Pay Dirt Page 7

  So Early likes to say, anyway. But I know he keeps a loaded shotgun underneath the front seat of his pick-up.

  I slipped the revolver into my pocket, grabbed my kit, and got out of there. I had a few questions, and I thought I knew who might have answers.

  7

  On the eastern outskirts of Lost Falls, wedged between a small overgrown playground and a disused post office with the windows boarded over, there’s a building. Red brick, one story, with a steeply sloping roof. From the outside, it looks every bit as old and forgotten as the post office next door.

  But of course, this is Lost Falls, and in Lost Falls nothing is ever as it seems.

  I parked down the road and walked the rest of the way, my coat pulled tight around me. A cold wind blew down the street, scattering leaves and newspapers. Winter was making its approach known.

  The rusted swings of the playground creaked in the breeze. I gritted my teeth and walked on down the empty street.

  This part of town shouldn’t have been so abandoned, even with the way Lost Falls had shrunk in the last few decades. It was a good location, not far from the river, and just the right distance from the center of town. The low ridge it was set on gave a good view of the town and the hilly forests that hugged Lost Falls.

  And yet, ever since the town had been founded, this area had struggled. Businesses collapsed within months of moving into one of the vacant storefronts. People went out of their way to avoid walking or driving down this street, seemingly without realizing they were doing so. Even the tourists didn’t come here.

  A superstitious person might think this place was cursed. They wouldn’t be far wrong.

  Even I didn’t come here much. The wards that littered this place affected me too, although not as badly as they affect the Unaware. But I had bigger reasons to steer clear.

  I knew what the wards were protecting.

  The brick building seemed to bear down on me as I stopped in front of it. There were no front-facing windows, and only a bare wooden door for the entrance. It had no sign and no street number. Not even graffiti marked the place.

  Gritting my teeth, I grabbed the handle and put my shoulder against the door. It creaked open on groaning hinges.

  As I stepped inside I was hit by an overpowering musky smell, something between a nursing home and a secondhand bookstore. I shut the door behind me. The only light came from rows of incandescent bulbs hanging overhead. They turned everything orange, like an approaching forest fire.

  The building was narrow, but much longer than it appeared from the street. I stared down long rows of towering shelves that reached nearly to the high ceiling. Each shelf was packed with dusty bottles and paper packages, statues and artifacts, old scrolls and scraps of parchment. Staring down at me from the shelf on my left was a framed black-and-white photograph of a young man in turn-of-the-century clothing, a small child on his knee. The child’s face was too blurred to make out. For some reason that picture creeped me out even more than the jar alongside, which I was pretty sure contained some kind of animal fetus preserved in green liquid.

  One of the strangest things on display was a human skeleton hanging on wires from the ceiling. It looked like something you might find in a doctor’s office or a store selling Halloween decorations, except for the way some of the bones had been rearranged. It hung horizontally, and its legs and feet had been twisted around to give the thing the look of a giant, skeletal, four-legged spider about to descend on whoever walked beneath it. I studied it a few seconds then decided it was there purely to freak out anyone who came in. Seemed like just the sort of joke the building’s owner would enjoy.

  Beneath the shelves there were drawers, dozens of them, no doubt containing even more ingredients to power spells a humble cunning man like yours truly couldn’t even begin to comprehend. I adjusted my coat, with all the vials and charms it held, and felt a little like a toddler who’d put on a lab coat and stethoscope and decided he was a doctor.

  I made my way down one narrow aisle toward the rear of the building. The shelves seemed to stretch on forever, but finally the space opened up. Several tables were set up to form a kind of workspace. The area was stocked with pots and cauldrons and all the utensils you’d need to host a feast back in the fifteenth century. A couple of pots were set over burners, the contents bubbling away. But as far as I could see, no one was around.

  I opened my mouth to call out, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. It seemed somehow sacrilegious to shout in here. Like running in church, or talking in a library.

  A sudden squawk cut through the quiet, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a huge shadow swoop down toward me. My heart caught in my throat. I spun, tugging the revolver from my pocket as two massive wings unfurled. A pair of talons arced toward me.

  A sharp whistle came from the back of the building. Instantly, the beast retracted its talons. Wings flapped, and the creature soared over my head before settling onto a perch hanging from a chain bolted to the ceiling. It folded its wings against itself, craned its neck forward, and fixed me with a suspicious eye.

  It looked a little like a vulture, with its hooked beak and long neck, but its size and ferocity put me more in mind of a velociraptor. Whatever it was, it looked mean as hell. I kept my gun trained on it, all the while trying to calm my hammering heart.

  From a darkened doorway at the back of the room, a gnarled figure emerged. She was old and hunched and shaped like a sack of potatoes. She wasn’t dressed much better, either. As she shuffled into the room, her sagging breasts swayed from side to side beneath her clothes.

  All it took was one look into those ancient eyes to see how dangerous she really was. She looked like an old crone, sure, but she was anything but human.

  She grinned at me, showing off the three blackened nubs that had once been teeth. The rest of her mouth was filled with gums and saliva and a wet, twisting tongue. You could practically see the halitosis breath drifting out of her mouth as she approached.

  The hag. As far as I knew she’d always been here, ever since Lost Falls was founded. For better or for worse.

  If you ever meet a hag—and pray that you don’t—it pays to remember one thing. A hag is not a witch. Witches are human. Like me, like Early, they made a deal that granted them power. But a hag…a hag just is. Her power is her own. And if you ever forget that, even for a second, you’re likely to end up living the rest of your life as a newt.

  “Jumpy, cunning man?” She cackled at me, unfurling one gnarled finger to tap the barrel of my gun. “You needn’t bother with that. If I wanted you dead, my familiar would have already torn out your bowels.”

  The bird-thing squawked in agreement. As I tucked my revolver back into my pocket, I shot the creature a glare. Except it wasn’t really a creature at all. It was the hag’s familiar, a magical construct born out of some terrible spell. Silver might put it down, but not before it did some serious damage to me.

  “If it wasn’t going to attack,” I said, “why did it swoop at me?”

  “I have to get my fun where I can, cunning man.”

  She shuffled closer to me, sucking at her gums. The action made a wet squelching sound. I resisted the urge to recoil in disgust. It didn’t pay to offend a hag.

  “Come, come, don’t just stand there. You have questions for me, don’t you?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Why else would you be here?” She cackled again. “You hide your disgust poorly.”

  “This? This isn’t disgust. I’m just feeling a bit bloated.”

  She cocked her head to the side and peered up at me for a moment. Then, her grin widening, she raised her left arm. There was no hand at the end of it. The arm ended at the wrist, a blotchy, blackened stump that smelled vaguely of burnt meat.

  A steel hook emerged from the wrist. Not like a prosthetic strapped in place. One end of the hook had actually been driven deep into the flesh of the stump. With each movement of her wrist, the hook twitched ba
ck and forth.

  She reached up and touched the curve of the hook to my cheek. It felt strangely warm. I tried not to shiver.

  “They used silver to cut it off,” she said. “The witch and her husband.”

  I tried to nod without moving my head. “I know.”

  “It still burns,” she said conversationally. “Even now.”

  I glanced down at the blackened flesh. The stump was about half an inch from my top lip. I could feel my beard hairs scraping against it.

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said. “Maybe Early can—”

  Her mouth gaped open and she let out a long, screeching laugh. The stink of her breath washed over me. My eyes watered. I didn’t move.

  “A cunning man’s remedies cannot soothe the pain of silver. You know that.” She stopped laughing suddenly and turned the hook so that the point touched the skin just below my right eye. Her voice grew dark. “But it burns worse knowing my revenge was denied me.”

  I swallowed. “The witch is dead. So is her husband.”

  “Dead?” The hag’s lips retracted over her gums. “What good is dead? I wanted the witch to suffer. I wanted her to get exactly what she wanted.”

  “You wanted her to kill her own son,” I said. “I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

  “Your bizarre human morals keep you from having a sense of humor.” Her wrist twitched, and the point of the hook pricked at my skin. “I could kill you, Osric Turner.”

  “Not without losing another hand.”

  There was a click as I thumbed back the hammer of my revolver. I held it down low, the barrel an inch from the hag’s remaining hand. She glanced down at it.

  “Silver bullets?” she asked.

  “Three of them. That’ll burn, huh?”

  Her eyes met mine again, and the toothless grin returned. She withdrew her hook from my cheek and turned away.

  “You have a different style than your mentor, cunning man,” she said. “I think I like it.”

  I exhaled slowly, letting my shoulders slump. I decided not to tell her I’d been bluffing. All my silver bullets were still in my pocket.

  I uncocked the revolver and returned it to my pocket. As the hag shuffled toward the back of the room, she raised her hook and gestured to me.

  “Come, then.”

  Reluctantly, I followed. “You’re not planning to shove me in an oven, are you?”

  “You wouldn’t fit.” She stopped before a work table covered with potions and jars and started to work. The process wasn’t so different from the way Early and I made our potions, but the hag moved with unnerving speed, and after a few seconds of watching her flit from one task to another I’d already lost track of what she was doing.

  “Glamours,” she explained, seeing me watching. Her hook hand held a mortar in place while she ground some herbs with the pestle. “I’m forever making glamours. Ask your questions, then, and be quick.”

  I cast a look up at the hag’s familiar. It sat on its perch, unmoving, but its eyes never left me. Evil fucking bird.

  I took the two gold coins out of my pocket and threw them down on the table in front of her. The hag paused her herb grinding for a fraction of a second, her eyes flashing across the coins. She continued her work then, but her gaze remained on the coins.

  “Where did you get these?” the hag asked.

  “From two people who came to me for my help. You know what they are?”

  She didn’t answer. As she finished her grinding, she put down the pestle and poured the herbs into a pot filled with some kind of dark red fluid. She wiped her hand on the front of her clothes, then picked up one of the coins and examined it closely.

  “I have not seen script like this for some time,” she said.

  I leaned forward. “You can read it?”

  She nodded. “It is the language of the witch-finders. One of their sects, at least.”

  Witch-finders? Hell. That was just what we needed. Of all the threats to Lost Falls—witches, monsters, internal strife, nose-diving property values, the witch-finders were the worst. We survived by avoiding their attention. Hiding ourselves away, warding the town against their gaze.

  The hag glanced at me and gave a hacking laugh. “Calm yourself, cunning man. This sect is long dead. They won’t find us.”

  “So the coins belonged to this witch-finder sect?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

  I frowned. “Well, what does the writing say?”

  She brought the coin closer, lips moving silently for a moment as she studied it. Then she drew in a breath.

  “ ‘Monster of monsters, struck down by love, entombed in glass and sealed in blood. Long will he linger.’ ”

  Cold fingers crawled down my spine. I’d never heard the words before, but let me tell you, when you’ve been a cunning man as long as I have, you learn one simple truth: any sort of cryptic, ominous poem is bad fucking news. Even though she wasn’t speaking the words in the original language, I could feel them resonating within my bones. I ran a hand through my hair.

  “Those words carry magic,” I said. “They’ve got the feel of a charm about them.”

  The hag’s eyes crinkled like I’d said something funny.

  I glared at her. “What?”

  “If I were an ignorant, insignificant insect like you, I would stay far away from things I did not understand.”

  I ground my teeth. “Help me understand, and then I won’t be so ignorant.”

  “Pah.” A string of saliva arced from her mouth as she shook her head dismissively. “What’s the point? You humans die like flies anyway. It’s not worth my time.” She turned back to her potions.

  I slammed my fist down on the table next to her, hard enough to set bottles rattling. A few drops of something spilled over the side of a bubbling pot, evaporating as it came in contact with the wooden table.

  The hag’s familiar squawked with anger. Out of the corner of my eye I saw its wings spread. I pulled my truncheon from my belt and held it in the familiar’s direction.

  “That thing flies at me again,” I said, “I’m going to break its fucking beak.”

  The hag hissed up at the creature, and the familiar settled down, its wings folding back against itself. For something that wasn’t truly alive, it sure knew how to give me the stink eye.

  “I’m not in the mood for games,” I said to the hag. “If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be rotting away in a trunk in the Mills family basement. I helped you. You owe me. So give me something!”

  As my demand echoed along the shelves, the hag slowly turned toward me. The look in her eyes made my throat close up. I suddenly wanted to be very, very far away.

  The hag licked her gums, drawing out the moment. I wondered what life would be like as a newt. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. I wouldn’t have to work anymore. I could find myself a lady newt, settle down, have some little newt babies. Spend my days hunting for…what did newts eat, anyway? Bugs?

  “Morley,” the hag said. “Morley the Profane.”

  “What?” I frowned. “What’s that?”

  “It’s something.” She grinned at me, then waved her hook hand. “Now get out of my way. You’re testing my patience, cunning man. I expect you want to see your revenant.”

  I paused. “Lilian? She’s still here?”

  The hag gestured to the door she’d entered through. “Downstairs. Be quick about it.” Then the hag turned back to her workbench and continued making her potions.

  I stood awkwardly for a second, staring at her back. I was still surprised I hadn’t been lizardified. Deciding not to tempt fate any further, I collected the coins, backed away, and hurried toward the door. The bird-like familiar glared down at me until I passed out of its sight.

  The doorway at the back opened into a narrow, dusty hallway. There was a wooden staircase to my right, leading down into the basement. Flickering light came up the stairwell. Something down there was making a humming sound.

  I shot a glance ba
ck into the main room, but I couldn’t see the hag. Licking my lips, I descended the groaning stairs.

  The basement wasn’t what I expected. No cold concrete floors here, no boxes of old clothes or moth-eaten furniture. The floor was covered in large, thick rugs, and there was floral wallpaper on the walls. One corner of the basement formed a kitchenette. The room looked like something you’d find in your grandmother’s house, right down to the knitted tea cozies. On the other side of the room were two plump couches and an armchair set in front of an old boxy-looking TV with dials on the side. The wooden side tables had doilies on them. In the far corner, partially obscured by a folding screen, I could see a double bed covered with a pink, flowery spread.

  It would’ve been a nice little place, if not for the cage in the middle of the room, or the woman getting electrocuted inside it.

  The cage looked like a giant birdcage. It hung from one of the ceiling beams on a thick chain, dangling a foot above the basement floor. The bars of the cage were black iron, a heavy padlock keeping the deadbolt in place.

  And inside, curled up on the floor of the cage, was Lilian. She was dressed in a white tank top and black track pants. Her bare feet twitched in time with the flickering of the light overhead.

  Wires trailed across the basement floor from at least three power outlets. All of them led into a big black box sitting on the floor, which spat out even more wires. Those went into the cage, where the bared ends were twisted around iron nails driven into Lilian’s skull.

  There was no blood around the nails in her head. But then there wouldn’t be. I’d seen Lilian take a spear through the chest without shedding blood. She was already dead, after all.

  But that didn’t mean she was unaffected. Her body twitched and convulsed as the hum of electricity filled the room. Her eyelids snapped open and closed at random—and not in sync with each other, either. Her lips quivered like she was muttering an endless prayer. Her hands were tightened into fists that jerked back and forth across the floor of the cage. There was a faint smell in the air, a smell of smoke and ozone and sizzling flesh.