The Getaway
Page 4
She crouched to take a look. It was an older car, with a one-piece headlamp instead of a halogen bulb and lens. It’d provide a more focused light than a bare bulb, but it might be a bitch getting it out. “”You don’t happen to have a dime, do you?”
He reached in a pocket, came out with a handful of coins and pinched a dime free. “Change from the donuts,” he said. “Which I didn’t even get to eat.”
She took it and started on the first screw. “If we get out of this, I’ll make you some donuts.”
“You can make donuts? With ingredients and stuff?” There was something that suspiciously resembled awe in his voice. “Oh my God, I love you.”
“I make a mean funnel cake, too.”
“You’re killing me. I’m going to drown in my own drool.”
She managed to get all four screws out, and pulled the metal frame loose. The hood was already open a few feet, so she reached inside and yanked the plug free from the back of the headlamp. The light still shone. If she didn’t know it was magic, she would’ve freaked a little. “Here,” she said, handing it to Donatti. “All right. How long do you think he’ll be out?”
He shrugged. “You put a nice dent in his head. I’d guess a while.”
“Might not be long enough. We’ll need time to do...whatever we’re doing.” She retrieved the poker from the ground. “Maybe I should whack him a few more times.”
Donatti shuddered hard enough to shake the light. He’d always been opposed to violence. Didn’t even like to swat flies. A strange trait for a criminal. “You sure you have to do that?”
“We’ve got to keep him from following us, for as long as we can.”
“I guess.” He frowned. “So the light thing’s taken care of. What’s the other problem?”
“He keeps finding us,” she said. “If surprising him is the only advantage we have, we’ve got to keep him from expecting us at his place. Throw him off our...scent.” She moved toward the car, a glimmer of inspiration forming. “He’s a fox, right?”
“Yeah. So?”
“So he’s probably tracking us by scent.” She reached through the door-shaped gap in the driver’s side and felt under the seat until her fingers brushed cool metal, and dislodged a black aerosol can. “Pepper spray,” she said.
He laughed. “What are you doing with that?”
“Last resort for a getaway, in case I get pulled over and made.”
“You’re supposed to be retired.”
“Why do you think I didn’t break your teeth for hanging on to your pick set?” She smiled and gestured at the unconscious Seth. “So...dose him in the face?”
“Hell yeah.”
“If he moves, I’m clocking him.”
“Deal.”
She strode over, spray in one hand, poker in the other. Holding the can a foot from the unconscious djinn’s face, she pulled the trigger and held until the stuff covered him like a wet mask.
He moved. She clocked him, and he stopped.
She tucked the spray in a pocket and went back to Donatti, who was staring at the sky, the wreck—anywhere but at the bloodied figure on the ground. “I’m done now,” she said, unable to hold back a smirk. “We can head out any time.”
“Now’s good.” He grabbed her hand. “Don’t let go, okay?”
“Never.”
* * *
With the light and Donatti’s slightly improved needing-to-find-something spell, they made good time back to the cabin. Seth had left some lights on in there. On the plus side, they’d be able to look around without arousing suspicion if he happened to come back. But the lights also meant if he snuck up invisible on them, he’d see them right away.
Donatti ditched the headlamp. They went to the front door, expecting to find it locked, but it opened right up. Surprised, Jazz took a closer look. There was no deadbolt, no chain, not even an entry latch on the knob. He couldn’t have locked it if he wanted to.
Of course, he didn’t have to worry about uninvited guests. The only people who showed up here were the ones he sabotaged.
“Okay. Here’s what I’m thinking,” Donatti said. “We find his tether, and I threaten to destroy him unless he helps us get to civilization. He’s got to have some way to move. Then, we get Ian and figure out what we should do with this guy.”
Jazz frowned. “How about we find his tether, you skip the threat part and just destroy him?”
“I’m not killing anybody if I can help it,” he said. “This guy isn’t Morai. I don’t know enough about him to make that decision.”
“And if he doesn’t let us go?”
He closed his eyes. “Then I guess I’ll have to go through with it,” he said. “But destroying him is the absolute last thing I’m going to try.”
“Fine. As long as it’s somewhere on your list.” Her conscience muttered a protest, and she told it to shut up. She’d always held the opinion that if someone was about to kill you, you had every right to kill them first. And she’d exercised that right more than once. Lately, though, Donatti’s insistence that murder could and should be avoided almost every time—coupled with the fact that he was still alive—had been chipping away at her beliefs. As if she didn’t have enough guilt to deal with. “All right, what are we looking for?” she said.
“It’ll be something metal, and relatively small. As in not a car or a fridge. Something that looks like it belongs in a museum.”
“So it wouldn’t be a ’60s radio.”
He shook his head. “Djinn don’t have radios. Whatever it is, it’ll have come from their realm. A coin, a dagger, a piece of jewelry.”
“Got it.”
They stayed together. The living room turned up nothing, in plain sight, under the furniture cushions, or buried in the ashes of the fireplace. In the kitchen, one cabinet held exactly enough dishes for two people, another was filled with cardboard canisters of salt, and most of the rest were empty save for a few canned goods, a bag of flour and a box of sugar. The fridge and freezer contained plastic jugs of water and unlabeled lumps of foil-wrapped meat. Deer, Jazz told herself firmly. Anything else was unthinkable.
The only out-of-place items in the bathroom were the ones she’d noticed the first time. That left the bedroom. There, they lifted the mattress, shook out the pillows, opened and removed every drawer in the small dresser, poked and prodded a closet for hidden panels. Nothing. Not even a suspicious dust bunny.
“So much for leverage.” Jazz sat down slowly on the bed. “Maybe we should start walking now. We could make fifty miles in a couple of days, if that road actually goes anywhere. And if Seth doesn’t find us.”
“He will.” Donatti crossed to the screened French doors, closed against the cool night. “What’s out here?”
“A deck, and a billion trees.”
He opened the doors and walked out. She heard him clomping around on the plank floor, his steps moving away, pausing, coming back. He stuck his head in. “Think I found something.”
“Tell me it’s a Hummer.” Christ, what she wouldn’t give for an off-road vehicle right now. Anything, even a little puddle-jumper Jeep, but she’d sell her soul for a Hummer.
“Sorry. You’ll have to settle for the consolation prize. Come out here.”
Reluctantly, she stood and followed him. He led her to the left side of the deck and gestured, over the rail and down. “Bet you a dollar there’s something good in there.”
It was a storm cellar. Double wooden doors angled up from the ground, held shut with a hasp and padlock.
Jazz smiled. “Race you.” Before he could react, she vaulted over the rail and landed on the ground five or six feet below, bending her knees to absorb the impact.
“Do I look like Olympic-quality material to you?” Donatti practically groaned. “Guy’s been here at least five decades. Should’ve built some goddamn stairs on this thing by now.” He threw one leg over the railing, struggled to bring the other one around, and slid into the drop, stumbling when he hit the dirt.
“Ha. Ha.” He walked over to the cellar and inspected the padlock, then straightened and patted various pockets. “Gotta have something...ah. Have this open in a sec.” He worked a slender length of metal free from the hem of his jacket. A lock shim. “Emergency supply,” he said with a grin.
She watched him work the lock, mentally ticking off the time. When the arm popped, she said, “Twenty-two seconds. I’m impressed.”
“I’d be impressed if I could figure out a way to close it back up from the inside.” He slid the lock out, popped the clasp and replaced it on the hook. “Oh, well. Here we go.”
He pulled one door open, then the other. Inside was a rough wooden staircase, descending into darkness beyond the pale wash of light cast from the bedroom. There was a darkened light bulb with a pull chain mounted at the top of the doorway. Donatti walked down steps until he could reach the chain, and turned the light on.
They descended to an opening framed with rough planks of lumber. Donatti had to stoop to get through, but Jazz had a few inches of clearance. Being five-foot-nothing came in handy sometimes. Through the doorway was a small, earth-cooled room. Enough light came in from the stairwell to make out the shapes of several dead animals hanging from the walls—rabbits, birds, a skinned deer. Seth’s meat locker.
“Yummy,” Donatti said. “Dinner.”
“I’m not even close to hungry enough for raw meat.” Jazz scanned the place for a switch or a bulb. Didn’t see a light, but she did see the other door, knobless and detectable only by the small hinges set flush with the boarded walls. “There,” she said, and pointed.
Nodding, Donatti moved to the door and pushed it open without resistance. The light wouldn’t stretch through the doorway. He felt along the inside, flicked something, and a glow sputtered and steadied.
“Holy Christ,” he said. “Seth must be part squirrel.”
He walked through and stepped aside, giving her a view of the room. It was bigger than the meat locker, the wood walls sanded and stained. And it was full of...stuff.
She went in and closed the door behind her. It was hard to decide where to start processing everything in here. There was a stack of tires arranged by size, biggest to smallest. An intact leather finish bucket seat, probably from the DeSoto. Three mismatched bumpers mounted vertically on the back wall. A pair of fuzzy dice and a coon-tail antenna decoration. Four old suitcases arranged side-by-side on top of a steamer trunk. Three folding metal TV trays—one with pairs of sunglasses, another with wrist and pocket watches, the third containing rings, necklaces, bracelets and earrings. None of the jewelry was ancient or museum-worthy.
And then there were the dummies.
Six life-sized carved wooden figures lined up along the left-hand wall. Four female, two male. Each of them was dressed in clothing that wasn’t sold in department stores any more. The mannequins wore ‘50s and ‘60s dress—bellbottoms, a crinoline skirt, shirts with ruffles and checkered patterns and butterfly collars and tie-dye. One of the males wore a houndstooth suit.
This stuff sure as hell hadn’t come from a vintage shop.
“Looks like this is the luggage department.” Donatti was in front of the suitcases. He moved them to the floor and opened the steamer trunk. “Thought so. Here’s our bags.”
“See if my phone’s in there.” Jazz tore her gaze from the dummies and drifted to the stack of tires, trying to shake off a serious case of chills. She wanted to believe that the clothes came from the suitcases, and not from the bodies of people who’d crashed up here. That the carvings were just random figures, and not likenesses of Seth’s victims.
She concentrated on finding something that resembled a tether. All the tires were mounted on rims, so he couldn’t have stashed it inside one. While Donatti riffled through the contents of the trunk, she opened the suitcases one by one. All empty. She moved back to the TV tables and stared at the jewelry, as though she could intimidate one of the pieces into being what they needed.
“I found your phone,” Donatti said. “Sort of.”
She turned to him, and he held out a handful of plastic shards and broken circuitry.
“Son of a bitch,” she said.
“Yeah. I think it’s safe to say I can’t fix it.” He let the debris fall back into the trunk and glanced across the room. “Man, those things are creepy.”
“At least he didn’t stuff and mount the corpses.” Frowning, Jazz looked at the mannequins again. Blank wooden eyes stared back at her, giving nothing away. Each of them was posed straight on, arms at their sides, except the third one in—a female in a flowered sundress, with one hand outstretched.
And there was something in that hand. Something metallic.
She walked over and slid the object free. It was a row of copper tubes, even at one end and varying length at the other in descending order, banded together with thin strips of silver. Panpipes. There were symbols, almost like Arabic lettering, etched into the tubes near the even end. The thing could’ve stepped out of a Greek myth. She turned and held it out toward Donatti. “I’d call this museum-worthy,” she said.
He grinned. “Jackpot.”
“Okay, we’ve got the tether.” She went to him and handed it over. “Now we...”
“Wait for Seth.”
“And what’ll we do when he gets here?”
“Um. Tackle him?”
“Somehow, I don’t see that working.”
Donatti stared at the pipes, turned them over in his hands. “Wish I could read djinn writing,” he said. “Maybe I can get Ian to teach me.”
A muffled sound drew their attention. A bang, like a cellar door closing. Another bang followed. “You picked the wrong hole, rabbits,” Seth called. “This one only goes down.”
Donatti took a step back. “Queens,” he whispered—and vanished.
* * *
Jazz might have loved him, but she didn’t like him very much right now.
She knew exactly what he meant. When they were both still working, pre-Cyrus, they’d done a job in Queens lifting some electronics from a high-end specialty place. The owner had showed up in the middle of the gig, and Donatti had sent Jazz out to play the lost and horny distraction while he legged the rest of the stuff out the back. With one word, he’d just told her to seduce Seth while he did...whatever.
He’d better do whatever real goddamn fast. If she had to go any further than second base, she’d shove his pick set up his nose. One at a time. Slowly.
Footsteps approached the door to the room. She debated throwing herself at him, telling him that he was the sexiest thing on two legs, but Seth didn’t strike her as stupid. She’d have to play things a little less directly.
At the last second, she remembered something critical. She’d bashed his skull in—and she wasn’t supposed to know he’d survived. Time to change tactics. She moved to the steamer trunk and started climbing inside.
The door banged open just as she was swinging her leg over. She stared at him and let out a startled cry. “You,” she whispered. “I killed you.”
Seth laughed, a harsh sound far from his earlier indulgent amusement. “You must not have hit me as hard as you thought.”
“But there was blood. I saw it.”
“A scratch.” He walked closer, his gaze sweeping the room. “Where’s your friend?”
She let herself shiver, put a tremor in her voice. “We got separated in the woods.”
“So the thief taught you how to pick locks.”
“We’re both thieves. Retired. We were on vacation.” She swallowed. “Why are you trying to kill us?”
“I wouldn’t have hurt you, Jazz with the beautiful eyes.” The beginnings of a smile eased across his lips. “Your friend was in the way. Sadly, he’ll probably die in the forest. It’s so easy to get lost out here.”
“Lost,” she whispered. Not all of her confusion was faked. Dizziness sw
irled around her, and her thoughts tried to center themselves on Seth, on touching him, holding him. He was hypnotizing her again. Come on, Donatti, do something.
“Yes, but you’re not lost any more.” Seth closed more of the distance between them, his eyes practically flashing. “You’ve found me. And now you’ll stay, won’t you?”
Stay with you. It was an effort not to speak the words. Part of her wanted to cry out yes! and fall into his arms swooning, like some idiot woman in an herbal shampoo commercial. The rest of her still knew she’d be acting like an idiot woman in an herbal shampoo commercial.
Seth’s smile dropped away. “I sense...impossible. You can’t be.”
“Do these things actually work?” Donatti popped into view across the room behind Seth, holding the panpipes. They were splashed with blood—his own blood. One of the things he needed for the spell to destroy them. “Not much of a musician myself, but this seems pretty cool.”
The moment Seth turned to look at him, Jazz felt normal again. She held off on the sigh of relief, though. She still had no idea what Donatti was planning, and if Seth was like Ian, he could do just about anything.
“Lost in the woods, are you?” Seth glared at him. “Give me those.”
“Not until you tell us where your mirror is. I know you have one somewhere.”
“My...” Seth’s brow furrowed in what looked like genuine confusion. Then his expression shifted to mockery. “Ah, I see,” he said. “A human who believes he knows something about us. What do you think you’re going to do with my pipes, human? Make me grant wishes?”
Donatti grinned. “I’m not human,” he said. “At least, not completely.”
“So you’re a thief and a liar.”