“I’m calling you out, Erwin Trommler,” I said out loud. “Come to me and see what I have for you.”
Now I thought Geronimo and Tom were strong, but nothing prepared me for the feeling of fingers tightening on my throat. Throwing things is almost random, but this one had control and power. I began to choke and though I waved my hands in front of my face, there was nothing to grab.
I opened the box. I don’t really need to, I guess, but it works for me and for them. I think they like jumping out on some spirit who thinks he’s a badass. The choking stopped in an instant and I coughed and wheezed, rubbing my throat.
“Sic ’im,” I said.
It was like standing at the center of an explosion. Every damn thing in that house crashed like it had been struck by an earthquake and the air was filled with sharp pieces. If it hadn’t been for the goggles, I think I’d have been blinded. I tell you now I’d never seen a fight like it, and for the first time I wondered if Geronimo and old Tom could handle this one.
They battered each other through walls, so that I could see great holes appear from nothing. The noise was incredible and I spared a moment to wonder if I’d be seeing flashing lights outside before it was over. The house was set apart from the others in the street, but I had no idea how I’d explain all this to the cops if they showed up. Plaster rained down from the ceiling, and even the lights were ripped out. I staggered after them, and sometimes I could see dim shapes and shadows grunting and struggling in the dust. My three had him down for a time, but he got up and slammed Geronimo across the room. The air was thick, winds blowing like we were standing on a cliff.
I began to worry that he was too strong for all of us, but in the moonlight, I caught sight of the Lady. She was no more than a wisp, like a piece of cloth dragged this way and that, but she closed on him when Geronimo went down and then I heard her scream for the first time. I didn’t even know she could. God, I don’t ever want to hear it again.
I fell to my knees, the pain was that bad. My teeth vibrated and my skull buzzed and I thought I was going to puke. I just hoped it was worse for Erwin goddamn Trommler. As it went on, I let my lunch go all over the carpet, though you couldn’t even see it then, with the dust that coated everything. I was still dry-heaving when the noise stopped and the silence was so complete I thought I’d gone deaf. Then I heard a car passing outside and I got to my feet. I was a bit shaky, but I was grinning. The Lady was a screamer, who knew? She’d battered that old spirit into a corner and I could feel Geronimo and Tom standing over him, like they were daring him to get up and try it again.
I looked around at the devastation and I felt a pang for his daughter, but not too much. I still had work to do and I almost sobbed when I felt the Lady breathing on my neck once again. Erwin Trommler didn’t dare stir while we searched for his relic. I was expecting hair or something. Instead, she helped me find some old teeth in a box in the attic. They had gold in them and I guess he’d kept them for that, when they came out. It made me think of the gold teeth the Nazis pulled out of Jews in the camps, and I spent a little time weeping before I came down. I’m not ashamed of it.
It was about midnight by then, and I still had work to do. I could have burned the teeth, but I’d had a few hours to think it through and buy a few things. I didn’t want his relic destroyed. I wanted it to last for a thousand years, about as long as he’d once thought his Third Reich would. So I filled a little plastic jar with clear resin and put them in. I smoked a few cigarettes while it set, looking like some prehistoric thing trapped in amber, you know?
After that, I took a thin sheet of lead and I wrapped it all over, bending the metal with my thumbs. It wasn’t pretty, but it felt good and solid in my hand.
I felt foolish locking that door behind me, after all the damage we’d done. The house would need to be stripped back and every room rebuilt on that floor, but I was satisfied. The moon was bright as I drove to the ocean. I had chartered a little boat that afternoon, and though I don’t know the first damn thing about boats, I figured it wouldn’t be so hard to take it out into deep water and drop that lead block overboard, where it could sink into a darkness that went on forever. I wanted him to choke on eternity.
I did say I wasn’t born with this name. My mother was a hard woman, but maybe that was because she’d seen things no one should ever see. I still remember the faded blue numbers on her arm. She hadn’t talked about them and it was years before I knew what they were and why she wouldn’t wear short sleeves even in summer. When I was still a baby, she’d changed my name from Jacob Grossman to Jack Garner. Like many before her, she started a new life in the New World. She left a lot behind, but those blue marks never did come off.
I stood in that little boat, holding the lead box over the deep waters. Even out there, with the town lights twinkling in the distance, I could feel the struggle they had to keep him still. Oh, he fought, of course he did. I hope they hurt him as they kept him down. I dropped the relic and it disappeared into the blackness. I felt like a weight had been lifted from me, one I hadn’t even known I was carrying. It was a good feeling and I stayed out there to watch the sun come up.
I’d like to say I retired after that, but I didn’t. I just went to Memphis.
HELLBENDER
by Laurie R. King
Here’s a riveting look at a not-too-distant future where, unfortunately, intolerance is not a thing of the past . . .
New York Times bestseller and Edgar® Award winner Laurie R. King is the author of the eleven-volume Mary Russell mystery series of novels, one of the most successful modern Sherlock Holmes homages, detailing the adventures of a young woman who meets a retired Sherlock Holmes in his role as a Sussex beekeeper; she becomes his apprentice, then partner, and, eventually, wife. The Mary Russell novels include The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, A Monstrous Regiment of Women, The Game, The Language of Bees, and seven others. In addition, King is the author of the five-book Kate Martinelli series of modern-day detective novels, consisting of A Grave Talent, To Play the Fool, With Child, Night Work, and The Art of Detection, and of the stand-alone novels A Darker Place, Keeping Watch, Califia’s Daughters, Touchstone, and Macavity Award winner Folly. Her most recent book is a Mary Russell novel, Pirate King.
I LOOKED ACROSS MY DESK AT MY NEW CLIENT, WONDERING WHAT SHE’D say if I fished out the bottle and offered her a drink.
Might be a little early in the morning, I decided. Might be a little straitlaced.
“Miss Savoy, I—”
“Ms.” The pretty sniff she gave didn’t really go along with the sharpness of the correction, but I let it pass, and turned my eyes to the sheet of paper. On it were eight names. Next to each was a date, stretching back eight months. The first seven lines were typed, a printout. The last one and its date, two weeks past, were handwritten.
“Ms. Savoy, I have to say, I’m not really sure what you’re asking me to do. Which of these people do you want me to find?”
“All of them!”
At that, I raised my eyes to hers. They were big and blue and welling with just enough tears to get the message across, but not enough to threaten her makeup. The color had to be some kind of an implant, I thought—although you’d swear her hair was a natural blond.
Interesting fact: People of her kind just weren’t born blond.
“I don’t do class-action suits, Ms. Savoy, and this many names will keep me busy for weeks. How about we start with one of them, and see how far we get?” I could see from her clothes that she didn’t have the sort of money we were talking about here—her shoes and coat had once cost her something, but that was a whole lot of cleanings ago.
“Well, that would be Harry. He’s the last one to go—the last one I know of—but I’ve known him the longest.”
And, she might have said, he was the one that mattered most.