A Plain-Dealing Villain

by Craig Schaefer

  Trying to ignore it made it worse. As the minutes dragged on, it went from itching to burning. Then another itch in the small of my back flared up. I imagined thousands of tiny red ants crawling across my skin, but all I could do was keep my hands perfectly still. I focused on my breathing. Inhale for four seconds. Hold for four seconds. Release for four seconds. My breathing, and that LED light up ahead, became my entire world.

  After an eternity I finally slipped in under the plastic box, just under its blind spot, and scratched like I’d been doused in itching powder. I slipped my gloved hand under my mask, not wiping away my sweat so much as smearing it, then tore off a strip of duct tape.

  I stood on my toes, reaching to slide the tape up and over the motion detector’s lens. If I’d moved like melting ice before, now I was chiseled from stone. My feet ached and my calves and arms burned, but as the minutes ticked by, the tape slowly passed over more and more of the lens without setting it off.

  The eclipse was complete. I pressed the tape into place. I took an experimental step backward, giving the motion detector a wave. With its cyclops eye blinded, the green LED didn’t even flicker. The alarm sat quiet. As far as the system was concerned, everything was working as intended and the building was secure. As long as we didn’t mess with any of the jewelry cases, it would stay that way.

  I gave Coop a thumbs-up. He crawled through the broken door next, masked and gloved, and Augie passed the first burlap sack of gear through to him. It clanked against the carpet.

  My watch said 8:13. We’d burned almost an hour just securing the room, and we hadn’t even gotten to the safe yet.

  “Going up,” I whispered to Coop. “Don’t follow me until I call for you.”

  “Whatever you gotta do, make it fast.”

  I crept up the stairs at the back of the shop. The lock on the second-floor door was child’s play. After the molasses-slow slog downstairs, I felt like a bolt of lightning with a pair of lockpicks on the tip. The tumblers rattled and fell into place, and the door swung wide.

  I traded my picks for the baggie of Margaux’s spirit dust.

  The living room stood empty. Nothing glimmered, not before my physical eyes and not in my second sight. On the far side of a tiger-skin rug, an open archway looked in on a darkened bedroom. Another wider arch led to the dining room.

  I felt like the explorer in an old adventure movie moments after the natives’ drums went silent. Waiting for the attack.

  I crept through the living room, my shoes sinking into the plush, tawny rug, and let my eyes slip out of focus as I gazed from arch to arch. Ecko’s creature had to be here. It had to know I was here, too. So where was it?

  I heard something. Something like the droning of flies’ wings, almost too soft to hear but growing steadily louder, more forceful, angrier. I realized what the sound was. Growling.

  I looked around, my heart pounding faster, trying to spot it before it could get the jump on me. The creature was near, but the noise sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once.

  No, I realized, not everywhere. It’s just very, very close.

  I looked up.

  Nine arms clung to the ceiling above my head by their twisted, blackened fingernails. Five heads looked down at me and screamed as one.

  15.

  I felt the creature’s scream more than I heard it, a rippling shockwave that scorched through the air and hit my heart like a fist. The shock sent me reeling, jumping backward as the arms let go and the creature fell, slamming onto the living room floor where I’d been standing a heartbeat before.

  It was there and it wasn’t, a vision in shimmering silver that swam in and out of reality. I saw a tangle of sewed-together body parts, ragged stumps, and bones twisted at impossible angles. It felt like my eyes were forcing themselves to slip out of focus, sparing me from seeing too much of the misshapen thing at once.

  Abomination, Halima had called it. The name fit.

  I scooped up a handful of Margaux’s powder and dashed it across the floor, just as the creature launched itself at me like a starving panther. It slammed into an invisible wall, fell back, rolled and thrashed, then wheeled around and charged into Ecko’s bedroom.

  I shot a glance toward the dining room and its three connecting doorways Every room in the loft had at least two ways out.

  It was circling around to cut me off.

  I ran across the dining room, skirting the edge of a polished mahogany table as the creature lunged through a connecting doorway. Arms snapped at me and spectral teeth gnashed the air, missing me by a foot. I hurled the rest of the enchanted powder at the thing’s faces like I was throwing a fastball. It squealed and fell back, tipping over and righting itself on centipede arms, and ran for the kitchen to intercept me.

  Now we were in a race to reach Ecko’s office. The prize: first one there got to live. As I charged for the open doorway, the canopic jars in plain sight, my deck of cards riffled into my outstretched hand. Adrenaline turned into raw magic, launching a quartet of cards across the room like a swarm of killer hornets. My four aces.

  They hit the closest two jars, shattering clay and sending a clutter of painted shards and black, withered lumps of flesh cascading to the carpet. The creature screamed behind me, hands and feet pounding the floorboards in rage.

  Then it caught me.

  A clawed hand closed on my ankle and yanked me off my feet. I hit the floor hard, cards jolting from my grip and scattering everywhere. Before I could call them to my grasp, the creature flipped me onto my back and hauled me away, dragging me through the dining room. Three heads loomed over me on broken necks, shrieking their outrage.

  My right hand flailed out, caught the leg of a chair and held on for dear life, pulling it toward me. I grabbed onto it with both hands and broke it over the closest head, smashing the ornate wood into kindling. The head reared back, stunned, and two more took its place. Heads with more teeth than any mouth should have.

  I clutched the broken chair leg with both hands. It had snapped away from the seat at a rough angle, ending in a jagged spike of splintered wood. One of the heads lunged at me, mouth wide and drooling, and I thrust upward as hard as I could and rammed six inches of wood straight into its eye socket.

  The hand on my ankle let go as the creature reared back, roaring in agony and struggling to pull the chair leg loose. I rolled onto my stomach, jumped up in a sprinter’s launch, and ran for the office. Behind me, the creature got its footing back and charged. I could hear it thundering after me like a wooly mammoth from hell, mad with pain and starving for my blood.

  I threw myself through the narrow office doorway. The creature slammed against it a moment later with a brutal thud, hard enough to make the doorframe shake. Hands groped for me, clawing the air. I grabbed the third jar, held it high above my head, and hurled it to the carpet. It shattered on impact, scattering desiccated blue-black livers across the office floor like a sick piñata.

  The creature just tried harder, squeezing through the doorframe, inch by agonizing inch. I heard bones cracking and saw wet, gluey blobs of ectoplasm spatter the floor.

  “Sorry.” My muscles burned as I hoisted up the last jar, holding it high. “Not your lucky day.”

  The jar burst at my feet and spilled its grisly payload over my shoes. The creature vanished in a pulse of silver light, unwoven in a heartbeat. Where it had stood, only a cloud of thick dust hung in the air. The loft stank of mildew, ancient linens, and rot.

  “Then again,” I said to the empty room, “maybe it was.”

  My lungs and arms were fighting to see who could ache more, but I didn’t have time to catch my breath. I gathered up my cards, hustled to the door, and gave Coop a tired wave. I helped him carry his sacks up, dragging the heavy equipment one thumping step at a time. He froze at the door to Ecko’s office and stared down at the wreckage.

  “So, uh, do I even wanna—”

  “No.”

  He shrugged and stepped around the mess, crouching
behind Ecko’s desk. The safe was on the small side, about two feet wide, set into the bookshelf and sporting a shiny chrome spin handle and a traditional combination lock.

  “Okay,” Coop said, “Whistler Model Seven. It’s not bad. Not the top of the line, but it’s not bad.”

  “Can you get through it?”

  He put his hands on his hips. Behind his zombie mask, his eyes narrowed to slits.

  “Forget I asked,” I said.

  He tugged a little spiral-bound notebook out of his pocket, flipping through page after page of numbers scribbled in faded blue ink.

  “I will. Now let’s try this the easy way first.”

  I watched while he twirled the dials this way and that, glancing from the notebook to the lock.

  “Try-out combos,” he explained, catching the way my head tilted at him. “Standard combinations that come straight from the manufacturer on a brand-new safe. Any locksmith can get ahold of these, because only an idiot buys a safe and doesn’t change the defaults. Still…sometimes, you catch a break.”

  He ran through the last number and shook his head. “Nope, not an idiot. Okay, we do this the hard way. Drag that sack over here and help me set up the Pornstar.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “The…what?” I said, lugging the heavy sack. He grinned and tugged the burlap aside, revealing its contents: a power drill on a stout, telescoping tripod. The drill’s body was as long as my arm and twice as thick, with a diamond-tipped bit nine inches long and an oversized battery pack.

  “He always gets the job done,” Coop deadpanned, setting up the tripod. The drill kicked to life with a shrill whine, chewing into the safe’s black steel face as Coop held the rig steady and watched it like a surgeon evaluating a heart transplant.

  “Model Seven’s got cobalt plates inside,” he called over the drill’s hungry chewing. “Turn most drill bits into scrap metal. We don’t gotta go that far, though.”

  More time slipped away while the drill did its work. I looked at my watch and wished I hadn’t. 10:08. By now, Ecko had been at the diner for at least eight minutes, and he had to suspect his new “client” wasn’t going to show up.

  “How are we doing on time, Coop?”

  The drill shut off with a grating clang. He tugged the bit free and blew on the slender hole it left behind, puffing out a cloud of black steel dust.

  “Don’t rush me,” he said. “You got your magic, I got mine.”

  His next tool was a tiny display screen, about the size of a phone, connected to a long flexible tube. He waved me over, and I crouched next to him as he pressed the screen into my hands.

  “Here,” he said, feeding the tube into the hole. “Keep the screen facing me, so I can see what I’m aiming for. Ah, there you are. That’s the sweet spot.”

  To me, the blurry image on the screen was a mishmash of ghostly gears and rods like a robot’s x-ray, but to Coop it was the key to the kingdom. While I held the screen, he went to work on the combination dial, slowly turning it and watching the safe’s inner mechanism move. One by one, tumblers fell into place.

  He gave the chromed handle a spin. The safe door made a chunk noise and swung open.

  The knife looked just like its picture, from the flared black obsidian blade to the wavy and serpentine hilt to the roaring yellow-green stone lion on the pommel. The safe’s only occupant, it rested on a pillow of black velvet.

  “That what we came for?” Coop asked.

  “That’s it. Let’s pack up and get the hell out of here.”

  We had started bagging up the drill when my burner rang, buzzing against my hip. Augie was calling.

  “What?” I said.

  “You gotta come downstairs. You and Uncle Coop need to come downstairs, right now.”

  There was a tremble in his voice.

  “What’s going on, Augie? Where’s Stanwyck?”

  “Please. Come downstairs.”

  He hung up. I looked over at Coop and grabbed the knife.

  “Something’s wrong,” I said. He was already up and on his feet, heading for the door, leaving his gear behind.

  We jogged down the steps and into the showroom below. Augie stood there, halfway into the shop, unmasked and exposed to the security camera. Stanwyck stood behind him, wearing his gloves and his werewolf mask.

  “Damn it, Augie,” Coop said. “You’re on camera! Where’s your damn—”

  Stanwyck took one step to the right. Showing us the revolver in his hand, pointed at Augie’s back.

  16.

  “Stanwyck,” I breathed. “What the fuck.”

  “Sorry, guys,” he said. “See, I asked around like you wanted me to, seeing if anybody would come after us for ripping off Ecko. And while I did, I ran into somebody who wanted that cute little knife. They made me a better offer.”

  “Let him go,” Coop growled. He took a step closer, skirting the edge of a display case. Stanwyck pressed the barrel of his gun to Augie’s temple.

  “Uh-uh. You stay right there, unless you want to pick bits of your nephew’s skull off the carpet. Same goes for you, Faust. I’ve heard you’re tricky. Think you can outsmart a bullet? Best be sure, for little Augie’s sake.”

  I kept my hands where he could see them, nice and easy, the knife in full view.

  “Stanwyck,” I said, “I’m gonna tell you this once, and once only. Nobody stabs me in the back and gets away with it. Nobody. I’m feeling generous, so I’ll give you one chance: put the gun down and leave. You forfeit your cut. That’s your punishment for being a greedy asshole. Walk away, and I won’t go after you.”

  “I might,” Coop said through gritted teeth.

  “Shut it,” I told him, then looked back at Stanwyck. “We won’t go after you. My word on it. Just let the kid go and walk away.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Stanwyck said. “You slide that knife over here, I trade it for Augie, and we all walk away. This doesn’t have to get bloody, Faust. I’m not looking to kill anybody. I’m just looking to get paid.”

  “Then you should have stuck to the plan.”

  I could feel time slipping away. How long before Ecko came home? How long before a patrol car prowled by on the street outside? Every wasted second made it less and less likely that any of us would get out alive.

  Stanwyck laughed. “Can you do math? I can. Tell me, what’s bigger: all the money, or one share of a three-way split? Seems like a no-brainer to me. Now slide that knife over here.”

  “Take that gun off my goddamn nephew right now, you son of a bitch,” Coop snarled. He took another step closer, his hands balled up in leathery fists. Everything was sliding out of control, and all I could hear were the psychic klaxons in my head. The ones taking me back to another job gone bad. Another job I should have walked away from.

  “Stay cool, Coop,” I said. “Look, Stanwyck, we don’t have a lot of time—”

  Stanwyck nodded. “You’re right. I don’t think everybody appreciates the pressure we’re working under. Let me help with that.”

  He smashed the lid of a jewelry case with the butt of his revolver, then pressed the barrel back against Augie’s head before the kid could squirm away. As the glass shattered, my psychic alarms were muffled by a very real one, squalling out as the store security system blazed to life.

  “Five seconds. The Chicago PD is getting an emergency call from Polymath Security,” Stanwyck said. “Seven seconds, another operator is calling Damien Ecko and telling him his store’s just been broken into. Are you getting this now, Faust? Give me the damn knife!”

  “Let him go!” Coop shouted, moving up on Stanwyck now, a grizzly bear protecting his sister’s cub. Augie’s eyes bulged with panic, flashing left and right. I laid the knife on the closest counter.

  “Fine. You want it? Take the damn thing.”

  I slid it over. It spun in razor-edged circles, gliding along the polished glass to rest near Stanwyck’s hand. Stanwyck flicked his gaze away, just for a second. I saw the disaster c
oming before it happened. Time lurched into a slow molasses drip as Coop saw his chance and lunged at him.

  Stanwyck pulled the trigger and shot Augie in the head.

  Augie’s body tumbled to the carpet. Specks of gray and scarlet glistened on the jewelry-shop wall. Stanwyck swung the gun around, fired again, and blasted Coop square in the heart from three feet away.

  I ducked low as he took two shots at me, blowing out chunks of drywall just over my head. My cards fluttered into my hand, but I didn’t have time to return the favor. Stanwyck snatched up the knife and ducked through the broken doorway, fleeing into the night.

  Coop was still breathing, if you could call it that. More of a wet, ragged rattle as he stared up at the ceiling with a confused look in his eyes. I ran over, keeping low, and pulled up his shirt to survey the damage.

  Coop tugged off his mask. His face was fishbelly-white and drenched in sweat. I tried to shield him from the security camera, stubbornly pretending it mattered, but he knew better.

  “Forget it,” he croaked. “Ain’t exactly a flesh wound. I’m done.”

  I bundled up his shirt and pressed it against the guttering hole in his chest with both hands, trying to slow the bleeding. “Hold on, just hold on. All you need to do is last until the cops get here. They can call an ambulance—”

  “And then I do a twenty-year stretch. I ain’t got twenty years left in me. Don’t wanna die behind bars. Don’t want that, Dan. I don’t want it.”

  He tried to push my hands away. He was weak as a kitten. In my mind I was back on my last job for Nicky. Back with my friend Max, alarms screaming and cops on the way, and trying to push his guts back into his stomach.

  It was happening all over again, like a nightmare on permanent repeat.

  “You gotta live, Coop. You gotta—”

  “Not behind bars,” he said. “Dan, hey, you gotta run. You gotta do two things for me. Promise me. You gotta get my share to my old lady. She’s gonna need the cash, with me gone. Please. You gotta promise me.”