Pay Dirt Read online

  Stuckey’s eyes widened as he stared at the blade. My tongue seemed stuck to the roof of my mouth.

  “You have associated with heathens,” York said. “You have furthered their goals. And worse yet, you have been unable to right the wrongs you have committed. So you will die a heathen’s death.” He moved to the side of Stuckey, lowering the blade until it hovered an inch from the back of Stuckey’s neck. “Look to the ground.”

  Stuckey swallowed. Sweat dripped from his pale face. He seemed unable to speak. Unable to move.

  I could feel some of the cultists eying me, their hands on their weapons, waiting to see if I’d try something stupid. But I was just as frozen as Stuckey.

  Slowly, Stuckey took a long, shaking breath. He looked at me for a moment, but his eyes were distant and unfocused. Then, with a little nod, he looked down at the floor.

  Some of the cultists turned slightly away, as if they didn’t really want to watch what was about to happen. Others leaned forward eagerly.

  York raised the sword above his head.

  “All right,” I rasped, finally finding my voice. “Stop. What do you want?”

  York paused, the sword still held high. He glanced at me. “This has nothing to do with you, Ozzy.”

  “Bullshit. A few hours ago you were more than happy to blow his head off in a back room. You didn’t need these theatrics then. They’re for my benefit. Aren’t they?”

  An amused smile played at the corner of his lips. “Isn’t it a little narcissistic to make another man’s death all about you?”

  I just glared at him. With a small chuckle, he lowered the sword to his side.

  “Very well,” he said. “I knew you were sharp. You would like me to spare Stuckey?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Then I have a proposition for you.” He held out a hand to one of the cultists and gestured. The cultist reached into his pocket and handed something to York. Magpie feathers dangled from twine. My breath caught as I saw what it was.

  “You were carrying this when we captured you,” York said. “What is it?”

  I licked my lips, preparing a lie. But I looked into York’s eyes and saw that he already knew the answer.

  I glanced down at Stuckey, then back at York. “It’s a fetish,” I said quietly.

  “And what does it do?”

  “It…it’s connected to one of Stuckey’s friends. I was trying to get a bead on him. But I couldn’t.” I forced myself to meet York’s eyes. “That’s the truth.”

  “And this friend, he knows the location of the tomb?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” I shrugged. “It’s moot, anyway. I don’t know where he is and I don’t know how to contact him. I don’t even know if he’s still alive.”

  York smiled and leaned toward me. He held up the fetish. “How about we find out?”

  “I already told you, I couldn’t get a bead on him. The connection’s too weak.”

  “Then let us strengthen it.”

  He handed the sword back to shotgun lady but left it unsheathed. At a gesture from York, another of the cultists stepped out of the crowd. He was holding what looked like a solid iron brazier.

  The thing had seen a lot of use. It was beat all to hell, and even from several feet away I could smell a thick, cloying scent, like incense and ash. It was only as the cultist brought it closer that I noticed some sort of script etched into the brazier’s bowl beneath the layers of soot. It looked like old witch’s symbols.

  The man put it down on an old table and stepped back.

  “Can you read it?” York asked.

  Swallowing, I stepped forward and wiped my hand across the soot-stained iron. Black ash caught in my fingertips. The thing gave off no heat, nothing to indicate that it was anything other than what it seemed. Nothing but a slight prickling at the back of my neck. I studied the symbols, recalling old tomes I’d read under Early’s tutelage. I couldn’t translate all of the symbols. But I got the gist of it.

  I swallowed. “It wants…an ear. And a tongue.”

  “Human?”

  I traced my finger across the symbols, my throat tightening. I nodded. “Where the hell did you find this thing?”

  He ignored the question and turned to the Viking. Placing a hand on the tall man’s shoulder, York muttered something in his ear. A flicker of disgust passed across the Viking’s face, then he set his jaw and nodded. He pulled a switchblade from his pocket and flicked it open.

  My guts twisted. “Wait, you’re not seriously going to…”

  The Viking aimed a glare in my direction. Then he turned and headed to the back of the factory. To the office where Stuckey and I had been kept. Where Jameson still lay, unconscious.

  The Viking left the door open. From where I was standing, I couldn’t see what he was doing. But I could hear it. Jameson didn’t do more than groan. But I swear I could hear it—that sawing, squelching noise that even now I can’t forget. Then the coughing and spluttering, like a man choking on his own blood.

  Still kneeling on the ground, Stuckey shivered and flinched. I wanted to join him on the floor. It looked nice and cool down there.

  A couple of minutes later, the Viking reemerged. His shirt and jeans were splattered with red. In each of his hands he held a bloody piece of meat.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you people?” I breathed.

  “Jameson was careless,” York said matter-of-factly. “He’s lucky to be alive.”

  “Why make me break the curse if you’re going to let him drown in his own blood?”

  The Viking looked at me as he approached. “I put him in the recovery position. He’ll be fine.”

  I pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes, trying to push back against the throbbing pain in my skull. “Great. Just great.”

  I heard a wet slopping sound and opened my eyes to see that the Viking had thrown his bloody gifts into the brazier. The tongue I didn’t mind so much—it just looked like a piece of meat. He’d used a hot knife to make the cut, which made it look even more like a bad piece of barbecue. But the ear…that was unmistakable. I could even see a scar where the man had once worn an earring.

  “So,” York said, “my proposition. I will spare Stuckey. I’ll spare both of you. You will both be free to leave come the dawn.”

  Tearing my eyes from the contents of the brazier, I said, “And in exchange?”

  “You know the answer to that. I want the location of the tomb.”

  I glanced down at Stuckey. He was no longer staring at the floor. His eyes were on me. He gave a tiny shake of his head.

  But what the hell was I supposed to do? Watch them cut his head off? I just couldn’t do that. I’d seen enough decapitated corpses for one week.

  Somehow, Stuckey seemed to read my thoughts. He shook his head again, more forcefully this time. I turned away from him.

  “I need more,” I said to York. “I want a promise that once we walk out of here, that’s the end of it. You won’t come after us. Or my friends. Or any of Stuckey’s teammates. You get what you want from the tomb, and then you get the hell out of my town. That’s the deal.”

  York regarded me closely. “Very well. It was not our intention to stay here in any case. We have more important things to worry about than petty vengeance. It is agreed, then. As long as we are not forced to act in self-defense, you may consider your friends safe.” He paused. “I hope, though, that you consider the offer I made before. It is not too late, Ozzy. You can come back to the light.”

  I nodded at the body parts inside the brazier. “If that’s your idea of light, I think it’s too bright for me.”

  “We must all make sacrifices.” He held out the magpie-feather fetish. “Shall we begin?”

  I took a deep breath. “Yeah. Let’s get this over with.”

  I grabbed the fetish, held it over the brazier. I wasn’t sure exactly how this was going to work. I could only infer from the symbols on the brazier. For a moment, I held the fetish against my palm, try
ing to clear my mind of my pains and fears. I focused on the wax ball suspended in the center of the fetish, stared at it until I could almost see it vibrating in place.

  And then I dropped the fetish into the brazier.

  Nothing. Not for a few seconds. And then a hissing, a sizzling. Steam began to curl from the corners of the ear and tongue. The smell was disturbingly pleasant. Like a steak cooking in a hot pan.

  Fire erupted inside the brazier, instantly engulfing both the fetish and Jameson’s severed body parts. Heat washed over me, so intense I instinctively took a step back. A murmur went through the watching cultists. Several looked away, like the flames were something horrible to behold.

  The fluorescent lights overhead flickered once and went dark. The flames lit the gathered cultists in hellish orange, casting long shadows behind them.

  Only York seemed unbothered by the whole thing. He looked at me and gestured for me to continue.

  Something popped within the flames. It crackled and danced like an ordinary fire. But there was another sound as well, a rising and falling. Like…breathing.

  Licking my lips, I stepped forward, getting as close as I could bear to the fire. For a moment, I thought I saw strange shapes flickering within the brazier. But then I blinked, and they were gone. As I stared into the flames, I became unable to see the cultists around me. The fire was all.

  I leaned in and spoke, my voice barely a whisper.

  “Holden?”

  The fire crackled and hissed. Seconds passed.

  And then, through the flames, a voice.

  “Hello?”

  22

  I stared into the flames, half wondering if I’d hallucinated the voice. It had been distorted, crackling like a bad phone line.

  “Hello?” the voice said again, and as he spoke the flames danced as if in response. “Who’s there?”

  I dragged my hand along my beard. “It…it’s me, Holden. It’s Ozzy.”

  “Ozzy? Christ, am I glad to hear your voice. You got my message? Where are you? I can’t see you.”

  I was struggling to find my voice. After all this time, I was talking to Holden. Not the way I’d pictured our reunion, I’ll admit. But that didn’t matter. Only one thing mattered.

  He was alive.

  “Ozzy?”

  “Yeah, I’m still here,” I said. “Well, not here. I’m somewhere else. I got your message. I’ve been trying to find you. Listen, I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to talk like this. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine, big guy. We’re both fine. For the moment at least.”

  “You’re with Ursula?”

  “Yeah. You heard, huh?” He chuckled. “You ever picture me getting engaged?”

  He doesn’t know about Habi, I realized, listening to his easy tone. I hesitated for a moment, considering whether or not I should tell him. I decided not to. Not yet. Habi was dead, but Holden was alive. I needed to make sure he stayed that way. We couldn’t waste any more time.

  “Holden,” I said. “Where are you? Are you somewhere safe?”

  “Well, I guess that depends on your definition of safe. I don’t think anyone’s getting in here. Trouble is I don’t think we can get out, either.”

  I leaned in closer to the fire. It was only then that I noticed it was getting a little cooler. The flames still burned, but they were beginning to diminish. In another couple of minutes they’d have burned down to nothing. And when that happened…

  “Just tell me where the hell you are,” I said. “I’ll come find you as soon as I can.”

  “Appreciate it.” He didn’t seem to hear the desperation in my voice. “You see, the thing is, it’s sort of hard to describe. We’re kind of…underground.”

  I paused for a second as the implication of his words hit me. “You’re still inside the tomb?”

  There was movement beside me. York. He made no sound, but I could almost feel the excitement radiating off him.

  I knew what I had to ask next. York was waiting for it. If I didn’t speak the words he wanted me to speak, Stuckey and I were both dead. Maybe Early and Lilian and Isidora too, if he decided vengeance was important to him after all.

  Still, I hesitated. I didn’t know what these guys wanted from the tomb, but it couldn’t be good. Their motives went beyond simple greed.

  Shotgun lady shifted beside me, and I felt the sword blade touch the back of my neck. I shivered.

  I tried to speak, but my throat was so dry I couldn’t get the words out. I swallowed and tried again.

  “The tomb,” I said to Holden. “Tell me how to find it.”

  Something crackled in the flames, spitting sparks. The fire was growing dimmer by the second. We didn’t have much longer.

  “All right,” Holden said after a couple of seconds. “I guess keeping my secrets now is a bit pointless. You got a pen? About five miles outside town, just past the Prince’s Creek bridge, there’s a—”

  I didn’t see him moving. No one did. Not until it was too late.

  While the cultists and I stared into the fire, our night-sight destroyed by the flickering orange light, Stuckey surged to his feet. He grabbed the table that the brazier was sitting on. And with a surprising amount of strength, he flipped the table.

  The brazier went spinning through the air. York let loose a bellowing roar, his arms outstretched hopelessly toward the falling brazier. In the dim light, I saw real emotion in his face for the first time.

  The other cultists, caught by surprise, instinctively staggered back from the tumbling fire. It spun once, twice more. Holden’s voice continued to stutter from the flames.

  “…down the…look for…”

  Then the brazier crashed into the ground, rolling along its edge. Fiery embers spilled onto the bare floor, each one dancing in time with its brothers and sisters. Holden’s voice became a whisper of static.

  Until, one by one, the embers dimmed and died, leaving us all in darkness.

  There was a moment’s silence. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered back to life. Stuckey stood beside the overturned table, panting.

  York looked like someone had just shot his dog. He stared at the burnt-out contents of the brazier, slack-jawed. There was nothing recognizable in the charred remains—they looked like little puddles of black tar.

  With agonizing slowness, York straightened. His mouth closed. Rage bubbled across his features, barely disguised.

  “Set it up again,” he said to one of the cultists. His voice was like ice. As the cultist hurried to pick up the brazier, York turned to me. “You will create another focus.”

  I blinked. “With what? That fetish was all I—”

  “Find something else!” York roared. I felt speckles of saliva hit my face. His blank eyes were open wide. The eyes of a madman. The factory seemed to groan in response to his rage.

  He spun toward Stuckey. For a few seconds he just opened and closed his mouth, like he was too angry to even speak. Then he looked at the Viking.

  “Stuckey will provide the necessary sacrifices for our second attempt. He needn’t survive the process, but make sure he does not die too quickly.”

  The Viking nodded. He grabbed Stuckey roughly by the back of his collar.

  “That was a foolish gesture,” York said to Stuckey. “You have altered nothing. You have only sealed your own fate. You could have walked out of here alive.”

  Stuckey shook his head as the Viking started to haul him toward the office. “No, I couldn’t have.”

  “I am not treacherous like you and the rest of this town,” York said. “I am a man of my word.”

  Planting his feet, Stuckey looked back at York and shook his head. “I don’t doubt you. I just don’t fear you. Not anymore.”

  As Stuckey spoke, the factory gave another groan. I’d heard the old building making strange sounds in the time I’d been here, when the wind blew or cultists opened doors on unoiled hinges. This sound, though, was something else. It was a low, cree
ping sound, and it seemed to be coming from overhead.

  I wasn’t the only one who noticed it. York was preoccupied, but I saw a few of the cultists shifting their attention upwards to the rafters and the peaked metal roof.

  The Viking started to pull Stuckey away again, but York put up a hand to forestall him. He leaned in close to Stuckey. “You don’t fear me? I have been called to bathe this place in cleansing light. I am chosen. I am blessed. And you? What are you? Nothing but a fat old man whose only use is fuel for an infernal artifact.”

  The groan came again. Louder this time. More of the cultists heard it. Shotgun lady frowned up at one corner of the roof.

  I followed her gaze. At first I couldn’t see what she was looking at. Then I noticed something. A cold blue sheen spreading in a small patch on the steel roof. There was another groan, and I saw another blue patch appearing a few feet further along.

  Dread gripped my heart. This wasn’t supposed to be happening. York was supposed to have taken precautions. He’d given Stuckey…

  My eyes darted to Stuckey. He wasn’t looking at the ceiling. Or at York. He was looking at me. There were streaks of red on his shirt where he’d wiped his hands after helping me dig the sliver of tooth out of Jameson’s palm. But a little higher than that, on his left shoulder, was another small patch of blood.

  My hand went to my pocket. No one was paying me much attention anymore. So no one but Stuckey saw when I pulled out the items he’d slipped to me. A sheet of paper folded several times. The third gold coin that Stuckey had been hoarding. And a small ring of silver, with twine and glass dangling from it. Dried blood still stained the top of the hoop from where he’d ripped it out.

  “Don’t let them find the tomb,” Stuckey said. “No matter what happens.”

  “Stuckey—” I began.

  And then everything went to hell.

  It started with the windows. With a deafening smash, every single window that ringed the top of the walls exploded at once. Shards of glass rained down through the room. The lights flickered and went out once again. Darkness swallowed the factory.

  “Flashlights!” York shouted. “Quickly!”