Rune Service

by J. B. Garner

  As for myself, I slipped through the gate and slammed it shut behind me. One hand slapped the panic button while the other twisted the lock on the gate closed. You don’t work the late shift at this kind of place, especially in this part of Michigan, without having a plan for something like this. Well, the ‘midnight robber’ thing, not the ‘magical elf with the key to your past’ thing … assuming he wasn’t blowing smoke up my skirt.

  Though no one could hear it, the silent alarm was now blaring away. One advantage of being the only 24-hour coffee stop in the neighborhood was that the Easy-E-Mart was beloved by the local constabulary, so help was on the way for certain. What was obvious to our assailants was the metal security barriers that was rolling down to seal off the back counter area from the rest of the store.

  Aelfie frowned disapprovingly in that way only snotty rich folk can manage as he whispered, “You do not expect us to grovel back here, do you?”

  I ignored him, focusing on the yell of surprise and the thumping feet coming at the counter as I reached for the weapon I kept tucked behind there. Manny on day shift preferred a baseball bat, while Margie preferred a stun gun, but me, I preferred a nice baby sledge. The handle was short enough to work with my *ahem* stature while more than heavy enough to take advantage of my mass.

  See, we weren’t out of the woods yet as the cost-conscious management of the store couldn’t be bothered to spring for the high-speed motors on the security system. It would be a full ten seconds before the shutters were fully secured and it took less than ten seconds to get across the store, even as messed up as it currently was. In fact, if I were right, one of them would be coming across the counter right … about …

  “Get out here before I got to shoot ya!” Little Deep Voice cried as his head appeared over the counter top, sending a display of lottery tickets and discount candy bars raining down on us. The guy had sallow skin and a long, beak-like nose tucking out over the bandanna he wore as a mask on his lower face, with slicked back black hair.

  It was a very punchable face in my estimation so I had no compunctions about swinging my hammer around, aiming for the side his noggin. I didn’t want to kill him (or anyone else for that matter) so it was a half-hearted strike. It was still plenty hard enough to make him shriek in pain.

  “For every Dwarf, a hammer,” Aelfie grinned as he shoved the dazed goon off the counter just before the shutter bisected him. It was a slow motor but it had a lot of power behind it. The Elf was about to make another smart comment but I was already reaching to pull him back under cover. There was still enough of a gap for an enterprising thug to see Aelfie’s head over the counter and take advantage of that.

  I yanked down on his jacket the split second before a bullet split the air where his handsome face had been. It was a miracle that Beach Ball hadn’t shot his buddy in the process. Instead, he blew apart part of the cigarette display behind the counter.

  “Dammit, be careful,” I growled. “If you lose that pretty skull of yours, I’m not exactly holding up my end of things, am I?”

  Above us, the shutter locked down right before the entire thing rattled from a meaty body slamming into it. Someone had wasted his chance playing with his pistol.

  Despite all his previous self-assurance and charm, Aelfie was now looking at me with a faint shiver of fear, sweat glossing his flawless alabaster skin. “I had no idea that they would want to kill anyone, especially me. After all, they would risk – “

  “- your daddy’s wrath, am I right?” I made no illusions as to how long the shutters would hold under a determined assault. If these guys could do whatever they did to the front of the store again, they’d open us up like a can of sardines.

  “Well, yes, that exactly.” He ran his hands over his face, rubbing at his eyes delicately. “I cannot imagine what I have done to deserve this misfortune.”

  I didn’t buy that load of bull for a moment. Oh, Aelfread Aelfson was a slick operator, as good as any I’d known in my carnie days, and his fear was certainly real. He really hadn’t expected them to be shooting but he sure was expecting something bad to happen and he knew (or at least he felt he knew) exactly what the hell he had done to offend these fine gentlemen.

  “Whatever.” I’d find out about it later. Until then, I had already given my word and Mary Stone stood by her word. It’s one of those principles that got me to the lofty heights I was on that very day. “We’ll sort this out later.”

  On the other side of our shelter, Mr. Little was groaning in pain while Mr. Meaty rattled the steel ineffectually. “Shit, shit, shit!” he cursed. “Beaks, is the arty charged up yet?”

  Aelfie’s eyes widened at the chatter while I turned my attention to the floor, pulling up the rubber mats to get at the tile. I had gone to the counter for a few reasons, not just for the panic button and my hammer.

  You see, there was an escape route that most of the workers at the Easy-E-Mart didn’t know about and wouldn’t use even if they did. It wasn’t something added by our cheapskate manager and frankly the tunnel under the store might go nowhere at all. There was a real chance I could be leading us into a real dead-end, pardon the pun.

  I tried to ignore that fear, as well as the growing tingle in my spine. As my thick fingers worked along the seams of the tile, searching for the catch to the trapdoor leading below, Beaks (if that was indeed Mr. Little’s name) ceased his whining and replied to his fellow, “The rod’s gotta couple more seconds on it, Blythe, but Pointy and Shorty ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  Aelfread’s fear edged into a faint smile of hope as I found the catch. “I knew I was making the right decision to follow my instincts here, Lady Stone,” he whispered as I pulled on the door, a solid hunk of stone and tile on rusted hinges. It took more than a bit of muscle to open it up all the way, no springs or mechanical assistance there.

  To no surprise of mine, Aelfie didn’t lend a hand, not that he would have been much of one with his willowy frame.

  “Them escaping isn’t my worry, asshole,” Blythe complained, giving the shutters one more thwack in frustration. “I want this wrapped up before the cops or Ms. Kincaid gets here, clean and wrapped up so we can get a nice fat stack of Drake’s Marks out of this. This could be our big break when we finally beat that dumb bunny to a collar!”

  Sweat poured down my brow and down my beard as I wedged my back against the slab. Normally, you would have had two or three guys and a crowbar or two on this thing but I made do as best I could. Aelfie didn’t need any urging from me to pop down the trapdoor into the inky blackness below, thank God for that much at least.

  Sirens began to percolate through the shop as I slid forward, trying my best to not get crushed by the door and not break my neck getting down to the stairs leading down. If I had normal sized legs, this wouldn’t have been quite so much an issue. After all, this had been made for ‘normal people’, not someone like me.

  I had to stop the pity party as a high-pitched whine joined the growing sounds of the police. “It’s ready, Blythe!” Beaks crooned as the tingle in my spine hit a fever pitch. “It’s ready!”

  “Do it, man! You waitin’ for an engraved invitation?”

  He didn’t need one and neither did I. I’d sure have loved a few more moments to do this right, to get my foot on the first steps so I could gently let the door down behind me and cover our tracks, but life usually doesn’t give you what you want. Instead, I let out a scream and shoved up with everything I had. Beaks’ let out a guttural shout that matched my scream, a single word that sounded so familiar even though I had never heard it or its language of origin in my life.

  That was happening a lot all that day.

  The slab lurched up hard, the aging hinges giving way with the squeal of tearing metal, right as a tremendous, teeth-rattling shockwave roared through the floors and walls. Some terrible force hit the shutters dead on, the steel deforming for a moment before the entire thing failed. The explosion blew me off my precarious footing which was a blessing in d
isguise. I might have been blown on my ass but most of the wreckage slammed into the wall behind me as opposed to catching me right in the face.

  All the same, my ears were ringing and my head was throbbing from where it bounced off the broken hatch door. I always had a hard head, but there were definitive limits. The goons on the outside were hooting, hollering, and having the time of their lives, no doubt thrilled that they were about to get their ‘payday’.

  I pushed myself up onto my elbows with grim determination. Blythe and Beaks had forgotten that sense of urgency they had a moment ago, way too happy with the destruction they’d caused I guess to seal the deal. Still, even though they were dragging their feet, they were going to catch me before I could get down those stairs.

  Two slim-fingered hands grabbed my ankles. I looked down, still in a bit of a daze, to see Aelfie smiling at me. “Fear not, my dear,” he whispered and then pulled.

  I didn’t think the slender Elf had it in him but to my surprise, I slid along the floor and down into the darkness below.

  Chapter 3

  RINGING HEAD OR NOT, I didn’t need any prodding or guiding from Aelfie to keep moving down the tunnel. I wasn’t sure what he was using to light our way, but the soft green light showed the way down the dusty passageway, surprisingly clear of debris or major damage.

  “How did you know of these strange tunnels, dear Dwarf?” Aelfread said, moving the light from side to side.

  “Curiosity, mostly,” I answered, trying to focus on our surroundings more than chatting. “You see, back in the 1920s during Prohibition, bootlegging was a big deal here along the Saginaw River and the Great Lakes. More than a few shops and storefronts here in town were connected to the illicit alcohol business and the Easy-E-Mart had been connected to a network of underground tunnels used to run booze from the lakefront around town. Before now, it had been a cute curiosity to have a piece of history running under the store. Today, though …”

  “It saved our lives.”

  I nodded slowly and kept going.

  Whoever those bootleggers were, they built their criminal structures to last, that was for sure. I hadn’t seen any damage of not so far. I filed that alongside the other odd things going on tonight, such as the facts that these underground paths seemed oddly familiar. Not like I had been down here before so much as I felt like the architecture was something I had seen before. The sturdy simplicity of it called out to me and I swore I saw faint engravings in the wooden support beams and the walls themselves.

  I dismissed them as a trick of the faint light, even as I found myself running my hand reverently along the stone.

  Aelfie didn’t question my strange gesture and he didn’t offer a smart comment or critique. Instead, he kept the light held high, some kind of globe in his right hand, and followed my lead, his left hand gripped tightly in my right.

  And lead I did. As creepy as it might sound, I’ve always had a knack for finding my way around rocky places. Caves, canyons, mountains, even city streets, any place I can feel the rock and stone is like walking around a friendly neighborhood. I trusted that knack, hoping it wouldn’t let me down the one time I actually needed it.

  I took several turns at random as we came across junctions, avoiding any stairs or ladders that led upward. They could lead to help but they could also lead to trouble or nowhere at all. Best to lose our pursuers down here where I felt more in control of things, even if that control was likely a lie.

  Aelfread tugged a bit on my arm as we rounded yet another corner. “I cannot hear them any longer. We have lost them, friend Dwarf.” I was going to ignore him, my nerves still on edge, when he gave that hand a squeeze. It wasn’t a squeeze of fear or reassurance or any of that jazz. It was a bit too … familiar for that.

  I was tempted to punch him. Resisting that temptation, I stopped and yanked my hand away. “I might have agreed to help you but that doesn’t let you get to be forward.” Turning toward him, I put my hands on my hips, about to continue going off on him, but I was struck dumb by the green orb that was now floating around Aelfie’s head in a lazy orbit.

  I spent my childhood and a bit of my adult life traveling the country with a sideshow so I’ve seen plenty of bizarre things. This was my first face-to-face encounter with something that was magic and I couldn’t immediately debunk. I almost rationalized it as some kind of advanced flashlight drone powered by whisper-soft recessed air jets, but that was my mind throwing up a wild, defensive layer.

  Yeah, accepting the possibility that Elves and Dwarves weren’t just fairy tale creatures but drawing the line at real-life magic might seem stupid but there was a big difference between something that was at least near human and something that was a complete slap in the face of commonly accepted reality.

  One of Aelfie’s delicately curved eyebrows arched in amusement. “You really are an orphan, aren’t you?” His smile was dazzling and the white of his teeth and clothes reflected the comforting, leafy glow of the orb. “Oh, let me extend my apologies for my seeming forwardness. I have never really had a chance to meet one of your kind in person and I forget that Dwarven etiquette is … staid compared to our own.”

  Maybe he had meant it but all I read off his beautiful face was a certain detached arrogance that I wanted to slap off it. Of course, that face was well out of reach and I didn’t want to hit below the belt, at least not yet.

  I blinked and shook the desire to stare at the magical light out of my brain. “Yes, I’m an orphan and I still don’t know what this is all about.” I gave him my best glare, something I had a lot of practice with dealing with rubes and rude customers alike. “So, if we’re as safe as you think we are, I think I’ve done enough on my end of our little bargain for you to start spitting out some answers.”

  The Elf chewed that over for a moment, absently playing with the orb like a stage magician might with a crystal ball. “Well, considering what I need your help with, I believe that’s certainly fair.” He glanced around the passageway we were currently in. “Perhaps it might be best if we talk and walk at the same time? You do have a place in mind for us to go, yes?”

  My eyes narrowed and the hands on my hips turned into fists. “What do you mean by that? You said to help you with your current difficulties back in the store and isn’t that what I’ve done?”

  “Oh, well, truth be told, dear Mary, that was only the smallest of parts that would enclose the general term of ‘current difficulties’.” He grinned merrily, his fear from before seeming to have totally flown the coop. “Certainly a spot of trouble but I followed my instincts to your doorstep not for a way out, but for certain other vital requirements that all tie into this larger issue.”

  I growled and pulled back a fist. I was angry at being suckered more than at Aelfie in specific. Hell, I knew all the tricks, all the cons the barkers and the carnies used on the road. I should have known better but I let myself get caught up in the moment. It wasn’t just that the Elf was damn handsome and was showing me some actual interest of any kind. It had a lot more to do with the sense of belonging and importance he had represented, something I hadn’t felt since my traveling days.

  Say what you will about the carnival life but there was a family among us on the road. There weren’t judgments made if you were, say, four feet tall, almost as wide, and had a flowing lady-beard.

  Call me strange but Aelfie earned himself some points back by flinching back and looking properly afraid of my rock-hard fist. “Please, milady, I thought you understood.”

  “No, no, you didn’t.” I sighed and relaxed, running my twitching fingers through my beard. “Let’s cut the lies, all right?”

  He glanced at me sidelong for a moment before relaxing himself. “They weren’t all lies, you know. You could make a solid argument that most of them were even the honest truth.”

  I laughed. It felt good to do so, to break a bit of the tension. “The best lies run parallel to the truth, right?”

  Aelfie’s smile was more natural this time
and he stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. “So, you know something about the Great Game then?”

  “If you mean ‘con artistry’, then a bit.” I turned back to continue our way down the musty tunnels. “Indirectly, though. What I did in my traveling days was backed up by my looks or my talents. I didn’t have much need to lie or cheat; that’s what I’m driving at.”

  His soft footsteps fell in behind me, the pale light turning steady as the orb ceased spinning. “Would you honor me in speaking about your life before the drudge work at the counter of a gas station?”

  I never answered Aelfie’s question about where we were going and I certainly wasn’t going to answer this one of a more personal nature, especially when he had yet to give me any concrete answers of his own. Being incredibly pretty and charming wasn’t going to get him everything he wanted, not with me at any rate.

  “How about you do some answering for once?” I returned my hand to the stone wall again and felt at ease almost instantly. “You said it yourself. I need to know some things if I’m going to be of real help to you.”

  I could hear the smirk in Aelfie’s voice. “You are certainly proving to be the right kind of resourceful. Well, as I must assume you are totally ignorant as to the realities of the Figment world, we shall start with the basics and work up to what I really need you for.”

  We were moving towards the edge of town, near where my apartment building was. How I knew that, I couldn’t have told you at the time, but I knew it all the same. “Before we go back to magical preschool, level with me on one thing first.”

  “Of course.” He certainly didn’t let himself fall behind, almost looming over me. It was probably to give me a better show of light but it still felt a bit uncomfortable all the same. “Ask and I shall answer.”

  “You said you needed a Dwarf back in the store.”