Dead mans hand, p.22
Dead Man's Hand, page 22
“Where is it?” Hives demanded.
When Grimsby opened his mouth, he felt grit between his teeth and tasted blood, but he smiled all the same. “Behind you.”
Hives turned just in time to receive a knee to the guts from Mayflower. His grip loosened, but the flame in his hand surged. Heat seared at Grimsby, snapping like the maw of a wolf. He squeaked and threw up the sleeve of his blue robe to shield his face.
Meanwhile, Hives had swung his burning hand in a wide haymaker at Mayflower, but his balance was off. The force was minimal, making the real danger of the blow the flames that seeped between his clenched fingers.
Mayflower caught the swing by the elbow, arresting the momentum. Hives’s burning hand clenched around Mayflower’s arm, but though it seethed flame, the fire rolled off the Huntsman’s coat like dry ice’s breath. For a moment, with their arms doubly gripped, they looked to be performing some kind of ancient salute.
Then, with his free hand, Mayflower swung his gun into Hives’s jaw.
Hives’s mask popped off, flying across the room like a ghost late for a job interview.
The young man dropped; the fire in his hand burned out with a hiss.
Mayflower maintained his grip on Hives’s arm for a moment, making it twist in what looked like a very painful way, but as the Auditor went limp, he let the arm drop.
Grimsby stared, his heart racing, his skin still burning from the memory of the heat.
He stared in shock at the lump that was Hives just moments ago. The Auditor had overpowered Grimsby in practically every way, but two and a half seconds with the Huntsman had left him unconscious on the ground.
How?
“Grimsby,” Mayflower said calmly.
“Yeah?”
“You’re on fire.”
Grimsby looked down to see the sleeve of his robe burning from where it had shielded his face. The flames were relatively small, the robe being closer to plastic than to cloth.
He screamed anyway, batting them out frantically.
THIRTY
Grimsby was forced to half run to keep up with Mayflower’s hurried pace. The bright glare of the afternoon sun was disorientating, as his internal clock was certain it should be dark, but the Elsewhere had eaten up those hours without letting them pass in the real world.
There were sirens approaching now, and down the block Grimsby saw a line of black mirrorless cars surrounding MMDFK.
“Eyes front, kid,” Mayflower snapped.
Grimsby turned away from the scene, feeling an odd mixture of guilt and satisfaction that Richie’s birthday party had once again been catastrophic.
They reached the jeep and Mayflower popped the passenger-door lock for Grimsby to get inside. Within a few seconds the jeep chugged to life, and just as Grimsby buckled in, the old steel steed kicked off with a small gout of black smoke.
Mayflower kept a sane pace. No screeching tires, no sharp turns. Just a casual, easy speed. It was at odds with his white-knuckled grip and his constant glances to the rearview.
“Thanks—” Grimsby began, but Mayflower cut him off with a wave of his hand.
“Quiet. We’re not clear yet.”
Grimsby nodded and let himself sink into the sunbaked cushions of the seat. They were about as soft as bricks, but at the moment the relief his body felt from being limp was wonderfully overpowering. Despite his tenuous nap in the Elsewhere, he felt ready for a second. Perhaps after eating a mountain of food.
Within a few minutes, the sirens faded, and Mayflower’s tense grip on the wheel loosened. The Huntsman let out a breath, making Grimsby think he’d been holding it the whole time.
“How’d you know to come find me?” Grimsby asked.
“I’ve got a source inside.”
“Is that the same one who said it would take a couple days before the Department could suss out Mansgraf’s note?”
He nodded.
“I think your source was incorrect on that account.”
“Apparently so. But without her, you’d still be getting beat to hell by that Auditor.”
Grimsby thought of how desperate Hives had been to find the Wardbox, and of the heat that he could still feel in his scars, so close to his skin. He imagined how far Hives might have been willing to go, and shuddered.
“Thank you,” he said, “for saving me.”
They drove in silence for a few minutes before Mayflower spoke. “Kid, if I was saving you, I’d dump you at Mansgraf’s lair and not look back.”
“Then what are you doing here?” he asked.
Mayflower only grunted.
“Aw, shucks, were you worried about me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t not say it, either.”
“I wasn’t worried about you,” Mayflower said firmly.
“So I can handle myself, is that what you’re saying?”
Mayflower growled.
“Well, come on, it’s either one or the other,” Grimsby said, his smile widening.
“Do you know the best technique for bailing from a moving vehicle?” he asked.
“Uh, no. I don’t think I do.”
Mayflower unlocked the jeep doors. “Then I’d stop talking if I were you.”
Grimsby’s smile only widened, but he still decided not to press his luck much further.
After some time, Mayflower spoke. “What was the matter with you back there, anyway? That kid was big, but I’ve seen you stand up to bigger.”
“You have?”
“Well, you stood up to me the first time we met. I’m bigger. But I thought you were going to pass out on that Auditor. Why?”
“I . . . I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, tough shit, kid.”
“What?” Grimsby asked, startled.
“This isn’t therapy time. We’re stuck with each other until this job is done, and I need to know what triggered you so when you freeze up next time it doesn’t get me killed.”
Grimsby bit back a sharp reply.
Mayflower wasn’t being cruel, although he wasn’t being kind, either. He was being practical. And blunt. Despite that, though, he was right. He deserved to know.
“I have a—a thing. With fire. Me and it don’t get along.”
“That so?”
“Yeah.”
Mayflower grunted. “Why?”
“When—when I was a kid, my mother died in a fire. I almost did, too.” He held up his hand and pulled the sleeve of his cheap robe back to show the scars.
Mayflower nodded. “I noticed those before. Not bad.”
“Not bad?” Grimsby asked, his temper flaring. “I’ve got scars over most of my left side!”
“We’ve all got scars, kid. Some you can see.” He pulled down the collar of his shirt enough to reveal the beginnings of a long-healed slash wound, and as he did Grimsby also noticed for the first time a dozen smaller scars around his hands and neck. “And some—some that you can’t.”
He didn’t elaborate on that last, but Grimsby somehow knew the veiled pain in his words. It was the pain of loss, a pain he was well familiar with.
“Point is,” Mayflower said, glaring away whatever had been haunting his expression, “you take hits when you go through life. And when you get back up after, you’re stronger for it.”
“I don’t feel stronger. I just feel tired.”
Mayflower smiled. It was fleeting and bitter, but it was a smile.
“I overheard your conversation with the Auditor. About how he was asking about me and the tracker.”
“Yeah, they must know about the Wardbox.”
“And you didn’t consider telling him that I had the spell to find it?”
“Consider it? I was about two seconds away from giving him your middle name, if I knew it.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, I guess not. Hey, wait a second, how long were you watching me?”
Mayflower shrugged. “Long enough.”
Grimsby rubbed the growing bump on the back of his skull. “Would it have killed you to step in sometime before he near broke my head?”
“I wanted to see what you’d do.”
“What?” Grimsby asked, feeling his temper rise.
“You, the fire, and the questions he kept asking. I wanted to see what you’d do.”
“I was scared out of my wits! You can’t expect me to make any reasonable decisions!”
“Exactly. What you do when you’re too afraid to think, that may be the truest measure of a man.”
Grimsby scowled but said nothing. Better late than never had hardly ever been a more appropriate saying in his life than it had been the last couple of days, and while Mayflower had been late twice while saving his life, that was better than the alternative. He let himself calm a bit before speaking again.
“So. How’d I measure out?”
“You’ll do,” Mayflower said as he shrugged.
Grimsby wasn’t sure where that rated on Mayflower’s scale of punk to whatever the opposite of a punk was, but he figured it wasn’t too bad and decided to change the subject before he regressed. “Any luck with my spell yet?”
“No,” he said, gesturing to the astrolabe duct-taped to the dashboard. “It hasn’t kicked in. In a way, it’s good that you’re back in it.”
“Why?”
“Because if the damn thing doesn’t work, I want you nearby so I can take it out of your hide.”
Grimsby grinned. “Fair enough. I told you, the range isn’t infinite. But get within a few miles and it should catch on.”
“We’ll see.”
“Meanwhile, I’m starving. How about you?”
Mayflower’s face bore an expression that looked like someone who had just been reminded to breathe. “I could eat.”
He guided the jeep down an intersection toward a burger place that Grimsby could smell before he could see. This wasn’t like MMDFK burgers. This smelled like real meat, not burnt cardboard, and his stomach felt like it might just leap out of his body and race them to the place.
He felt his mouth begin to water and his hands tremble with the sudden realization of how deprived of food he had been.
They pulled up to the window, and Mayflower grunted out an order that involved the word triple. Then, after a glance at Grimsby, he ordered a second of the same. They were waiting behind another driver at the drive-through window for a few minutes when Grimsby heard a clicking.
He looked over to see the astrolabe on the dashboard. It was moving on its own, the compass along the edge trembling and slowly turning.
It pointed north.
Mayflower saw it, too. Without a word, he kicked the jeep into gear and jumped the curb to get around the car in front of them. He drove straight through a hedge before swerving back onto the main road and picking up speed, using the astrolabe as his guide.
Grimsby could only look over his shoulder at the fading view of the burger place, the word triple bouncing around in his head.
THIRTY-ONE
Grimsby wasn’t sure how Mayflower managed to hit highway speeds on the clogged roads, but he somehow did. Even more impressive was that he hadn’t drawn the attention of any police officers. He did, however, receive numerous furious honks as he nearly, only ever nearly, struck other cars. But when the astrolabe took a sudden shift and pointed directly behind them instead, he slammed on the brakes, screeching to a halt in the middle of an intersection.
Grimsby was lurched forward in his seat, but his seat belt kept him from taking a trip out the windshield, or at least cracking his head on the dash. The sudden stop made the glove box crack open, and the sawed-off shotgun fell onto his feet, making him jump and hit his head on the top of the cab.
“What in the blue blazes, Mayflower?” Grimsby asked, putting the shotgun back like it was a loose snake.
Mayflower didn’t answer at first, his eyes glaring around. “It has to be close.”
“Great, can we at least park? Maybe not cause a riot? I think that semitruck over there is getting up the nerve to give us a physics lesson.”
Mayflower grunted and circled around, but the astrolabe jerked again, suddenly pointing in another direction. “Goddamn it,” he cursed, and coaxed the jeep to speed up with a hoarse roar.
A few minutes later, it happened again. Grimsby was afraid that they might be singlehandedly responsible for several midafternoon traffic jams.
“Where the hell is this thing?” Mayflower growled. “Your spell is busted.” He pulled the jeep underneath a railway overpass.
Grimsby picked up the astrolabe. He examined it and felt the warm pulse of his own Impetus radiate from the gold surface. “I don’t think so; it should be working fine.” He glanced around and felt the astrolabe twitch in his palm. Just as it did, however, he heard a groaning rattle as a train rambled along an overpass above the road.
“What is it?”
“I think the Wardbox is on a train,” Grimsby said, pointing at the line of cars as they passed on the rails overhead.
Mayflower’s eyes narrowed, but after a moment he grunted. “Makes sense.”
“How does that make any sense?”
“Where better to hide in plain sight than a place that’s always moving? Public transit is slower, but there’s a lower risk of being noticed. If they stayed in one place too long, they might be found, but the train lets them keep moving, and they can jump ship whenever they feel threatened.”
Grimsby nodded. “I guess that does make sense. Though what are they going to do with the Wardbox without the key?”
“I don’t know. I’m still not even sure how they got to Mansgraf in the first place. But I also don’t care. Whoever has that box killed her, and I’m going to find them.”
He put the jeep in gear and got back onto the streets.
“Where are we going?”
“South Station. With that compass of yours, we can find the train the box is on.”
“And then what? You going to gun down a bad guy on a moving train full of people?”
“Yes.”
“What if you miss?”
“I won’t.”
“But what if you do? Or what if whoever it is is tougher than you give them credit for, and suddenly we’re on a train full of civilians when he decides to toss a fireball our way?”
Mayflower was bitterly silent, his brow furrowed.
“We can go spot the guy, but we can’t just walk up to him and tell him to prepare to die.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Find the train, find the guy, then wait around until things clear out a bit. Keep an eye on him in case he tries to bail, but otherwise just wait. Then, when there’s no one else around, you can have your showdown. Assuming you’re up for it.”
“Come again?”
“I’m just saying, when you tried to pull the trigger on Aby, you couldn’t.”
“That was a fluke.”
“Is that why your hand was shaking?”
“You should stop talking.”
“Look, I’m just saying, I know how it feels to be scared. Trust me.”
Mayflower’s grip tightened on the wheel.
“I don’t know what happened to make you like that, and I don’t need to. But you have to admit that you’re not in total control when it comes to that gun.”
“Stop. Talking.”
“It’s okay—” Grimsby began, but Mayflower’s hand lashed out and seized him by the collar. The Huntsman pulled the fabric tight until air became scarce, never taking his eyes off the road.
“You don’t know a damned thing about me, witch. Keep your psychoanalysis to yourself.”
He released Grimsby, leaving him to cough and sputter for a moment as he regained his breath. Grimsby opened his mouth to speak, but a terse headshake from Mayflower advised him to do differently.
He took a deep breath and turned his attention out the window. He was just going to have to trust that Mayflower would be able to control himself when they found the killer.
Otherwise—well, otherwise he wasn’t sure if he could stop him.
They arrived at the South Boston train station after a few minutes of silence. The station was an old, elegant structure. Its broad, curved facade was strewn with bays of glass windows separated by thick stone pillars, all topped by an eagle-crested clock with a weathered face of white marble. The iron hands reminded Grimsby of his upcoming meeting with Wudge. His stomach turned, and he tried not to think about missing it, let alone what it might entail.
Mayflower parked the jeep in a nearby garage, grumbling about the long rows of pristine modern cars as he searched for a spot. When he finally found one, Grimsby had to wiggle his way out of the cracked passenger door to avoid hitting the SUV beside them.
“What’s the plan?” Grimsby asked.
Mayflower’s face soured, and for a moment, as they passed under the garage lights, Grimsby thought he might not answer. Finally, he spoke. “Find the train he’s on. Then haul him off it.”
“And what if he seems reluctant to go along with the hauling?”
Mayflower grunted. “We’ll . . . we’ll wait for the civvies to clear out.”
Grimsby nodded. “Good. That’s good.”
“It’s stupid is what it is.”
“But it’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?”
Mayflower shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said, the words seeming a bit strained. “Probably.”
They wove their way through the crowds. Most folks were packed just inside the platform, sheltering in the station from the uncomfortably cold autumn wind.
Grimsby had trouble until he started walking in Mayflower’s wake. The man seemed to make the crowd part unconsciously. Those who didn’t make way immediately did so after meeting the man’s gaze.
Mayflower glanced back to Grimsby, his hoarse voice just audible over the crowd. “Anything?”
