Pay Dirt Read online

  I pulled away from Holden and started to make my way toward the door. Holden grabbed my arm and didn’t move.

  “Whoa, whoa, what’s the hurry?”

  “I’ll explain on the way,” I said. “We don’t have time now. If we get back to my place I can help hide you from the thing that’s hunting you.”

  I started for the door again, Lilian following. I glanced back. Neither Holden nor Ursula had moved. They exchanged a glance.

  “Ozzy, we’re not…we’re not finished here yet.” As Holden spoke, he gestured with his eyes toward the pick-axe and the big stone slab.

  “Yes,” I said forcefully. “You are.”

  When he didn’t move, I started to stride back toward him. I was going to carry his skinny ass out of here if I had to.

  My intentions must’ve shown on my face. He darted back, putting a couple of the stone cubes between me and him.

  “Ozzy, wait,” he said. “Do you have any idea what this place means for us? For all of us. I’ll cut you in. It’s the least I can do. But we can’t leave now. Not when we’re so close.”

  Maybe it was the pain from my injuries, or the sleep deprivation, or all the horrible sights I’d had to witness in the last few days. But something inside me began to boil.

  “Cut me in?” I said quietly. “Don’t you have to talk to your partners before you make a promise like that?”

  I felt Lilian’s hand on my arm. “Ozzy,” she whispered. “Not now.”

  She was right, of course. But I couldn’t stop myself. I pushed her hand away and continued to close on Holden.

  “You haven’t even asked me about them,” I said. “Stuckey. Habi. You haven’t even asked me if they’re okay.”

  Holden licked his lips and held up his hands. He gave me an apologetic smile. “You’re right. Not very considerate of me, huh? How are—”

  “They’re dead, Holden. Dead, you understand? Habi came to me. Running. Scared out of his fucking mind. And I screwed up, and now he’s dead. Stuckey too. I was there when he died. I watched as his head was cut from his shoulders by the wraith your darling fiancé unleashed when you idiots decided to crack open this tomb!”

  Holden’s eyes went wide. He shook his head slowly. “Oh. Oh Christ, Ozzy. I didn’t…I didn’t know.” He looked at Ursula, then at the floor.

  I took a step closer. Then stopped. A horrible, twisting doubt gnawed at my gut. I had to lean against one of the stone cubes to keep myself upright. Hell, I was tired.

  “You’re lying,” I whispered. “Aren’t you?”

  “Ozzy, it sounds like you’ve been through hell.” Holden edged closer to me, like a zoo keeper approaching an injured tiger. “If I’d known that when I sent you that message…”

  “There were marks,” I said, turning toward the door to the tomb. “Out there. Like someone was pawing at the door. Trying to get in.”

  “Ozzy—”

  I frowned, shook my head, trying to make it all fit together. I could see the solution, clear as day. I just didn’t want to believe it.

  “When you sealed yourself in the tomb,” I said, “Habi was still here, wasn’t he? You shut the door in his face. Left him out there with the wraith.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “It wasn’t like that. I thought he was ahead of us. We started to hear whispers. These horrible, moaning whispers. Something started to form. I’ve never been more scared in my life. We ran in here. I thought Habi was with us. It wasn’t until we closed the door that I realized he wasn’t. We tried to open the door, tried to let him in, but the wards were stronger on this side. We couldn’t crack it. There was nothing we could do.”

  I wanted to believe him. I wanted it so badly. But I knew Holden. Even after all this time, I knew his tells. The way he tapped his thumb and forefinger together. The way his nostrils flared.

  “You’re still lying,” I said. “You had time before you sealed yourself in here. Time enough to write me a message and send me the key to this place.”

  “Ozzy,” Lilian interrupted me. “You know we don’t have time for this. York’s people could be here any minute.”

  I growled, curled my hands into fists. But she was right. Of course she was right. All of this could wait until we were somewhere safe.

  “Fine.” I jabbed a finger toward Holden and then Ursula. “We’re leaving. Now. You can either follow us, or we’ll carry you.” I jerked my head toward Lilian. “She’s stronger than she looks.”

  Holden’s puppy dog eyes narrowed, his innocent expression fading to a look of annoyance. “Christ, big guy, sometimes you’re just so…” He grunted in exasperation and held up his hands like he wanted to throttle me. “You’re a goddamn wizard now, but you still don’t have any ambition, do you? Don’t you understand what we’ve found here?”

  “Habi found it,” I said. “Not you.”

  He ignored that. Turning, he held out his hands, gesturing to the stone cubes all around him. “You know what these are? They’re the answer to all our problems. Each one of them holds a lost artifact, some forgotten treasure. Tell me you can’t feel the power here.”

  “I know what’s here, Holden.” I pointed at the large stone slab suspended in the center of the room. “And I know what’s inside that. That’s a sarcophagus. And the man that’s inside was sealed there for a reason.”

  Holden threw up his hands in frustration, then sighed and collected himself. He approached me, his voice softer now.

  “Do you know what I am, Ozzy?”

  I hesitated, then shook my head. “No.”

  “Neither do I. I’m not human. You know how I know that? Because I remember being born. I remember using my teeth to bite my way out of an egg. An egg, Ozzy.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I was starting to wonder if he’d gone a little nuts trapped down here in the dark.

  He fixed me with his eyes. “I remember fighting my way out of that tiny prison and falling to the dirt, still covered in slime and yolk. I remember the damp, dirty hole in the ground I found myself in, beneath the roots of an old cedar tree. I couldn’t have been more than eight inches long. Too weak to stand, so I crawled. Crawled for hours, just a mewling little baby, just a…just a…fuck, I don’t even know. I was all alone. I crawled and crawled. I didn’t know where I was going. It was instinctual. And then I broke through the layer of leaves that covered the hole I’d been laid in and I set my eyes on the stars for the first time.”

  He looked up at the ceiling of the tomb. But I could tell he was seeing something else entirely. His shoulders slumped and he returned his eyes to me.

  “There was a baby bird. It had fallen out of its nest, landed not far from my hole. I heard it squawking for help. I crawled over to it. It was injured. Scared. I broke its neck and ate it. I felt stronger after that.

  “I grew fast. Ate what I could find. It turned out I was in a park. You know that park over on Belladonna Street?”

  I nodded, unspeaking.

  “For the first couple of weeks that was my home. I found I could…do things. I could look into a bird’s eyes and hold it still while I walked up to it and caught it. I knew what parts of the bird would help me grow stronger, and which parts to discard. Like a baby learning to walk, right? The instincts were so powerful. But I knew I couldn’t survive like that forever. That wasn’t what I was designed for.

  “There was a couple that used to come to the park some evenings. Young, maybe twenty-five. They’d get drunk, high, then they’d fuck up against a tree or in the bushes. I watched them. Started to work on them. I didn’t know what I was doing. But the instincts did. I…changed myself. Changed them. I made them believe things that weren’t true.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I. But when it was done, they took me home with them. They thought…they thought I was their baby. Somehow I made them believe that. Like a cuckoo bird or something. A fucking brain parasite. I’ve always been able to make people believe things. You
know that.”

  I just stared at him. I couldn’t get my head around any of this. The things he was saying…they were insane. I tried to picture him as some little…thing…scuttling around the Belladonna Street Park, using mind control to hunt animals. It was insane. Even by the standards of Lost Falls.

  I looked at Lilian, trying to see if this made any more sense to her. She worked with Alcaraz, after all, and Alcaraz was Lost Falls’ resident expert on Strangers. But Lilian looked as confused as me.

  “I’ve met your parents,” I said to Holden. “You look like them.”

  “I made myself look like them. As I got older, bigger, I needed more power to keep up the illusions. To keep them believing.”

  I remembered what Alice had told me. “The missing pets. The spaniel with its liver cut out.”

  Holden swallowed, nodded. “I’m not proud of it, Ozzy. It’s just…what I had to do. Like a lion eating a gazelle.”

  “Don’t,” I said, raising a finger toward him. “You’re not an animal.”

  He stepped closer to me, hands raised in pleading. “Ursula did a reading for me. She has the Sight, a little. There’s something here that can help me understand who I am. Where I came from. Please, Ozzy. I need to find it. I need you to help me. One more time.”

  He stared into my eyes. Pleading with me. All the bravado and humor stripped away. I felt my resolve weakening. Maybe we could seal the tomb again and stick around until we got what Holden needed. As long as we ensured we had a way of getting out again, we wouldn’t necessarily be trapped. That still left the problem of York’s cultists—not to mention the wraith—but if they hadn’t arrived yet, then maybe they couldn’t find the place. Maybe…

  I became aware of a warm sensation over my heart. One of the charms stitched into the lining of my coat was vibrating softly. I looked into Holden’s eyes and saw something flash behind his pupils.

  With the realization came a change inside me, like a switch had been flipped. White hot anger seared through me.

  My fist cracked against Holden’s cheek. He didn’t see it coming. Neither did I, really. Pain arced through the bones in my hand as Holden toppled backward, grabbing for the nearest stone cube to arrest his fall. He slid the rest of the way to the ground.

  “You son of a bitch,” I loomed over him. “You absolute fucking asshole. Did you really think that would work? You think you’re the first Stranger to try to worm its way into my mind?”

  “Ozzy,” he groaned.

  “I’m not the same dumb kid you used to know. I had to grow up. But you didn’t, did you? You’re just the same as you always were. Always trying to get ahead by any means necessary.”

  He seemed to be having trouble focusing on me. He rubbed his jaw and tried to sit up. “Ozzy, I’m sorry.”

  “Save it. We’re out of here.” I reached down to grab him. I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d carry him out of here. “Lilian, get the witch.”

  But as I said that, I realized Ursula wasn’t where I thought she was. I looked around and saw a black shape moving near the opening leading off the main hall.

  Something arced through the air. In the dim light I only caught a glimpse of the glass vial that Ursula had tossed toward us. Then it crashed against the suspended sarcophagus and shattered in a tinkling of broken glass.

  Darkness swallowed everything. For a moment I thought I’d gone blind. But this was something different. A thick, inky blackness that filled the room. I could just make out the glow of one of the nearest spectral candles struggling to fight against the darkness. It was futile.

  Lilian shouted out. The sound was muffled, like it was coming to me through a solid wall. There was a click, and I saw the anemic beam of her flashlight darting about through the black.

  Something wrapped itself around my ankles. I managed to cry out before it jerked tight and pulled, throwing me off balance. I fell and hit the ground chest-first, pain radiating through my bruised ribs.

  The thing released my ankles, but it didn’t stop there. It slithered across me like a snake, moving with unnatural speed. I tried to grab it, but I couldn’t see it, couldn’t get a hold of it.

  It tugged hard on the tail of my coat, pulling it up over my head. I realized with sudden horror what it was trying to do. I made another grab for it, but it was on my back, ripping the coat off me. I felt seams tearing.

  And then the coat was ripped off my shoulders. I rolled over, trying to get to my feet. Trying to do anything at all in the thick darkness.

  Something tightened around my throat. I became aware of panting breath against my face. A pair of inhuman eyes shone yellow in the darkness a few inches from my face.

  “We’re friends, Ozzy,” Holden said. “We’ve always been friends. Help me out one last time. Matchstick, right? You remember. Matchstick.” His eyes flashed. I saw something dangling down in front of me: a wooden talisman carved into the shape of a grotesque homunculus.

  “Matchstick,” I muttered. Of course. How could I have forgotten? Holden always had my back. I was suddenly filled with shame. I wanted to cry. “Holden, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, big guy. It’s okay. I need you to do something for me, okay?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded quickly. I had to make it up to him. “Yeah, of course.”

  “You said there was something coming, right? Something coming to hurt us.”

  “Cultists,” I said. “People who want what’s in this tomb. And the wraith. It wants to kill you for breaking in here.”

  “I can’t leave yet, Ozzy. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “I need you to lead them all away from here. Buy me some time. Can you do that?”

  I thought about it. It wouldn’t be easy. But Holden needed this. I had to try.

  I opened my mouth to speak. I was interrupted by a gunshot.

  The flash and the sound were swallowed up almost instantly by the darkness, though I could tell it had gone off right next to me. As the boom swiftly faded, a scream of pain replaced it.

  I felt something wet trickling down the side of my face as Holden uncoiled himself from around my neck. Something flopped onto the ground beside me and started to wriggle away.

  “Holden!” I yelled. “No!”

  I saw another shape through the blackness. It stood over us, arm outstretched. I didn’t hesitate. I had to protect Holden. I scrambled to my feet and threw myself at the figure.

  A woman grunted as we hit the ground together. She tried to roll away, but I held tight.

  “Let go of me, you idiot!” Lilian’s voice. Behind me I could hear Holden crying with pain.

  “You shot him!” I roared in Lilian’s face. “You shot my friend.”

  “He’s not your friend,” she said. “I am.”

  She grabbed the back of my neck and pressed her lips against mine.

  32

  We’d kissed before, kind of. Little pecks, kisses on the cheek, that kind of thing. Not like this. It only lasted a couple of seconds. And I guess it wasn’t the most romantic setting, what with the musty tomb and the guy screaming from a gunshot wound and all.

  But it was real. And it was enough to knock me out of whatever spell Holden had laid on me.

  Lilian broke the kiss. I’ll admit, she left me gasping a little. I couldn’t see her eyes in the darkness, but I could feel her beneath me, I could see her silhouette against the dark stone ground.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Much.”

  I lingered a couple of seconds longer. If we’d been somewhere else, some other time…

  With a sigh, I rolled off her and we both clambered to our feet. I heard her move a few steps away, then there was a shout of surprise from Holden.

  “All right, witch,” Lilian called. “Next one goes through his head. Bring back the lights.”

  There was a moment of thick silence. I took the opportunity to find my coat and pull it back on. A few seconds later, a distant muttering began to penetrate
the blackness. Slowly, the darkness faded.

  I spotted Ursula in the opening to the corridor, her hand clutching something inside her pocket as she chanted an incantation. Her face looked pinched, tired.

  Holden looked worse. He was pale and sweating so badly he was leaving a puddle on the floor around him. He moaned and sniveled on his knees next to Lilian, the barrel of her gun pressed to his skull.

  It wasn’t even a bad wound. Lilian’s first shot had only grazed his shoulder. I assumed that was by design, and not just good luck. It had been awfully dark. A patch of red coated his torn shirt sleeve.

  Even now, I wanted to call Lilian off. He just looked so pathetic. A memory flashed through my head. One of the few times Holden had been caught during the antics of our youth. He’d tried selling tickets for a nonexistent tour of the town to an unsuspecting young tourist, only to be made by her two six-foot-six musclebound traveling companions. He’d been turned into a smear on the sidewalk by the time I came running to his aid. Christ, how he’d cried as I iced his bruises that night.

  I looked at him, disgust mixing with pity. I didn’t know what to feel. I couldn’t trust my own emotions toward him. Had our entire friendship just been something he’d implanted in my head? Had he just needed a big burly kid to act as a bodyguard? Was I just another servant to him, like that couple in the park he’d convinced were his parents? I couldn’t remember how we became friends. But then, at that age, does anyone?

  I sensed Lilian searching my eyes, probably trying to figure out the same thing. I didn’t know what she saw. Maybe I didn’t want to.

  I jerked my head toward the witch, who was dispelling the last of the darkness. “Watch her for a second.”

  “Gladly,” Lilian said. She shoved Holden forward and he collapsed to the floor with a yelp. Raising her gun, she stalked toward the witch. As she moved, I spotted Isidora’s rat scurry out from behind a stone cube and trail along behind Lilian.

  I went to Holden. Crouching, I picked up the homunculus talisman that lay beside him. It really was a hideous thing. I ran my thumb over its features. Looking closer, I fancied I could see dried blood caught in the cracks. I got the sense it had no power of its own. It was a focus for its bearer’s will.