A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark

by Harry Connolly

  “The lieutenant wanted to fix the truck for them. They only needed some tape for their radiator hose, which would be enough to get them going again.

  “He was pointing to the leaking hose—the farmer’s family didn’t speak English and we couldn’t speak Pashto, and we suddenly started taking small arms fire. The lieutenant was hit in both thighs, breaking his left femur. The farmer beside him was shot full in the... in the rear end. He was, like, seventy years old or something but he limped to the other side of the truck for cover.

  “But the lieutenant was in a bad spot. Everyone was shouting and racing around, and I ran over, yanked him onto my shoulders and loaded him onto the M-ATV. Then we scooped up all the kids and the three adults and packed them in, too.

  “We were ready to go. I stood on the side, holding on with my left hand and, as we pulled away, I raised my right hand in the general direction the shots were coming from and….”

  “And what?” Kevin asked.

  Albert sighed, then shrugged. “I flipped them the bird. Two seconds later, a bullet had taken the first two fingers from my right hand.”

  He held up his mangled hand for them to see. Kevin and Stan gaped at it and him. Marley leaned over and squeezed his left hand.

  Kevin said, “Are you joking with this?”

  “I wish. I don’t think the sniper meant to do it. If he could have hit me anywhere, I’m sure he’d rather have put a bullet through my eye. It was just dumb luck. Bad luck. Anyway, that’s when I became a soldier with no trigger finger.”

  “Did you or any of your buddies ever get the guy who shot you?”

  “Oh no,” Albert said. “We never even worked out his position. We just loaded up and got out of there. Nobody died that day.”

  “Oh my God,” Kevin said, shaking his hands as though he had to air-dry them. “I could never do that.”

  “They wouldn’t let me in even if I tried,” Stan said, pressing against his large, round belly.

  “Not to talk against it, if you know what I mean,” Kevin continued. “I respect what you did and I’m glad we have people like you willing to do it, but I could never sign up for that. I’m not brave enough.”

  Stan watched Albert’s expression shrewdly. “How do you feel about your service now? Was it what you wanted?”

  “The Army?” Albert asked. “The Army was everything I hoped it would be. The institution, the training, the people—especially the people. They were everything I hoped they would be, and more. But I wasn’t.”

  “Oh, Albert,” Marley said. Those two words were so full of meaning that even she wasn’t sure what she meant. She squeezed his uninjured hand again.

  After a moment’s silence, Kevin started telling another story. Within five minutes they were all laughing again.

  When the clock struck seven, Stan called for the check. “I hope you saved some stories for the car, because it’s a long ride.”

  It was a long ride—over four hours—especially since the highway through Portland and Vancouver still hadn’t shed the last of its business traffic. Albert kept Stan’s Touareg in sight for the whole drive

  Despite what Marley had said before dinner, she did not want to talk.

  Albert did. “You’re not blaming yourself for Aloysius, are you?”

  “Of course I am. And I should. I meddled. Again.”

  “I’m still not sure what you did.”

  “I threw water in his face,” Marley answered. “Figuratively, I mean. I had never been happy with him, because... honestly, because he was such a self-centered, manipulative jerk. I’m sure he thought of himself as charismatic and confident, but he made my skin crawl. Ever since he was a smug teenager, I’ve wanted a way to shatter his self-image. And on Saturday night, when he came to my party to ask a favor, I did exactly that.”

  Albert was amazed that his aunt had kept this information from him, but he tried not to show it. “What favor did he ask?”

  “He wanted a love potion.”

  “Really? That’s a thing?”

  Marley gave Albert a steady, watchful look. “Yes, it is, and I know how to make one. Why do you ask?”

  “Because,” Albert said, not taking his eyes off the road and therefore not seeing his aunt’s expression, “it’s creepy. I wouldn’t want someone to take control of me that way. How do you protect against it?”

  Albert’s answer was such a relief that Marley laughed. “After all this is done, I’ll show you.”

  “Thanks. And I still think you shouldn’t blame yourself. First of all, everyone acts on the intel they have. I mean, seriously, who could have guessed Aloysius was caught up in all of this? Magic circles around his bed, giving silver bullets to werewolves, calling ghost hunters up from L.A... the guy was in over his head and everyone knew it but him.”

  “I should have known. This is my city, and none of this should have been going on without my knowledge.”

  “We know now. We’re dealing with it. If Aloysius hadn’t been such a jerk, he would have come to you, and you would have known sooner. More important: the person who is really responsible for his death is the one who cut his throat.”

  “Whoever that is, and Evelyn, because she ordered it. I hear you, Albert, and I’m grateful for the pep talk, but I’m afraid you’re not going to reason me out of the guilt I’m feeling. Throwing water in his face seemed like the right thing to do at the time—“

  “Like water flowing downhill.”

  “Well, yes, but—“

  “We wouldn’t have found out about the egg if you hadn’t given him a change of heart. The whole thing—whatever it is—would have been over by the time you heard about it.”

  He looked at her, and she looked at him. “I don’t like that thought, Albert. If that’s true, then I really did kill him; my magic maneuvered him into getting his throat cut. For my benefit.”

  After a brief silence, Albert said: “Damn. And I was trying to make you feel better. That’s a fail right there.”

  The storage center was north of Seattle, and they didn’t arrive until well after eleven o’clock. The units themselves were little more than long metal sheds with battered, padlocked garage doors at one end.

  Since Marley had not returned Stan’s keys, Albert unlocked the front gate. Stan drove along the fence until he reached a unit well in the back. Marley and Albert pulled in behind him.

  “This is it,” he said, pointing.

  Marley turned to Kevin. “Thank you for everything you’ve done. Would you like me to call you a cab? It’s awfully late.”

  “And miss this? No way! This is too exciting.”

  “God, I hope not,” Albert said as he unlocked the padlock and, despite the glare Stan gave him, pocketed the key chain. The unit was dark. Stan fumbled along the wall, searching for a light switch, then finally flipped it on.

  “I don’t see how your nephew would even know about this place. I don’t talk about it. This is mostly Mitch’s stuff,” Stan said. “Two years ago he decided he wasn’t ‘centered’ enough and spent three months in India. When he came back, he said his possessions were possessing him. The marionettes are mine, but those boxes are his crap that he probably won’t ever want again.”

  “And this?” Marley asked as she took a manila envelope off a banker’s box. The return address read Aloysius Pierce, Attorney at Law, followed by Aloysius’s work address. It wasn’t sealed. Marley drew a single sheet of paper from it. “Cream-colored, thick like stationery,” she said as she examined it.

  Albert glanced at it. “With hand-written numbers in brown ink.”

  “DON’T MOVE!” someone shouted. It was repeated several times by several different voices, and the four of them froze in place. Gunmen in black rushed at them.

  There were nine, all dressed as they had been when they kicked down Marley’s door, masks included. Kevin and Stan took one look at their MP5s and began to shout “No! WAIT! HOLD ON!” until one of the men told them to shut up.

  The SUV with the c
racked windshield pulled up and Evelyn swaggered out. Her white clothes made her seem to glow in the ugly halogen light, although she’d left her purse and cat at home.

  Behind her, moving more cautiously, were Nora, Nelson, and Audrey.

  “If she reaches toward the door or one of the others,” Evelyn said, “shoot the tall one.”

  Albert’s expression didn’t change. Stan raised his hands in the air. “Oh isn’t this just perfect.”

  “Take your hand out of your pocket!” one of the gunmen yelled, his voice muffled slightly by his mask. “RIGHT NOW!” He charged at Kevin and jammed the butt of his weapon into Kevin’s gut.

  Kevin sprawled to the asphalt, his hand coming out of his pocket and his phone skittering across the asphalt. The gunman stamped on it.

  “Hey, you know what?” Kevin yelled from the ground. “That really hurts!”

  One of the gunmen shouted: “Everyone! Phones out!” Stan, Marley and Albert took their phones from their pockets. “Put them on the ground!” They did it. No one bothered to pick them up.

  Evelyn came forward and held out her hand, waiting for Marley to give her what she wanted.

  Marley stared at her. “How many lives will you sacrifice for your—“

  “You lost,” Evelyn said. “You tried to pull off a come-from-behind victory, but you lost. Deal with it. And don’t talk to me about lives. You’re the one palling around with vampires.” She licked her lips in anticipation. “Now give me the key.”

  Marley placed the envelope and sheet of paper into her hand.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  So Cathartic!

  “We should shoot them all right now,”

  It was the same gunman who’d ordered them to drop their phones. The leader? Albert tried to pick out some difference in his uniform or build to ID him later—assuming there was a later, and who would want to assume anything else?—but he couldn’t spot anything obvious.

  “No,” Evelyn said. “I just had breakfast with Marley and Adam this morning, and then they turn up shot to death? The police would be all over me. I don’t want to talk to cops again. Ever. Besides, look what happened with Al; if you’d been more patient, we could have avoided all this mess.”

  Marley, Albert, Stan, and Kevin were cuffed—not with zip ties, which Albert knew how to break free of—but with actual metal handcuffs. Then they were blinded with black hoods, and loaded into the back of a van. Kevin began to panic, gasping for air and sweating profusely. Stan became exhausted and listless. “I can’t believe I insisted on coming along,” he said.

  Kevin’s fear began to take control of him. “Omigod omigod omigod omigod—”

  “Shut up,” Audrey said. He did.

  They drove for quite a while. Sitting on a bench, his back to a wall, Albert tried counting out the slow seconds and mapping their turns, but somewhere in the twelve-hundreds, he felt the cold, sharp blade of a knife press against his cheek just below his eye, and he lost count.

  Whoever it was—and he was convinced it was Audrey—they didn’t cut out his eye or slice him open. The knife moved away from his face and didn’t plunge into some other part of his body. He could hear Stan’s ragged breath over the rumble of the van, and Kevin’s attempts to control his panic through deep, slow exhalations. He couldn’t hear Marley at all; he hoped that meant she had vanished again, and was free and safe.

  Eventually, they turned sharply to the left and jounced up a parking entrance, then went down a short ramp. Underground parking, but not too far underground. Once the van stopped, the doors were thrown open and they were all herded into an elevator, down a hall, through a doorway, then shoved onto a carpeted floor.

  “Stay there,” the lead gunmen said. “Whatever you’re doing, we should get started right away.”

  “We can’t,” Evelyn answered. “Not at night. It’s no good at night.”

  Marley spoke up. “What’s the matter, Evelyn? Afraid of the dark?”

  “Don’t be absurd!” Evelyn snapped. “You don’t even know what’s going on, do you?”

  “You’ve stolen a dragon’s egg, dear. I assume you’re trying for the usual immortality or somesuch.”

  Evelyn yanked Marley’s hood off. The lead gunman beside her cursed and turned his back as he put his mask back on. Ignoring him, Evelyn crouched beside Marley, making sure she could see her smirk. “You’re right, but only accidentally. I am going to be immortal, but not because of some spell. Psht! I have bigger plans.”

  Marley blinked in the light. They had been taken to a condo. All the curtains had been drawn and the furniture moved into a corner. Beyond that, the place looked utterly impersonal. There were no pictures, stacks of mail, or mementos in sight. The place was so carefully staged that it looked lifeless. “I have to admit,” Marley said, “I still haven’t figured them out. Not completely. You had Aloysius hold on to the key for you, presumably because you didn’t trust someone who had access to your office. The gunmen?” Evelyn smirked. “Oh,” Marley said, “your previous receptionist, then? Not the temp. Zoe, right? She did say Aloysius cost her a job.”

  “Well, Marley, that’s very good! You’ve figured out more than I expected. Or are you guessing?”

  “I’m paying attention. What happened to her?”

  “I honestly don’t know. I’d planned to have her killed and buried with a few pieces of luggage out in the Cascades, but she disappeared before I could arrange it. She knew the plan, of course, and if she’d managed to get hold of the key she could have done whatever she wanted with the egg. But she’s gone so she doesn’t matter. She was instrumental, though. She had the spell book that taught me to make the persuasion potion, and she knew about the egg, you, and your nephew.”

  “Just another one of Aloysius’s conquests. But why did you hire him? If you hadn’t, I might never have discovered you.”

  “I needed him, of course. A regular lawyer could never have dealt with old Amos Quigley. I needed Quigley—and everyone else—to realize he was dead so that his properties would fall into the hands of his less-tight-fisted heirs. And a regular lawyer would have been torn apart by that tree-hugging werewolf.”

  “Quigley’s properties?” Albert asked.

  “The seafood restaurant,” Marley said, “where Evelyn’s people released their rats.”

  “How…?” Albert was still not following along. “Quigley said Aloysius wanted him to sell land next to a ‘brownfield,’ didn’t he?”

  “Oh, Albert, what did I tell you about ghosts giving directions? The Unoco Brownfield has been gone a long time.”

  “Everyone knows that!” Evelyn interrupted, annoyed that they were talking to each other but not her. “The Sculpture Park is there now, and I still want it.”

  “Did you always plan to kill Aloysius?”

  “Of course! Despite the fact that he didn’t freak out when he was faced with the supernatural, he was a terrible lawyer. He thought he deserved thirty percent! He didn’t even know what we were really up to. He thought like you did, that I was some vain ninny who longed for youth and beauty. And then someone spilled the beans and he grew a conscience.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He called me on Sunday from his office and asked to meet with me. He said he’d realized he’d been a terrible person and he wanted to talk about setting things straight. Well, I couldn’t have him ruining my plans when I was so close, so I told him to bring the key with him, and we’d have a nice long chat. But he must have been suspicious, because he brought a fake—he hid the real one very very well—and these fools killed him too quickly.”

  “They also staged a vampire attack in a city where all the vampires are quite domesticated. What that your idea? To throw me off your trail?”

  Evelyn shrugged that off. “At least he didn’t get the chance to expose our plan.”

  “Evelyn, you poor fool, he wasn’t talking about exposing you; he probably never knew what you were planning. He was going to apologize because he used you for
sex.”

  Evelyn quirked her head to the side. “Really? Are you sure? The sex?”

  Marley said, “He spent that whole day making amends with the women in his life.”

  “Pft! What an idiot. Who cares about the sex? I mean, we were in the middle of this huge, complicated plan, and he calls me up and... what an idiot.”

  “We all make unfortunate remarks,” Marley said.

  “His got him killed.” She stood and leaned against the counter. “I can’t believe I was so worried about you. I mean, really.”

  “I’m only dangerous,” Marley assured her, “because I know things. Such as, the last time someone cast a spell with a dragon’s egg as a fuel source, they did it in the Empty Quarter, far from the water. When you unlock that egg, the dragon is going to realize it’s been moved. Whatever spell you’re planning will never come off. You simply won’t have the time. Have you ever seen an angry dragon?”

  “No,” Evelyn said, smirking, “but I plan to.”

  “Oh!” Marley exclaimed. She blinked a couple of times as Evelyn’s remark sunk in. “I’ve had you all wrong, haven’t I? The dragon egg isn’t the prize here, is it? It’s the bait.”

  “Finally!” Evelyn shouted. “Finally someone gets it! We hide the egg in the basement of a building and unlock it. During the day. The dragon rises and demolishes most of the waterfront looking for it. Property values plummet and everyone wants to sell, desperately, including Amos Quigley’s heirs, once I get him put to rest. The developers who’ve become dependent on my persuasion potion will provide the financing, and I will finally get to build my dream. All I have to do is paint some magical-looking symbols on the front door and tell everyone that they’re dragon repellant. Then, once people are actually living in the space, they’ll see how perfect it is, and my design will be copied on every continent. My work will be vindicated, I’ll be world-renowned, and everyone will live in my buildings. That’s the kind of immortality I’m after, not the peaches-and-cream perky-boobs kind!”