Pay Dirt Read online

  I nodded, pulling a couple of things out of the stash one of the cultists had brought to me. The man had been unwilling to leave me with my coat, of course—these cultists had seen the kinds of things I had up my sleeve. But he’d let me take a few items out of the pockets before the coat was whisked away again. That included the torn pages from Habi’s journal and the two gold coins I’d been carrying around with me.

  As I set the coins on the desk, Stuckey went quiet. Something passed across his face—fear? Pain? I wasn’t sure. He extended his fingers, reaching for the coins, then paused and glanced at me.

  “May I?”

  I nodded. Stuckey picked up one coin in each hand, weighing them in his palms. He held them up to his face, squinting at them as if he needed reading glasses.

  “Habi’s,” he said holding one up, and then the other. “And Holden’s. Where did you find them?”

  “Habi dropped his. He came to see me. Wanted my help. He was running from something. And Holden, he…sent it to me.”

  Stuckey returned the coins to me, then shuffled back a few steps, putting the desk between him and shotgun lady. He gestured to something on the desk. “Let me show you something.”

  Frowning, I moved alongside him, glancing down at the papers he’d pointed to. But that wasn’t what he was showing me. With the desk to shield him from our guard, he slipped off his shoe and nudged it toward me. Gold glinted at me from inside. A third coin.

  I looked up and found him staring intently at me. He slipped his shoe back on and turned toward the papers he was pretending to show me.

  “What are they?” I asked in a low voice.

  “I wondered that for years. One was discovered before I was born, dug out of the earth when the mining companies were searching for new veins in the hills east of town. Another was found on the body of a homeless man who died a couple of decades ago, during one of the coldest winters on record. And the third spent many years in the private collection of one of our town’s more…long-lived residents. I finally managed to track the three of them down a few years ago. I…like to collect things.” His face darkened in grief. In his eyes I could almost see the reflection of the flames that’d consumed his museum. “I used to, at least.”

  My stomach knotted. It was my witch’s fire that had destroyed the museum—even if I hadn’t been the one to throw it. Truth be told, I’d burn down every goddamn museum in the world if it meant saving Early, but that didn’t spare me from the guilt.

  I ran my finger along the strange text embossed on Habi’s coin. “Someone I know translated this for me. It’s a charm. Magical.” I closed my eyes, recalling the hag’s words. “ ‘Monster of monsters, struck down by love, entombed in glass and sealed in blood. Long will he linger.’ ” As I opened my eyes, I began to hear another voice in my head: Lilian’s. I thought back to the tale she’d told me on the way to the museum. The tale of Morley the Profane, murdered by the denizens of Lost Falls.

  Monster of monsters. That had to be Morley. Struck down by love could be a reference to the way in which he was finally ambushed—his killers found Morley’s daughter and used her to get to him.

  If the charm referred to Morley’s death, it was almost certainly written after the fact, unless it was part of some seer’s prophecy. Could be the coins were some sort of participation trophy. Good work killing that witch-finder. Here’s a medal. That sort of thing. But the coins bore a charm, and that charm carried magic. Magic tied to Morley the Profane. Not much use for a medal. They were more like…

  “Keys,” I whispered. “They’re keys.”

  Stuckey nodded. “I was never sure. But I was starting to suspect it. Habi had a rubbing of a relief he found. He took it to Holden, and Holden brought it to me. There was some script. I couldn’t read it, but the alphabet looked similar to the symbols on the coins. So I dug them out of my archives. I thought the witch might be able to do something with them.”

  “Hang on.” I raised my burned hand. “Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me what you know. Tell me what happened.”

  Stuckey nodded, taking a moment to gather his thoughts. He glanced over at shotgun lady, but she didn’t seem to care what we talked about as long as we didn’t try anything funny. Stuckey kept his voice low anyway. “It started with Habi.” He faltered, licked his lips.

  “Habi found something, didn’t he?” I prompted. “In some old mine shaft. He was scavenging, and he found something.”

  Stuckey exhaled through pursed lips, then nodded again. “He was lost, I think. He’d gone too deep into one of the old networks. Got himself turned around. He was down there in the dark for more than a day. His flashlight and phone both ran out of batteries. He had to navigate with his zippo lighter.”

  Ghouls had pretty good night sight—not as good as a goblin’s, but better than a human’s. Still, in the pitch black of a mine network, Habi would’ve been blind without a light. For a guy as nervous as Habi, that must’ve been terrifying.

  “After God knows how many hours trying to find a way back to the surface, he came across a partially collapsed tunnel.” Stuckey gestured to the map on the wall. A collection of nodes had been circled in red ink. “I believe it was somewhere in this region of the network. He saw light coming from further up the tunnel. Thinking it was daylight, he wriggled through the rubble and made his way up the tunnel.”

  “But it wasn’t daylight,” I said.

  “No. It was a reflection. A mirror. It was catching the light of his zippo.”

  I frowned. “A mirror?”

  “That’s what he told us. It was set into the stone at the end of the tunnel. Round, he said it was, the size of a dinner plate. It was set into a door.”

  “The tomb.”

  He nodded. “Habi couldn’t find any way of opening the door. He said it was like it was carved from the earth itself. It didn’t have a handle. He wasn’t even entirely sure it was a door. Eventually he gave up and went back down the tunnel to try to find another way out. Which he did, after another few hours.”

  “He thought he’d found something important down there, though, didn’t he?” I said. “He started asking around.”

  “Yes. That was how he found Holden. Holden brought in his fiancée. And then he came to me.” Stuckey met my eyes. “You were friends with him, weren’t you? I remember your face.”

  I stroked my beard. “When I was all young and innocent?”

  “When you were a little shit, you mean,” he said, but there was humor in his voice.

  I rubbed the back of my neck, grinning sheepishly. “I was kind of hoping you’d forgotten that.”

  “I’ve had a hundred kids like you come through my museum. But I’m good with faces. Especially the faces of kids who are six and a half feet tall but still think no one’s noticed them swigging booze from a hip flask in the middle of a museum tour.” He paused. “Holden mentioned you as well.”

  “He did?”

  “He was thinking about bringing you on board. Thought you might be able to help with the magical protections on the tomb.”

  I frowned. “But I haven’t seen him in years. Not since before I became a cunning man.”

  “You’re not as anonymous as you once were,” he said. “People around town know your name now. They know what you did for the goblins.”

  “They don’t know as much as they think they do,” I muttered. “Why didn’t Holden make contact with me?”

  “I don’t know. I think he thought you wouldn’t be interested. He seemed to think you’d changed.”

  I didn’t know why, but that stung a little. Of course I’d changed. After my brother Teddy’s death, after the time I spent in the Mines hunting his killers… Who wouldn’t come out of all that a different person?

  I put the pain aside. I had more important things to worry about than whether I got invited to the super-secret treasure hunters’ club.

  “So what happened next?” I asked. “You got your little team together. Figured out what Habi had fo
und. You went through your cupboards and found these.” I tapped my finger against one of the gold coins. “And then…”

  Stuckey’s eyes flickered toward shotgun lady. “And then they happened. I was about to go meet up with the group so we could make our final preparations. Then they showed up. Forced their way in.” He sighed. “I haven’t seen the others since.”

  “They knew you were searching for the tomb?”

  He nodded slowly. “I think so. We weren’t as discreet as we should have been.” There was a moment’s pause, then he leaned in close, lowering his voice even further. “There’s something in the tomb they want. I don’t know what it is. But they’re not just treasure hunters. They’re after something specific.”

  “Yeah, I got that impression.”

  He hesitated, then looked up at me. “Did they…did they kill Habi?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. York says not.” I glanced toward the door. “I think I believe him.”

  “How did he die?”

  The image of Habi’s corpse flashed before my eyes. “Someone—something—cut off his head. Something unnatural. Magical, maybe.”

  Stuckey licked his lips. “The vengeance,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “The day after I was captured I heard York talking about ‘the vengeance.’ The way he said it, though, it was more like a title. Like…vengeance as a physical force. Vengeance as an independent power.”

  “Vengeance with a capital V,” I said.

  “Exactly. He came and he…he gave me this.” He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and pulled it to the side, exposing his left shoulder. There, like some gaudy piece of body jewelry, a hoop of silver the size of a key ring pierced his skin. The flesh was red and raw where the hoop passed through. Dangling from the hoop were three strings, each studded with what looked like small shards of broken glass.

  “Hell,” I muttered. I leaned in to examine it.

  Shotgun lady spoke for the first time since York had left. “I’d leave that alone if I were you.”

  I shot her a glare. “What the hell have you people done to him? That talisman—”

  “—is the only thing keeping him alive,” she said. “So he should leave it alone.”

  Stuckey quickly pulled his shirt back over the strange thing and buttoned himself back up. Shotgun lady didn’t say anything else, and I got the feeling she wouldn’t even if I pressed her. She wasn’t a talker like her boss.

  It didn’t matter. I’d had a good enough look at the talisman to make an educated guess as to its purpose. Circles were generally protective. The shards of glass made less sense to me, though it was already clear to me that York was capable of things I didn’t understand. But shotgun lady was right—that talisman was designed to shield Stuckey from something.

  Maybe the same something that had left Habi headless in an abandoned car on the edge of ghoul territory.

  I turned to Stuckey, keeping my voice quiet so shotgun lady wouldn’t overhear. “You know your group better than I do. When you didn’t show up for your meet, what do you think they would have done next?”

  He gave a small, sad smile. “I think they would’ve gone after the tomb on their own. And I think they would’ve done everything in their power to crack it open.”

  “That was what I was afraid of.” I shook my head. “Holden never did have any goddamn impulse control.”

  And now, if my guess was right, something was after him. Something they’d unleashed with their carelessness. This “Vengeance.”

  Bunch of fucking idiots. If Holden had just come and talked to me, if he’d gotten me involved, I could’ve headed this whole thing off before it started. Habi would still be alive. Holden wouldn’t be running for his life. Why the hell hadn’t he just talked to me?

  I realized I was grinding my teeth loud enough that Stuckey could hear. I took a deep breath in through my nose, unclenching my jaw. I turned away from both Stuckey and shotgun lady so they wouldn’t see my face, and instead busied myself with the potion I was brewing. It had simmered down to a brown-black paste about the consistency of cream cheese. I took it off the flame and let it cool for a second before I started adding some of the more heat-sensitive ingredients.

  But I couldn’t smother my frustration entirely. My only hope now was that Isidora could figure out how to find Holden and her sister before they were discovered by whatever was hunting them. Maybe Early could offer some insight that would help her. He’d spent time with these assholes, after all. Maybe he’d overheard something useful.

  I didn’t hold out much hope, though. Isidora had been wounded in the escape, and Early wasn’t in great condition either. They were operating on limited information. And time was running out.

  I could hear Stuckey shuffling through papers behind me. I took a few deep breaths, calmed myself down. I would find Holden. Somehow, I’d find him. This wasn’t over yet.

  I turned back and rifled through the stuff I’d had York bring me until I found the water-damaged scraps of Habi’s journal. I handed them to Stuckey.

  “Maybe Habi already showed you these,” I said. “But I thought they might be useful. There’s something here that looks kind of like a map. I haven’t got the whole thing. There was a fight, and it got torn…anyway, long story. What do you think? Any help?”

  “Hmm.” He peered down at the papers, then turned back to the desk to compare it to something. “Perhaps. Let me see.”

  He started muttering to himself as he began to sort through papers once again. I left him to it. I had another task to attend to.

  The man Early had cursed lay flat on his back in the middle of the floor, sweat shining on his bare chest. He’d been quieter ever since I placed those charms against his skin, but the curse was still ravaging his body. Even now he seemed to be going an unnatural shade of yellow, like his liver was giving out.

  I went through the bottles and jars York had brought me. After a few seconds I found what I was looking for. I popped open the vial of powdered silver and started to pour it out in a rough circle around the cursed man. There wasn’t an awful lot of it. Only just enough to surround him with a thin line of silver. Hopefully it would be enough.

  With luck, the silver would act as a kind of Faraday cage, temporarily blocking the link between Early and Jameson. In theory, that would protect Early against the worst of the backlash he’d suffer when I started breaking the curse.

  If it didn’t, I was going to have some serious explaining to do when I got home.

  I turned to shotgun lady. She’d been watching me work with an impassive expression. Her lip curled with distaste as her eyes met mine.

  “I need a knife,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I need to cut his skin.”

  She scowled. “You really think I’m foolish enough to give you a weapon?”

  “The hell am I gonna do? Cut his throat? That’d be a mercy.” I held out a hand. “Come on. We’re wasting time.”

  She continued to glare at me for a few seconds more. Then, still scowling, she pushed back her jacket and reached behind her back. She drew out her knife. It was only slightly smaller than a machete. She reversed it and slapped the handle into my hand, then she tapped me on the forearm with her short-barreled shotgun.

  “Don’t make me jumpy,” she said.

  She let go of the knife. I gave her a tight smile and backed off before she could decide she was feeling threatened.

  I ran the knife a couple of times through the flame I’d used to brew the potion. After giving it a few seconds to cool, I splashed some alcohol on my hands, grabbed the potion, and knelt down at the cursed man’s side. I glanced up at Stuckey. He was watching me and looking a little pale.

  “It’s not going to be pretty,” I told him.

  He swallowed and returned his attention to the map on the wall behind him.

  Licking my lips, I touched the blade to the right side of Jameson’s abdomen, just below the ribs. I could fee
l beads of sweat prickling at my forehead. I’d been involved in some high pressure curse-breaking before, but whenever it got real tricky I usually had Early by my side. Now, instead, I was testing myself against the old man’s work. And if I screwed up, it might hurt not just Jameson, but Early as well.

  Not to mention what York would do to me if Jameson died under my care.

  I exhaled, clearing my mind. Then I swiped the blade across the man’s skin.

  It was a good knife. I barely felt any resistance. The skin parted, and blood and darkness began to pool and spill from the wound. I turned the blade perpendicular to the first cut and sliced again, forming a cross over his liver.

  Groaning, Jameson started to curl up. I leaned against him to keep him in place. As fast as I could, I stuck my fingers into the thickened potion I’d brewed and smeared the brown paste into the wound.

  Jameson let out an unholy scream. As soon as the paste touched the wound, it began to smoke and bubble. There was a stench in the air like rotten eggs.

  “Shit,” I muttered. The curse had progressed farther than I thought. As Jameson’s screams filled the room, I slashed open another cut in his skin a few inches further down and slathered on another handful of paste. That too began to boil and bubble.

  Shotgun lady stomped over, raising her gun. “What are you doing to him?” she roared over Jameson’s screams.

  Ignoring her, I repeated the cut and potion technique just above the man’s belly button. No good. The curse was fighting back. I should’ve known Early would’ve built in countermeasures against the methods we’d used to break the curse in the past.

  The wily old bastard was going to get us all killed.

  I felt the twin barrels of a shotgun press against the back of my skull. “Whatever you’re doing,” shotgun lady said, “stop it right now.”

  “If I stop, he dies!” I snapped back.

  I pressed my hand to my forehead, covering my eyes and trying to block out the screams. I had to think like Early. He wasn’t needlessly cruel. The curse would fight off attempts to break it, but it would do its best to keep the man alive for as long as possible. What else? Early was careful, particular. He would try to cover up the deficiencies in the curse, shore up its weaknesses.