally meant she knew they didn’t mind. I had some weird dreams in there once or twice. Voices whispering in my ear, or the sensation of something touching my cheek. But maybe it was just my imagination. I was only fourteen.”
“Why do you think she hid the crystal here?”
“Even after we grew up, Isabel kept coming here. She would talk to her ancestors, ask for advice, tell them about her life… that sort of thing.”
“I can’t imagine it was much of a dialog.”
“Who knows, with Isabel. But I don’t think that was the point. She felt like she belonged here. We all tried fighting our loneliness in our own way, I guess. Sinead and I tried to find relationships that would fill the hole. And Isabel had her ancestors.”
“Did any of you find a relationship that satisfied your loneliness?”
I hesitated. “No. Mostly random flings. Sinead had a good thing for a while, with a really smart guy. And I…” I thought of a young man with a rakish smile, one of his front teeth slightly broken. And his nose and chin identical to Tammi’s. “Well, I had one very intense relationship. And it ended with me having a daughter.”
He said nothing.
I felt the first pin catch, and began playing with the second. It tended to stick because of the rust, and I had to keep poking it to set it loose. It was exhausting work.
“I didn’t know. That I was pregnant, I mean. I was working for Breadknife at the time, and he began pushing me harder and harder. I was breaking into homes almost every night. It was a never-ending cycle—scout the place in the morning, break into it at night. I was constantly on edge, afraid I was about to be caught. And some of the homes Breadknife chose… it seemed almost cruel. A man who’d recently lost his wife. A single mother with several kids. An old woman living alone. But I couldn’t refuse the jobs. You don’t say no to Breadknife.”
The tension pin nearly slipped in my grip, and I muttered a curse, forcing myself to work more carefully, ignoring the pain in my tired muscles.
“And then I got caught. I broke into a couple’s house while they were out on a date, but they came back home early. Saw movement in their house through the window and called the police. The lookout hadn’t noticed them; I guess he wasn’t paying attention. And when we suddenly heard the police sirens… he drove off. Leaving me behind.”
The memory floated back unbidden. The shocking moment of disappointment and betrayal. I’d thought he was so perfect. Quick to laugh, passionate, clever. I’d fallen in love with him when we were working together on a job, the excitement and adrenaline fueling our lust. That’s why you should never listen to your heart when pulling a job. Never.
“I was arrested, and got one year in prison. It probably would have been more, but it was a first offense—or so the judge thought. And I was an orphan, failed by the foster system. Inside, I found out I was nine weeks pregnant.”
The second pin caught, and I leaned back, keeping the tension on the lock while flexing my shoulders. Then I leaned back in, started working the third pin.
“What did you do?”
“I decided to keep the baby. Part of it was because I wanted a child. I had these fantasies about being a mother. And part of it…” I paused. “It’s really shitty. Part of it was that I thought it was a way out. For some reason, I assumed Breadknife wouldn’t keep me around if I was a mother. I tried to use my daughter as a one-way ticket out of my life. I even hoped they’d release me early. But they didn’t. And once she was born, I realized how selfish I’d been—using this child for leverage. Risking her exposure to people like Breadknife and his goons. I didn’t want my baby to grow up in a prison. And her father… I didn’t want him to know about her. So I gave her up for adoption. It was stupid. She wouldn’t have remembered the short time in the prison’s nursery ward anyway. I could have kept her. I just had a few months left. We would have been together now.”
“It’s not stupid,” Kane said quietly.
“Anyway, once I was out, I asked Isabel to find her for me. I still had the cloth they’d wrapped her in when she was born. Isabel said it was immersed with her essence, or whatever. She found her in less than an hour. I rented a place nearby, started working on my alchemy.”
“How did you get into alchemy?�
�
“My mother was an alchemist.”
The third pin caught, and the tension wrench turned, the lock clicking. I pulled the metal grate open, relieved that my success had interrupted our chat. If it hadn’t, he would have asked more about my mother and my knowledge of alchemy. And I wouldn’t have answered anything about that. He couldn’t know about the book. That was the one secret I had to keep.
“Hang on, I have a flashlight app,” Kane muttered, rummaging in his pocket for his phone.
“No need,” I said. I lifted my right hand and focused on it. Flames burst from my palm, licking my fingers, illuminating the mausoleum’s walls with their flickering orange light.
I stepped into the cold room, the memories flooding me. A small black smudge marred the floor where we used to light our campfires. We always made sure to clean the ashes the following day, but the black mark remained. The walls were lined with the family’s tombs, their names engraved in the ancient stone. An alcove across the room contained a line of urns. Isabel told me that when the space in the mausoleum began to run out, the family had begun cremating their dead. My eyes immediately went to the right-hand wall, and I knelt by the bottom tomb, looking at the engraved letters illuminated by the orange firelight, even though I knew what they said by heart.
Eleanor King, 1864-1886.
“This was my spot,” I said. “Where I’d sleep. I used to watch this engraving, imagining that Eleanor was lying on her side facing me. She was Isabel’s great-great-aunt. She died in childbirth.”
“Do we need to start opening these tombs to find the crystal?” Kane asked. He sounded uncomfortable, almost like the concept of a girl regularly sleeping next to an entombed skeleton bothered him.
“No.” I stood up. “We had a cache. The right urn over there is empty. We used to hide some stuff we needed there.”
Kane picked up the urn I pointed at. He removed the lid, and carefully upturned it on the floor, shaking it to empty the contents.
An assortment of items fell out. Two ten-year-old cigarette packs, a lighter, a small knife, a pack of cards. And in the midst of it all lay the crystal. Now, in the dark cemetery, there was no mistaking the light that pulsed in it. I let the flames on my hand dissipate, and the mausoleum was cast into a gloom, illuminated only by that strange, warm, pulsing light.
I picked up the crystal by the chain and looked at it closely. What did Breadknife want with it? Did he really intend to unleash the horrors we had seen in Isabel’s cards? In any case, it was obvious we couldn’t give it to him.
“Okay,” I said. “It’s time for you to create the fake crystal. And make it look real.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The street corner was unusually dark, since two of its streetlights weren’t working. The third emitted a sharp electrical hum, perhaps the streetlight equivalent of a dying man’s breath. Across the street was a nearly empty parking lot and a closed McDonald’s, the yellow M looking faded and old. The traffic lights in the corner had changed endlessly since I’d shown up here—green, yellow, red.
I checked my phone again, rereading Breadknife’s message for what must have been the twentieth time. Corner of Warren and Dale. Half past midnight. No one but you. Come only with the box.
It was now twelve forty-three and I was getting anxious, even though I knew it was part of Breadknife’s strategy. He wanted me stressed and full of doubt. He knew me well enough to guess I might try something, that this evening was the equivalent of a very violent chess game between us, with everything on the line.
A battered gray Lexus slowed down as it got closer, and I tensed. The driver was obscured in the darkness, and for one moment I almost believed it was Breadknife himself. That he would step out of the car, shoot me, and take the box.
But when the car stopped, the brakes squeaking, I saw it was only Steve O’Sullivan, Breadknife’s flat-headed, obedient soldier. Of course; Breadknife would never risk an ambush. He’d sent one of his minions to fetch me.
Steve stepped out of the car, leaving the engine running, and approached me. His face was blank, an expression of a man with one goal in mind—following his boss’ orders. He looked at me, at the small pouch in my hand.
“Is it in there?”
“It is.” I tensed. Would he try and take it from me now? Leave without freeing my daughter? “Where’s the girl?”
“You’ll see her soon enough. Open it.”
I opened the pouch, cursing myself for telling Kane to stay far away. I needed backup right now. If Steve took the box, I would have to stop him from leaving myself.
But he never even touched it. He examined the pouch, verifying it was empty aside from the box, feeling the fabric for any hidden pockets. Then he patted me down to make sure I carried nothing else. He did a shoddy job, and I suspected that deep inside, Steve O’Sullivan was wary of becoming too intimate with a female body. He found nothing, which demonstrated his carelessness. I had two items on me that he should have confiscated. He did take my phone, and removed the battery. Then he swiped me with some sort of electrical device, which hummed and buzzed as it brushed my body. He was looking for a wire. There was none.
“Get in the car,” he said, holding the rear passenger door open.
I did, hugging the pouch close to me. The car stank of sweat, accompanied by a moldy smell that hinted of a forgotten snack left to rot, probably under one of the seats. Steve got into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
The ride was long, and Steve drove in a roundabout way, circling Boston, taking side roads with little traffic, trying to spot anyone who was following him. I was relieved that I had expressly forbidden Sinead and Kane to do that. I’d known Breadknife would suspect a tail.
I also knew something else, and the knowledge made me tremble in fear. Breadknife suspected a decoy. That was the only reason for not simply shooting me on the spot and taking the box. Breadknife knew I might use a forged crystal, and not the real one. And if that was the case, he wanted me alive to find out where the real crystal was.
How good was Kane’s forgery? The incantation had taken more than an hour, slowly morphing a piece of wood into an identical-looking crystal. I couldn’t spot any difference. Even the strange light in the crystal looked the same. But there was no ignoring the fact that the crystal that currently sat in the box was a stick, disguised with glamour. If Breadknife checked hard enough, he would spot the forgery. And then this night would probably end very badly, for both my daughter and for me.
Finally, the car stopped by an abandoned warehouse in Hyde Park. Its gray walls were marred by unimaginative graffiti and dirt. The door had been white once, but was now covered in brown rust, its color cracked and peeling. Steve got out of the car, and waited for me to get out as well. He did not hurry me, did not seem to care if I got out of the car or not. He simply waited.
Following the script, I got out of the car. I walked behind him to the door, which he unlocked with a key from his pocket. Then he motioned me inside.
To say my chest thudded would be an understatement. It boomed. It shook. It seemed as if my entire body was one pulsing, panicky heart as I stepped into the dark warehouse.
The warehouse seemed to be half-full of long forgotten building supplies. Discarded timber logs, some long iron scaffolding, rusty cans of oil paint. Three men waited inside. One was a huge man I didn’t know, though something about him was familiar. He leaned against a small door at the far end of the empty space. The other two men stood by the table—Breadknife and his cruel right-hand goon, Matteo “Ear” Ricci.
Steve closed the door behind me and locked it. Then he crossed the room to stand by Breadknife and Matteo. I was surrounded and outnumbered. All the men in the room had guns strapped to their waist, except for the large man in the corner.
That rang a bell in my mind. I had seen him before. He was one of the four assholes who had robbed me, the night before Breadknife had showed up in my store asking for his money. He was Hardy! And he was one
of Breadknife’s goons.
Breadknife had orchestrated that robbery, probably knowing in advance that I was returning with a lot of cash in my bag. Enough to make his monthly payment. But he had wanted me to miss my payment. To know I was indebted to him. To make sure I would break into the dragon’s vault for him.
His smile widened when he saw the realization on my face. He had wanted me to know. That’s why he’d told this goon to be here tonight. Another chess move. He wanted me to feel outmaneuvered, weak, foolish. And it worked.
“Where’s my daughter?” I asked, trying to keep my voice natural.
“She’s over there,” he motioned to the door that Hardy leaned against. “I didn’t want to wake her up. She was exhausted, poor thing, constantly crying for her mommy. The wrong mommy, of course.”
“Did you tell her?” My tone was cold.
He shrugged. “I didn’t exchange one word with her, Lou. Why would I bother?”
I raised the pouch. “I have your damn crystal here.”
Breadknife nodded at Matteo. The man strutted over to me, a cruel glint in his eye, gun in hand.
“Frisk her,” Breadknife said. “Take everything. Lou is a cunning woman. She could turn a pin into a deadly weapon.”
“You really overestimate me,” I said.
“Take any jewelry, too. She owns a bracelet that can do some quite deadly tricks.”
Matteo began running his hands over me. He didn’t suffer from Steve’s aversion to touching me. In fact, he relished it, groping my body thoroughly. I kept my face neutral, knowing that showing any disgust or outrage at his prodding would only delight him.
“What’s this?” he asked, feeling a slight bump in my sleeve. His fingers investigated, finding the secret pocket, and he retrieved a small vial of purple liquid.
I let a small flicker of despair show on my face, then quickly masked it. “Open it and find out.”
