Pay Dirt Page 6

  I looked around the room, taking it in for the first time. I realized I was in one of Early’s spare bedrooms. He’d balanced the tray atop a pile of old newspapers. Beyond the stink of vomit there was a faintly musty smell in the air, like the room didn’t get aired out that often.

  “The ghoul,” I said. “Teenager wearing a hoodie? Name of Sal?”

  Early nodded.

  “Remind me to send her a gift basket,” I said.

  Early poured a glass of water from the pitcher and sprinkled in something from one of the bowls. He stirred it until the water had gone a pale green color, then handed the glass to me. I made a face.

  “Drink it,” he said. “It will help counter the effects of the mind-burn.”

  “It looks like swamp water.”

  “Drink it.”

  I grumbled and did what he said. Early knew his stuff—especially when it came to healing remedies.

  I got halfway through the glass before I started to gag. I screwed up my face, trying to keep the liquid down.

  “Hell, Early,” I said. “If you wanted me dead, why didn’t you just smother me in my sleep?”

  He raised an eyebrow. Grumbling, I pinched my nose and had another few gulps. I had to admit, the disgusting concoction was doing wonders for my head. My jaw still ached where Isidora had kicked me, but that was nothing compared to the pain of the spell.

  Early studied me for a moment from beneath his bushy eyebrows, then he pulled up a rickety old chair and sat down.

  “You were hit by—”

  “Bloodmoss and skullbone. I know.”

  He grunted and nodded. “Quick thinking, using a numbing tincture to blunt the spell’s effects. How did you get the caster’s hair?”

  “I played a little hardball.” I blinked and looked down at myself. I’d been stripped of my coat. “I had a hair wrapped around my finger. Where—?”

  Early held up a small zip-lock bag. Inside was the single dark hair Isidora had given me. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  He laid the bag down next to me. “The person who attacked you,” Early said. “A witch?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The local coven doesn’t usually use that kind of spell. They prefer to work from a distance.”

  I nodded. “I think she’s new in town.”

  “Want to tell me what happened?”

  I laid it out for him. Most of it, at least. I told him I went back to the train yard and found the witch snooping around there. I told him the things she’d said to me.

  But while I talked, my mind was working through the things I wasn’t telling him. The real reason I’d gone searching for Habi a second time. I thought about the dream that I’d had while the witch’s spell burned through my brain.

  Except it wasn’t a dream, not really. Dreams were weird. In dreams, things shifted about, never quite making sense. Everything I’d seen in that dream had really happened.

  That was the last bit of thievery Holden and I ever pulled together. The last time I bailed his ass out.

  We’d blown through the big guy’s stolen money in a matter of weeks. Most of it went on booze, and Holden spent plenty on weed as well. I’d paid my piano teacher all the money I owed her for months of lessons I hadn’t been able to afford.

  Usually, that would’ve been about the time we went looking for some other way of getting ourselves in trouble.

  But then Holden and his family rolled out of town with barely a word of goodbye. And not long after that my world changed as well. I discovered that all the tales about Lost Falls were true. I made a deal that I could never come back from. And Holden had faded into the recesses of my memory, just some kid I used to get into trouble with.

  Now he was back. And he was asking for my help one last time.

  “Ozzy?”

  I blinked, pulling myself out of my thoughts. Early was studying me carefully. Damn his eyes.

  “What?”

  “Is it the mind-burn?” he asked, laying a hand on my forehead. “Is it still affecting you?”

  “No. No.” I pushed his hand away. “I was just thinking. Doesn’t matter.” I remembered something. “How’s Lilian?”

  “I’m not sure. I dropped her off at the hag’s last night. By the time we got there she seemed to have recovered from her…episode, but she still seemed troubled.”

  “Maybe I’ll drop by Alcaraz’s later,” I said. “See if Lilian got home all right.”

  And find out what the hell had happened to her. She’d reacted to that coin. Did that mean she was somehow connected to all this? Whatever “all this” was.

  “I can see that look in your eyes, boy,” Early said.

  “What look?”

  “The look that says you want to start poking around again. You need to rest.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. You’re right. Rest.”

  “I mean it, Ozzy. The mind-burn took a toll on you.” He stood up and moved the tray to my bedside. It held a bowl of Early’s patented lamb soup, and a couple of bread rolls to soak it up with. “Eat. And don’t go anywhere until I get back.

  “Why, where are you going?”

  “I have to look into something. There’s talk about some outsiders in town.”

  “Tourists?”

  “Maybe. Could be that the locals I’ve been talking to are just jumping at shadows. But I’m worried our little town has drawn some unwanted attention after recent events.”

  “You mean that attempted goblin genocide I heroically prevented?”

  “Didn’t I ever teach you to be humble?”

  “You tried.”

  Early’s eyes crinkled and his beard parted in a smile. “Stay in bed, boy. I mean it. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. After I’ve looked into these outsiders, I’ll see what I can find out about the ghoul. If he doesn’t show up soon, we’ll organize a search. Until then, you need to rest. You understand?”

  I gave him the best salute I could manage while holding a soup spoon and balancing the tray on my lap. “Sir. Yes, sir.”

  He picked up my vomit bucket and went to the door.

  “Say, Early,” I said as he opened the door. He paused and glanced back. “The witch who attacked me mentioned someone by the name of Ursula. Isn’t there an Ursula in the local coven?”

  He stroked his beard as he thought it over. “You might be right. One of the young ones, isn’t she? Not one of the inner circle.”

  I nodded. “Been a long time since we had an open confrontation with the coven.”

  “And we need to keep it that way.” Early raised a warning finger. “This town is still in a fragile state. We can’t afford conflict. Even with the witches.”

  I held up my hands in surrender. “All right, all right. I’ll stay clear of the coven. As long as they stay clear of me. We can stick to the usual Cold War.”

  He nodded once more, raised his hand in farewell, and left the room, shutting the door behind him. While I dug into my soup I listened to the house creaking as he made his way downstairs. The front door opened and closed. His pick-up started and pulled away.

  I threw the covers off the bed and pushed myself unsteadily to my feet. My stomach clenched and a wave of nausea washed over me, but I took a few deep breaths and the soup stayed inside me.

  I would’ve liked nothing better than to laze around in bed like Early had told me to. Just hang out while I waited for my head to clear.

  But I couldn’t do that. Early didn’t know the whole story. Holden was in trouble. I was a different Ozzy than I had been last I’d seen him. And apparently Holden wasn’t exactly who I thought he was either. That had become apparent when he somehow sent a goddamn magpie to find me.

  But the years couldn’t change the promise we’d made. He’d reached out, and I had no choice but to help him.

  My head was still thick with questions. Where had he been all these years? What the hell had he gotten himself into now? And how were Habi the ghoul and that witch Isidora involved?

  O
ne thing was clear. If I was going to help Holden, I needed to find him. And to find him, I needed some answers from the delightful woman who’d set my brain on fire.

  I picked up the zip-lock bag containing Isidora’s hair and held it up to the light coming through the crack in the curtains.

  “You want me to find you, witch? Well, ready or not, here I come.”

  I headed to my cabin. It wasn’t exactly a long journey—it’s on the back of Early’s property, less than fifty yards from his house. But by the time I unlocked my laboratory-cum-workshop and sat myself down on my stool, I felt like I’d just trekked through the nine circles of hell. It was a relief to get away from the jagged, piercing light of the sun and into a room where the only illumination came from a single 70W bulb dangling from the ceiling.

  When I got my hands on that witch…

  I entertained myself with violent fantasies while I gathered up vials and jars. Some of those fantasies involved wasabi. They were nice fantasies.

  I set some ingredients boiling above a bunsen burner. I was working mostly on automatic—by now I could whip up this kind of tracking spell in my sleep. When it came to the last stage, I used a pair of tweezers to drop Isidora’s hair into the concoction. I corked the flask as a sulfurous stink started to pour out of the mixture.

  I hobbled out to the living room and set the flask on the windowsill to mature in the light of the sun, then I headed back into the workshop. There was one more concoction I needed to brew up.

  Because there was no fucking way I was going to get caught by Isidora’s mind-burn a second time.

  I cleared some space on a bench and laid out my coat. Thankfully, Early had had the good sense not to throw it in the laundry when he brought me back to his place. A magnifying lens attached to a swivel arm was fixed to the wall alongside the bench—I grabbed it and swung it into position. Slowly, I began to examine the surface of the coat, starting with the sleeves and moving upward.

  I finally found what I was looking for beneath the left lapel, where it had been trapped. A half dozen grains of the red powder Isidora had blown in my face.

  I spent a few seconds opening and closing drawers until I found a soft-bristled brush and a shallow ceramic dish. Holding my breath, I carefully brushed the grains of powder onto the dish.

  Sitting there like that, the powder was essentially harmless. I could’ve inhaled the grains and it wouldn’t have been any worse than breathing in pepper. For the mind-burn spell to work it required the witch to impose her will on the powder.

  But now it was going to be a component in a different kind of spell. A counter-spell, to be precise.

  I fetched a bottle of red ink and poured a few drops into the dish, mixing the powder in. I dipped the nib of a pen into the ink and scrawled words of protection on a scrap of lambskin parchment. A few drops of sealing wax later, and I had a protective charm that should—in theory—counter the effects of the mind-burn.

  There was a sense of satisfaction as I sewed the charm into the lining of my coat. I wouldn’t get caught flat-footed again.

  I tied off the thread, snapped off the excess, and pulled on the coat. It settled around my shoulders, the vials in my pockets rattling reassuringly. As I switched off the light and locked up my laboratory, my hand went to my pocket, pulling out the fetish I’d woven with magpie feathers. The speckled wax ball hung in the center, unmoving.

  Exhaling, I closed my eyes and focused on the fetish.

  Holden. If you really are out there, you’ve got some explaining to do.

  I waited a few seconds, trying to will a response. I didn’t need much. A twinge. A split second of connection across the ether of time and space. Something to tell me I wasn’t delusional. Some hint that Holden was out there, waiting for me to save his ass one last time.

  Nothing.

  I sighed and tucked the fetish back into my pocket.

  As I stuffed some snacks into my pockets and gathered together my kit, I heard a car pull up outside. I went and opened the door to see my sister getting out of her car. She looked at me and frowned.

  “Early said you got hurt last night. He also said you were supposed to be resting.”

  “Did he say that was unlikely to happen?” I asked, leaning against the doorway.

  Alice nodded. “Something like that.”

  She shut her car door and came over to the cabin. Normally I would’ve invited her in, but I didn’t have all day to sit around gabbing.

  “Is everything okay?” she said. “You blew out so fast last night. You all did. I had to finish the dishes by myself. You know how hard it is to wash a whole dinner party’s worth of dishes when you’ve got three kids running around?”

  I grinned. “Thanks for your concern, sis. I can see your heart’s bleeding for me.”

  She folded her arms. “Seriously, are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I can’t really—”

  “Talk about it,” she finished for me. “Yeah, I know.” She gave me the eye, then handed me a small black leather bag, one of those ones that’s halfway between a handbag and a backpack. It was covered in big chunky zips, making it look a little like it should be carried by someone wearing chains and a gimp mask.

  “Not really my style,” I said, trying to hand it back. “Maybe try Early. He’ll appreciate it, I’m sure.”

  “It’s Lilian’s. She left it at my place last night. Can you get it back to her?”

  “Oh, that makes more sense.” I slung the bag over my shoulder, along with my kit. “You know, maybe it does suit me. You think? Maybe I’ll ask Lilian where she got it.”

  “No worse than what you used to wear, little brother. Remember when you were thirteen, and you spent a month sporting a mohawk?”

  I cringed as the memory came flooding back to me. “Ah, hell, why’d you have to remind me of that?” I shook my head. As silence fell between us, a thought came to me. “Say, on the topic of my troubled teenage years, do you remember that guy I used to hang around with? Holden Grey?”

  “That little brat?” She made a face. “Of course I remember him.”

  “Oh, come on, he wasn’t that bad.”

  “He was nothing but trouble, Ozzy, and you know it. Every time he went down he took you with him.” She shook her head. “I still remember having to come pick you two up from the police station at three in the morning after you got caught trying to scam drunk tourists. He was a bad influence.”

  “Hell, you sound like Mom. Well, like Mom if she’d given a damn.”

  “Why are you asking about Holden, anyway? He’s been gone for years, hasn’t he?”

  I nodded. “I think he’s back. He…uh…got in touch with me. Asking for some help.”

  “Oh, Christ, Ozzy. Tell me you told him to get lost.”

  “I haven’t told him anything yet. He left me a message.”

  “Well, ignore it.”

  I chewed my lip, shook my head. “I don’t think I can. I think he’s in trouble.”

  “Of course he’s in trouble.” Alice threw up her hands. “That boy was always in trouble. I’m surprised he’s not in prison by now.”

  “We were just kids, Alice. We did dumb shit. Both of us did. I changed, didn’t I? Maybe he did too.”

  Alice gave a disbelieving snort.

  “I have to help if I can,” I said. “Me and Holden, we always had each other’s backs.”

  For a second, it look like my sister was going to say something. But then she just sighed and closed her mouth. She studied me for a moment, then took my hand. “Listen, Ozzy. I know he was your friend. But I think you should just let this go. He’ll be fine. He was always fine. Nothing ever stuck to him.”

  If only it was that easy. I took my hand back from Alice. “I just want to know if you ever heard anything else about him after I went away. Did he come back to Lost Falls?”

  “I was away as well, remember? I was at journalism school.”

  “Yeah, but you came back sometimes. I was…out of touch.”


  Her mouth formed a line. She folded her arms, her eyes glancing down toward my feet. “Sorry, Ozzy. He might as well have vanished into thin air for all I know.”

  I nodded in resignation. I’d known it was a long shot. If she’d heard something, maybe it would’ve given me some clue that would help me track him down. But it looked like I was going to have to do this the hard way.

  We were both silent for a few seconds. It was Alice who spoke first.

  “I have to get going. The neighbor’s looking after Michael, but he gets pretty nervous there. He’s still scared of everyone except me and Val.”

  “Give him a hug from me, huh?”

  “Will do.” She paused. “Stay out of trouble, Ozzy.”

  I shielded my eyes, pointing over her shoulder. “What’s that?”

  “What?” She turned to look.

  “I think…I think that pig is flying.”

  She shot me an unimpressed look. “You’re a riot, little brother.”

  I stood in the doorway and watched as Alice went back to her car and drove off down the bumpy driveway. Only when she passed out of sight did I let my easy grin fall.

  I didn’t want Alice to worry, but we both knew she was right. Holden always used to court trouble wherever he went. And judging by the dead magpie that’d slammed into Alice’s window last night, that much hadn’t changed.

  I went back inside and got my gun.

  It was a plain-looking revolver, a snub-nosed thing that had no illusions as to its purpose. It was worn from use by previous owners. I only knew one of those owners—the man who’d given it to me. If you could call him a man. I’d never figured out exactly what the Dealer was—aside from a real asshole.

  I snapped open the cylinder and loaded the gun. Into my pocket I slipped a handful of extra .38s and three more bullets, the tips shining with silver. Three was all I could afford to make.

  Besides, it seemed dangerous to create more than that. It felt too much like tempting fate. You start arming yourself to the teeth, then you start looking for a fight. Cunning men are supposed to use their wits to solve problems, not bullets.