A Plain-Dealing Villain

by Craig Schaefer

  Ecko’s creatures didn’t know that, though. All they had were animal instincts—and all animals were afraid of fire.

  Caitlin got the idea, and she tugged Royce’s sleeve. They flanked me, backing my advance and shoving away any stragglers who tried to go around us. As my makeshift torch blazed, the fire devouring the linen and wood, we got the surviving mummies penned in one corner.

  A shout in Haitian Creole cracked through the air, carried on a gust of black light. The risen dead collapsed as one, tumbling to the stone floor in a tangle of unmoving limbs and glassy eyes.

  I rolled the torch in Ecko’s standing tub, snuffing the fire in the mounds of salt. Finally, the warehouse stood in silence.

  Margaux, face drenched in sweat, looked like she’d just run a marathon. We all did. Still, she held up her open hand and gave me an expectant look.

  “Whose house?”

  I slapped my palm against hers, still trying to catch my breath. “Mama’s house.”

  The necromancer was long gone. None of us had seen him slip out in all the chaos. Royce glowered at the carnage and put one hand on his hip.

  “Damien Ecko is finished in Chicago. Scratch that—in the Midwest. I’m putting out a kill order to my entire court. Nobody assaults a hound and lives.”

  “That goes double for us,” Caitlin said. “And we’ll catch him before you do.”

  Royce pursed his lips. “That sounds like a wager in the making.”

  A shrill scream turned our heads. Nadine, pleased as a cat with a cornered mouse, dragged Stanwyck out of hiding by his hair and one bent-back arm. He’d taken refuge behind a jumble of crates during the fight and probably hoped we’d leave without looking for him.

  Bad assumption.

  “It wasn’t me,” he cried. “It wasn’t me!”

  “Do shut up,” Royce said as he strode over, digging his hands into Stanwyck’s pockets. He plucked out the Judas Coin, holding it up to study it in the dim light.

  “I was cut in that fight,” Nadine said. “Actually cut. I want recompense.”

  “Hmm?” Royce looked over at her. “Such as?”

  She gave Stanwyck’s hair a vicious tug, making him yelp. “I want this one. I have some aggression to work off.”

  Royce turned his back on them with a careless shrug. “Fine, fine, long as he suffers, have a ball.”

  Stanwyck looked my way, tears in his eyes, as Nadine dragged him toward the exit. “Tell them it wasn’t me, damn it. I’ll do anything you want. Just tell them it wasn’t me!”

  I could hear him screaming as she pulled him out of sight, then suddenly nothing but wet, agonized choking. I didn’t know what Nadine had done to shut him up, and I didn’t want to.

  Bye, Stanwyck, I thought. I promised Coop I’d send you straight to hell. Looks like you’re taking the long, scenic route instead.

  I’d be lying if I said I gave a damn.

  Royce flipped the coin through the air. It spun in a glittering arc and landed in my open palm.

  “Tournament’s over,” he said. “Here’s your prize. Do me a favor and get out of town before you destroy anything else.”

  “Always a pleasure,” Caitlin said sweetly.

  We waited until he and Nadine were long gone. I had one job left, one thing I needed to do before I could put Chicago in the rearview mirror.

  It was time to find Coop.

  42.

  The hallway in the back of the warehouse looked just like it did on the video Ecko had sent me. Cinder-block walls, broken lights, the air cold and thick with the stench of stale piss and decaying flesh. I shone a light into cell after cell, finding nothing but bones and rusted shackles.

  Coop was in the one on the end.

  He flinched as the light caught his milky-white eyes, throwing up his emaciated arms and scurrying into the corner like a cockroach. I turned off the light and stepped inside.

  “Careful,” Margaux said. “You never know how they’ll react.”

  “I know.” I crouched beside him. Touched his arm as gently as I could. “Hey. Hey, Coop. It’s okay. I’m here now.”

  He looked at me. His stitched-together lips twitched, like he was trying to talk, but nothing came out but a faint, ragged whine. It was the sound a beaten dog makes.

  “Gonna take you home, buddy. Okay? Home.”

  I wasn’t sure, but I thought he was trying to repeat the word. Some part of him still knew what home meant.

  Caitlin helped me get him on his feet. With a body twisted by rigor mortis and his skin splotched with thick, puddled bruises, he hobbled toward the cell door. We walked him through the warehouse, past the wreckage and the fallen bodies, and out into the light.

  Coop stood in the parking lot, his white eyes fixed on the setting sun. Margaux had a brass scalpel in her hand, plucked from Ecko’s table on our way out. She had a question in her eyes.

  “Do it,” I told her.

  She murmured something that sounded like a Creole prayer as she stepped in front of Coop, trying not to block his view of the sun. Then she drew the scalpel along his mouth stitches, slicing the surgical thread.

  Coop’s jaw dropped open and a stream of smoky golden light, like a morning mist, billowed from his throat. It gusted into the air and vanished. His body slumped, nothing left inside to keep it standing. We gently laid it on the asphalt.

  I needed to take a walk.

  I stood at the edge of the lot, staring up at the cold, cloudy sky. I didn’t hear Caitlin coming, but I felt her hand on my back.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I’m a long way from okay.” I turned to face her. “And right now, the only thing I can think about is tracking down that son of a bitch Ecko and putting a bullet in his head.”

  Caitlin frowned, imperious. “He assaulted not one, but two hounds. A mortal insult twice over. Both our people and Royce’s will pursue him relentlessly. On top of that, I’m certain our princes will try to one-up each other in posting a lavish bounty, which the other courts will be eager to claim. It’s safe to say that Damien Ecko has just become one of the most wanted men on Earth. All of hell will hunt him.”

  “Then you get the word out,” I told her. “You make sure everybody knows that when they find him, he’s mine.”

  She gave me the faintest of smiles.

  “I think that can be arranged.”

  I looked back at Coop’s fallen corpse. Margaux crouched over the body, her hand on his chest, giving some kind of last rites.

  “Because that,” I said, the words catching in my throat as my eyes teared up, “that has to be answered for, and, and—”

  That was all I had in me. All I could manage as she pulled me into an embrace, letting me bury my face against her breast and holding me tight while my shoulders shook.

  * * *

  We said our goodbyes in Chicago. Unlike the rest of my crew, I had a detour to make on the way back to Vegas.

  I called ahead, getting the names of a few FedEx offices in Austin. I couldn’t fly with the Aztec dagger, after all, so I bought a poster tube and filled it with packing peanuts, shrouding the sacrificial knife in bubble wrap and stashing it in the middle. I shipped it next-day air, so it’d be waiting for me to pick it up.

  The next flight to Austin wasn’t until nearly midnight. I sat in an empty terminal at O’Hare, listening to the droning hum of a floor waxer and watching the occasional bleary-eyed commuter trudge past.

  It wasn’t right.

  The whole situation wasn’t right. The job was done, nothing left but to talk to Cameron Drake, hand over the dagger, and collect my money, but it didn’t feel done. It felt like it was just getting started.

  It’s Ecko, I told myself. Loose ends. This isn’t over, not by a long shot.

  That wasn’t it, though. Maybe it was the Outfit boys and the trouble fixing to land on our doorstep. Or maybe I was just worn out.

  I saw Amy coming up the concourse, and I gave her a tired wave. No idea how she’d gotten past
security without a ticket, but she’d told me on the phone that it wouldn’t be a problem. I dug in my pocket as she approached and held up the Judas Coin.

  “Payment for services rendered?” she asked.

  I handed her the coin.

  She studied it, rubbing her thumb against its face, and nodded curtly. “Transaction complete. A pleasure doing business, Mr. Faust.”

  “Don’t spend it all in one place,” I told her.

  She’d barely slipped out of sight when a familiar hand brushed my shoulder. I turned in the blue vinyl seat, smiling. “Cait, did you change your fli—”

  Nadine dropped into the seat beside me.

  “No,” she said. “She’s already gone back to Nevada. She left you here. With me. You really think she cared enough to ensure you got away safely?”

  I didn’t have a weapon, didn’t even have my deck of cards, thanks to the fight in Angelo Mancuso’s limousine. I wondered, as I slid away from her on the seat, how much pull the Night-Blooming Flowers really had over this city. If she murdered a man in a near-empty airport concourse, could they cover it up?

  “You’re cute when you panic,” she said, reading my face. “Don’t worry. I’m just here to talk, to give you a present, and to see you on your way. Oh, and I wanted to ask you a question. Did you even notice that you asked me to protect you?”

  “What?” I shook my head at her. “When?”

  “In Ecko’s warehouse. You didn’t ask Caitlin to protect you while you made your little torch. You asked me.”

  “No, you’ve got that twisted. I wanted Cait to protect Margaux, because I didn’t trust you to do it. I wasn’t worried about myself.”

  “But you did ask. And there you were, a perfect target. In all the confusion, I could have just stepped aside and let the dead men have you. Or killed you myself and blamed it on them.”

  “Your point being?”

  She reached over and took hold of my hand. Her skin was smooth as silk sheets and smelled like jasmine.

  “That I protected you. Just as you asked.”

  “So?” I said. “You could have made me ask you, right? Isn’t that your whole schtick? Playing with people’s heads?”

  She chuckled. “Except…I didn’t touch you in the warehouse. And no, not just heads. I also play with their bodies. Like Stanwyck’s. You know, he told me the most fascinating story about a theft gone wrong at Damien Ecko’s shop. I started following the evidence, and a very different picture of the last few days’ events has begun to emerge.”

  “Maybe he’s lying.”

  “No one lies in my chambers,” she said. “The truth comes out, one drop at a time, in the shape of blood and tears. Do you really think I took him because I wanted someone to play with? I have chattel for that. I wanted to question him personally, away from Royce.”

  “I thought you two were tight.”

  “We serve the same prince, but not all of our goals coincide,” she said. “And it pleases me to protect you still, so I’ll not be telling any of this to Prince Malphas’s hound. You’ll learn to trust me, in time. I’ll teach you.”

  “The only thing I want, right now, is to get on that plane and—what’s this?”

  She pressed an envelope into my hands. It was small, the size of a wedding invitation, pressed cream paper with a lipstick imprint on the back. Sealed with a kiss.

  “My present. See, I know you don’t believe Royce when he talks about Caitlin, and you haven’t learned to trust me yet, so consider this a bridge between us.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. My fingers traced the edge of the envelope. I didn’t open it.

  “Inside,” Nadine told me, “you’ll find the name and address of a very special person. Caitlin’s last lover, before she met you. Still alive, if…not doing very well, and more importantly, not connected to our court in any way whatsoever. You’ll be able to verify that for yourself. And he will verify the most important fact of all.”

  Nadine leaned close, her hand squeezing mine as she whispered in my ear.

  “Caitlin is using you. She will betray you. And she will most likely murder you. It’s only a matter of time.”

  Her lips brushed my cheek. My skin tingled. Electrified. Numb. Then she stood up and stretched, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand.

  “That’s all,” she said. “Have a safe flight, lover. And don’t worry about Stanwyck. With no tongue and no hands…who’s he going to tell?”

  I stared at that envelope for a long time. Barely hearing the flight announcements or noticing anyone around me. My whole world fit into a neat rectangle of cream-colored paper and the imprint of Nadine’s lipstick.

  It wasn’t an envelope. It was a hand grenade, primed and ready to explode, and she’d just tossed it into my lap. Should I throw it away? Open it and follow the breadcrumbs, knowing it could be another mind game? Tell Caitlin everything and show it to her to see how she’d react? Three options. Any or all of them could be a trap waiting to close over my head. I couldn’t outfox Nadine’s game, because I wasn’t sure what her game was.

  Tired, aching from my bruises, and watching the clock on the flight-departures board creep toward midnight, I knew I only had one option. The only choice that wouldn’t change everything. The only choice that would let me pretend none of this had ever happened.

  I didn’t open it.

  I didn’t throw it away either.

  It sat nestled in my hip pocket, a viper sleeping in the dark. It would keep. For now, it would keep.

  43.

  I slept on the plane, suffering through fitful dreams of storms and turbulence, crashing and burning. I woke up in Texas.

  I grabbed some breakfast at a cheap diner and loitered outside the FedEx for a few hours. My package eventually showed up, just in time for Cameron Drake’s limousine to meet me at the curb.

  “You have the object?” Ms. Fleiss asked through a rolled-down back window, her eyes shaded behind dark glasses.

  I tapped the poster tube. “I’ll deliver this in person, if you don’t mind. And collect my money.”

  The limo door clicked. She slid over on the backseat.

  They’d tightened up security since my last visit. More two-man patrols walked the grounds of Eastern Pines, rifles slung over their uniformed shoulders, and the limo had to wait at the outer gate while security guards checked the car’s underbelly with a mirror on a telescoping rod.

  “Expecting trouble?” I asked Fleiss.

  “Preparing for an arrival. We have a very special guest coming to visit.” She paused. “Not you.”

  “Right,” I said, drumming my fingers on the cardboard tube. “I’m just the errand boy.”

  Pachenko waited for us on the front steps of the plantation house, silent and surly. The building hadn’t lost any of its malevolent glow. If anything, it was worse than before—like some tumor in its bowels had swelled from neglect. Then again, I had my senses turned up to eleven, ears perked and watching for trouble.

  In my experience, the handoff was the most dangerous part of a deal. If your client decided to pay you in bullets instead of cash, this was where it would go down.

  Cameron Drake sat behind his desk, remote control in one hand and a half-drained bottle of Southern Comfort in the other, rocking back and forth in his tall-backed chair as he watched ESPN on all twelve television sets. Pachenko followed Fleiss and me inside, looming in the office doorway. I turned so I could keep all three of them in sight, but Cameron wasn’t the one I was worried about.

  I uncapped the poster tube and shook it out on his desk, foam peanuts spilling across the polished wood and onto the cash-green carpet. Then the dagger slid free, wrapped in a blanket of pale gauze.

  Cameron unwrapped the dagger and held it gingerly, like he was afraid it would bite him. “This is it,” he said, then looked at Fleiss. “Right?”

  She plucked the blade from his hand and studied it from end to end like an appraiser, though she still hadn’t taken off her dark glass
es.

  “Well done. Mr. Pachenko, please give Mr. Faust his reward.”

  Pachenko’s hand sat on his shoulder holster. Too close. I’d already moved up on Fleiss, making a backup plan in slow motion. One. Snatch the knife. Two. Stab Fleiss in the throat. Push her toward Pachenko. Three, roll over desk, grab Cameron, use him as a shield—

  Instead of a gun, he whipped out an envelope. A big glossy plastic mailer, half sealed. Rubber-banded stacks of bills peeked out at me through the flap.

  “Thirty thousand dollars,” Fleiss said. “As agreed.”

  “You can count it if you want,” Cameron said so quickly he stumbled over the words.

  I waved a hand, taking in the room.

  “That’s okay.” I finished sealing the envelope and tucked it under my arm. “You wouldn’t stiff me. I know where you live.”

  “I hope we didn’t put you to any trouble,” Fleiss said.

  “Nah. Walk in the park.”

  Cameron got up, wobbly-legged, and walked around the desk. He thrust out his hand.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said. His eyes said something different. They darted left and right like a crazed ferret, the alcohol not strong enough to quell his fear.

  When I shook his hand, I felt more than skin. A tiny square of folded paper rested in his palm. I snaked it into mine and pinned it with my thumb.

  “We’ll see that Mr. Faust gets home safely,” Fleiss told Cameron.

  I wasn’t out of the woods yet. Considering Cameron wasn’t the shot-caller around here—and didn’t know about the first time Fleiss and Pachenko nearly killed me as part of the “job interview”—the payoff could have been a charade to keep him happy. Lead me off the ranch, gun me down, and take the cash back? It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

  Still, once we were back in the limo, the way Fleiss was talking had me thinking I was almost free and clear.

  “We expect your continued discretion,” she said. “Frankly, we expect you to forget that you ever met Cameron Drake. Given his high profile, any public association with…if you’ll forgive me for saying so, common criminals would be ruinous for his reputation.”