A whole world, p.6
The Oriceran Rich and Famous Collection: Two Complete Oriceran Universe Series, page 6
He reached his desk and leaned down to turn his computer on. His eye caught something sitting on the back corner of the desk surface. Did he get a new paperweight? Did Susie, his assistant, bring him one he hadn’t asked for?
Henry stood back up to get a better look. His eyes went wide when he saw that it was the stone that the girl had stolen from his house. He would know those etchings anywhere. The lion and the lamb, their lines sharp and crisp despite centuries of aging and weathering.
Now that he knew it was there, he could almost feel the strange power radiating from it. Despite his shifter curse he had no real magical aptitude, but some forces couldn’t be denied or ignored. In the case of the stone, the aura it gave off was so subtle he could almost chalk it up as psychosomatic. Except he realized that he had felt it since he left the elevator, despite not knowing the stone was here.
The soft hum of barely contained power. If his theories about the stone were correct, it might contain every bit as much energy as an atom. If the right person found it and figured out how to split it, the force might obliterate his world as he knew it.
Henry was already facing the storage locker behind his desk chair when the lights in his office suddenly went dim. Shadow leaked in from nowhere, swirling and overlapping into areas of stark black like a light show from a nightclub in hell.
A large puff of smoke appeared, bobbing around aimlessly. It stopped on the other side of the desk, and the Drow girl stepped out, staring straight at Henry. Her hands were at her sides, but she held no weapons. However, he knew she might have something concealed in her jacket.
Henry had already reached into his locker, past the extra suit jackets, and into the hidden compartment at the back. He held a sword ready, watching the girl.
He licked his lips. “How’d you get in here, anyway? My security…”
“Isn’t set up to detect magicals,” the girl finished for him.
Henry laughed. “Actually, it is. Do you think I’m some kind of a moron? That I’d leave myself vulnerable to attack?”
The girl shrugged and reached out to play with the Newton’s cradle on the desk. “I guess you need to beef up your defenses against shadow magic. Ditto for that big ugly thing you call a house over in Bremerton.”
“So, it is you.”
She looked at him like he was an idiot. “No shit. How many kids my age are running around disappearing and reappearing from puffs of smoke? I thought you were supposed to be smart. You know, a hero of science. All that crap about ‘saving the world from itself.’ The energy crisis and stuff.”
She laughed and spread her hands.
“You don’t need the sword, by the way. If I wanted to fight you, I probably would have appeared at your back. The element of surprise. Just saying. The name’s Ellie, by the way.”
“Cool. Good to know.” Henry took a step back, maintaining his stance. “But I’ll just hold onto it for now. Can’t be too careful when I’ve got weird little Drow ninjas warping around.”
She laughed, pulling a Post-it note off his monitor. “So, you know what I am. Cool. By the way, don’t forget to call Steve back at noon.”
She flicked the note away, letting it flutter to the floor like the world’s most boring confetti.
Henry gritted his teeth. “Fuck Steve.”
She raised her eyebrows. “If that’s the way you swing, bro, go for it. I might be a pain in the ass, but I have an open mind. By the way, you asked the first most obvious question already. How did I get in here? But you didn’t follow it up.”
“Fine.” Henry stood straight, lowering the sword but keeping his grip tight on the handle, his muscles tensed and ready for a potential fight. “Why are you here?”
“Great question. It’s about this lump of crap.” She picked up the stone and tossed it over. Henry jumped out of the way, barely avoiding having his toes smashed. “I noticed how you didn’t bother trying to catch it. So, you already know this isn’t any ordinary rock. It isn’t going to crack or break that easily. What else do you know about it?”
Henry bent and scooped up the rock, grinning at her and ignoring the low-level hum that radiated through the bones of his hand. “I know it’s heavy. Probably weighs about as much as your ego. Or the load of shit you’ll leave in your pants when I decide to come after you. Hey, why is it warm?”
She shrugged. “You tell me, battery-man. You specialize in this kind of thing, right? It’s been doing that sometimes when I touch it. Getting warmer like that. Doesn’t it do that for you?”
He shook his head, marveling at the stone. It was already going cool in his hands. “Did someone get hurt?”
Ellie smirked and stuck her chin out, the perfect picture of the defiant teen. “I dunno, old man. Here’s a better question for you. Why do you leave dangerous shit like this lying around?”
He jerked both hands toward her, pretending like he would throw it at her. She flinched and danced away, the shadow already rising to swallow her. He laughed, pointing at her, and she strode forward again with a pissed-off expression.
“Lying around, huh? I call bullshit on that. Last time I checked, I could put things, even dangerous things, anywhere I wanted inside my house. If some dipshit kid decides to break in and gets herself into trouble, well, that’s her problem. It was even in a case.”
Ellie scoffed, stepped around the desk, and laid her hand atop the stone. “Dude, it’s not like this thing is just some loaded gun, right? It’s more than that. I think even you know that.”
He felt the heat growing. Right when it reached the point where it was starting to get painful, she took her hand away, and it cooled down.
“Weird.” Henry shook his head. “Okay, I see your point. Playing the grumpy old man doesn’t cut it when stuff like this is in the wind. Probably should have put in a safe or something, right?” He shook his head. “Lexus has been trying to tell me that for years.”
Ellie retreated to a safe distance, crossing her arms. “Your car talks to you? Or is Lexus a person?”
“Doesn’t matter. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a petty thief. A lowlife criminal. You caught me off-guard and mind-tricked me into answering some of your questions, so now it’s my turn. Who sent you to my house?”
“A guy.” Ellie raised one eyebrow, challenging him. “Next question.”
Henry sighed, pulled out his desk chair, and sat. He was annoyed and ready to start breaking things, but he no longer felt threatened. “If you won’t tell me, why are you here? You have to realize there’s a thing called the law of equal exchange. I help you, and you help me. If you don’t want to give anything up, why should I? Why are you here?”
She tapped her foot impatiently. “I already told you. I need to know more about that stone.”
“The one you stole.” Henry grinned. “I guess you’re accustomed to getting something for nothing.”
He stared at her, waiting patiently. Sure, she was fast. She was cunning. And she had magic. But she was a kid, and one thing kids didn’t have was patience. He was going to wait her out and hope she started talking.
He noticed a tickle along his arms, the strange sensation of his hair standing on end. His wolf sense was kicking in, warning him that there was something he was missing.
Ellie finally cracked, just a little. “I need it.”
“The information or the stone?” Henry asked.
She sat on the edge of the desk, kicking her feet. “Both.”
“Why would I give anything to you? Especially the stone. It’s mine, and it’s dangerous. You can talk all you want about how I should keep it in a safer spot, but the fact of the matter is it was all fine until you broke into my damn house and fucked everything up.”
“Language, dude. I’m just a kid.” She smiled, but the expression fell away as her eyes wandered back to the stone. “I need it.”
“You already said that.” He kept staring at her with a perfect poker face. He was giving nothing away unless she could somehow discern something from a face of stone. Honestly, she was doing almost as well. Plenty of sardonic smirks and wrinkled noses, but she had no real tells.
What the hell was she thinking?
Just when he was starting to doubt his strategy, something changed. Ellie let out a long-suffering sigh, then laughed and shook her head.
“Okay, here goes. The sob story. Except I’m not telling it to make you feel sorry for me, it’s just the truth. Me and these other kids my age, we’re kind of a family. We have nothing else but each other. Sure, we have some magic capabilities between all of us. But all of that just helps us evade people. We have no way to fight for anything better or to defend ourselves.”
Henry kicked his feet up on the desk. “Let me guess. You make your living by stealing shit and selling it.”
“Sort of. Have you heard of the magical dark web?”
“Sure. I know a thing or two about that.” He knew more than a thing or two and spent hours every week scouring it with the help of Lexus. She didn’t need to know all that.
“Okay. So, we find work there. It’s enough to eke out an existence, but we’re not doing much living, you know? I’m trying to get us into a better spot. Maybe it’s naïve of me to say this, but I want to make the world a better place. So I’m trying to take jobs from the good guys, or at least the not-totally-evil guys. This new dude kind of seems like he fits in that category. And no, I’m not going to tell you more about him. So don’t ask.”
“I wasn’t planning on wasting my breath.”
“So, anyway, I stole this stone from you. Except then it suddenly went haywire and almost melted down in our hideout. It could have killed me. It could have killed my friends, and that’s even worse.” She bit her lip, looking vulnerable for the first time. “I need to know what I’ve gotten myself into. I need to understand. I was born into magic, but I feel like I’m completely cut off from it. It doesn’t feel right.”
Henry sat forward, the chair creaking under his weight. He set the stone on the desk. “You’ve got guts, Ellie. Equal parts brave and stupid. Kind of like me. I can admire it. But I can’t let you have the stone. It’s way too dangerous. I can at least tell you that it comes from an ancient culture. One that died out a long time ago. I have no idea what it’s capable of, and that’s the truth.”
He grunted, already angry at himself as he grabbed a pen and wrote on another Post-it note. He handed it to the girl.
“It’s my phone number. One of them, anyway. If you get into any water that’s too hot to pull yourself out of, give me a call, and I’ll be there. No questions asked.”
She took the note, staring at it in disbelief. “Why are you giving me this?”
Henry shrugged, resting back in his chair again. “I know I probably seem like some ivory tower asshole, but I care too. I have my boots on the ground just like you. If you’re really one of the good guys like you’re telling me, I don’t want you getting yourself hurt.”
She was about to say something else, but they heard a door opening. Henry’s assistant, Susie, walked in holding a stack of files which she promptly dropped on the floor.
“Oh my God, Henry, I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I didn’t let her in. How did she get past me? Should I call security?”
Henry shook his head. “You should call her a cab and pay for it with the company card.”
“No need for that.” Ellie stood fast, rushing out of the room. “I’ll catch you later, battery-guy.”
The door shut and Henry and Susie stared at each other awkwardly. He tore his eyes away, scooting toward the desk to finally get to work. Suddenly, he realized there was a suspiciously empty spot on the desk where the stone had been a moment ago.
“Shit!” He stood and sprinted out into the hall. The elevator doors stood open at the end, but there was no sign of Ellie. Nothing other than a shred of black smoke dissolving into the air.
CHAPTER NINE
Henry winced as the Ducati bumped up and over the uneven pavement, the wheels briefly losing traction in a gummy seam of tar. It was raining, unsurprisingly, a warm summer sprinkle that fell from a strangely clear sky. Evening was fast approaching. Far away, past the lights of Bremerton, the ferry was visible but shrouded in the fog of distance on its way across the Sound.
Henry was here, at the southwest edge of town. He rode past the post office and an ugly white and orange building on the left. On his right was B&B Auto Repair, an elongated building lined with garage doors set back a mere car length from the road.
Careful not to slide on the slick asphalt, Henry turned and rolled to a stop just beside the junky old truck of the owner, an old friend of his. He killed the engine and stood, pulling his helmet off. He realized now how quiet the late afternoon was. Most of the businesses were closed for the day, and there was no traffic on the road.
The only sound was the soft hiss of rain on the pavement, almost like meat sizzling in a hot pan.
Henry went past the garage doors to the small glass door of the lobby and knocked. Someone moved inside, unlocked the door, and pulled it open.
Hatch Latham peered out, the suspicion on his handsome but weathered face turning to pure joy.
“Henry, you old bastard! How the hell are ya?”
“As good as I can be.” Henry looked over his shoulder, scanning the area. “Are you gonna let me stand out here in the rain?”
“Sorry, sorry!” Hatch stepped back, holding the door open for Henry to enter the dark lobby. “Just getting over my surprise. It’s not every day a billionaire rolls into your shop. I figure a guy like you can pay someone else to fix up your wheels.”
Henry shut and locked the door. “I’m not here about the Ducati.”
“No?” Hatch rubbed his chin suspiciously. “I don’t buy it. The thing must be wrecked in some way, right? How many bikes have you screwed up so far this month, huh?”
“Just a couple, no big deal. It’s good to see you too, Hatch. Got anything good in?”
“When do I ever?” Hatch scoffed, leading the way into the garage. “This is a grease pit, not a BMW dealership. Mostly work trucks and old cars that should have been retired ten years ago.”
“Speaking of which, I see you’re still in that same busted-up Ford.” Henry gave his friend a playful punch on the shoulder. “It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? You run a garage whose whole job is keeping vehicles in top shape, and you’re driving around in that piece of shit.”
Hatch flipped the lights on, revealing the grease-stained garage in all its glory. A couple of bays held cars that were staying overnight. “That piece of shit is going strong and purring like a kitten, thank you very much. See, I told you. Nothing good. Unless you call a ’73 El Camino ‘good.’ I guess it is vintage. And you don’t see too many of them in Washington. Hey, wait a minute…”
He suddenly turned to Henry, the hairs on his tanned arms standing up. “Why are you here, anyway? You haven’t been to see me in months.”
Henry picked up a giant socket wrench and tested its weight. “What are you talking about? We just went on a run the other day.”
“Yeah, and it was a hell of a run. But us meeting there was incidental, right? Not like you came just to see me. So what’s the deal? You need to borrow some money?” Hatch laughed, reached into his wallet, and pulled out a couple of five-dollar bills. “Here, this should take care of about half a down payment on a new particle accelerator or whatever the hell you might need. I expect prompt repayment as soon as your stock goes up another thousand percent.”
“Quit being a smartass. I know it’s fun, but still. Can’t a guy swing by and visit an old friend?” Henry set the wrench down and grabbed a random rag to wipe the grease off his hands. “I know this isn’t really that kind of friendship. It’s more. When you go through what we’ve been through together, Hatch, it does one of two things. It can break people apart, or it can bring them together and make their bond as hard as titanium.”
Hatch pointed in his face. “Don’t get sappy on me, Neumann. You aren’t a tree. We both know you don’t drop by for random visits. Not holding it against you. Just stating a fact. That’s not the kind of guy you are. Or maybe it’s not the kind of life you lead. Too busy, right?”
Henry sighed, stepped over to the El Camino, and ran a hand along the hood. The metal was dusty and pitted. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Yeah? I can probably take a guess. Tell me what’s up.”
Henry turned to his friend, taking a breath, tasting the motor oil and rust in the air. “There’s this artifact. I think it’s Celtic in origin. Maybe Pictish. The provenance isn’t well-established. Earliest record has it at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. From there it went into private collections but never stayed put for too long. It built up a bit of mythology. Supposed to be bad luck. One of the owners even claimed it set his house on fire.”
Shit, that might be possible now, he thought.
“Sort of like that spooky-ass painting.” Hatch shivered. “With the little boy and that weird doll thing standing next to him.”
“Kind of. Except not very interesting, visually. This artifact’s a stone. Probably from a river bottom, given how smooth and rounded it is. There are carvings in it. A lion and a lamb.”
“Hm…” Hatch squatted, thumping the El Camino’s tires with his fist. “Kind of weird, isn’t it? Did the Celts even know about lions?”
“Probably. They originated on mainland Europe, and they fought with the Romans. Ever seen that statue, the Dying Gaul? What I’m trying to say is, they were fairly worldly. Even in ancient times, knowledge spread pretty well. Even across cultures. Anyway, the carvings aren’t the weird thing about the stone.”
He gave Hatch an abbreviated version of what he knew. The strange properties of the stone, its humming energy, the way it got hotter when Ellie touched it. He had no idea what might cause that last part. Maybe an ancient enchantment. Hopefully not so ancient that no one alive knew anything about it.
By the time he reached the end of the story, they had migrated from the garage into Hatch’s cramped office, where they sipped cold coffee from a pot that had been brewed who knew how many hours ago.
