Pay Dirt Read online

  As we passed out of the thick forest and the lights of Lost Falls appeared in front of us, I dug the rat out of my pocket and sat it down on the dashboard.

  “I need to stop somewhere,” I said to Lilian. “Can you get the rat back home, make sure everyone’s okay?”

  “Of course,” she said. “You need any backup?”

  I shook my head. “No. Not this time.”

  She left me outside the abandoned rail yard. Truth be told, I was fighting to keep my eyes open. But I had one last thing to do before I went home. I picked up Daud’s body and carried him into the train graveyard.

  I made no attempt to hide my entry, so I was spotted soon enough. I glimpsed the shadow of a ghoul darting away over the tops of abandoned train cars, and a few minutes later I heard more approaching. They were on high alert these days.

  Eyes and faces appeared in the windows of the train cars I passed. I heard a couple of ghouls moving behind me, cutting off my escape. I ignored them all. I just kept walking until I reached the depot, where the remains of the morning’s fire pit had gone cold. There was no sign of the table that Habi’s cooked body had been laid out on, so instead I crouched down and lowered Daud to the ground.

  I backed off and sat down on the cold earth. In the darkness I saw ghouls cautiously approaching.

  Gravel crunched behind me. I glanced back to see Sal standing there, draped in her oversized hoodie. She hugged herself as she looked at Daud’s body.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  I told her. I told them all. The small crowd of ghouls gathered closer as I spoke. Some of them already knew parts of the story—mostly Daud’s friends who he’d enlisted to help track down the bones of Morley’s daughter. They looked at me with anger in their eyes. But they stood, and they listened. It was all I could ask.

  The ghouls asked me questions, too. Questions about Habi, about Isidora, about the cultists, about the wraith. I tried to be honest. I could tell my answers didn’t satisfy some of them, but by the time the conversation began to taper off, most of the ghouls seemed content. They collected Daud’s body and took him away to be prepared for the funeral. Sal went with them. For all the shit she’d talked about Daud, I could tell she had still genuinely cared about him. He was an asshole, but he was her friend. I understood that well.

  The night had deepened by the time I left the train yard. I walked back toward town for about an hour until I managed to flag down a taxi. The cab driver didn’t mention my beat-up face or my dirt-covered clothes. Hell, I don’t think he said a single word to me as he drove me home. That’s the kind of service you can expect in Lost Falls.

  Early’s house was dark and quiet when I pushed open the door. I staggered inside, had a quick look around. Isidora was passed out in the guest-room-cum-storage-cupboard, her rat curled up next to her. Early hadn’t shifted from his room. Maybe it was a trick of the shadows, but I liked to imagine his color was coming back. The hairs of his mustache trembled with his soft breathing. I closed the door and left him to sleep.

  Lilian was asleep on the couch downstairs. She stirred when I came in.

  “Not polite to stomp around like that,” she muttered, her eyes closed.

  “Sorry.”

  “Did it go okay?”

  I nodded even though she couldn’t see me. “I think so.”

  She made a small noise and went back to snoring. Not quiet, cute snoring, either. The car accident must’ve really messed up her nasal passages. It sounded like someone trying to pull-start a lawn mower.

  I turned to head back to my cabin. I got about two steps before exhaustion overwhelmed me. I swayed on my feet for a second. And then I lay down on the floor next to the couch and let sleep take me.

  36

  I pushed opened the wooden door with my shoulder, fighting against the rust that clogged its hinges. The familiar musty scent assailed me. It was almost enough to make me turn back. Almost.

  I stepped off the street into the red brick building and closed the door behind me.

  The long rows of shelves stretched out before me, stocked with occult and esoteric artifacts. From down the far end of the building I could hear the bubbling of something boiling over a high heat. No one came to greet me.

  The floor creaked under my weight as I made my way down the row. I was stiff as all hell. It had been a few days since our expedition to the tomb, and only now was I starting to recover my strength. Once Early was back on his feet he’d done a damn fine job tending to me. He’d patched up my cuts and put ice on my bruises and fed me a variety of foul concoctions.

  But there was something inside me that Early’s potions couldn’t touch. Something cold and empty where York’s magic had burned through me. I’d stopped spitting up black bile after 24 hours, but I could still feel the cult leader’s touch. I felt…marked, somehow. Like I was standing alone in a spotlight, watched by eyes I couldn’t see.

  Early had listened in silence while I told him all that’d happened. The old man didn’t say much, but he got that worried dad look on his face a few times. When it was done, he just hugged me and told me I’d done a good job.

  I didn’t cry, of course. I’m a big manly man. I never cry. And if I did, it wouldn’t matter, because no one was around to see.

  Isidora and her rat were already long gone by the time I woke up. I thought about checking out her cabin in the woods, but I figured she’d already blown out of there as well. Her sister was safe. That’d be enough for her.

  A word of thanks before she left wouldn’t have gone amiss, though.

  Lilian headed off soon after we woke up as well. She had things to tend to. We both did. But she did take the time to help me bury Stuckey. We found a nice little place for him near the back of Early’s property. I’d looked into it and he didn’t appear to have much in the way of family. He was acquainted with a few folks in our community, though, so that night we’d gathered at Ollie’s Diner and said a few words.

  After what York had put me through, Early guessed I’d be pretty run down for a month or two—and my battered ribs would probably be giving me trouble even longer than that. That was okay. I had a vacation for myself all planned out: sit around in my cabin for the next two weeks, playing piano and not showering. Early had promised to set food outside my door on a semi-regular basis. I planned to look and smell like a crazy hermit by the time I was done. But before I could begin my rest, there was one last thing I had to do.

  I stopped halfway down the row of shelves and looked up. The rearranged human skeleton hung above me, its legs twisted beneath it. Once again I was reminded of a giant spider ready to pounce. The hag’s idea of a joke, I guess.

  I stared up at it for a few seconds. Then I made my way back down the aisle and found a tall ladder set on wheels like they sometimes have in old libraries. Its wheels squeaked as I rolled it back down toward the skeleton. After a little stretch to limber myself up, I started to climb.

  The skeleton was in an awkward position. I had to climb right to the top of the ladder, then stretch my arm out behind me while trying not to overbalance. The ladder trembled under my weight. Swallowing, I stretched out a little further, reaching up through the bottom of the skeleton’s ribcage.

  My fingers closed around a small bone. I pulled and it came away easily. My skin crawled to touch it, but I pushed the feeling aside and hurried back down the ladder.

  It was only when I was back on solid ground that I had a good look at the thing. It was a small bone, no longer than my thumb. It was slightly curved, and one end tapered to a point that seemed too sharp to have occurred naturally.

  Symbols had been scratched into the stunted rib bone. Tall, sharp symbols were arranged in random spirals along the length of the bone. Where the bone formed a point, the symbols grew smaller and smaller, the spirals tighter and tighter, until I could no longer make them out. But somehow, I knew they continued. Without losing any detail they spiraled down to the point, to infinity, to nothingness.

 
Above me, I felt the flap of large wings. I glanced up and found myself staring into the evil eye of the hag’s vulture-like familiar. It squawked a challenge from its perch at the top of the shelves.

  I held up the bone. “You know, hiding something like this in plain sight strikes me as a particularly stupid idea.”

  A cackle came from behind me. “It’s as good there as anywhere.”

  I turned around. From the next row over, the hag stared out at me through a space on the shelves. She was framed on one side by a collection of old tomes, and on the other by a porcelain figure of a ballerina with its head broken off.

  I crouched down to her level, resting my elbow on the shelf. She grinned at me, showing off the blackened nubs of her teeth.

  “The Thirteenth Rib,” I said. “York thought he could find it inside the body of Morley the Profane.”

  “Who is York?”

  “Someone who believed he was a tool of the divine.”

  “He believes no longer?”

  “No,” I said. “He doesn’t believe much of anything anymore.”

  She cackled at that. The stink of her breath washed over me, and I had to resist the urge to pull away in disgust. She rubbed her remaining hand against the hook protruding from the stump of her other wrist.

  “Problem solved, then, hmm?” she said.

  “I want to know how you got it.”

  “Do you, now?” She craned her neck forward, forcing her head into the space on the shelf. I only just managed to keep myself from flinching away as she brought herself nearly nose-to-nose with me. “And why is that, cunning man?”

  “Because I don’t know whose side you’re on. And you freak me the fuck out.”

  She thought that was hilarious. She leaned back and howled with laughter.

  “Well?” I said.

  Her laughter slowly faded, but when she looked at me amusement still danced in her eyes. “Haven’t you learned by now that there’s no such thing as sides, cunning man? Not in this town. Not with our kind.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  “Then you truly are a fool.” She shook her head. “Well, why don’t you tell me how you think I got that little bone there?”

  I looked down at the stunted rib, then back at her.

  “You were part of the first covenant,” I said. “You helped murder Morley the Profane. You were the one who cast the spell that tried to suppress all memory of him. And you’ve been maintaining that spell for decades. It’s no coincidence that the tomb was found a few months after you were kidnapped and taken out of action.”

  The hag grinned at me. “Amazing. The fool can reason.”

  “After you killed Morley, you took the Thirteenth Rib for yourself. Probably didn’t even tell the other members of the covenant. They were too busy dealing with the wraith they’d unleashed by killing him.” I paused. “But why’d you do it? Did you think the rib would be safer with you?”

  “Maybe I just liked the look of it.”

  I shook my head and ran my finger along the symbols carved into the bone. “No. I’ve seen symbols like these once before. In a grimoire held by the witch who kidnapped you. The grimoire that’s now sitting on a shelf in my lab back home. Before I took possession of it, Lilian asked you to look at it. She said you reacted in a way that she’d never seen you react before. She said you were scared.” I held up the rib. “This scares you, doesn’t it?”

  The hag was no longer smiling. She sucked at her gums and eyed me from beneath lowered eyebrows.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “You already suspect.”

  “Death,” I said. “The death of all of us.”

  Her lips twisted into a wry smile.

  “You’ve been protecting it,” I said. “Hiding it. But your spells have been disrupted. Your protections began to fail while you were locked in that trunk in the Mills family basement. York and his cultists won’t be the last to come seeking this, will they?”

  “We shall see.”

  I licked my lips. “And if someone more powerful arrives? If they kill you, what happens to Lost Falls?”

  “If they kill me, cunning man, then I will have already experienced my own personal apocalypse. What comes after does not matter one whit to me.”

  “So you’re just protecting yourself? That’s the extent of it?”

  “To do anything else is madness. And trust me, I know madness.” Her eyes flashed and she began to cackle again.

  “Then why did you help Lilian?” I asked.

  “Hmmm?”

  “When Lilian rose as a revenant, she fell into one of the traps Alcaraz sets to capture wild Strangers. Alcaraz brought her to you. You helped her. You suppressed her desire for revenge, gave her the illusion of life. That took more than a trivial amount of effort for you.”

  “A crazed revenant cannot be allowed to wander free,” she said dismissively. “The risk of exposure is too high.”

  “Would’ve been easier to just destroy her. But you didn’t. Because you knew her, didn’t you? You knew her when she was alive. Godwin, right? That was her name.” I paused, but she didn’t respond. “Were you friends?”

  “You should know by now my opinion on friendship.”

  “Something made you help her, though. Who was she?”

  The hag just smiled. “You invest too much in her. When the revenant inside her breaks free, when it refuses to be chained again, when it brings death to all around you, such questions won’t matter.”

  “They matter to her.”

  “Indeed.” She brought her face back to the shelf and peered out at me. “And if she finds the answers, what then? If she finds out who she was, who killed her, what happens then, cunning man? You know what happens to a revenant that gets the revenge it seeks.”

  I said nothing for a few seconds. Then I reached to one of the shelves behind me and picked up a framed black-and-white photograph. A picture of a young man in turn-of-the-century clothing with a small child on his knee. I’d seen it the last time I came here, but I hadn’t known its significance then. I held it up to the hag.

  “Was it him?” I asked. “Did he kill her?”

  The hag said nothing.

  “What happened to the child?” When she didn’t respond, I leaned in close. “Answer me.”

  She smiled and drew back. “Be gone, cunning man. I have things to do. I must get to work if I am to ensure no one else stumbles across Morley’s tomb.”

  She started to shuffle away down the aisle. For a couple of seconds I could catch glimpses of her through the shelves, but then she moved out of my sight, leaving only the sound of her heavy footsteps moving away.

  “I’ll find the answers,” I called after her.

  “On your head be it,” came the reply. Another peal of mad laughter echoed through the building.

  I put the picture back on the shelf and looked down at the Thirteenth Rib clutched in my hand. I turned it over, following the symbols as they spiraled around it. There were answers there, I knew it. I could feel them calling to me. If only I could read them!

  I peered closer, bringing the bone up to my face as the symbols grew smaller. I squinted, trying to make them out. Almost, almost…

  The hag’s familiar let out a loud squawk. I jumped, tearing my eyes away from the bone. It took me a few seconds to bring the world into focus again. When I did, I saw the familiar glaring at me, its feathers ruffled and its talons scratching on the top of the shelves. It opened its beak and squawked again.

  “All right, all right.” I took one last glance at the Thirteenth Rib. Then I dropped it on the floor at my feet and turned away. Let the hag deal with it. I’d had enough for one day.

  I stepped out of the hag’s place onto the deserted street. A cold wind blew down past the empty and abandoned shops, cutting through my coat and bringing a chill to my skin. The weather was turning. Winter was upon us.

  Still, it was better than being inside the hag’s place.

  I walked past the h
ag’s building, then turned into the disused playground next door. The place was fenced off, but a post had toppled over at one point, bringing the chain link fence with it. Tall grass and weeds stretched up toward the sky. I pushed through the thick foliage until I came to the rusted old swing set that sat in the shadow of the hag’s building. I cautiously lowered myself into the one remaining swing seat. The frame groaned, but it held my weight.

  I took a few deep breaths, expelling the stink of the hag’s place from my lungs. Then I reached into my pocket and took out the cobalt locket Holden had found in Morley’s tomb. After a moment’s hesitation, I worked the clasp and flipped open the locket.

  I hadn’t opened the locket since we left the tomb. This was my first time looking at it in the clear light of day. Maybe some part of me had thought—hoped?—that I’d been mistaken the first time when I’d viewed it in the dim light of Morley’s tomb.

  Instead, it only made the truth clearer.

  I stared down at the photograph tucked into the small frame. Two figures. A young, handsome man with a waxed mustache. The same man as the one in the photograph on the hag’s shelf.

  And a woman, knife-thin apart from the bulge of her pregnant belly. Beautiful, in a sharp kind of way. One hand rested on her belly. The other was intertwined with the man’s. She stared at the camera with a stern expression on her face, but even this tiny, century-old photograph managed to catch the light in her eyes. The same light I’d seen myself, many times.

  I examined the edges of the frame and found another small catch, along with a hinge. I opened it, making sure the photograph wouldn’t flutter away in the breeze. I turned over the picture of a pregnant Lilian holding hands with a man I didn’t know. There, on the back, were three words written in smooth, looping cursive. Three simple words.

  Now and forever.

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