Rune Service

by J. B. Garner

  Beak’s needle nose twitched uncomfortably. “It’s what the boss wants. Don’t think it’s ‘cause we wants to.”

  Blythe took the thanks more gracefully. “Yeah, well, we aren’t monsters, yanno?” He adjusted his tie. “Now let’s get this over with. I still don’t trust either of you so the faster we do this, the faster we all get to be happy, right?”

  Aelfie was rubbing at his wrists as he nodded. “While I am loathed to do so, I must wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Blythe here.” He stepped toward me, an impish smile on his lips that contrasted with the worry I could see in his eyes. “Shall we, dear Dwarf?” He held out a hand to me.

  I took that proffered hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. While I didn’t have an answer to our problem yet myself, I was determined to put on a confident air for his benefit. “Let’s shall,” I nodded. “Just tell us where we are off to.”

  Aelfie paused for the briefest of moments, long enough to give me a momentary panic that he hadn’t already thought of a proper story for our hosts, but his pause had only been for effect. “As you might have suspected, I secreted the stone well before coming to your doorstep.” He gestured at Beaks and Blythe. “If one of you kind gents would do the driving, I shall do the directing.”

  Beaks glanced up at his compatriot, putting a hand on the back of his still-cast neck. “Can you drive this one, pal? That little …” – he caught himself from saying something unpolite – “… lady gave me the once-over, yanno?”

  Blythe let out a hissing sigh between his huge, perfectly square teeth. “Right, fine.” He stalked past us towards the elevators with his rolling gait. “You better know where we’re going, Pointy, because I swear if this is some wild goose chase …”

  “Please, Mr. Blythe, you do yourself a disservice with your lack of trust,” Aelfread scoffed as we fell into line behind the big man. “I have seen the error of my prejudice and am fully focused on our service to your lord and master.”

  Blythe responded with an indeterminate grunt while Beaks behind all of us cackled. “I bet I know what you’re fully focused on, Pointy!”

  Yeah, the shrimp didn’t need to imply anything else. I considered smacking him again on general principle but I held my anger in check. I might need it later.

  For the moment, I had to trust that Aelfread was going to take care of the first steps of our escape. I didn’t know where he was going to lead us but I was putting my faith in him.

  Considering he was a self-admitted womanizing con artist with only the loosest moral sense, this was probably a bad idea. Despite me telling myself that I had followed through with worse ideas, I knew I was lying to myself. This was pretty high on the dumb factor by any rational sense.

  I suppose it was good that I wasn’t worried about the rational at this point. My gut and my heart told me I was right so I had to be right.

  Right?

  Chapter 22

  IT WAS NO big surprise that they split us up in the Jeep SUV they picked out of the parking garage. It wasn’t black so kudos to the boys for not being too obvious as well as being a common make and model. Anyway, Blythe took the driver’s seat with Aelfie riding shotgun, ostensibly for ease of giving directions, while Beaks and I took the back seat.

  Though he had been the one to beg off driving, once we had settled in our seats I had the sneaking suspicion that the little guy hadn’t realized he would wind up with me. Though he tried to play it cool, I noticed the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead and twitch of his beakish nose as he tried to stay on the far end of the bucket seat from me. I honestly felt a little guilty about what I had done to him … but only a little.

  We rolled up the ramp to the street and everything started off civil enough. It was full on dark by then but it felt to me like mid-morning. Aelfie cast a backward glance at me before nodding to Blythe. “All right, Mr. Blythe, take us towards the river please.”

  I wasn’t sure how to read that glance so I decided to be alert. Beaks’ beady eyes were on me the whole time as Blythe cruised into traffic. “Towards the river is a lot of places, Pointy. Got something more specific than that to go on?”

  Smooth as a cucumber, Aelfread lied, gesturing off down some side streets, “The Riverwalk, the tail end over on the east bank, but it would likely be fastest to go through Ojibway Island.”

  The Saginaw Riverwalk is a nice paved trail that runs through Rust Park and along the Saginaw River. While great for relaxation, I couldn’t see it as a great place to hide anything. The dynamic duo seemed like natives to me; I wasn’t sure they would buy this ruse. If they did, though, Aelfie would be leading them well away from both Sinclair’s lair and my apartment.

  Beaks perked up, trying to crane his aching neck forward towards the front seats. “But that’s Gobbo territory. They ain’t the nicest folks, yanno?”

  “Which makes it the perfect place to stash something from the boss, numbnuts,” Blythe barked over his shoulder. “We don’t have eyes or ears down there. Besides, scaredy cat, they aren’t that bad. Poverty isn’t communicable, right?”

  Now I had heard that things had gotten a bit run down over by the river but I hadn’t heard of anything that odd going on there. I didn’t know what they were talking about, but I could guess enough to see the beginnings of Aelfie’s plan. Unfriendly places for Beaks and Blythe were the best places for us to make our move, assuming the natives weren’t going to be equally nasty with us.

  “Look, Mr. Beaks, it’s not that bad,” I half-lied. “Besides, I’m with you. I’ll protect you from the big, bad Gobbos.” Hey, Beaks was still a bit afraid of me so maybe I could use that to our advantage in a subtle way, right? “I could use a weapon or something, though, in case we are walking into trouble.”

  Beaks did indeed look a little less anxious as we turned towards the Saginaw River. “I forgot you’re on our side now. Oh, speakin’ of weapons, I gots somethin’ of yours!”

  As if inspired, he dug into his inside jacket pocket which suddenly swelled. In fact, the fabric seemed to stretch so much that I was shocked both that it didn’t burst at the seams and by the sheer amount of junk he must have stuffed in there. When he withdrew his hand with what he was looking for, the jacket instantly shrunk back as if his pockets were completely empty.

  He held out his hand to me, gripped around a ball peen hammer. It was my hammer, in fact, the one I had almost bashed the guy’s brains in with. “We was sweeping the place of evidence so I grabbed this up. I was going to use it to whack you but the boss says youse with us so you gets it back.”

  I could feel Blythe’s suspicious eyes on us through the rear-view mirror as I took the hammer. It felt good in my hands. “Thanks, Beaks. I really mean that.” And I did. Just because somebody is a crook and a brutal leg-breaker doesn’t mean he couldn’t have good qualities, things I could agree with.

  Aelfie leaned towards Blythe with a broad smile on his lips. “A truly noble gesture. Perhaps one that will be mirrored by you, Mr. Blythe. Surely as we all play on the same team, I may be similarly equipped?”

  The big man’s guttural growl spoke volumes. “If I had my way, you’d both be empty handed and you, Pointy, would be in those fancy chains still. Hell, I’d have asked the boss to take away Ms. Stone’s pad and pen.” He flashed me a knowing look via the mirror. “I know about that rune stuff, lady. You make a suspicious move with that pen and we’ll have more than words.”

  Aelfie feigned hurt and cringed back into his seat while I nodded. “I get that you don’t trust me.” I tucked the hammer into the messenger bag as I continued. “I bet you got to be as successful you are in the, uh, henchmen business by healthy paranoia. Just remember that we all get a big pile of gold if we pull this off.”

  Dangling gold before the goons’ eyes seemed to help smooth things over. Beaks at least perked up hard. “Yeah, Blythe, we missed out on the collar but this is the big score! Big enough we can get out of the biz, open that restaurant, and – “

  “I know, Beaks, so can it!
” Blythe let out a pent-up sigh and focused on the road. “We do the job and you’ll have all the trust in the world. Plus we’ll have all the cash we could want so just don’t screw anything up.”

  Aelfread cast me a backward glance and a surreptitious wink. “I am certain everything will go perfectly smooth.”

  He seemed sure of himself now or maybe it was just part of the role Aelfie was playing. Either way, I wasn’t going to be so cocksure. Still, I felt a whole lot better with a hammer at hand.

  The next leg of our trip was relatively silent. Aelfread tried to make some small talk but Beaks was too nervous and Blythe too reticent to say much more. I spent the time paying close attention to where we were going and our surroundings. Chalk it up to the runaway train of revelations over the past day but everything in the city seemed new, cast in a different light now. I began to wonder how much of a hidden world there was to find and how welcoming it would be.

  Traffic was light. Even though it was evening, it was Wednesday and that meant a fair number of folks with their butts in church pews. As we hit the bridge to Ojibway Island, the boys started to get nervous, even Aelfie. Blythe slowed the car that little bit everyone does when they are actively looking around, Beaks’ nervous twitch doubled in intensity, and Aelfie’s casual slouch stiffened a hair. It occurred to me that maybe I should find out what we were rolling into.

  Trying to sound as nonchalant as I could, I leaned forward in my seat and said, “So why exactly are you boys afraid of these Gobbos?” No need to shield my ignorance, I realized. They all knew I was an orphan and didn’t know my head from a hole in the ground when it came to Figments. “And what exactly are Gobbos?”

  Aelfread beat our other companions to the punch, turning his head towards the back. “They are a group of undesirables, mundane and Figment alike, that have banded together under the leadership of a tribe of Goblins.” He caught my narrowing glare at the term ‘undesirables’ and he almost ran over himself verbally to clarify. “I suppose that isn’t the best way to put it, dear Mary, as they are not, well, totally undesirable. It is better to say that they are poor, homeless, and motivated towards participating in criminal activity. A gang, perhaps, would fit better?”

  Beaks nodded energetically. “Yeah, Pointy. The boss sends food, care packages, good stuff, yanno, but the Gobbos won’t have anything else to do with him or the Dragons and they have the nerve to steal more of the boss’s junk!”

  Blythe shook his head on his non-existent neck. “Ungrateful bunch of jerks.”

  “I don’t know,” I murmured, rubbing my beard. “Your boss seems like he can be a pretty hard sell at times. Maybe he rubbed them the wrong way or maybe a deal you two don’t know about went sour.” I shrugged. “They might have a good reason to put him at arm’s length.”

  “That doesn’t give them the right to steal and vandalize crap, lady.”

  Beaks grunted in agreement with his rotund buddy but I wasn’t convinced. After all, I had a desire to steal and wreck Sinclair’s stuff and he had treated me with a far kinder hand than I suspected he did many. Sure, the humanitarian (or would that be Figmentarian?) acts were good on the Drake but I suspected there was more to the story than ungratefulness or maliciousness.

  Aelfread hadn’t turned away, watching my face as it danced through thought and reaction. He wasn’t staring, not exactly, more like he was … observing, studying, understanding. He didn’t say anything, only smiling softly after a long moment. He gave me a slight nod that I reciprocated as he turned back to the front.

  I wasn’t sure what had just passed between us or what he had been doing. I was sure that it made me feel a bit better, that we were on the same page about … something. “Well, let’s try to avoid trouble by not making trouble, boys.”

  Beaks deflated in disappointment at that but Blythe glanced at me in the mirror. “Don’t trust you but I agree with you, Ms. Stone. We get in, grab the rock, and motorvate our butts out of here.” His eyes swiveled to Aelfie as our tires bounced over the far end of the bridge, putting us officially in the park proper. “Now, we’re on the stupid island. Where do we go from here?”

  For the first time, Aelfread almost slipped, pausing for far too long before answering (at least too long if I had been the one he was lying to). The Elf almost started as if he had been jolted out of some engrossing thoughts of his own. “Oh! Of course.” In a split second, he was back in character. “My apologies, good man, lost in thought. You know how flighty we Elves can be.”

  “You’ll see how flighty you are when I throw you out of the car,” Blythe threatened. I almost snatched out my hammer and whomped him right then but I bit down on my protective instincts. “Cough it up, Pointy. This place gives me the willies.”

  He wasn’t wrong about that. I wasn’t scared but the electric tingle of nearby Figments started to play up and down my spine. That raised a pile of fresh questions in my mind. I had been to the park here plenty and walked the Riverwalk a few times since I had settled in Saginaw. Why hadn’t I felt before what was so plainly obvious now? What else was going on in my life that I wasn’t aware of?

  “The Riverwalk Smokestack,” Aelfread said, his words barely permeating my occupied brain. He pointed straight ahead through the windscreen. “Cross through the island and go along towards Water Street.”

  Blythe grumbled. “I know where the damn smokestack is. I was born and raised in this city.”

  I knew where it was too and I hadn’t been raised here.

  The Saginaw Riverwalk Smokestack is just what it says on the tin. A solitary smokestack along the Riverwalk, it is the remnant of brighter times, when industry thrived in the city, the last remaining part of the Mitts & Merill keyseating factory standing. Yeah, you could hide something along, atop, or maybe even inside the smokestack, factoring in magic and all that.

  Beaks took another nervous glance out the window. “Then step on it, buddy. They could be surrounding us right this minute!”

  From the tingles in my spine, the anxious little man wasn’t entirely wrong. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or bad, though. “Not too fast, though, Mr. Blythe. We look out of place and we’ll attract the wrong kind of attention, remember?”

  The object of our nagging let out another monumental sigh. “What I’d really like is if you’d both shut your yaps and let me concentrate here! I swear, Beaks, I won’t drive next time if you don’t stop with the backseat quarterbacking!”

  As Beaks whined at his friend, a bit comical with his incredibly deep voice, I found myself staring out the windows. I could swear I saw glowing eyes in the darkness, piercing through tree branches and around signposts.

  For now, though, those pinpricks of light stayed as observers, doing nothing as we drove deeper into the park.

  Chapter 23

  OUR NERVOUS CAR RIDE ended a short walk away from our destination. The Smokestack is along the Riverwalk proper, you see, and not immediately accessible by car. Blythe slowly rolled up Water Street, no less anxious now that when we were on Ojibway Island, and turned the SUV into a desolate parking lot attached to a closed gas station. The only noises outside of the creak of our car doors were the distant, dreamy echo of traffic and a faint rustle of wind off the river. A crumpled up fast food bag rolled across the lot as our only companion, an urban tumbleweed that added an extra touch of foreboding to the affair.

  The constant charge that ran up my spine had yet to falter. Our company was close, no doubt watching our every step. As we disembarked, I gave Aelfie a sidelong glance and he nodded faintly. He felt it too and maybe this was part of his plan. Even if it wasn’t part of his, it was becoming part of mine. Even if these Gobbos didn’t like any of us, any move they made would still give us a chance to exit stage right.

  “Pointy, you lead,” Blythe grunted, his entire body swiveling constantly from side to side as he tried in vain to compensate for his absent neck. “Me and Ms. Stone after him and Beaks, you cover our backs. Got it?”

  “I sup
pose there is nothing to be done for it,” Aelfread nodded and started forward.

  The rest of us fell into line behind him. I could almost hear Beaks’ nervous jitters as we walked across the lot and into the unkempt grass behind the station. The stack was stark in the distance, the tallest landmark before the Saginaw River and the buildings across the way. The white and red paint was barely visible in the dim light cast by the drowsy city. The winds picked up, blowing waves through the grass and covering up the noises of anything that could be approaching.

  As we came closer, Aelfie started to slow his pace. Though he was feigning caution, I could feel the worry in him and noticed the slight drooping of his ears.

  “Come on now, keep up the pace,” Beaks called from the rear. “The less time we’re here, the better, Jack!”

  “Don’t rush,” I warned. “You’ve got no idea what kind of magic Aelfie might have laid as a trap.”

  Blythe growled, clearly frustrated. “And neither do you, lady. The boss told us that you’re a newbie at all this.” Despite those words, he didn’t prod the Elf, keeping pace with him as we continued to creep forward. “I can’t say that you’re wrong, though.”

  Despite his own anxiety, Aelfread lied as glibly as ever. “No, dear Mary isn’t wrong, lads. Would I have been so foolish as to leave something so valuable unguarded?”

  We finally stood in the shadow of the smokestack. For something so innocuous with its jolly decoration and the Saginaw stenciled on its side, it stood oppressive in the thick air that evening. The hair on the back of my neck was standing on end as the electricity amped up from ‘tingle’ to ‘finger in the socket’. The unnatural presence grew to the point that even Beaks and Blythe were paying attention. Slipping my hand surreptitiously into my bag, my itchy fingers weren’t sure if they should grab the hammer or the notebook and pen.

  The big goon grumbled, eyes glancing from side to side. “Fine, fine. Get on with it, Pointy.” He kept one of his mitts stuffed in his jacket but the thing didn’t puff out like Beaks’ coat did, not yet at least. Beaks wasn’t nearly so subtle, whipping a snub-nosed revolver out of his expanding inner pocket.