Minor Difficulties

Chapter Twenty Four

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 05:10:00 +0000

Harold had needed to turn off of the paved road and onto a dirt road in order to get around the lake to where Dr. Porter appeared to be working. The minivan clunked and moaned as they drove over bumps and potholes, but apart from the noise seemed to handle driving on dirt far better than driving on pavement. After a particularly nasty pothole, Alex was glad they were in the minivan and not his Mustang.

The dirt road wound around the lake, moving in and out of the woods that surrounded the lake. Every time they came out of woods into a clearing and could see across, it seemed as if the light they were trying to reach was getting not just closer, but more intense. Shadows of the vegetation at the edge of the water were thrown into sharp relief, and cast long shadows across the water.

“It looks as though she’s already made up for lost time,” Harold said.

The minivan hit another hard bump, and seemed to lose power then. The engine was still running, and Harold stepped on the gas to try and break the minivan free of whatever was slowing it down. All he succeeded in doing, however, was revving the engine as the minivan coasted to a gradual stop.

Trying to shift into other gears resulted in more engine revving with no movement. Even reverse was useless. Harold shut off the engine.

“I guess we’re going to have to go the rest of the way on foot,” Harold said.

He and Alex got out of the minivan, and started walking quickly in the direction they’d been driving. The ticking sounds, clanging, and groans of the stopped minivan quickly gave way to the sound of crickets and frogs as they walked. And then, curiously, to silence.

“Do you hear that?” Harold said quietly.

Alex strained, and listened as hard as he could manage.

“Hear what?” Alex finally said.

“Everything has fallen silent,” Harold said. “The creatures around this lake are keeping a low profile, all of a sudden.”

“I can’t say I blame them,” Alex said. “This stuff going on right now can be officially classified as spooky shit.”

A wave of the strange sensation Alex was now becoming way too familiar with rushed over them.

“So what is it that causes that feeling, anyway, Harold?” Alex said as they hurried along the dirt road. They were nearly jogging, and Alex hoped that a bit of conversation would keep his mind off of the fact that the muscles in his legs were starting to burn from the activity.

“It’s the reaction to opening the door between our worlds. It’s kind of like feeling the heat generated from friction,” Harold said. “We could measure it, actually, if we had a feather and ruler at our disposal.”

“Maybe another time,” Alex said. He was starting to get winded, but he kept hurrying along with Harold.

Alex and Harold were able to see Dr. Porter clearly now, as well as several of the ‘angels’. The weird sensation had become a constant again, as it had in Dr. Porter’s cabin, and was getting stronger the closer they got.

The two of them reached the clearing where Dr. Porter was working. The ‘angels’ seemed more distinct now than they had in Dr. Porter’s cabin. Alex noticed they had almost human faces now.

Dr. Porter appeared to be conversing with them excitedly. She had not yet noticed Alex and Harold. Alex noticed the disks that Dr. Porter had run off with were now floating on an inflatable pool toy she was using as a table. Dr. Porter stood in waist deep water, holding on to the disks on the pool toy.

Alex noticed one of the ‘angels’ seemed to be looking at him and Harold. Then another, and another, until all five of the ‘angels’ were looking at the two of them.

“That can’t be good,” Alex said.

“No, it’s really not,” Harold said.

Dr. Porter whirled around in the water and faced them.

“You two again? You’re very persistent, I’ll give you that. You’re too late, though, I have all of the information I need to open the doorway between our worlds, and carry on Thomas Smith’s great work!” Dr. Porter said.

“So much for stealth,” Alex said.

Harold walked forward to the edge of the water, and said, “Please believe me when I tell you that opening the door isn’t what you think it is. You might think that you’re in control now, but you’ll lose any control over what happens once the door is open.”

Dr. Porter laughed, and said, “What would you know, butler? They’ve told me all about you and your manipulations. You’re simply a small minded fool who would keep great minds from flourishing. Soon I shall have understanding of the great mysteries of the universe, while intellectual cowards like you will be trembling at my feet.”

“I know because I’ve seen it before, Dr. Porter,” Harold said. “I fear the one left trembling will be you, however.”

“You lie!” Dr. Porter said. “And you’re too late, the door is already opening.”

“Oh bugger,” Harold said.

The glow coming from the ‘angels’ increased in intensity, and they became even more well-defined. They were certainly similar in shape to humans, and had similar facial features, but there was still something alien about them. They were a little too thin, and their eyes were a little too big. They appeared to be smiling, as well. It was not a gentle smile.

The water underneath Dr. Porter and the floating pool toy was beginning to glow as well. At the moment, it was only bright enough to look as if there was a light bulb held underwater, but the light was getting brighter and brighter every minute.

“Have you got any bright ideas on how to stop this, Harold?” Alex said.

“No, I’m fresh out of ideas at the moment,” Harold said. “I think our best bet is get the artifacts away from Dr. Porter and hopefully break the connection that is opening the door.”

“How? Like run up there and grab them from her?” Alex said.

“That’s what I have in mind, yes,” Harold said.

The light under and around Dr. Porter was getting brighter still.

“OK, why not?” Alex said. “Let’s do this.”

He and Harold ran forward into the lake. The water was shockingly cold, and Alex nearly fell in when lost his footing on a slippery rock.

What stopped him was one of the ‘angels’ catching him and holding him tightly by the wrists, keeping his arms above his head. It grinned at Alex.

“Hey! You guys aren’t supposed to be able to do that,” Alex said.

Harold made it past the other ‘angels’, and reached the spot where Dr. Porter was standing. She looked shocked that he had dared to get so close to her. The water underneath them was glowing ever brighter, and was beginning to move with strange currents and eddies.

He used Dr. Porter’s surprise to his advantage, and easily grabbed the artifacts out from under Dr. Porter’s hands. He waded quickly back to shore.

“Those do not belong to you!” Dr. Porter said as Harold moved away from her. “But it doesn’t matter, the door is still opening.”

The light coming from under water began to shine upwards, creating a beacon of white light pointing straight up into the sky.

“I have been invited to learn from the greatest minds in the universe, and I have accepted their invitation!” Dr. Porter said.

“You really shouldn’t,” Harold said. “It will be much better for you if you don’t, in fact.”

Dr. Porter laughed again. “Farewell, butler,” she said, and vanished down into the water.

“Damn,” Harold said.

“A little help over here?” Alex said. Struggling against the ‘angel’ had proven useless, and he hoped Harold had some kind of trick for getting him free.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Minor. You’re going to have to wait a moment,” Harold said.

“What?” Alex said, as Harold set down the disks on the shore, ran back out into the lake, and dove into the light Dr. Porter had just vanished into.

“I just don’t believe this,” Alex said. So far the ‘angel’ had only been holding him in place, but Alex really didn’t like the way he, or she, or it, was leering at him. And now Harold had vanished to where ever it was that Dr. Porter had gone. He watched the spot where Harold had dived underwater, and hoped that whatever came up out of there next turned out to be nothing worse than a soggy butler.

The light seemed to be dimming, in fact, and Alex had another scary thought: what would happen if Harold didn’t come back out of there in time?

The water continued to swirl and move, and Alex thought he could see faces appearing and disappearing under the surface.

The light dimmed further, and Alex really began to worry that Harold might not come back up out of the water. As near as he could figure, Harold had been underwater for several minutes. Alex had no idea how long Harold could hold his breath for, be he knew that he himself could barely hold his breath for over a minute.

Just then, as he watched, a shadow appeared underwater. Seconds later, Harold’s head broke the surface of the water, followed by his shoulders, and eventually the rest of him. What’s more, he was dragging Dr. Porter up behind him.

She began shouting at him the moment they broke the surface. “Damn it, let me go at once, you great, British ape!”

“I’m sorry Dr. Porter, I can’t do that,” Harold said.

He pulled her along with him up to the shore, where he finally let her go. She tried to run back in to the water, but Harold blocked her from doing so. He produced a small length of cord from one of his pockets, and quickly tied Dr. Porter up. It happened so quickly that Dr. Porter barely had time to say, “Hey!” in protest before Harold had finished binding her arms and carefully set her down on the ground.

Harold then picked up the artifacts from where he had left them and walked back into the lake. He stood over the spot the two of them had just emerged from, and began muttering something that Alex couldn’t hear. The light coming from beneath the water quickly began to dim, and a couple of moments later Alex was able to get his hands free from the ‘angel’ who had been holding him.

Alex noticed the ‘angels’ were becoming less and less defined, and getting dimmer and more transparent as Harold did whatever it was he was doing.

The light coming from underwater was completely gone after a couple of minutes, and soon, Harold was simply standing in a dark lake, holding on to the artifacts by himself.

“What the hell just happened?” Alex said to Harold, as Harold came walking back out of the lake.

“Dr. Porter made the same mistake Thomas Smith made,” Harold said. “Luckily for her, this time I was there to pull her back out of their world before the door closed again. “

Dr. Porter was raging at Harold from where she sat. He ignored her for the time being.

“I don’t think she realizes how lucky she is, yet,” Harold said.

“Was that dangerous for you?” Alex said.

“Extremely,” Harold said.

“Why did you do it? She clearly wanted to go,” Alex said.

“Because I couldn’t bear to see someone else meet the same fate that met Thomas Smith,” Harold said. “If he was lucky, perhaps he met with a quick death. On the other hand, perhaps he’s been alive all this time as well. Perhaps he’ll even outlive me, there in that other world. I couldn’t let someone else go through that, knowing what I know.”

Alex thought about that quietly for a moment. Finally, he said, “So what are we going to do with her now?”

“Good question,” Harold said. “First things first, let’s get moving back towards civilization. Dr. Porter and I are soaked through, and it looks like you’ve gotten a bit damp as well.”

Alex and Harold helped Dr. Porter to her feet. She had stopped her angry tirade, and fallen into a sullen silence.

“Is your car parked nearby? It’s a hike to ours, and ours broke down to boot,” Alex said.

Dr. Porter glared at him, and stayed silent.

“OK, we’ll walk then,” Alex said.

He and Harold each took one of Dr. Porter’s arms, and led her back towards where they had left the minivan. Harold took his phone out of one of his pockets, and discovered it wouldn’t turn on after the adventure in the lake. He asked Alex if he could borrow his phone, and called Mr. Darcy to see if transportation could be arranged for the three of them, and to have something done about the minivan.

“Our ride should be here in a couple of hours,” Harold said. “I’ve told them how to find the van.”

A little while later, the three of them reached the minivan. Harold opened the sliding door, pulled out his luggage, and put the remaining artifacts inside. Keeping a firm hold on his luggage, he gestured into the van, and said to Dr. Porter, “Please get in and stay out of the weather, at least.”

Dr. Porter glared at him and Alex, and appeared to be weighing her options. She finally shrugged and got into the back seat of the minivan.

She sniffed, made a face, and said, “What a piece of shit.”

Alex took a deep breath to keep his sudden annoyance in check, and said, “We’d have picked you up in a nicer car if you hadn’t arranged to have mine smashed as part of your grand scheme.”

He walked around to the back of the minivan.

“Please stay here,” Harold said to Dr. Porter, and closed the sliding door.

He went and joined Alex at the back of the minivan. They stood in silence for a couple of minutes.

“Are you going to bring the artifacts back to the museum in London?” Alex said.

“Of course, Mr. Minor. They’re not of any use to me any longer, and at least if they’re in a museum I’ll have a good idea of where they are at any given time,” Harold said.

“I would have thought you’d plan on putting them in a safe deposit box. Or maybe invest in some new luggage to hide them in,” Alex said.

“No, no, back to the museum they’ll go. I expect they’ll be largely forgotten about again, and if anyone happens to take an extreme interest in them sometime in the future, well, I’ll be there to bring them back again,” Harold said.

“Back to an earlier question, then. What are we going to do with Dr. Porter?” Alex said.

“Well, we could bring her home, give her a stern talking to, and then be on our way. I’ve also heard one of our co-workers has a penchant for leaving troublesome people on the side of the road in a bordering state with a coupon for The Sizzler,” Harold said.

“I’m not sure either of those are the right option,” Alex said.

“In that case, perhaps we should let Mr. Darcy turn her over to the police. I’m sure they’d like to get their hands on someone involved in the conspiracy to steal these artifacts. Particularly someone that seems to have orchestrated the destruction of your car,” Harold said.

“I think that sounds about right,” Alex said.

Eventually, a long black sedan, and a tow truck arrived. Alex, Harold, and Dr. Porter rode back to Mr. Darcy’s office in the car. They left the tow truck to deal with the minivan.

Mr. Darcy was waiting for them when they arrived. It was very late at night, or very early in the morning, and no one was in the office except for him. Alex wondered once more if Mr. Darcy ever left that office.

“Mr. Minor, Mr. Derby, I understand you have recovered all of the missing artifacts?” Mr. Darcy said.

“They’re here in my luggage, Mr. Darcy,” Harold said.

“Excellent,” Mr. Darcy said. “And I see you’ve brought Dr. Porter along as well. I have a contact in the Minneapolis police department who is eager to speak with her. Dr. Porter, in the meantime, please make yourself comfortable.”

Mr. Darcy removed a pair of envelopes from a drawer in his desk, and handed one each to Alex and Harold. They both contained a thick stack of one hundred dollar bills. “Well done, gentlemen,” he said.

He then removed a manila folder from another drawer, and said, “Now then, are you ready for your next assignment?”

The End

Final word count for this year's novel: 50,375

Thanks for reading!

Chapter Twenty Three

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 05:01:00 +0000

Alex and Harold sat in the minivan in front of Dr. Porter’s cabin. Every few seconds, there would be another pulse of the strange sensation. It made Alex’s hair stand up each time, but Harold, as usual, seemed entirely unaffected by it.

“What do you think we should do here? Come back in the morning? Watch and wait until she leaves and we can go in and look around undisturbed?” Alex said.

Harold looked at Alex, and said, “I think we should go inside, immediately, and recover the artifacts and my luggage. Why on Earth would we wait?”

“I’m just thinking that she might start screaming about intruders, and we might get shot at, either by her or her neighbors, if we just go in there in the middle of the night,” Alex said.

“You don’t seem to have very much confidence in your ability to be stealthy, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“That’s because I’m completely fucking terrible at being stealthy, Harold. Just ask Megan some time,” Alex said. He had visions of being chased down the road by a burly neighbor of Dr. Porter’s wearing nothing but pajama pants and brandishing a shotgun.

“Well, I’m stealthy enough for both of us, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. “Just stay close to me and try not to knock anything over.”

“You’re insane, Harold,” Alex said.

“Perhaps,” Harold said. “At any rate, stick close to me and we’ll be back out of here in the minivan in mere moments.”

“I sure hope you’re right,” Alex said.

They got out of the minivan, and Alex cringed at the way the doors screeched open. He expected to hear someone’s dog start barking, but none did. He joined Harold at the foot of the driveway.

“Remember, stay close to me, and don’t knock anything over,” Harold said.

“Whatever you say, Harold,” Alex said. “Let’s just get this over with.”

They walked up the driveway next to each other. Alex flinched a bit as each step in the gravel crunched under foot. He expected a dog to start barking any second, lights to turn on, and a need for him and Harold to start running.

“Please calm down, Mr. Minor,” Harold said, quietly.

“How exactly is it that you can be stealthy enough for both of us?” Alex whispered back.

“I’m a butler. It’s my business,” Harold said.

“We’re screwed,” Alex said to himself under his breath.

“Thank you for your confidence, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

They reached the side door. Alex got there first, opened the hurricane door, grabbed the door knob, and said, “Here goes.”

The door was locked. Alex was mildly embarrassed that his first reaction was a feeling of relief.

“Allow me, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

He took the door knob, and this time it turned easily. He swung the door open, and walked inside. “Stay close to me,” Harold said.

“How the hell did you do that?” Alex said. He followed Harold inside, doing his best to not let the hurricane door slam shut behind them.

“It’s a trade secret, I’m afraid,” Harold said. “Be quiet.”

The waves of the strange sensation were even stronger inside. Just as one pulse seemed to subside, another one began. Alex felt himself break out in goosebumps from head to toe. He was already on edge, and the pulses were pushing him close to panic.

It was dark inside the cabin, but there was enough light coming in the windows that they were able to see the interior reasonably well. The kitchen and living room were one open space. The walls were covered in wood paneling, and Dr. Porter appeared to have quite a collection of framed art. Most of the frames were kind of battered, and Alex guessed they were largely thrift store finds. The furniture was mismatched, and most of it was overstuffed. There was a wood burning stove in one corner of the room.

All in all, it was a pretty cozy cabin. Apart from the otherworldly pulses of energy, of course.

“She’s really made an astonishing amount of progress,” Harold said.

“How can you tell?” Alex said.

“I can feel it. I know you can too, your hair is standing on end,” Harold said.

“Is not,” Alex said.

“Be quiet. We’re being stealthy,” Harold said.

There were three doors in the far wall. Two were shut, and one was open. There was enough light coming in the window in that room to tell that it was a bedroom. It was also possible to tell that no one was in there.

The far door was shut, and there was only shadow showing underneath it. Harold and Alex didn’t waste any time on that door, since the middle door had a soft, very white light coming from underneath it. It seemed to pulse in time with the waves of sensation.

Alex and Harold stood outside the middle door. Harold reached for the door knob.

“Whatever you see in here, don’t be alarmed, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“I think that’s the most alarming thing you’ve said tonight,” Alex said.

Harold opened the door.

Inside, Dr. Porter sat alone at a three legged table. She had a small disk under each of the table’s legs, the larger wax disk and the gold disk on top of the table, with a piece of polished black obsidian on top of all of it. She had both hands on the obsidian, and was staring intensely into it. She was, so far, completely oblivious to Alex and Harold’s presence.

Underneath the table and Dr. Porter on the floor, drawn in either chalk or white salt, was a five pointed star inside of a circle.

More curious was that there was a softly glowing outline of something human shaped, but somewhat small, standing just outside the circle at each of the points of the star. The strange sensation had stopped coming in waves and was now constant.

“Holy shit!” Alex said.

Harold covered his face with one hand, and sighed. “I can’t provide stealth for you if you insist on being obvious, Mr. Minor,” he said.

Alex didn’t have time to reply, because Dr. Porter was no longer paying attention to the scrying mirror, and was instead staring at Alex and Harold with a mix of surprise and anger on her face.

“What are you doing here? How did you get in?” Dr. Porter said.

“We’ve come to collect my luggage, and the artifacts you’ve stolen,” Harold said.

“We got in through the side door,” Alex added.

“That door was locked, and I put a spell of protection on the whole house,” Dr. Porter said.

Harold chuckled politely, and said, “Spells of protection have no effect on me, Dr. Porter. I’m a butler.”

Dr. Porter’s eyes went wide. “Did you say you’re a butler?”

Alex looked back and forth between the two of them. He wasn’t sure which part of that conversation baffled him the most.

“I am,” Harold said.

“They said you were coming. I didn’t understand what it meant, but they told me,” Dr. Porter said.

“Could you tell me what the hell is going on?” Alex said.

“Well, Harold Derby, you’ve come a long way to see me. It’s too bad for you that I’m not about to let you ruin my triumph!” Dr. Porter said. “A lifetime of research and study. Failed experiment after failed experiment. And now that I have the proper tools, success is within my reach!”

“Ruin your triumph?” Harold said. “Completely aside from the fact that you’ve taken items which do not belong to you, I’m not here to steal your success. I’m here to save you from yourself. To save you from the same fate that befell Thomas Smith, and me.”

“Say what?” Alex said.

“The fate that befell you? To commune with the angels? To find the truths mankind has been searching for since the beginning of time?” Dr. Porter said. “I would be glad to meet that fate.”

Harold shook his head, sadly.

“There were no truths, only more questions,” Harold said. “And those are not angels. To their credit, they never claimed they were.”

“You lie!” Dr. Porter said.

She stood up from her chair suddenly, knocking it over backwards, where it fell through one of the glowing human shapes standing behind her.

“Look at me,” Harold said. “Three hundred some years old. I need no sleep, and there is no rest for me. I do not need to eat, and there is no joy in a fine meal for me. I watch, and wait, and hope that one day this will end. My reward turned punishment.”

“You were only a lackey to Thomas Smith. He has travelled to be with the angels, and eternal ecstasy,” Dr. Porter said.

“I don’t know about that,” Harold said. “Mr. Smith has travelled somewhere, certainly. Has it occurred to you that perhaps these ‘angels’ are seeking truth themselves. I think Mr. Smith has found himself the subject of study for them, and I don’t think I would wish that on anyone. They’re looking for a door and an invitation, and once they’ve found them, they will quickly make themselves unwelcome guests.”

“All lies. You just want me to give you the artifacts, so you can use them yourself, or collect a bounty on them. I’m not about to let that happen,” Dr. Porter said.

She grabbed the large wax disk, the golden disk, and her obsidian mirror from the top of the table in one quick movement and shouldered her way past Harold and Alex, knocking both of them back on their feet. They heard her stumble through the house behind them, throw the doors open and letting them slam again behind her.

“Holy hell is she strong,” Alex said.

“We were almost too late,” Harold said.

The five glowing figures still stood around the points of the star on the floor. Alex had a strong feeling he and Harold were being watched.

“Mr. Minor, go outside, close the doors behind you, and at least see direction she took off in,” Harold said in a quiet voice.

“OK,” Alex said. “What are you going to do?”

“Get rid of this lot. Go, go!” Harold said.

Harold’s voice sounded urgent enough that Alex did as he was told, leaving the room they were in, and closing that door behind him. He heard Harold muttering something, but he couldn’t make out what it was.

Alex stepped outside, shutting the door behind him, just in time to see Dr. Porter finish backing out of the driveway, and accelerating quickly away. Alex ran to the end of the driveway, and saw her tail lights receding, before making a left turn some distance ahead. He could hear her tires squealing around the corner, and then she was gone.

“How the hell are we supposed to find her now?” Alex said to himself. He walked over to the minivan, leaned up against it, and wondered how long Harold was going to be.

After about thirty minutes, Harold came outside again, looking disheveled and tired. He walked deliberately down the driveway, to where Alex was waiting. Alex noticed Harold was carrying his luggage.

“Are you OK, Harold?” Alex said.

“Fine, thank you Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“You don’t look like you’re fine,” Alex said. “What happened in there?”

“I’m just tired, Mr. Minor. They didn’t care to leave, so I had to throw them out. It required a great deal of effort,” Harold said.

“I guess so. I see you’ve got your luggage back, at least,” Alex said.

“Yes, and it’s a good thing, too,” Harold said.

“Did you get the disks she left behind?” Alex said.

“They’re in my luggage,” Harold said.

“OK, cool,” Alex said.

They were silent for a moment. Alex was unsure of what to say next, and Harold seemed content to say nothing. Eventually, Alex pointed down the road and said, “She went that way.”

“Is there a body of water around here?” Harold said.

“Are you kidding? We’re in the land of ten thousand lakes. We’re lucky our feet aren’t getting wet right now,” Alex said.

“She’ll probably be heading for a big lake, then. Let’s have a look at a map, and hope we can pick the same one she did,” Harold said.

“Why would she be heading for a lake?” Alex said.

“There is a lot of power in a good sized body of water. She’ll want to use it,” Harold said.

“How is she going to use it? She’s missing three of the disks, right?” Alex said.

“Get in the van, Mr. Minor. I’ll explain on the way,” Harold said.

After they had taken a look at the surrounding area on the GPS, and Harold had selected the lake that seemed the most likely for Dr. Porter to go to, Harold turned the minivan around and they started to drive.

“The reason Dr. Porter needs the lake is because she’s missing the three disks that were under the table. Think of them as batteries. Right now, she has power tools with no power source. If she can tap into an alternate power source, however, she can keep working,” Harold said.

“So we’ve got her batteries, and now she’s looking for an outlet?” Alex said.

“More or less, yes, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“Great,” Alex said.

The drove in silence for a few minutes, before Alex said, “So, Harold, what’s the deal with your luggage?”

Harold sighed, and said, “I suppose that by this point, I may as well trust you with this information.

“You’ve already put together that I was Thomas Smith’s butler. I was also his assistant as he worked on his research into the occult. It was fascinating work, and we thought we had found a way to find the great truth.

“We spoke with the beings Mr. Smith referred to as ‘angels’, who were only too happy to answer our questions about the nature of the universe. Their answers furthered our mathematical work, as well as our alchemical experiments. What they taught us would be considered basic facts of chemistry and physics today, but at the time the information was a revelation.

“At first, the angels provided only the most vague visions to Mr. Smith in his scrying mirror, but building on what he learned from those visions, we were able to eventually hear their voices, and then see them as we saw them tonight.

“Before much longer, we knew enough to open a door for them to come into our world and, as we would learn, for us to go into their world as well.

“Mr. Smith went into their world, and never returned. I vowed to find him and bring him back, but I never found even a trace of him in years of searching. Eventually, I abandoned my search.

“Over the years, Mr. Smith’s personal effects were scattered and lost to time, which was for the best.

“However, I’ve kept one item with me all these years. The key, such as it is, to open the door made with the artifacts we’ve been trying to recover. It is another disc, about the size of a large coin, made of lead. Years ago, I concealed it in the lining of my luggage, to keep it secret should anyone try to piece Mr. Smith’s work together again.”

Alex didn’t quite know what to make of this new information. He was pretty sure he had the basic gist of it, however.

“So, what you’re saying is, you’ve got the key to unlock the universe hidden in your luggage?” Alex said.

“In short, yes,” Harold said.

“And it would be bad for Dr. Porter to get her hands on that key?” Alex said.

“It would be very bad,” Harold said.

“Then I have to ask… Why don’t you keep it in a safe deposit box?” Alex said.

Harold laughed, to Alex’s surprise.

“An excellent question, one I have been wondering about as well these past few days,” Harold said.

They road they were on came close to the lake Harold thought the most likely. Alex looked out across the water, and said, “How are we supposed to spot her in the dark?”

Just then, the same soft white glow they’d seen in Dr. Porter’s cabin appeared on the far side of the lake.

“Oh, I guess that answers my question,” Alex said.

Chapter Twenty Two

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Sun, 29 Nov 2015 01:17:00 +0000

The stinging in Alex’s eyes was beginning to subside and he was able to keep them open for a couple of seconds at a time.

Alex, Harold and Kaylee sat at the table in her kitchen. Alex and Harold had already established that they knew Dr. Porter was currently in possession of the Thomas Smith artifacts. They also established that they weren’t planning to involve law enforcement in the matter.

“What I want to know is, how did you know when Harold and I were back from California?” Alex said.

Kaylee smirked and said, “That was easy. The folks on the Guild of Smiths forum posted about the strange happenings they experienced. It wasn’t that hard to put it together that it was you two, and that you’d probably be returning as soon as possible.”

“Oh,” Alex said.

“Why does Dr. Porter want these artifacts so badly in the first place? She claimed that she isn’t even that interested in Thomas Smith any longer,” Harold said. “Obviously, that wasn’t strictly the truth.”

“Obviously,” Kaylee said. “You guys caught her off guard, and she hadn’t known that they had been stolen in the first place. Once she put it together that there was an opportunity to get her hands on them, she sent me after you so she could keep tabs on what you were up to.”

“OK, how did either of you know what the Guild of Smiths were up to?” Alex said.

“We didn’t, until they posted about it. Dr. Porter just happened to stumble across their posts about their activities, and had me forward the information to you,” Kaylee said.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Harold said. “Why does Dr. Porter want them?”

“She wants them as part of some research she’s doing. She thinks she’s figured out a piece of the puzzle, but she needs those artifacts in order to validate her idea,” Kaylee said. “She claimed she was going to have me as co-author on the paper, too, until the artifacts were delivered and she went off the grid. I haven’t been able to get ahold of her at all, and I went to see if she was home tonight. She wasn’t there.”

“That sucks,” Alex said.

“It sure does. Being co-author on a paper would have really helped my chances of getting into grad school. Also, I still need her to sign my time card so I get paid for the last two weeks,” Kaylee said.

“So have you got any idea where she might be now?” Alex said.

“I know she’s got a cabin up near Brainerd. It’s possible she went up there to work in solitude. She could have at least let me know she was going, though,” Kaylee said.

“That was pretty rude of her,” Alex said. “Have you got any idea how we can find her up there? Or do you have the address?”

“Not really,” Kaylee said. “She’s only mentioned the cabin in passing. I have no idea if that’s where she actually went. I’ve been around to her usual haunts, though, and no one has seen her for a couple of days.”

“OK, thanks anyway,” Alex said.

“Do you have any idea why she would want my luggage?” Harold said.

Kaylee looked completely baffled by the question. “Your luggage?” she said.

“Yes,” Harold said. “Your goons took my luggage the other night as well, after destroying Mr. Minor’s car.”

“They wrecked your car?” Kaylee said, shocked. “I didn’t know about any of that, I just let them know you were back in town.”

“Yes, they beat the hell out of my car, and shot it, twice,” Alex said.

“I didn’t know. I’m sorry,” Kaylee said.

“And she never mentioned anything about my luggage?” Harold said.

Kaylee shook her head. “No, she never said anything to me about it. Why would she want it?”

Harold seemed to relax a bit. At least, he relaxed as much as Alex had ever seen him relax. “That’s what I want to know,” he said.

They were quiet for a few moments until Kaylee said, somewhat coldly, “Is there anything else you need? Because if not, I have other things I need to do.”

“No, I don’t need anything else, thank you,” Harold said. “Mr. Minor, do you have any other questions for her?”

“No, let’s get moving,” Alex said. He was finally able to keep his eyes mostly open again, though they still felt hot and painful.

He and Harold stood up, and went to the door. Kaylee followed them.

As they left, she said, in a disinterested way, “Sorry about the pepper spray.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Alex said.

They heard her close the door behind them, and lock it, as they walked down the hallway to the building’s entrance.

“I can’t believe she pepper sprayed me,” Alex said.

“Mr. Minor, you did run up behind her in the dark, after we’d been following her all the way from St. Paul. I’d say you’re lucky that a face full of pepper spray was the worst of it,” Harold said.

“Thanks for the sympathy, Harold,” Alex said.

“Have you ever been to Brainerd before, Mr. Minor?” Harold said.

“I’ve passed through once or twice, but that’s it. How about you?” Alex said.

“No, I’ve never been. Tonight seems like a good night to visit, however,” Harold said.

Alex glanced at his watch. It was close to midnight, and he was pretty sure it was at least a two hour drive to get there.

“Are you sure you don’t need some rest?” Alex said. “It’s been a long day, and it’ll be a long drive to Brainerd from here.”

“Don’t worry about me, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. “You can sleep in the car while we’re on our way.”

“OK, if you’re sure you don’t need some rest. You know we’re going to have to haul ass to Brainerd to keep the van from skipping all over the road, don’t you? I hope you’re going to be alert,” Alex said.

They got in to the minivan, and Harold said, “I am always alert, Mr. Minor.”

Harold found directions to Brainerd using the GPS, while Alex did a little searching to see if he could find out where Dr. Porter’s cabin might be. He hoped that she had a landline phone in her cabin.

Finding her address didn’t turn out to be as easy as searching the White Pages for Jacqueline Porter, but there were several addresses listed for people named Porter. They would have to check them all and hope that one of them was the right one, unless they were able to find more information about her.

Getting back on to the freeway was a hair-raising experience, but once they were going faster than seventy five, the minivan settled down again as it had before. Before long, Alex did fall asleep.

He woke up again just as they were reaching Brainerd. Alex knew they had made it, because they passed by a statue of Paul Bunyan on the side of the road.

“Which address should we try first, Mr. Minor?” Harold said.

“I’ve got one here for Andrew Porter,” Alex said, and gave him the address.

The roads were completely empty, apart from their minivan. It was roughly two thirty in the morning, and the neighborhoods they passed through were all completely dark, except for the occasional light left on, or blue flicker from someone’s television.

They reached Andrew Porter’s house, and drove past slowly. There were no lights on, and there wasn’t a car parked in the driveway.

“I guess this one wasn’t it,” Alex said. “On to the next. Let’s see…”

Alex had a look at the list of names. Up next was Danielle Porter. He gave Harold the address.

Danielle’s house was on the other side of Brainerd. They arrived after ten minutes or so, and rolled by her house. This house had several cars, in various states of repair, in the driveway. Parked on the street out front was a huge lifted truck. The porch light was on, and there was blue light flickering in one of the upstairs windows.

“I doubt it’s this house,” Harold said. “This one doesn’t seem like much of a retreat.”

“It really doesn’t. I’m not sure that huge trucks are Dr. Porter’s style, either,” Alex said.

Harold took a deep breath, and said, “What’s the next address?”

“We’re going to visit Lena Porter next,” Alex said.

They spent the next hour driving around Brainerd, hoping to find some sign that indicated that Dr. Porter might be there. It wasn’t until they reached R. A. Porter’s address that they’d felt even the slightest bit confident that Dr. Porter might be in residence. Once they did reach R. A. Porter’s house, however, they got a big sign.

Harold had slowed so they could check out the house. It was definitely more of a cabin than a house. The house itself wasn’t very big, and only one story tall. There was a small detached garage at the end of a gravel driveway. It had a very large wrap-around porch, with an assortment of outdoor furniture and an old charcoal grill that looked as though it was probably only held together by the soot from meals past. There were garden gnome statues, pink flamingos, and a tin sign next to the front door with a thermometer in it. Also, in the driveway, there was a brown station wagon with a University of Minnesota sticker on the back window.

That would have been enough evidence to convince Alex and Harold that this cabin was worth coming back to check on to see if Dr. Porter was home. What convinced them, however, was getting hit with a familiar wave of cold, and a feeling of electricity in the air. It was exactly what they had felt in the campground when they were trying to find Noah and his friends in Eureka.

“This is the place,” Harold and Alex said simultaneously.

Harold pulled to the side of the road and stopped the minivan. They got hit with another wave of the strange sensation. Alex shivered, and said, “I hate that.”

“It’s nothing to fear, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. “I think we have an answer to our question why Dr. Porter wanted the artifacts so much. I think we can rest easy knowing that my luggage is safe, however.”

Alex looked at Harold as if he’d lost his mind.

“Yes, I’m deeply relieved knowing that she’s in there doing some kind of sorcery that seems to be having an actual, tangible effect on us, but at least your luggage is safe,” Alex said.

“You should be relieved, Mr. Minor. If she knew about my luggage, things would be much, much worse,” Harold said.

Chapter Twenty One

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Sat, 28 Nov 2015 01:49:00 +0000

Having Dr. Porter’s phone number was huge. Alex wasn’t planning to call her, but having it made it possible to look up her address. One of the nice things about working for Mr. Darcy was having access to information that, technically speaking, they really shouldn’t have access to. One of those things was a database of information that happened to make it possible to do a reverse look up on cell phone numbers.

What made it better was that able was able to access that database from his cell phone. He and Harold were back in the minivan, parked just down the street from The Four Horses. Alex tried looking up her number, without success.

“Hmm, she’s not in here,” Alex said.

“Did you try the White Pages look up?” Harold said.

“No, no one ever comes up in there anymore,” Alex said.

“I would think it’s worth trying, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. “If she’s an expert on Thomas Smith in this day and age, I’d guess there’s a good chance that she’s not into high technology.”

Alex was doubtful that it would work, but didn’t want to give Harold an opportunity to say “I told you so,” later if he didn’t do it now, so he tried checking the White Pages.

Her name and address came up immediately.

“Holy crap, so there are people still using landlines as their primary phone number?” Alex said. “Here she is.”

Alex plugged her name and phone number in to the GPS, and discovered that she lived just a few blocks away from where they were.

“This is too easy,” Alex said.

They drove over to Dr. Porter’s neighborhood, and parked just a little short of the address Alex had found. Dr. Porter lived in a two story home that looked as if it was probably historic, and would probably be quite charming if it was kept up a little better. As it was, the yard was overgrown, and it was in dire need of some fresh paint.

The shades were all shut tightly, and there didn’t appear to be any lights on inside.

“I don’t think she’s home,” Alex said.

“I don’t think so either,” Harold said.

“Should we wait?” Alex said.

“I can’t think of a better plan. Can you?” Harold said.

“No, not really,” Alex said.

Alex hated doing stake outs. He wasn’t made for sitting still. Harold, in contrast, seemed to be perfectly suited to them.

They waited, and watched. Alex tried to keep his fidgeting under control, while Harold simply sat quietly as if he had nothing better to do or anywhere he’d rather be.

It was getting fairly late in the evening, and the neighborhood had been dead quiet for at least twenty minutes, until they saw some headlights approaching in the distance. The car kept coming until it reached Dr. Porter’s house, and turned into the driveway. Alex and Harold both leaned forward and paid attention to see if Dr. Porter herself was home.

The headlights shut off, and the driver’s side door swung open. Kaylee got out of the car.

“What’s she doing here?” Alex wondered out loud. Harold said nothing.

Kaylee shut the door of her car, and walked to the front door of Dr. Porter’s house. She rang the doorbell, and waited.

After a couple of minutes, she rang the doorbell again, then knocked several times. She didn’t get an answer.

Alex and Harold watched as she left the front door, and walked around to the back of the house. Alex assumed there was probably a back door to Dr. Porter’s house. A few minutes later, she came walking quickly back around the house, and went straight to her car. She got in, slammed the door, started the engine, and backed quickly out of Dr. Porter’s driveway.

“Let’s follow her,” Alex said.

“Why follow her? We’re looking for Dr. Porter,” Harold said.

“Didn’t you see her hustle back to her car? She’s either pissed off, or hurrying to catch Dr. Porter. Either way, she might get us closer to figuring out where Dr. Porter went,” Alex said.

“I think you might just be getting impatient, but I suppose it might be worth a try,” Harold said.

He started the minivan, and followed at a distance behind Kaylee’s car.

Kaylee led them back through St. Paul. There wasn’t much traffic, and Harold and Alex both felt like they were extremely obvious in their crappy minivan. Harold made an effort to keep some distance between them in order so she wouldn’t panic and drive straight to a police station. It would be a little hard to explain to the police why the two of them were following a young woman as she drove at night. “Because we’re looking for magical artifacts that were stolen and think she might know where to find them,” was rarely an acceptable excuse.

She made a left turn. When Harold and Alex made it through the same turn, they were dismayed to see that she was turning on to the on ramp for the freeway to Minneapolis.

“Well, there she went,” Alex said. “Back to Dr. Porter’s house, I guess.”

“Nonsense,” Harold said. “Here we go.”

He turned down the on ramp, and stepped on the gas. The minivan slowly gathered steam.

“You know, we really don’t have to do this,” Alex said. “There’s every possibility that she doesn’t know where Dr. Porter is any more than we do.”

Harold said nothing, and continued accelerating. They could see Kaylee’s car not too far ahead, in the center lane.

Harold merged on to the freeway, the minivan hopping and lurching as the suspension rebelled against everything Harold asked of it.

We’re going to die, Alex thought.

The minivan bobbed and weaved like a punch drunk boxer as Harold changed lanes to follow behind Kaylee. The slightest breeze seemed to shove them to the side of their lane, and Harold had his work cut out for him just keeping the minivan going in a straight line.

“God, I hope she exits soon,” Alex said. He was clutching the armrests so tightly that his hands hurt.

The road and wind noise inside the minivan as they drove at sixty five miles per hour was astonishingly loud. The side windows rattled, and there was a cacophony of creaks, squeaks, groans and rattles from various places.

Ahead, the road curved to the left through an incline. As they drove through it, the front end of the minivan dived, and then bucked over and over. Harold let off the gas and held the wheel with straight arms, trying to keep from over correcting and making things worse.

The minivan drifted into the left lane. Fortunately, there was no one next to them at the time, though the driver behind them honked his horn at them.

“Sorry to inconvenience you, we’re just trying not to die up here,” Alex yelled back at him.

After a couple of seconds, the minivan settled down again, and Harold was able to keep it, more or less, under control again.

When they looked again, Kaylee had gotten quite a bit further ahead of them, since Harold had needed to slow down. It was hard to tell, exactly, which car was hers now.

Harold grimaced, and stepped on the gas.

“Oh god,” Alex said. There was a difference between getting a thrill and actively trying to kill yourself, and Alex wasn’t sure they were on the right side of that line any more.

The minivan shook and shimmied… and suddenly settled down and started driving smoothly as they reached seventy five miles per hour.

“Interesting,” Harold said.

Alex couldn’t believe it.

“So this thing is manageable below forty five and above seventy five?” Alex said.

“So it seems, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“OK, I guess we just need to spend more time speeding, then,” Alex said.

Eventually, they caught up enough again to identify which car was Kaylee’s. At least, they hoped so. At any rate, they made a decision, and continued following a silver Honda Civic that was probably Kaylee’s.

They had to slow down again to keep from passing her, which meant the minivan started to shimmy and shake wildly.

Alex and Harold were both greatly relieved when Kaylee finally exited the freeway. They followed behind her, and were only moderately terrified as the front end of the minivan dove as Harold braked.

Back on city streets, the drive seemed much more reasonable.

Eventually, they reached an apartment complex with outdoor parking. The Honda parked, and Harold followed suit, several spaces away.

Alex watched the Honda, and was relieved when he saw it was, in fact, Kaylee that got out of the car. He opened his door, which seemed as if it was creaking even louder now, and jumped out of the minivan. He hurried to catch up with Kaylee.

“Excuse me,” Alex said as he came up behind her.

Although Alex wasn’t certain she would be happy to see him, he wasn’t expecting what happened next.

Kaylee turned around quickly, and she was holding something up in her right hand. Alex couldn’t see what it was, but he heard a hissing noise, and suddenly his face felt wet. And then the burning started. His skin felt as if it was on fire, and his eyes stung so badly he couldn’t open them. It became hard to breathe, as well.

Alex went to one knee, and then sat down on the ground, unable to do much more than that. He’d been gassed during basic training in the military, but he’d forgotten just how much it sucked.

He heard Harold somewhere nearby say, “I’m not sure that was strictly necessary. Sorry if we’ve frightened you, however.”

“What the hell are you two doing here?” Kaylee said.

“We came hoping you might be able to tell us how to find Dr. Porter,” Harold said.

Alex nodded, then decided that he wasn’t going to do that again. Moving was not fun at the moment.

Kaylee sighed, and said, “Sure, whatever. Come inside so he doesn’t freak my neighbors out.”

Harold took Alex under the arm, and helped him to his feet again, saying, “Up you go, Mr. Minor.”

Alex was still completely unable to open his eyes, and started to wonder if the burning would ever stop.

Kaylee opened the door, and led the two of them inside, Harold keeping one hand under Alex’s upper arm to guide him.

When they reached Kaylee’s apartment, Harold asked Kaylee for a wash cloth, and led Alex into the kitchen.

“We need to get this oil off of your face,” Harold said. “There’s not much I can do for your eyes, you’re just going to have to let your tears flush it out, but at least we can get most of it off.”

“K,” Alex grunted.

Kaylee brought Harold a wash cloth, and Harold quickly wetted it and used a bit of dish soap to work up a lather. He handed the wash cloth to Alex and said, “Use this to wash your face, and be sure to rinse off as well as you can manage.”

The relief from washing his face wasn’t instant, but he could feel the burning start to subside. After a few minutes, he could open his eyes for a split second, and he tried to keep blinking in hopes of getting all of the oil out of his eyes. He could feel fiery tears running down his cheeks.

Once he was about as composed as he was going to be able to get, Alex sniffed, cleared his throat, and said to Kaylee, “So, do you know where we can find Dr. Porter?”

Chapter Twenty

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 06:20:00 +0000

The Four Horses turned out to be the kind of dive bar Alex loved going to. The floor was bare concrete, the tables and chairs looked like they’d probably started to look beat-up in nineteen seventy, and there wasn’t much light besides the glow coming from the neon behind the bar. The clientele seemed to be a mix of blue collar workers and, incongruously, a group of men and women in what Alex would describe as academic clothes. There were a lot of tweeds and, yes, patches on elbows.

Alex and Harold took a seat at the bar in between a kid in a grey work shirt that looked like he was in his early twenties, and a middle aged man in a brown corduroy sport coat, faded blue jeans, and tortoise shell glasses. All he needed was a pipe to complete his look. Alex was willing to bet he was probably a professor.

The bartender came over and asked what they wanted to drink. He set down a bowl of pretzels in between Alex and Harold.

“Pabst Blue Ribbon,” Alex said.

“A gin and tonic, please,” Harold said.

The guy in the corduroy jacket turned to Alex and said, “PBR? Hey, you know why PBR is like having sex in a canoe?”

Alex groaned inwardly. Great, a beer snob.

“Why’s that, chief?” Alex said, bracing himself for the punchline.

“Because it’s awful and no one should do it, ever,” the guy said.

That’s not even the right punchline, Alex thought. So he’s a drunk beer snob. This could work out well after all.

“I don’t know about that. I like it because it’s cheap, refreshing, and it gets the job done. So, it’s still like sex in a canoe, at that. Anyway, what are you drinking?” Alex said.

“Murphy’s Irish Stout,” he said, with entirely too much pride. “It’s a man’s beer. It passes the lighter test.”

“What’s the lighter test?” Alex said.

“Have you got a light?” the guy said.

“Can’t say that I do,” Alex said.

With a discrete flourish, Harold produced a slim, chromed, cigarette lighter, and handed it to Alex.

“I didn’t know you smoke,” Alex said.

“I don’t. I like to be prepared,” Harold said.

Alex handed the lighter to the guy sitting next to him, and said, “OK, so, what’s the test?”

“Easy,” he said. He clicked the button on the lighter, and a small flame popped up immediately. He then picked up his beer, held it where Alex could see it, and put the lighter behind it.

“It’s so dark, you can’t see the flame,” he said.

“And that’s a good thing?” Alex said.

“Damn right, it’s the way beer ought to be. You know they use peat in the brewing process?” the guy said. He handed Alex the lighter back, and Alex passed it back to Harold, who made it disappear into one of his jacket’s pockets.

“Jesus,” Alex said. “And you enjoy that?”

“Hell yes,” the guy said.

“Well, whatever turns your crank. You know, roofing tar and swamp water will pass the lighter test too, I’m not sure it’s a real good measure for tastiness,” Alex said.

“What do you know, you’re drinking PBR?” the guy said.

“I guess. So how much does a glass of that much cost?” Alex said.

“About eight dollars,” the guy said.

“You know how much a PBR costs? Two bucks. So I can have three of them, catch a buzz, and still leave the bartender a tip for what you’re paying for one glass of peat beer,” Alex said.

“It’s quality over quantity,” the guy said.

“In a dive bar?” Alex said.

The guy next to him dismissed him with a wave. Alex figured it was time to move the conversation in a different direction, and see if he could get a bit of information out of this guy about Dr. Porter. If not, he and Harold could move on to chat with one of the other folks in tweed.

“Don’t be like that, man,” Alex said. “Anyway, what do you do when you’re not drinking Irish mud?”

“I teach philosophy, over at the U of M,” the guy said.

“Really? Cool. I took a philosophy class once. I didn’t do so well. Just couldn’t get it. They asked me if the cat in Schroedinger’s box was alive or dead, and I told them to open the box and find out for themselves. You must be a smart guy, anyway,” Alex said.

“Ah, if you didn’t get it, that just means you had a bad teacher,” the guy said. “Ultimately, it’s all just about the search for the truth.”

“So have you found the truth, or are you still looking?” Alex said.

“I figure I’ve gotten close enough,” the guy said.

“OK, so what is it?” Alex said.

“You may as well be drunk as much as possible, because it’s all meaningless and we’re all fucked,” the guy said.

Alex laughed despite himself.

“That’s quite a philosophy you’ve got there, man. Must be a hit with the ladies,” Alex said.

“Yeah, I’ve got to fend them off with a stick,” the guy said, bitterly. “Anyway, what do you do?”

“I’m a consultant,” Alex said.

“What kind of consulting do you do?” the guy said.

“Depends on the day,” Alex said.

“OK, whatever. Most guys only claim to be James Bond when they’re trying to pick up women,” the guy said.

“That works?” Alex said. Shit, I could have just been telling the truth and had better luck.

The guy next to him shrugged.

Alex tried to think up a way to get the conversation around to the subject of Dr. Porter. Asking straight out if this guy knew her probably wasn’t going to work. At least, not when he asked the follow up question of how he could get ahold of her.

“Well, I don’t know much about philosophy, but you know what I am into? Comparative religion,” Alex said.

The guy next to him looked over, somewhat skeptically, and said, “Really?”

“Yeah. It’s fascinating to me how much they all have in common, when you look at them from a ten thousand foot view. But then they get so intricate and unique the closer you look at them,” Alex said.

I really hope this guy doesn’t ask me any heavy religious questions, Alex thought. If he does, I’m going to be up the creek without a paddle.

What the guy said was, “Cool. So what have you been looking into lately?”

“Well, I’ve been interested in this guy called Thomas Smith, he…” Alex said, before being interrupted.

“Oh, I’ve heard of him. Wasn’t he, like, a wizard or something like that, though? That’s not really a religion, is it?” the guy said.

“I don’t know. I guess I’d call it religion. He was pretty devoutly Christian, he was just exploring the boundaries a bit. He was searching for the truth, too,” Alex said.

“Sounds more like philosophy to me, then,” the guy said. “One of my colleagues is really interested in that guy, you know. She’s written some papers on him.”

Bingo, Alex thought.

“Oh yeah? That’s cool. I’d love to talk with her sometime. Does she come in here ever?” Alex said.

“Yeah, she comes in here all the time. I haven’t seen her tonight, though. Jackie Porter is her name,” the guy said. “She just took a leave of absence to work on a research project.”

The bartender came by and asked if they needed some more drinks.

“Sure, how about another round for the three of us,” Alex said, gesturing to Harold and the guy sitting next to him.

“You’ve got it,” the bartender said. He came back a few minutes later with fresh drinks.

“Cheers, man,” the guy next to Alex said.

“Cheers,” Alex and Harold said nearly simultaneously.

“Do you think your colleague would be willing to chat with me a bit about Thomas Smith? If she’s an expert, I’d love to pick her brain and try to understand some things I haven’t been able to get on my own,” Alex said.

“I don’t know, I guess you could try her, though. I can give you her phone number, but I’m not sure if she’ll be eager to help you or not. Of course, you’d be amazed how helpful we academics can be if you promise us beer and pizza,” the guy said.

He pulled a cell phone out of one of the pockets in his corduroy jacket, pressed a few buttons, and then told Alex what Dr. Porter’s phone number is.

Holy crap, that was too easy, Alex thought.

“Thanks man, I’ll give her a call,” he said.

The man in the work shirt sitting on the other side of Harold had been quiet until now, but he seemed to notice them then. He turned a bit, and looked Harold up and down.

“Hey, man, what are you all dressed up for? You getting married tonight?” he said.

Harold looked over at him, and answered as though it were a serious question.

“I dress well out of respect for myself, and respect for others,” Harold said.

“Are you saying I’m not dressed well?”

“No, I would never say that,” Harold said. “There is dignity in a workman’s uniform.”

The worker sitting next to Harold started talking in sarcastic tones then.

“Workman? So you think you’re better than me, is what you’re saying,”

“Certainly not. You’re putting words in my mouth,” Harold said.

“I’ve got something to put in your mom’s mouth.”

Harold, stone-faced as ever, turned away from the worker sitting next to him, saying, “I don’t have to put up with this.”

The worker said, “Oh, so you think you’re a badass too, huh?”

Harold said nothing.

The worker poked Harold in the chest, and said, “I’m going to kick your ass, fancy man.”

Alex had been watching all of this, concerned that things were going in exactly this direction. He realized that at some point, the academic that had been sitting next to him had vanished.

“No, you’re not,” Harold said. “We’re going to sit here, and enjoy our drinks in peace, like gentlemen.”

The worker stuck his finger in Harold’s face, and said, “What I’m going to do is wipe the floor with your face.”

“I’m not going to fight you,” Harold said. “Drink your drink, and leave me alone.”

“You a pussy or something?” the worker said.

As quickly as a cobra strike, Harold had grabbed the back of the worker’s head, and bounced it off of the bar in front of him, just hard enough to stun him. Harold pulled him back up, and let go of him again. The worker seemed to wobble for a second, before getting his bearings again. The bartender looked over to see what the noise had been, but saw nothing amiss and went back to what he was doing. Harold seemed completely unruffled.

“Now then, as I was saying, we’re going to sit here and enjoy our drinks in peace, like gentlemen,” Harold said.

The worker said, “You know what, man? You’re all right. Let me get the next round.”

“Thank you, that’s very generous. My associate and I need to be on our way, however,” Harold said.

He turned to Alex.

“Are you ready to leave, Mr. Minor?” Harold said.

“Sure, let’s roll,” Alex said. He finished up the last of his beer, and looked around to see if the guy who’d given him Dr. Porter’s phone number was still around. He was nowhere to be seen, however.

Chapter Nineteen

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 06:19:00 +0000

Alex was pissed off. It was bad enough that his car had been wrecked, but knowing that the first couple of collisions on the night they met with Kaylee happened just to mark his car so they could find him again really steamed him. More than the damage to his car, he was angry that he hadn’t seen some kind of setup coming.

I know better than to let my guard down at all when going to mysterious meetings, Alex thought. Especially when the meeting is with a pretty girl who has an awful lot of information about something she doesn’t have any personal interest in. Jeez, there were so many red flags waving it was like being at a communist rally.

He and Harold were back in the minivan, on their way to a garage where Joe said the guy who probably had Harold’s luggage worked.

A little earlier, Alex had argued with Harold a bit about the priority of recovering his luggage compared to the priority of getting the artifacts back from, apparently, Dr. Porter.

“Look, I understand that you’re angry that they stole your luggage, but I think we might want to focus more on getting our hands on the disks again,” Alex said.

“It is important to me to get my luggage back, Mr. Minor. The longer we wait, the higher the chances that something unfortunate will happen to it, or that it will get lost,” Harold said.

“Yeah, but Harold, it’s just a beat up old bag. You can afford a new one,” Alex said.

“It is a family heirloom, and I don’t intend to lose it, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“A family heirloom?” Alex said. The bag hadn’t looked particularly worthy of being passed down through the generations to him. It was just a ratty leather bag. It was heavily scuffed, scratched, and patched in places. “I understand there’s some sentimental value there, then, but I think you should let this one go.”

“We’re going to recover my luggage, Mr. Minor, and that’s my final word on the matter,” Harold said.

Alex sighed and leaned back in his seat, which was somehow even less comfortable than sitting hunched forward.

“Well, you’re the one driving, so I guess I’ll be going along with your plan whether I like it or not,” Alex said.

That had been about twenty minutes ago. They were on their way to northeast Minneapolis, a rough part of town that was in the very early stages of gentrification. It was a great place to go find a cool restaurant, but not such a great place to be out walking around by yourself after dark.

“Say, Harold,” Alex said. “You know, a random garage in northeast Minneapolis would be a great place to send someone you’re trying to set up again. We might be walking right into another trap.”

“The thought had occurred to me, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“But we’re going to go there anyway?” Alex said.

“Yes,” Harold said.

“Have you got a death wish?” Alex said.

Harold said nothing for several minutes. When he finally spoke, he said, “Mr. Minor, they might be trying to set a trap for us, but if they are, I believe they will find that they’re the ones who should have thought twice.”

Alex half laughed, and said, “OK, Harold, I hope you’re right.”

After another fifteen minutes, they arrived at a place called Bud’s Performance Import Speed Shop. Harold parked and switched off the ignition. The minivan continued running. Harold looked confused for a moment, and turned the key back and forth in the ignition a few times, without any result. He removed the key entirely from the ignition, and seemed at a loss for what to do next.

The minivan’s engine finally stopped running after about thirty seconds.

With a laugh, Alex said, “They just don’t build them like this anymore, do they?”

“Apparently not,” Harold said. “Maybe the good mechanics here at Bud’s can help us keep this car going a little longer.”

“Are you sure we’re not doing something stupid?” Alex said.

“No, the glaring stupidity of this plan is what makes it brilliant,” Harold said.

“That’s some interesting logic, Harold,” Alex said.

“Have a little faith, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“I’ll do my best,” Alex said.

They got out of the minivan. A man wearing oil-stained coveralls had already come out of Bud’s and was walking over to the minivan to meet them.

“Hi there. Are you fellas looking to make this thing go fast? Because I think I’m going to have some bad news for you,” he said.

“No, we’ve come to pick something up,” Harold said.

“Well, come on inside the shop, then. Keith is our parts guy, so he’s the person you’ll want to talk to,” the mechanic said.

Bud’s Performance Import Speed Shop was in a building that looked like it was probably built in the nineteen thirties. It had been painted a creamy off white color, and the name of the shop was painted in shadowed blue script. The mechanic led them to a glass door, which he opened for them. Alex and Harold stepped inside.

The interior of the shop smelled like cardboard, metal and grease. Most of the light inside came from the big storefront window. The fluorescent lights overhead gave off a weak light, turned yellow from the aged plastic covering the tubes. There didn’t seem to be anyone around.

“Hey Keith,” the mechanic called, “I got a couple guys here to pick up some parts.”

The man who came out of the back room and stood behind the parts counter wore jeans and a workshirt, with “Keith” embroidered over the pocket. He recognized Alex and Harold immediately. Alex and Harold recognized him as well. He was the one who’d shot the Mustangs front tire.

“What the fuck do you two want?” Keith said.

“We’ve come to collect my luggage,” Harold said.

“What are you talking about?” Keith said. “I don’t know about any luggage.”

“I’m talking about my bag that you and your friends seem to have taken, by mistake,” Harold said.

“Oh, that. It’s my luggage now. Take a hike,” Keith said.

Harold stepped up to the counter and said, “I’m not going anywhere without my luggage. I hope you’ll reconsider.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Keith said.

“Now, there’s no need to be rude. Just give me back my luggage, and my associate and I will be on our way,” Harold said.

“Have you got a hearing problem, or are you just stupid? I’m not giving you shit, now get out of here,” Keith said.

“I did try to be reasonable,” Harold said.

Before Keith could respond, Harold had seized his left ear, and pulled him forward a bit. Keith shouted something that sounded a bit like a swearing, but wasn’t quite coherent. He grabbed at Harold’s hand, trying to get his ear free, without effect.

“Now, about my luggage,” Harold said.

“Eat shit,” Keith said.

Harold twisted Keith’s ear a bit, which resulted in more shouting.

“This is my ear now. I’ll give it back to you in trade for my luggage,” Harold said.

“You crazy son of a bitch, let go of me,” Keith said.

There were suddenly a lot of other men in the room, holding an assortment of wrenches, crow bars, and other tools Alex wasn’t interested in getting to know better.

“Uh, Harold,” Alex said.

“Yes, Mr. Minor?”

“We have a situation,” Alex said.

Harold looked back, and saw the mechanics.

“Hello, Gentlemen,” Harold said. “I’ll be with you in just a moment.”

He gave Keith’s ear another twist. Shouting followed.

“My luggage,” Harold said.

“Let him go and get the hell out of here,” one of the mechanics said.

“Not without my luggage, I’m afraid,” Harold said.

“It’s your funeral,” the mechanic said. He was holding a breaker bar, and moved forward towards Harold, starting to swing the bar. Alex stepped in to protect Harold, but was slightly too far away. The mechanic swung the bar down towards Harold.

Before he was able to connect, however, Harold caught the bar in his free hand, still holding Keith’s ear tightly. Alex didn’t think things like that could happen outside of kung fu movies.

The other mechanics rushed him and Harold then. Alex did his best, but was never a particularly strong fighter and was quickly entirely occupied with simply defending himself, much less helping Harold. He soon ended up grappling on the linoleum floor with one of the mechanics, while the others ganged up on Harold.

Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw a mass of people raining blows on Harold. Despite this, he heard Keith yelling, “Get him off of my ear!”

He heard a crash, and the next time he looked, he saw one of the men who had been attacking Harold get up from where he’d fallen against some shelving, hesitate, and then back away from the fray. Another guy in coveralls followed the first not long after. In a matter of seconds, Harold was standing by himself again, still clutching Keith’s ear.

“Tell your friend to let my associate go, please,” Harold said to Keith.

“Jake, get out of here,” Keith said.

The guy fighting Alex stopped what he was doing and let Alex go. He got up, looked at Alex and Harold, and backed out of the room as well.

Alex hurt like hell, and he knew when the adrenaline wore off it was going to get worse. He had no idea how Harold was even still standing after the beating he’d just taken. Although he was slightly disheveled, had a black eye, and his suit had a couple of new tears in it, Harold appeared to otherwise be feeling like his normal, unflappable self.

“Now, about my offer to trade you this ear in exchange for my luggage,” Harold said. “Have you had enough time to think it over?”

“I don’t have it anymore,” Keith said.

“I’m not sure I believe you. You don’t seem to be a particularly honorable man,” Harold said. “If you don’t have it, who does?”

“The lady who hired us. We used the luggage to give her the stuff you guys were carrying,” Keith said.

“Why did you do that? Did she want my luggage too?” Harold said.

“I don’t think so. It was just a handy bag, so we gave it all to her,” Keith said.

Harold let Keith’s ear go, and Keith took two big steps away and started to rub his ear. Alex noticed Keith’s ear had turned bright red.

“Fucking asshole,” Keith muttered.

Harold turned to Alex, “We need to go find Dr. Porter, Mr. Minor.”

“I know, I tried telling you that earlier,” Alex said. “Now it’s finally urgent because she has your bag?”

“Yes,” Harold said. “I need my luggage back.”

He turned and started walking towards the exit. Alex followed him out, surprised at where this day had taken them already, and at what Harold was apparently capable of. He suddenly had a much better idea why Harold was working for Mr. Darcy.

Harold pushed the door open, walked through, then held open it for Alex. He called back inside to Keith, “Thank you for your assistance!”

Alex heard Keith yell back “Fuck…’ before the door closed and muffled the rest of what he said.

“So we need to chase down your luggage because it’s a family heirloom… I had no idea you were such a sentimental guy, Harold,” Alex said as they walked back t the minivan.

“Indeed,” Harold said.

They got back in the minivan, and Alex could have sworn he saw several sets of nervous looking eyes watching them go from the back of the open garage bay.

As they drove away, Alex took out his cell phone, and called the number he had for Dr. Porter’s office. He didn’t think the probability was very high that she would be there, but it was worth checking, just in case.

Dr. Porter’s phone rang several times, before going to a voice mail message that said she would be out of the office indefinitely, and to please direct any questions to one of her colleagues who would be filling in for her in her absence.

“Well, crap,” Alex said. “She’s out of the office until further notice. Should we bother swinging by there?”

“We may as well. Perhaps there will still be something, or someone, of use to us there,” Harold said.

“OK, let’s do it,” Alex said.

It didn’t take them quite as long to get from northeast Minneapolis to the university campus as it had to get from Eagan to northeast Minneapolis, but it was still a slow drive. They probably hit every red light on the way there.

On the upside, the minivan fit in with all the other rattletrap cars on campus much better than the Mustang had. They didn’t have to worry about it at all. Alex had to admit, having a car that no one would even think to break in to was a good thing in some ways.

He still would have rather been in his Mustang, though.

Alex and Harold found their way back to the office of Dr. Porter. When they got there, the door was locked, and there was a sign on the door saying all office hours were cancelled. The office Kaylee had been working in across the hall was also closed and locked.

“Well, I guess she wasn’t just avoiding phone calls, then,” Alex said.

The professor who had the office next to Dr. Porter’s happened to come back. He greeted them, and opened the door to his own office.

“Excuse me,” Alex said, “Do you know how we could get ahold of Dr. Porter?”

“I’m sorry, she’s not available. You’ll have to talk to one of the faculty members who are covering her classes,” the professor said.

“No, we aren’t here to talk to her about coursework. It’s really rather urgent that we speak with Dr. Porter herself. Do you know of a way we can reach her?” Alex said.

The professor paused and thought for a moment, before saying, “I really probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but you can find her most nights at a bar in St. Paul called Four Horse’s. There are a few faculty members that regularly go there after work.”

Chapter Eighteen

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 06:18:00 +0000

Alex woke up at eight o’clock the following morning. He noticed, without much surprise, that Harold had laid out an outfit for him at some point. Digging through his closet, he realized that he didn’t have any clothes that were clean apart from what Harold had put together for him. With a sigh, Alex put on the clean clothes, and went out to see what he could figure out for breakfast before getting to work again.

Harold was nowhere to be seen, but there was a clean bowl, a spoon, and a box of corn flakes left out on the table. There was also a fresh pot of coffee, and a clean mug waiting next to the coffee maker.

With the first cup of coffee for the day in one hand, Alex grabbed a carton of milk from the refrigerator and sat down to have some corn flakes.

Nearly the moment Alex had put the first spoonful of corn flakes in his mouth, his phone rang. The name of the caller that came up was ‘Megan’. Alex glanced at the time (eight twenty three) and wondered why Megan was calling him already. She had to have just gotten up as well. He swallowed his cereal, and answered the phone.

“Hey Megan, what’s up?” Alex said.

“Good morning, Mr. Minor,” Megan said. “I thought you might be interested to know who the guys were that ambushed you two last night.”

“Seriously? You’ve found them already?” Alex said.

“Of course. It wasn’t that hard, they screwed up traffic on a major freeway and drew guns on you – the internet is full of photos taken by everyone who witnessed it,” Megan said.

“Wow, so we’ve got clear photos of these guys?” Alex said.

“No such luck, but we do have photos of their cars which, in this case, is almost as good. And we even got a couple shots of one of their license plates,” Megan said.

“That’s incredible,” Alex said. “So, what have you been able to find about them?”

He was on his feet, breakfast forgotten, looking for a pen and paper to make notes with. He didn’t have to go far, fortunately. There was a pen and notepad right where he’d left them on his desk.

“They’re part of a car racing club that seems to be connected with a lot of automobile thefts. Some more digging turned up some other crimes that club members have been involved with. My guess is that they’re using criminal means to fund their racing hobby,” Megan said.

“Hmm… So the chances are that someone hired them to steal the artifacts, as opposed to them stealing them for their own purposes,” Alex said.

“Well, that could be, unless they somehow got wind of what you guys were doing and thought they’d be able to resell the artifacts,” Megan said. “I kind of doubt that they’re a club of automotive racing and occultism enthusiasts, though.”

“Yeah, right,” Alex said. “So have you got the names of these guys?”

“No, but I’ve got the address that one of the cars is registered at,” Megan said. “I’ve emailed it to you, along with some of the better photos I found.”

“Awesome, thanks Megan!” Alex said.

“You’re welcome, Mr. Minor,” Megan said. “Have you got any idea who might be motivated enough to hire these guys?”

“Not yet,” Alex said. “I’m thinking the guy who we recovered the artifacts from isn’t well connected enough to have put something like that together so quickly. I’m trying to figure out who could possibly have known where we were with enough precision to catch us like that, too. It’s not like Harold and I advertised our travel plans.”

“Well, someone has been keeping an eye on you. Anyway, I’ll let you know if I find anything else,” Megan said.

“OK, thanks Megan,” Alex said.

He ended the call, and went back to his cereal. He took a bite, and was disappointed to find it had gone soggy already. Oh well.

A voice just over Alex’s left shoulder said, “Good morning, Mr. Minor.”

Alex jumped a bit, and splashed some of his coffee on the table.

“Ugh, shit. Good morning, Harold,” Alex said. He used a paper napkin to mop up the spilled coffee. Once he’d gotten it cleaned up to his satisfaction, he turned to face Harold. Harold looked alert and was dressed as if he’d just finished getting ready for an important meeting, to Alex’s amazement. Alex hadn’t even bothered to comb his hair yet.

“Was that Megan on the phone?” Harold said.

“Yes,” Alex said. “She learned that the guys who ambushed us are part of some kind of outlaw auto racing club. Who even knew there was such a thing?”

“I don’t think it’s that surprising,” Harold said. “Are we going to assume that they were hired hands, then?”

“I think so,” Alex said.

“Any ideas on who would have hired them?” Harold said.

“Not yet,” Alex said.

“What information was Megan able to give us about this club?” Harold said.

“She didn’t say much about the club. She did say that she was able to find all kinds of photos of the guys involved, and their cars. And she found the address that one of the cars is registered at. So, that’s a good start, I think,” Alex said.

“An address is a very good start,” Harold said. “What time are we going to leave?”

“Well, I’d like to finish breakfast first,” Alex said.

‘Of course, Mr. Minor. Did Megan email you the information she found?” Harold said.

“Yes, she said she was going to,” Alex said. “It’s probably already here. I’ll print it off in just a minute.”

“Excellent,” Harold said. He left the kitchen then and went to sit on the sofa, where he picked up one of the occult books Alex had purchased while they were in California.

Alex had no idea what Harold hoped to learn from those books, but if Harold was sitting in one place and reading, at the very least it meant that Alex had a pretty good idea of where Harold was, so it didn’t bother him at all if Harold used his free time to sit and read.

When he had finished with his (now very soggy) cornflakes, Alex topped up his coffee and logged in to check his email and print off the information Megan had sent. The address she’d found looked like it was for an apartment complex in a suburb of St. Paul. The photos of the cars matched up very closely with how Harold had described them. None of the photos showed much detail of the guys who had been involved, however. He printed everything off, and took the printouts over to Harold.

“Here’s the info Megan found for us,” Alex said, and handed Harold the stack of paper. “I guess I’ll go brush my teeth so we can get moving.”

“Very good, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

Twenty minutes later, the two of them were in the minivan on their way to see if the address they had was actually accurate. Alex wasn’t sure what they would do, exactly, if it was a good address, but he figured it would be better than the alternative of not having any leads at all.

Harold and Alex were both occupied with navigating the best route, trying to stick to roads that had a speed limit of forty five miles per hour or less. Alex was glad Harold was driving – the slow pace was killing him, and it was nice to have the distraction of actually having to read the maps and monkey with the GPS. Harold did his part in the navigation by giving Alex information such as “No, that’s a one way road going the wrong way,” and, “decide which way to go quickly, this road is going to force us onto a freeway soon.”

It took close to an hour to make a fifteen mile drive, but they arrived at an apartment complex in Eagan safely and relatively unshaken.

A quick drive through the parking lot didn’t reveal any familiar looking customized cars. There were, however, lots of garages. And, of course, there was also the possibility that the person they were there to find wasn’t home. Or that the address wasn’t right.

Harold parked the minivan in one of the spots marked for guests.

“Was Megan able to provide us with an apartment number?” Harold said.

“Yeah, hang on,” Alex said, and looked again at the address. “It’s apartment 316.”

“Let’s see if anyone is home, then,” Harold said.

They got out of the minivan (Alex cringed at the noise the hinges made), and walked to the main entrance to the building. They were disappointed to find that the building was secured, so they wouldn’t be able to just walk up to apartment 316 and see who was home. There was an intercom system, however.

Alex found the button for apartment 316 and pressed it. The speaker in the intercom came to life, and they heard a dial tone, followed by the actual dialing, and finally, ringing.

“What are you going to say to get the person who answers to let us in?” Harold asked Alex.

“I don’t know. We’re selling Girl Scout cookies or something. I’ll wing it once I hear their voice,” Alex said.

The ringing didn’t continue long, before it went to a generic voice mail message that just said, “Please leave your message after the tone,” in a robotic woman’s voice. After a few second, they heard the intercom click off again.

“Well, shoot,” Alex said. “Nobody home.”

“So it would seem,” Harold said.

Just then, a woman carrying a bag in each hand came to the door. She turned to the side and used her hip to push the door open.

Harold took the door and opened it the rest of the way, saying “Allow me to help you, madam.”

She gave Harold and Alex a perfunctory smile and said thanks as she hurried down the sidewalk.

Harold kept ahold of the door, and gestured for Alex to enter. “After you, Mr. Minor,” he said.

“Thank you, Harold,” Alex said.

There was an elevator nearby, and Alex pressed the “Up” button. Somewhere, the motor came to life, and they could hear the elevator slowly making its way down to the floor they were on. It arrived after a surprisingly long time, and opened. There was no one inside.

“Wow, what took so long?” Alex said as they got on the elevator. He pressed the button for the third floor, and after a few seconds, the door closed again.

Getting to the third floor from the ground floor took an even longer time.

“I think we probably should have taken the stairs,” Alex said.

“We’ll have to keep that in mind for when we leave,” Harold said.

Once they finally reached the third floor (Alex suspected it had taken a solid five minutes), it was a simple matter to find apartment 316. There was a bright light on the far side of the peephole.

These places must get a lot of sunshine, Alex thought.

He knocked several times, then stepped back and waited next to Harold. After a few seconds, they saw the peephole go dark, then it got bright again. No one answered the door.

“Jerk,” Alex muttered. He knocked again and waited. Then again. And again.

At some point, whoever was inside realized that Alex and Harold weren’t going to just go away. The peephole went dark again for several seconds, then they heard the door unlock. The door pulled open slightly, and stopped at the end of a chain lock.

The man inside clearly didn’t recognize them, but Alex and Harold definitely recognized him. He was one of the guys who had been involved with the ambush. Alex made a mental note to buy Megan a pizza for giving him this guy’s address.

“Yeah? Can I help you somehow?” is what the guy said. He was doing his best to sound streetwise and intimidating. It didn’t work.

Harold said, “Yes, I’ve come to collect my luggage.”

Alex would have been hard-pressed to describe what happened next, because it was so sudden and unexpected that he couldn’t believe he had seen it.

One second Harold was standing next to him there in the hallway and then, in a blur of tasteful grey wool, he was somehow inside the apartment, despite the chain, and keeping the guy who had opened the door in a chokehold.

“Let my associate in, won’t you?” Harold said, as calmly polite as ever, to the very surprised man he was currently restraining.

The man grabbed fruitlessly at Harold’s arm instead. Harold lifted him off the floor, effortlessly, and said, “It’s very rude of you to keep my associate waiting outside.”

The man being restrained seemed to understand his predicament then, and frantically slid the chain back so the door could open. Harold lowered him to his feet again.

“Thank you,” Harold said. “It’s very kind of you to see us on such short notice.”

Alex was nearly as surprised by this series of events as the man being restrained, but he let himself into the apartment, closed the door behind him, and locked it. When he turned back to face Harold and the man, Alex saw where all the light was coming from after all.

“Let’s sit down and have a little chat,” Harold said to the man, still keeping a tight hold on him.

He turned and walked the man further into the apartment. Inside, there was a large number of grow lights hanging over pots with small green shoots starting to come up out of the soil.

“Growing tomatoes? I enjoy a bit of gardening myself,” Harold said. “I used to cultivate orchids, but that was quite a while back.”

The man said nothing.

Harold led him over to a couch, and said, “I’m going to let you go now, and you are going to sit down on the sofa. We are all going to have a civil conversation, and then my associate and I will leave you to your business. I’d like to remind you, however, that if you should decide to try anything funny, I am much faster than you, and I have never been known for my sense of humor. Is that clear?”

“Yes,” the man said. He was starting to look a little pale.

“Good. Have a seat, won’t you?” Harold said.

He released the man he had been holding, who took two big steps away from Harold and spun to face him with his fists clenched. Harold raised one eyebrow, slightly, and the man facing him paused, apparently thought better of what he was doing, and sat down on the sofa.

Harold sat down on a chair across from him. Alex remained standing, not sure exactly what was going on, but glad he was on the right side of it.

“Please do sit down, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. “I believe you have some things you wish to discuss with this gentleman as well.”

Alex shook his head, and sat down in the chair next to Harold’s.

“I believe some introductions are in order,” Harold said. “I am Mr. Derby. My associate is, of course, Mr. Minor. And what is your name, Mr. Um?”

The man on the couch twisted his lip slightly, and said, “Joe.”

“It’s good to properly meet you at last then, Mr. Joe,” Harold said. “Now then, where is my luggage?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Joe said.

“Of course you do. I’m talking about the luggage that you and your friends took possession of the other night. By mistake,” Harold said.

“I have no idea what you mean,” Joe said.

Harold sighed.

“Mr. Joe, we are all friends here, and I assure you there are no hard feelings over a simple misunderstanding. I would quite like to have my luggage back, however,” he said.

“Go piss up a rope,” Joe said.

Harold fell silent for a moment. He steepled his fingers and frowned for a moment, deep in thought.

“Mr. Joe, do you know what a universal joint is?” Harold said.

Joe said nothing.

“Allow me to explain then. In the simplest terms, a universal joint is one that can move in any direction,” Harold said.

“So what?” Joe said.

“Well, here is an interesting fact for you. There are, roughly three hundred and sixty joints in the human body, depending on what you define as a joint. I’ve sat down with a copy of a recent anatomy textbook and counted them myself, it was terribly interesting. It was interesting enough, in fact, that I’ve memorized them without meaning to. And do you know what I found particularly interesting, Mr. Joe?” Harold said.

“What?” Joe said.

“How many of them aren’t supposed to move at all, and how easily that little problem can be overcome. Perhaps you would be interested in a demonstration,” Harold said. He sat back and let Joe process what he’d just said.

Joe looked puzzled for a moment, and then his eyes cleared. He went pale again.

“So, Mr. Joe, if you could tell me what has become of my luggage, I would be most grateful,” Harold said.

Joe’s suddenly sounded much more respectful.

“I really don’t know,” he said. “A couple of the other guys took it. I don’t think they were all that interested in your bag, even. We were just supposed to stop you guys and get whatever it was you were carrying,” Joe said.

Alex asked, “So you don’t know what it was you guys stole from us?”

“Just that it was old,” Joe said. “The lady who hired us didn’t tell us much, just that she wanted it and how much she was willing to pay to get it.”

“The lady who hired you?” Alex said.

Joe fell silent.

“Who was it that hired you, Mr. Joe?” Harold said.

Joe stayed quiet.

Harold cleared his throat, stretched his arms out in front of him, and cracked his knuckles.

“I don’t know, man. Just some lady,” Joe said quickly.

“Did she have a name?” Alex said.

“I think it was Porter, but you didn’t hear that from me,” Joe said.

“Porter?” Alex said.

He and Harold exchanged a glance.

“How did you guys find us, anyway?” Alex said.

“It’s pretty easy to find a new, red Mustang that’s all bashed up,” Joe said.

Alex felt heat rising in his face, and his legs tensed up under him.

“You were the fuckers who did that to my car?” he said.

Harold said, “Remember, Mr. Minor, this is a friendly conversation. That’s all.”

Alex took a second to get himself under control again. On the one hand, he was eager to jump on Joe and choke him out himself. But on the other hand, Harold’s technique of being politely menacing was getting a lot of information out of this kid.

“OK, so you knew what my car looked like. How did you know where we’d be?” Alex said.

“One of us followed you to the airport a couple of nights ago. Then the lady we were working for told us you were coming back last night. We knew what route you’d probably take, so we just had to wait for you to drive by,” Joe said.

“How the hell did she know when we were coming back?” Alex said, to no one.

“Mr. Joe,“ Harold said, “Who had my luggage last?”

Chapter Seventeen

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Tue, 24 Nov 2015 04:34:00 +0000

Alex knew better than to drive the Mustang, in its current state, directly to Mr. Darcy’s office. It was apparent that they were being watched, and the Mustang was now impossible to miss.

After Harold had gotten the spare tire installed, Alex had gotten off the freeway at the next convenient place in order to inspect the damage. He had needed to knock the driver side window out, since it was spider webbed to match the passenger side window, so he was missing two windows. It made for a windy ride.

It wasn’t possible to open the driver’s side door anymore so once they were stopped, Alex had needed to crawl out the window. That turned out to be a lot more challenging than it looked on TV.

The driver’s side of the car was dented from front to rear, and a lot of the paint had been scraped away as well. The front end was smashed in from the earlier crash. The rear passenger side was bashed in. The back bumper was looking pretty bad. And one of his tires had been shot.

“I’m sorry about your car, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“Thanks Harold,” Alex said. He tried crawling in to the driver’s seat from the passenger side when they got back in, and he found that wasn’t much easier than getting out the window had been.

He parked several blocks away from Mr. Darcy’s office, and they walked the rest of the way.

It was now about ten o’clock at night, and there was no traffic in that part of town, so it was easy to be sure they weren’t being followed. They walked in to the office of Darcy Custom Brokers. Alex was surprised to see Megan at her desk.

“So, I hear you ran into a little trouble,” she said by way of greeting.

“A little,” Alex said.

“It’s amazing how often I have to work late because of you,” Megan said. “Mr. Darcy is waiting for you two, go on in.”

Alex and Harold went in to Mr. Darcy’s office. He was, as usual, sitting behind his desk. He looked up at them as they walked in and said, “Good evening, gentlemen, please have a seat.”

They sat down across from Mr. Darcy, who finished writing something in his notebook, then closed it and slipped it into a drawer in his desk.

“I’m glad to see the two of you aren’t looking too much worse for the wear. What is our current situation?” Mr. Darcy said.

“Well, we had managed to recover the artifacts, as you know, and we were on our way back here when we were ambushed on the freeway,” Alex said.

“Tell me about the ambush. How did it happen?” Mr. Darcy said.

“Well, we were coming back from the airport, and three cars blocked the road ahead of us. Then someone else knocked us off the road, and they boxed us in,” Alex said.

“What did the cars look like?” Mr. Darcy said.

“One was a yellow Honda, with a noisy muffler,” Alex said. “Umm…”

“There was another red Honda, a silver Toyota, and a blue Dodge. All of them looked like they were modified,” Harold said. “The Toyota had a bumper sticker for a college lacrosse team.”

How did he manage to notice all that? Alex thought.

“What happened after they boxed you in?” Mr. Darcy asked.

“They pointed guns at us and demanded the artifacts. Harold beat one of them up a bit. I think he deserved it for shooting my car,” Alex said. “They didn’t seem to appreciate that much, but they didn’t retaliate, just kept demanding the artifacts. Harold said we didn’t know what they were talking about, but they didn’t believe him. Ultimately, they took our bags, rifled through them, and found the artifacts. I think they stole Harold’s luggage, too.”

“They did,” Harold said. “I intend to get it back.”

“Did you notice anything unusual about them? Matching clothes? Anything like that?” Mr. Darcy said.

“No, not really,” Alex said.

“They were roughly the same age. I’d guess they’re in their early twenties. Apart from that, they all had an athletic build, and they were dressed quite nicely,” Harold said.

“Nice as in suits?” Mr. Darcy said.

“No, tidy polo shirts and chinos,” Harold said.

“Interesting,” Mr. Darcy said. He looked at Alex, and said, “What kind of shape is your car in?”

“It’s pretty much destroyed,” Alex said. “Between tonight and the crashes a couple of nights ago I don’t think there’s a straight body panel left on the car.”

“What happened a couple of nights ago?” Mr. Darcy said. “You hadn’t mentioned that, Mr. Minor.”

“We got rear-ended, and then we had someone cut us off and slam on their brakes, so I rear-ended them,” Alex said. “Both of those cars ran off without stopping.”

Mr. Darcy sat back in his chair, and said, “Curious.”

He was silent for a few minutes, and then said, “I’m going to have Megan help you out and see what she can find about these drivers. What did you learn about the people you recovered the artifacts from? Do you think they’re behind this?”

“Well, we learned that the main guy responsible was named Noah Tipton. He and some of his friends were trying to duplicate the work of Thomas Smith, I guess,” Alex said.

“I’m sure Mr. Tipton would like to get the artifacts back, but I don’t think he’s well-connected enough to have sent these men after us. The impression I got was that he stole the artifacts on his own, for his own use, and was here experimenting with them with his friends. I don’t think he knew where we went, either,” Harold said.

Mr. Darcy nodded, and said, “It sounds to me like someone else would very much like to have the artifacts, then.”

He was quiet for a couple of minutes, then said, “Well, of course, Mr. Minor, I have a car you can use since yours is out of commission for now. I’ll have someone bring it around shortly. I’m sure you two are going to keep working on this, and I’m going to give Megan the information you’ve shared with me to see what she might be able to find as well.”

Mr. Darcy stood up then, and walked Alex and Harold to the door of his office. “Don’t worry, gentlemen, I have complete trust in you. I know you’ll get the artifacts back.”

Alex and Harold left Mr. Darcy’s office. Megan was still at her desk.

“Megan, would you come in to my office?” Mr. Darcy said.

Two cars pulled up to the curb in front of the building’s entrance just as Alex and Harold stepped outside. One of them was a long, black sedan with limo tinted windows. The other was a faded red minivan that looked like it might fall apart in a strong breeze. The driver of the minivan hopped out, jogged over to Alex and Harold, held out the keys, and said, “Here you go. Watch out, it can be a little squirrely at speed.”

Alex looked over at Harold, and said, “I’ll let you drive.”

Harold took the keys to the minivan, and the driver went straight over to the black sedan and got in the front passenger seat.

Mr. Darcy had loaned Alex cars in the past that looked like they were ready for the wrecking yard that turned out to be surprisingly high performance. Alex wondered what secrets this minivan might have in store for them.

The doors creaked as they opened, and the windows rattled in their frames when the doors shut. The interior smelled like decomposing seat foam. Harold settled in to the driver’s seat, and Alex paid attention as he turned the key to start the engine. He half expected the minivan to rumble to life with a hot-rodded V8.

Instead, the starter cranked for several seconds, in spite of the fact that it had just been running a moment ago. The engine finally chugged to life. There was a high-pitched whine coming from under the hood, but Alex was pretty certain the one thing that was not making the whining sound was a turbocharger.

It was just a crappy minivan.

As they drove back to the loft to regroup and figure out a strategy for tracking down the artifacts again, they discovered that what the driver had meant when he said it was squirrely at high speeds was that at any speed over fifty miles per hour it felt as if it would go careening wildly through traffic and off the road to explode in a fiery wreck.

Harold got back off of the freeway as soon as possible.

As Alex tried to uncurl his fingers again from gripping the arm rests as tightly as he possibly could, he said, “Well, that was pretty exciting. What do you say we try our best not to repeat that particular experiment?”

“Agreed, Mr. Minor. I think this particular vehicle is best suited to city streets,” Harold said.

The trip back to the loft took about ten minutes longer than it would have had they stayed on the freeway, but both Alex and Harold were happy with the tradeoff. Harold drove the minivan into the parking garage, and parked it in Alex’s usual spot. The creaking of the doors echoed through the parking garage as the two of them got out of the minivan. Under the bright fluorescent lighting in the garage, the minivan looked even worse than it had in front of the office building. It stood out in stark contrast to the clean, shiny, new cars Alex’s neighbors owned.

“Well, I guess we should need to go incognito, and haul a lot of groceries while we’re at it, this thing will do a decent job,” Alex said.

He realized then that he was completely exhausted. It had been a long, weird day, and getting back up to the loft and into his own bed seemed like a really good idea.

Chapter Sixteen

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 04:02:00 +0000

Once again, the flight was uneventful. Alex was extremely glad he had been able to get some reading materials, since Harold wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

Alex had tried to ask him a bit more about how he had recovered the artifacts with so little trouble, but Harold had simply looked at him and shook his head no. So they flew in silence instead.

It was late evening when they arrived back at the airport in Minneapolis. Alex was amused once again that there was a red carpet rolled out for them when they were getting out of the airplane.

Getting back to the Mustang, Alex immediately noticed the bashed in corner of the back bumper. He sighed, and was glad that this assignment was about wrapped up so he could bring his car in and get the bodywork repaired.

He opened the trunk, and threw his bag in. Harold kept his bag, which had the artifacts in it, with him, and got into the passenger seat. Alex shut the trunk, hopped in the car, and started it. It fired right up, which was a relief to Alex. He’d been mildly worried that there was some hidden damage from the crashes waiting to be discovered at an inopportune time.

As they got rolling towards Minneapolis, Harold called Mr. Darcy to let him know they were on their way back to his office with the recovered artifacts. He was, of course, pleased to hear it, and told Harold he would be waiting for them when they got there.

Although the airport they’d flown out of was a small one, it only took a few minutes to get from the airport back to the freeway. The weather was sticky warm, and Alex was glad the air conditioner was still working in the Mustang too.

They were going fairly quickly, but Alex noticed a car barreling up behind them in the left lane. He got in to the center lane to let whoever it was pass, and a couple of seconds later a yellow Honda with an outrageously loud exhaust zipped past them.

“Wow, that thing sounds like shit,” Alex commented to Harold.

“Indeed,” Harold said.

The car in the center lane sped up to keep pace with the yellow car.

Typical, Alex thought. The second someone looks like they’re going to pass, they speed up.

Less typical was that the two cars slowed down again to match the speed of a third car in the right lane, turning all three lanes into a rolling roadblock.

“What on Earth are they doing?” Alex said.

All three cars began to slow down, keeping right next to each other.

Alex had exactly enough time to realize that they were in a bad situation, when another car slammed into the right rear corner of the car. The Mustang swerved, and started to fishtail. Alex fought it and thought he was getting it back under control when they got hit again, sending the Mustang spinning to the center breakdown lane.

We’re gonna die, Alex thought. The Mustang hit the center dividing wall on the driver’s side with a terrific BANG and came to an abrupt stop. Alex and Harold both sat in stunned silence for a moment, trying to figure out if they were OK or not.

“Are you hurt?” Alex asked Harold.

“No, I don’t think so, thank you. Are you injured, Mr. Minor?” Harold said.

How the hell does he sound completely unphased after that? Alex thought.

He said, “I’m fine, thanks Harold.”

A car came to a stop in the breakdown lane in front of the Mustang, and reversed until it was nearly touching the front bumper. Alex was relieved someone was stopping to help, until another car came to a stop on their left, and another boxed them in from behind.

“Shit,” Alex said.

Harold took off his seat belt, and Alex noticed him tensing up. Several men got out of the cars surrounding them, and approached the Mustang. Harold was reaching for the door handle when he and Alex both realized the men outside had guns drawn on them.

“Awesome,” Alex said.

Harold put his hand back in his lap.

One of the men leaned down and looked in the passenger window, keeping his gun pointed squarely at Harold.

“Both of you put your hands where I can see them!” He shouted.

Alex and Harold put their hands up. Alex wondered who they had pissed off. He briefly wondered if they were just unlucky enough to be getting robbed, but dismissed the idea immediately. The whole scene had been too organized for that.

“Now, open the window over here, and hand me the Thomas Smith artifacts you guys are carrying,” the man said

“I’m certain we don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harold said. “We aren’t carrying any artifacts. Who the devil is Thomas Smith?”

The man outside rolled his eyes and said, “Don’t bullshit me. All of us are more than happy to just shoot you and take your bags if we have to.”

“Well, we do hope you won’t feel that’s necessary. But we really have no idea what it is you want,” Harold said.

There was a shocking BANG, and both of the side windows shattered. Alex realized, with his ears ringing now, that a gun had gone off. They shot my car! He thought. He then checked himself to see if he’d been shot. He was still amped up enough from the crash, he realized, that he might not even have noticed it if he had been hit.

He looked over at Harold, who looked mildly annoyed. He seemed to be uninjured as well.

Glass rained on Harold as the man on his side of the car bashed in the spider-webbed glass. He pointed his revolver directly in Harold’s face.

Harold did not take kindly to this.

It happened so fast that Alex wasn’t sure if he’d really seen it or not. Harold grabbed the man’s arm, wrenched the gun away from him, and pulled his arm sharply. The man didn’t even have time to resist, and found himself nearly face to face with Harold.

Harold grabbed him by the collar and suddenly lifted, slamming him into the roof of the car head first. The man groaned, and Harold let him slump back out of the car.

There were suddenly three more guns pointed in the passenger side window at Harold, staying safely out of reach this time. Alex realized there were also a couple of men with guns pointed directly at him.

“We’re way outgunned here, Harold,” Alex said quietly. “I don’t even carry one.”

“So between the two of us, we have one gun now,” Harold said. He sighed, and said, “If we weren’t confined in a tight space, I’m pretty sure we could handle this.”

Alex had no idea how to respond to that.

One of the other men outside said, “Just give us the artifacts. If we wanted to shoot you, we would have done it already. But that doesn’t mean we won’t if we have to.”

“I still have no idea what these artifacts you’re talking about are,” Harold said.

“OK, well, then I guess we just want everything you’ve got in the car. Start by dropping my associate’s gun on the ground,” the man outside said.

Harold looked displeased, but complied with him, dropping the revolver out the window. One of the men outside kicked it away from the car.

“Now your luggage. I see a bag there on the floor. Pop the trunk too,” the man said.

Harold passed his luggage through the window, then opened the glove compartment and pressed the trunk release button.

The man who took the bag from Harold passed it off to one of the others outside. Alex heard someone rummaging in the trunk, and a voice said, “There are just books and clothes in here.”

“What kind of books?”

“New ones.”

“Forget them.”

The trunk slammed shut again.

Another voice said, “Here we are.”

“Well, would you look at that? Those look like artifacts to me. You fellas were holding out on us. That was pretty rude, I think,” the man outside said to Harold and Alex. He said to the man holding Harold’s bag, “Take the bag and split. We’ll be right behind you.”

Alex heard doors slam, and then the car behind them forced it’s way into the traffic that was now congested from the chaos going on in the breakdown lane.

Once they were away, the man outside the window took aim and shot the front passenger side tire. That front corner of the car dropped noticeably as the tire went immediately flat.

“Stop shooting my car, damn it!” Alex shouted.

The man outside smirked. “Sorry for the inconvenience. You boys have a nice night.”

More car doors slammed, and the two cars still blocking them in pulled back into traffic and roared away.

Alex and Harold sat in silence for a moment. Alex was supremely frustrated. Not only had they just lost the artifacts that, so far as he could tell, they’d found in the nick of time, more by sheer luck than sleuthing, but his car had just been beat up even more.

Fucking Mondays.

As he was slowly able to gather his thoughts again, Alex said to Harold, “I guess we’re not done after all. Any ideas on what we should do next?”

Harold, back to his usual, unflappable self, said, “Have you got a spare tire?”

“Yes,” Alex said. He wasn’t quite sure what that had to do with getting the artifacts back again.

“Then I suggest our next step is mounting it on the car,” Harold said. “Stay put, I’ll have it changed in just a moment.”

With that, Harold popped the trunk again, and got out of the car. Alex thought about getting out and trying to help, before realizing that his side of the car was still pushed up tight against the center wall. He was going to have to either get out the passenger side, or climb out the window, Dukes of Hazzard style.

While Harold was busy changing the tire, Alex took out his phone, and called Mr. Darcy.

Chapter Fifteen

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 04:01:00 +0000

Alex had no idea how Harold could be so certain that Noah and the others were inside doing whatever it was they were trying to do, right at that moment. For all Alex could tell, they might have been in there watching game shows and eating pork rinds.

“How do you know they’re in there working? I can’t see anything out of place,” Alex said.

“That’s because you don’t know how to look. Anyway, for now, I just know,” Harold said.

“Have you picked all this stuff up just from reading the books I bought yesterday?” Alex said. “Because I’m either impressed, or worried.”

“No, Mr. Minor, I didn’t just learn this yesterday,” Harold said. His face was impassive, as always, but Alex thought he detected a hint of a sardonic tone in his voice.

As they approached the house again, Alex pulled over and then parked the car. They got out of the car, and stood next to each other for a moment, looking at the house.

“So, how should we do this?” Alex said. He looked around, checking to see if they were being watched.

“Leave it to me,” Harold said.

“What?” Alex said. He turned back to face him, but Harold had already vanished. “Hey!” Alex said.

***

In the spare bedroom of FairyWingz’s house (her real name was Andrea), Noah had set up a three legged table in the middle of a large circle, drawn with salt, on the floor. Inside the circle he had drawn a five pointed star, and the table was set up carefully in the center of the star.

Under each of the table’s legs was one of the wax disks Thomas Smith had made, and on top of the table was the larger wax disk. On top of that disk, was the golden disk, and on top of all of it was a black piece of obsidian, carefully milled and polished into a circular mirror.

Each of the five points of the star had a candle burning. After discussing their experiences, Noah, Andrea and the others (Jan, David and Mark) had concluded that the chanting had little impact on the actual results of the rituals, so they had abandoned the chanting. Noah sat at the table. Mark sat next to him on his right, with a notepad and pen, ready to write down what Noah said. David, Jan, and Andrea all sat where they could inside the circle, meditating.

They had locked the exterior doors of the house because, honestly, that’s just good sense in this day and age. They’d also locked the door to the spare bedroom, which was more symbolic. The intent was to keep out any energies that weren’t specifically invited in.

Noah stared deeply into the mirror, describing what he saw to Mark. Much of it was nonsensical in the moment, but when they looked at the notes later they were sometimes able to make clear connections between seemingly random things.

Noah was intensely focused, marveling at the wondrous visions he was seeing in the mirror, waiting for the key he was looking for to appear. Once he knew how, he would be able to summon and converse with angels, just as Thomas Smith had hundreds of years before. Noah wanted more than anything to match Thomas Smith’s work, and then continue it. And so he watched intently, waiting for the meaning of the visions to all come together for him.

He was, therefore, very surprised to hear someone, apparently standing just over his left shoulder, politely clear his throat. Noah turned, ready to give Jan, David or Andrea a good tongue-lashing for interrupting him.

He recoiled so hard he nearly landed in Mark’s when he found himself face to face with Harold.

“You’ve been very naughty, Mr. Tipton,” Harold said.

“Who are you?” Noah said. He glanced over at the door. It looked like it was still shut, and locked. “How did you get in here?”

Jan, David and Andrea were all on their feet and on the other side of the room now. Mark was in the corner opposite them. Ordinarily they wouldn’t have left the protection offered by the circle on the floor, but then, ordinarily their visitors weren’t able to stand inside the circle the way Harold was.

“Those are not the right questions, Mr. Tipton. You should have asked what I want,” Harold said.

Moving quickly, he brushed aside the scrying mirror, and picked up the gold and wax disks. Then he had lifted the table off of the three disks it sat on, and he had picked them up as well.

“These do not belong to you, Mr. Tipton,” Harold said. He turned and went to the door.

“What are you?” Noah asked.

“A humble butler, of course. Good day,” Harold said.

***

Alex felt extremely conspicuous standing on the street next to the car, watching a stranger’s house. He wondered if he should try to follow Harold in, and then figured it might be best to wait outside, ready to facilitate a clean getaway. He shook off the strangeness of Harold’s speed and stealth, and decided he would be more comfortable waiting in the car.

He had no more than reached the driver’s side of the car when he heard Harold say, from the passenger side of the car, “Everything is taken care of. Let’s go.”

He turned to look, and saw Harold getting in to the passenger seat carrying an armload of stuff. Alex wondered how the hell Harold had managed to sneak up on him again, but it didn’t seem like it was really the right time for that question. He could ask questions later, for now, it was probably best to move before Noah decided he’d rather keep the artifacts after all, and came after them.

Alex got into the car, started it, and drove off.

“That couldn’t have taken you more than a minute,” Alex said. “How on Earth did you pull that off?”

“I just went in, took what we needed, and left. Of course, it only took a minute. Luckily, I didn’t have to waste time looking for the artifacts,” Harold said.

Alex didn’t think that was really an answer.

“Yeah, but how did you get in and out so quickly? Had they left the doors unlocked? Didn’t they try to stop you?” Alex said.

“They may as well have left the doors unlocked,” Harold said. “They didn’t really try to stop me. They seemed very surprised to see me, more than anything.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Alex said. “OK, so what next?”

“Well, we have what we came for, Mr. Minor. Let’s go get our things from the hotel and fly back to Minneapolis. I’m sure Mr. Darcy will be happy to see us,” Harold said.

“I’m sure he will be,” Alex said.

It only took them a couple of minutes to get back to the hotel. While Alex was packing his few things (and new collection of occult books), Harold called to charter a jet for the flight back to Minneapolis.

Alex made a mental note to try and stop somewhere en route to the airport to pick up some light reading for the flight. He wanted to be sure he at least had a magazine to kill time with.

Once they were ready, Alex and Harold stopped by the front desk of the hotel to check out. Alex realized the person behind the counter was the same guy who had been working when they checked in to the hotel. He definitely remembered Harold, too.

“How can I help you, sir?” he said.

“We’re ready to check out,” Harold said.

“Oh, I’m sorry you’re going to be leaving us so soon. Have you had a pleasant stay?” the clerk said.

“It has been satisfactory, thank you,” Harold said.

“I’m glad to hear that. Well, I hope you’ll come back and stay with us again soon,” the clerk said, and flashed his very best P.R. smile at them.

“Indeed,” Harold said.

The drive to the airport was easy. Alex was glad to find a gas station and convenience store along the way that had a decent selection of magazines. He selected a few of them, and felt relieved that he wouldn’t have to sit through another boring, silent flight. He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to sleep on the plane this time, since it was still reasonably early in the day.

When they arrived at the airport, there was a representative from the charter company waiting to greet them. Once again, they were led from the rental car (which the representative said he would handle the logistics of returning), on to the tarmac and directly on to a waiting jet. It was so quick and easy, Alex couldn’t believe it. No wonder Harold only flew on chartered planes.

Chapter Fourteen

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 04:00:00 +0000

When Alex woke up on Monday morning, Harold was already up and reading again. A change of clothes was laid out for Alex, too.

Alex sat up in bed, and said, “Did you get any sleep, Harold?”

“Good morning, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. “I’m feeling completely rested. I told you I don’t need much sleep.”

“You’ve mentioned it,” Alex said, and dropped the subject. He got out of bed, and noticed the change of clothes. After a moment’s thought about whether or not he wanted to ask Harold to knock it off again, he decided to just let it slide. He was, however, a little frustrated that he had not packed enough other clothes for the trip so that he could wear something completely different than what Harold had laid out.

Alex gathered up the change of clothes and took them with him into the bathroom to change.

I don’t think Harold slept a wink. How is that even possible? Alex thought. He remembered the last time he’d been awake for twenty four hours straight. He saw the sun rise and rather than feeling awe or joy or even an appreciation for the natural beauty of it, he’d just felt kind of confused, anxious, and a little nauseous. When he’d finally stopped moving and got some rest, he slept for twelve hours straight and felt as if he’d just laid down when he woke up again.

He’d known a guy, when he was younger, who would stay awake for days on end. After three days, that guy would be completely loopy. Eventually he’d fall asleep whether he liked it or not, where ever he was. Once, he’d fallen asleep in the middle of the afternoon, sitting in his car in his driveway. He woke up a day later. It didn’t make any sense to Alex. Why stay up for so long just to end up feeling terrible? Alex had assumed that guy was on speed, though Alex later learned that he didn’t even drink.

Alex hoped that Harold wasn’t going to conk out on him at an inopportune moment.

Once Alex had changed and freshened up, he went back in to the main room, and turned on his laptop. It was time to see if Noah had left them any more convenient information.

There were some new posts in the Thomas Smith forum, one of them was by Noah. It said, “We’ve been having more signs of success, although we haven’t achieved any breakthroughs yet. We’ve decided to stop trying to work outside, since there are too many variables outside of our control in the woods. Also, somehow we ended up in a campsite next to the only other occupied campsite in the campground. We all got the impression he was suspicious of us, and we decided we’d rather not find out what would happen if he decided to act on those suspicions.

“We also had a bit of thrill yesterday. We were in town, and thought we were being followed for a time. We split up and ran to evade two guys in a car, which was exciting but perhaps unnecessary. It turned out to be nothing at all, they just continued on their way. Afterwards, we realized they were probably tourists who were lost.

“FairyWingz has offered to let us set up in the spare bedroom of her house, so that’s where we’ll be working for the rest of trip. I can’t believe there are only a couple of days left until I have to fly home again. It’s been such a pleasure being here with other like-minded people.”

There were a couple more pictures. One of them was of the spare bedroom volunteered by whoever FairyWingz was. The other was of the same group, standing in front of what was, presumably, FairyWingz house. The photo was unremarkable, except for one tiny think Alex nearly overlooked.

The photo had a clear shot of the house’s number: 7468.

“Oh my gosh, they’ve told us where they are,” Alex said.

“What? How so?” Harold said. He moved from where he’d been reading to look over Alex’s shoulder.

“Look, there’s the house’s number. We just need to figure out what street they’re on and we’ve got them,” Alex said.

Harold thought for a moment, and said, “We need to figure out which city they’re in, too. Does this FairyWingz person have a profile on the forum? Perhaps she’s listed what town she lives in.”

A little bit of digging revealed that FairyWingz was on the forum, but had not listed a location more specific than “Northern California.”

“Well, I guess I can just start searching for that address in the towns around here, and we can try to narrow it down from there,” Alex said.

Before he got started on making that list, Alex opened his email. He was mildly surprised to see a new email from Kaylee. The subject line was “Hunting for Fairies.”

“Hey, I got another email from Dr. Porter’s assistant,” Alex said.

“Really?” Harold said.

Alex opened the new email. It read, “Hey there – I’ve been watching the Guild of Smith’s forum. I thought you might like to know that FairyWingz’s house is there in Eureka.”

“How on Earth does she know that?” Harold said.

“I don’t know, but if she’s right, I think we’re going to owe her a beer when we get back,” Alex said. “Too bad she couldn’t be more specific than just, ‘somewhere in Eureka,’ though. Oh well, this should narrow things down quite a bit.”

Alex noticed the time, nine o’clock in the morning, and also noticed he was hungry. He figured he really probably shouldn’t waste time going down to the restaurant that morning. That and he was still a little embarrassed about the incident at breakfast the previous morning.

“Say, Harold, would you mind calling room service and having them send up some breakfast and coffee?” Alex said. If Harold insisted on being a butler, then Alex figured he might as well benefit from it a bit.

“Of course, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“Be sure to get something for yourself,” Alex said.

It didn’t seem like much time had passed before room service arrived with an impressive continental breakfast spread. Harold brought the tray of rolls and fruit over to the desk Alex was working at, and poured Alex a cup of coffee from an insulated pot. Alex noticed he didn’t take anything himself.

“Aren’t you having anything?” Alex said.

“I’ll have some coffee, but that’s it for me,” Harold said. Alex heard him pouring another cup of coffee.

Alex had managed to narrow it down to two likely addresses here in Eureka. He was glad they weren’t in a bigger town, or he might have been searching for a long time.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Harold had picked up his own cup of coffee, held it for a moment, and then set it down again. It was strange enough that Alex started paying a little more attention. He kept working, sort of, on his laptop until after a few minutes, he saw Harold do it again.

He considered asking Harold what the hell he was doing, then thought about it some more and realized it was extremely unlikely that Harold would actually answer the question. So instead he simply filed that information away, and wondered again what the deal was with Harold.

After a couple more minutes, Alex turned to Harold and said, “OK, I think these are probably the two most likely addresses. Should we go take a drive and have a look at the houses? That should give us a good idea of which one best matches the house in the photo.”

“Yes, I think that’s an excellent idea,” Harold said. “I’m ready to go if you are.”

Harold stood up, took his coffee cup over to the sink and poured it out. Alex wondered if Harold had actually drunk any of the coffee.

“Great, let’s go,” Alex said.

When they got down to the lobby, on their way out to the car, Alex noticed that Noah was there as well. He was walking just a dozen feet ahead of them. Alex elbowed Harold in the arm, and pointed as discretely as he could manage at Noah.

The two of them slowed down, and followed Noah at a distance as he left the hotel and went out to the parking lot. They followed him from one row over, and saw him get into a tiny, red car. Alex guessed it was something like a Honda Fit.

“Let’s get to our car and follow him, if we can,” Alex said.

He and Harold hurried to their own car, and got moving as quickly as they could manage, hoping to keep up with Noah. Alex was glad Noah was in a bright red car, it was going to make keeping track of him a lot easier.

They got to the exit from the parking lot just in time to see Noah turning left on to the main road. Alex followed, but had to let two cars coming from the right get in between them and Noah first.

That was probably for the best, just in case Noah recognized them from the day before.

Noah led them, eventually, to a seafoamy sort of green house, where he pulled into the driveway and parked.

“Check the address” Alex said to Harold, and kept driving down the street. He saw Noah walking up the sidewalk to the house in his rearview mirror.

“7468,” Harold said. “I think this is the place we’re looking for.”

“Wow, that ended up being easy,” Alex said.

“I think the more difficult part, Mr. Minor, will be getting the artifacts back from them,” Harold said.

Alex thought about the other items he’d recovered in his career working for Mr. Darcy. After figuring out where something was, he’d found it was about a 50/50 shot as to whether it would be more difficult getting his hands on what he was there to get, or simply tracking it down in the first place. Sometimes it took him months to track an item down, then he just had to grab it and walk away.

It seemed unlikely that they would just be grabbing these artifacts and walking away this time, unless they managed to get there while Noah’s guard was down.

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Alex said. “So, how do you think we should go about this?”

“Let’s circle the block a few times and see if we can get a feel for the house. It might give us an idea of the best way to get in there. Then we can just go in and take the artifacts back,” Harold said.

“What, when they’re all in there?” Alex said.

“Yes. The only way we’re going to know for sure that the artifacts are all present is if they’re in there using them. For all we know, Noah might be keeping them with him at all times, otherwise,” Harold said.

“You think they’re using them right now? Shouldn’t we come back at night?” Alex said.

“Why come back at night instead of taking care of it right now?” Harold said.

“Well, you said we can only be sure if they’re using them. It seems like night time is when they would be doing that, based on what we know from the camper I bumped into,” Alex said.

“I think you’re confusing a desire for secrecy and the cover of dark with a need for it to be dark to do magic. Magic works any time. And now they have a nice private house to work in,” Harold said.

“You know, now that you mention privacy and having a house, didn’t they have another house they were working in? I could have sworn one of the older photos posted to the forum was taken indoors,” Alex said.

“Well, you felt what I felt last night. Would you want the people responsible for it to keep doing whatever it was they did to bring that about in your house?” Harold said.

“Good point,” Alex said.

As they drove past the house again, Alex didn’t notice anything unusual about the house, or a particularly good way to get in except through the front door. Harold had looked intently at the house, but said nothing until they were past.

All he said was, “Go around the block again, please.”

Alex didn’t get any more information from the next trip past the house, but Harold seemed satisfied.

“They’re in there, and they’re working. Go around the block again, and then stop in front of the house,” Harold said.

Chapter Thirteen

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 04:00:00 +0000

Alex and Harold went straight from Books of Shadows back to the hotel to recover and try to come up with a new strategy. It was something of a relief that it was only Sunday. It was also time to eat, in Alex’s opinion. They had been on the move all day, running on little sleep, he’d had to run from a crazy bookstore employee with a shotgun, and they’d possibly tipped off the guy they were trying to follow. As far as Alex was concerned, French fries and a drink were in order, as soon as possible.

“Should we head down to the restaurant here and get something for dinner?” Alex asked Harold.

“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll stay here and keep digging through these books,” Harold said.

“When is the last time you ate, seriously? You have to be starving,” Alex said.

“Thank you Mr. Minor. If I get hungry, I’ll order something from room service,” Harold said. “I’d like to use the time to read, and I’m not especially hungry. Please go ahead and eat.”

“OK, if you say so,” Alex said. He was pretty sure he hadn’t seen Harold eat or sleep in twenty four hours. At some point, Harold was going to either wig out or collapse from hunger and exhaustion, which wouldn’t do either of them any good.

But it wasn’t like he could force Harold to eat or sleep, either. He was going to have to hope Harold knew what he was doing.

Alex made his way down to the restaurant. He didn’t recognize any of the staff from breakfast that morning, which was a relief. There were several seats open at the bar, so Alex sat down there. Several seats down from him was an older couple, and that was about it for other patrons at the bar.

The bartender had close cut blonde hair, and carried himself like a Marine. “Good evening,” he said. “What can I get you?”

“Jack Daniels and Coke,” Alex said. “Can I order dinner here, too?”

“Jack and Coke, you’ve got it. Sure, let me grab you a menu,” the bartender said. He hustled off to the other end of the bar, grabbed a menu and was back in a flash. After he’d handed Alex the menu, he had filled a glass with ice, whiskey and topped it off with Coca-Cola in a matter of seconds. Just watching the bartender work made Alex realized that he was completely exhausted.

He had a look at the menu, and realized the main thing that he wanted was French fries. He contemplated just ordering a big plate of fries, with a side of more fries, before deciding that he should probably have something else along with his fries. Figuring out what, though, was too much work. He decided a burger would be fine.

It seemed like the instant he’d decided, the bartender was there in front of him again.

“Have you had a chance to decide what you’d like to eat?” the bartender said.

“Burger and fries. And can I get an extra side of fries with that?” Alex said.

“Extra fries, no problem,” the bartender said. “I’ll have that out for you in just a few minutes.”

As the bartender left to put Alex’s order in, someone sat down on one of the stools next to Alex. It was a young guy, wearing a fleece jacket, cargo pants and hiking boots.

“How are you doing tonight?” he said to Alex.

“Bone tired,” Alex said. “How are you?”

“About the same, thanks man,” the guy said. “I’ve been camping the last few days, this is my first night back in civilization. I’m looking forward to getting some decent sleep tonight.”

“I hear that,” Alex said.

“So what are you doing here in Eureka?”

“I’m just on vacation. Seeing the sights. It’s pretty up here,” Alex said.

“It is pretty up here, no doubt about that. They’ve got some weird folks up here though, and I’m from L.A., so that’s saying something,” the guy next to Alex said.

“Is it? I thought L.A. was all musicians and movie stars,” Alex said.

“Have you met any musicians or movie stars? I’m telling you, they’re weird.”

The bartender came back with Alex’s food then. The burger looked totally decent, but more importantly, there was a mountain of perfect looking French fries alongside the burger.

“Dang, I’ll have what he’s having,” the guy next to Alex said.

Alex didn’t waste any time getting to work on the French fries. They were exactly as good as they looked, and exactly what he needed.

“So, the folks up here are weird?” Alex said, once he was able to slow down a bit between bites of fried potato.

“Yeah, seems like I bump into some odd ones every time I’m up this way,” the guy next to Alex said. “The odd ones are part of the reason I didn’t get much sleep camping.”

“Oh yeah? What happened?” Alex said.

“Well, it was this neighboring campsite from mine. No idea how it was that out of all the empty campsites in this campground, we ended up right next to each other. I probably should have moved after the first night, but it seemed like a lot of work to pack up camp just to move a few hundred yards away.”

“So they were bad neighbors?” Alex said.

“More just weird. Well, I guess they were bad neighbors, since they were up and making noise way past dark.”

“That’s not cool,” Alex said. “Just sounds like they were noisy to me, though. What made it weird?”

“The chanting. And the robes.”

“Chanting?” Alex said. He was suddenly a lot more interested in this conversation.

“Yeah. I couldn’t really hear what they were saying, but I’ll tell you what – when you’re camping alone and only other people in the campground are in the next site over, chanting for hours, it’ll freak you out a bit.”

“I bet,” Alex said. “And they were wearing robes, you said?”

“Yeah. Weird stuff,” the guy said, and shook his head.

“Were there a lot of them?” Alex said.

The guy next to him thought for a minute, and said, “I think there were about five. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was five of them. That’s how many I saw, anyway. There might have been more of them who just weren’t standing up. They got in late the first night and I didn’t go over to introduce myself after all the weirdness.”

“I don’t blame you,” Alex said.

Holy crap, Alex thought, that might just be them. Man am I glad I came down to the bar tonight.

He looked at his watch. It was getting close to seven o’clock. It wouldn’t be dark for a while yet, but he and Harold were probably going to have to pay this campground a visit tonight.

“How was the campground otherwise?” Alex said.

“Nice, really nice. It feels like you’re in the middle of nowhere, even though it’s not far from here at all, believe it or not. I’ll probably go back, though I think next time I’ll bring a friend,” the guys said.

“Awesome,” Alex said. “What was the place called?”

“Twin Pines Campground. Kind of a funny name, there wasn’t a pine tree to be seen. It was all redwoods, as far as I could tell. Maybe it was a joke of some sort.”

“Could be. Sounds like a nice place, I’ll have to try to check it out sometime,” Alex said. Like tonight.

“Definitely. So what about you, man? What cool stuff have you found while you’ve been here?”

Alex wondered what this guy would think if he told him he’d been haunting the local occult bookstores, following the people who might have been chanting in the neighboring campground, and getting threatened with a shotgun, all while trying to figure out what the deal is with his weird co-worker.

“Not much, to be honest. I’ve been checking out Eureka and Arcata a little bit. They’re cute towns. It seems like a nice place to live,” Alex said.

He’d finished his burger, and polished off the last of his French fries. When the bartender came by, Alex asked for the check. He paid, and turned to leave.

“Time to turn in,” Alex said to the guy next to him. He wanted to thank him for possibly making his life much, much easier, but couldn’t figure out how to explain it. Instead, he just said, “Have yourself a good night.”

“You too, man. Have a good time while you’re here.”

Alex walked casually out of the bar, but once he was out of the restaurant (and out of sight), he nearly broke into a run on his way back to the room.

Harold was sitting exactly where he’d been when Alex left for dinner. He wasn’t surprised to see that Harold was hunched over one of the books, with several of the others spread out around him.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Alex said after he’d shut the door behind himself. “Some guy in the bar seems to have been camped out next to Noah and his friends for the last few days in a local campground.”

“You must be joking,” Harold said.

“I’m not,” Alex said. “He said he’d had trouble sleeping for the last few nights because of the weird people in the next campground over. He said they were chanting and wearing robes, in a group of five. I can’t imagine there are all that many people trying to work magic in the redwoods every day.”

“No, I imagine not. Very interesting, Mr. Minor. Did he tell you where the campground is?” Harold said.

“Well, he didn’t tell me how to get there exactly, but he gave me the name. It’s called Twin Pines Campground. That should be easy enough to look up,” Alex said.

Harold set his book down and stood up. “Yes, I expect so,” he said. “Let’s get some more information and head over to this campground.”

Five minutes later they were back in the car, and on their way out of town to the Twin Pines campground. Alex hoped they would find Noah and the rest of his group there. Presumably, then it would just be a matter of finding the opportunity to recover the artifacts, and they’d be on their way back home.

It was getting dark when they reached Twin Pines campground. Just as the guy in the bar had said, most of the sites were unoccupied. Alex and Harold cruised through the campground slowly, looking for Noah or, barring that, at least a group of campers that seemed ready to don robes and start chanting.

There was a family with two kids and their dog, a retired couple with an astonishingly large RV, and a couple of college kids. That was it.

“Well, shit,” Alex said. “Of course it couldn’t be easy.”

“Indeed,” Harold said. “Let’s park the car and walk through.”

Alex didn’t see what possible good that would do, but he shrugged and said, “OK, what have we got to lose?”

They drove the rest of the way through the campground, and parked near the exit back to the main road. Then Alex and Harold got out of the car, and started walking back through the campground.

Harold produced a small flashlight from one of his pockets and turned it on. Alex was amazed at how bright it was for its size.

“Wow, look at you, prepared for anything. Man, that thing is bright. I’ve got a big Maglite at home, but I don’t think it produces that much light,” Alex said.

“Yes, it’s bright, but it goes through batteries very quickly. I try to save it for special occasions only,” Harold said.

They walked in silence after that. Apart from the sounds of laughter and conversation coming from the other campers, it was remarkably quiet.

The two of them were about halfway through the campground, when Harold stopped abruptly.

“This is where they were,” he said.

“Really? How can you tell?” Alex said. He looked on the ground where Harold’s flashlight was aimed, and didn’t see anything unusual there, so he looked into the campsite that was closest to them. He didn’t see anything unusual there, either.

“I can just tell,” Harold said. He walked into the campsite slowly, sweeping his flashlight back and forth across the ground. “There,” he said.

Alex looked where the light was, but just saw gravel.

“What’s there?” he said.

“They’ve smoothed the gravel down, erasing the marks they made on the ground. See? There’s a circle that has been raked clean. Everywhere else around here is lumpy, but it’s perfectly flat there,” Harold said.

“I don’t think that’s really conclusive,” Alex said.

Harold sighed, and said, “Can’t you feel that they were here, Mr. Minor?”

Alex wondered if this was Harold’s exhaustion and hunger kicking in. However, he still mostly seemed to be his usual, kind of spooky self. So rather than argue, Alex got quiet, and paid attention to see if he could feel anything weird.

He slowed his breathing and closed his eyes. He listened.

Nothing. He felt nothing unusual at all.

“Sorry Harold,” Alex said. “I want to believe this is where they were, but I’m not feeling anything...”

Just then all the hair on his arms stood up, and he broke out in goosebumps. It felt like a chill and a cloud of static electricity had passed through him.

“Whoa,” Alex said.

“I take it you felt it too, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Alex said. “Wow, that was weird.”

“It is a strange sensation,” Harold said. “They’re making remarkable progress now that they have the artifacts.”

“Progress?” Alex said. “What are you talking about?”

The wave of cold and odd, charged, feeling passed through him again.

“Well, like they said in the forum, they’re trying to continue Thomas Smith’s work. And they’ve come remarkably far,” Harold said.

“If you say so…” Alex said. “Do you think there’s anything here that will lead us to them?”

He was anxious to get moving again. This had gotten too weird, too quickly, and it was freaking him out.

“I think there’s something here that could lead us to them, if we knew how to listen,” Harold said.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Alex said.

“It means no, Mr. Minor, I don’t think they’ve left any clues behind for us. We can leave,” Harold said.

“Great, let’s get back to the hotel. I think I can use some sleep,” Alex said. He was already walking quickly out of the campsite back to the road that ran through the campground.

“I’m sure,” Harold said.

They drove back to the hotel in silence. Harold seemed to be back to waiting patiently for whatever comes next, while Alex was trying to make sense of what he’d just experienced.

He was certain that he hadn’t just gotten spooked in the woods. That felt different, and more like panic. He’d been freaked once he felt it, for sure, but he hadn’t felt panicked. This had been a definite sensation of cold, and of some kind of energy. He wondered if the energy had been good or bad, before abandoning that train of thought as irrelevant and merely acknowledging that whatever it was, it was strong.

When they got back to the hotel, Alex made a beeline for his bed. At least, it was his bed now. He and Harold hadn’t really discussed which of the two beds each of them would be taking.

“It’s been a long, weird day. Let’s get some rest, Harold,” Alex said. He crawled under the covers and shut off the light on the nightstand next to him.

“You go ahead, Mr. Minor. I’m going to stay up and read for a while longer,” Harold said.

Alex might have questioned Harold about that, except for that he’d already fallen asleep.

Chapter Twelve

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 03:59:00 +0000

Two of the people in Noah’s group of friends took off running across the street in front of Alex and Harold. Noah and two others started running to the left.

Alex let off the brake and started accelerating. He planned to chase after Noah, although he didn’t exactly know what he and Harold would do with Noah once they had caught him. He had a vague idea that he and Harold would be able to make Noah lead them to the artifacts, though he wasn’t certain how they would do it, exactly. There was a good chance that Harold would know how to persuade Noah, however.

They had nearly reached the intersection, and Alex was getting ready to turn left and catch up with Noah and the two others, when Harold said, “Go straight.”

“What?” Alex said. He hoped Harold had a plan, and drove straight through the intersection.

“Relax and drive casually, too,” Harold said.

“OK, we’re now driving slowly in the wrong direction,” Alex said. “How is this strategy going to play out? Because right now it seems like we’re letting them run off.”

“That’s because we’re letting them run off, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“And why are we letting them do that?” Alex said.

“Because, we didn’t hurry away after they saw us, and we didn’t chase after them. They’re going to regroup and laugh about getting spooked by something that turned out to be nothing at all, and go right back to being careless. I don’t think we’re going to be able to catch them in this neighborhood – there’s too many ways they can run to evade us before we can get turned around again. Besides, we’re not trying to catch Noah, we’re trying to get the artifacts he stole back. All we need is to figure out where they are,” Harold said.

Alex had to admit Harold’s idea made a certain sense. He hoped Harold was right.

“OK, I guess we’ll find out how that’s going to work out. I think we’re out of occult bookstores, what should we try next?” Alex said.

“We’re not out of bookstores yet. We never went in the last one,” Harold said.

Harold was right, Alex realized. They’d just waited outside while Noah and his friends had been in Books of Shadows.

“Do you think they’re likely to give us any info? And what if Noah and his friends just high-tailed it back to safety at that shop? It’ll probably freak them out a bit when we walk in, and they’ll bolt again,” Alex said.

“Well, they might do that,” Harold said. “But I think the chances are pretty slim that they’ll recognize us. And as you mentioned earlier, it’ll probably be for the best if I just wait in the car and avoid possibly causing a scene. We can just park some ways down the street, or around the corner, from the shop and then they won’t see this car parked out front, either. You should be able to discreetly go in to the shop, ask a few questions, and do it without them getting suspicious in the least.”

“I guess it’s worth a shot,” Alex said. “With any luck the people working in this shop will have some idea of where Noah is headed next. He was in there long enough to have told them his life story, after all.”

They took a roundabout route to get back to Books of Shadows, and Alex parked about two blocks down the road, and around the corner. It briefly occurred to him, as he was walking to the shop, that if he needed to make a run for it, it would be a bit of a jaunt back to the car. On the other hand, these folks might be a bit eccentric, but didn’t seem particularly dangerous. He doubted he would need to escape.

It only took him a couple of minutes to reach the shop. The smell of incense was nearly overpowering when Alex stepped inside. The walls and shelving inside were black, and Alex thought it seemed more like a record store than a bookshop. Loud gothic music was playing, and there were a few other customers in the store. The woman working behind the counter had black hair, black lipstick, and was wearing a floor length black dress.

Alex wandered through the shelves a little bit. A man came out of the back of the store carrying an armload of books. He put them down on the counter, picked up an antique looking pricing gun, and started sticking prices on the books he’d just brought out. He had long, dark brown hair, and was wearing a long sleeved t-shirt (black, of course) for a band Alex had never heard of, along with black jeans and combat boots.

By now, Alex kind of knew which section of the store he ought to be looking in if he was interested in Thomas Smith and whatever ritual magick was. He found a shelf of books labelled “Ritual Magick” (the label was black tape, with white gothic lettering). There was a direct line of sight between him and the front counter, so Alex did his best to look appropriately bewildered, in hopes of getting one of the employees to come over and offer to help him. At the moment, they weren’t looking at him, so he picked up one of the books in front of him and random and flipped through it. He was mildly shocked when the book opened to a photo of five naked women laying on the floor, arranged into the shape of a star.

Alex jumped when he heard a woman’s voice next to him say, “Can I help you find anything?”

The woman who had been working behind the counter was now standing next to him. She looked mildly amused.

Alex closed the book quickly and put it back on the shelf.

“Yes, well, uh, I’m interested in Thomas Smith, so I’m looking for anything you might have related to him,” Alex said.

The shopkeeper said, “Thomas Smith? Interesting. We had some people in here earlier today who were very interested in him too. I don’t suppose you know them?”

Alex shook his head. “No, I can’t say that I do,” he said.

“Well, that’s OK,” she said. “One of them seemed really intent on convincing me he is a leading expert on Thomas Smith. An English guy. I asked him what had brought him to Arcata, of all places, and he just said he was on holiday. Anyway, I’ve got a couple of things here with some information about Thomas Smith in them.”

“Great,” Alex said. So Noah had just been in here talking at them for a couple of hours. He was suddenly kind of glad they hadn’t tried to catch Noah himself. Chances were they’d end up having to gag him if they wanted to be able to hear themselves think.

The shopkeeper handed him a book.

“This one is good,” she said, “though it’s a little on the experimental side. They haven’t stayed one hundred percent true to Thomas Smith’s writings, but if you’re looking for an effective resource, this one will do the job.”

She went back to looking at the shelf. Alex tried to think of a way to bring the conversation back to Noah, and if he’d revealed anything at all about what he was doing or where he was doing it while he was in town.

“This is a good practical book too,” the shopkeeper said, handing him another heavy tome.

“Great,” Alex said. He started to hope he wasn’t going to have to drop another hundred dollars on magic books. Of course, if he did, there was a good chance Harold would appreciate them. He was probably sitting with his nose buried in one of them now, out in the car.

“Oh, and if you don’t have this one already, you really need it,” the shopkeeper said, handing him yet another heavy book. Alex hadn’t had any idea that doing magic would involve carrying so much heavy stuff around.

“There, I think that should get you going in the right direction,” the shopkeeper said, handing him one last book. “Is there anything else you need while you’re here?”

“No, I think this should be enough for one day, thanks,” Alex said. He followed as the shopkeeper turned and led him to the cash register. Alex noticed that the guy who had been working at the counter had vanished again.

“So,” Alex said, “there are some other folks in town who are into Thomas Smith?” Alex said.

The shopkeeper started ringing him up.

“Apparently,” she said. “At least, they came in here for a while today.”

“Did they say if they were going to stick around for a while?” Alex said.

“Not really. The English guy said that he was here in California for a couple of days, meeting up with some of his friends from a forum they’re all on,” she said. “That’ll be one hundred fifty four dollars and eighty seven cents.”

God damn it, Alex thought. I’ve spent like two hundred and fifty bucks on magic books I’ll never read on this trip.

He said, “OK, great,” and handed her one hundred sixty dollars in twenty dollar bills.

“It’d be cool to meet up with some other folks who are into Thomas Smith. And it’d be really neat to meet up with someone who’s an expert,” Alex continued. “Can you think of anywhere I might be likely to run in to them?”

The shopkeeper handed Alex a black plastic bag with the books he’d just bought in it.

“Not really,” she said. “There’s a group that meets at a coffee shop in Eureka on Tuesday nights. I guess it’s possible that they’ll show up there. There might be some other folks who are into Thomas Smith there, too. I probably wouldn’t count on that, though.”

She turned and called in to the back room, “Hey, Brian, you got a minute?”

A voice from the back said, “Yeah, Crystal, be right there!”

Crystal? Alex thought. Her name is Crystal?

A couple of seconds later, Brian came out of the back room and joined Crystal behind the counter.

“What’s up?” he said.

“Did you catch if that English guy said anything about what he and his friends were going to get up to while he’s in town?” Crystal said.

Brian looked a little surprised, or confused, and said, “No, I didn’t hear them say anything about their plans. Why?”

“This gentleman is interested in Thomas Smith too, so he was hoping to catch up with them,” Crystal said.

“Really?” Brian said. He looked Alex over.

“Yeah, it’s be great to get to talk with some people who are experts on the subject. I’m pretty new to this,” Alex said. He didn’t like the way Brian was looking at him.

“I bet,” Brian said. He started picking at one of his fingernails. “Did you hear about that robbery in London?”

Alex blinked a couple of times. That wasn’t where he expected the conversation to go.

“Robbery?” Alex said.

“Yeah,” Brian said. “Some stuff that had belonged to Thomas Smith was stolen from a museum over there just recently. Kind of a weird coincidence.”

“What coincidence is that?” Alex said.

“Well, there was a robbery in London. And then some English dude shows up here claiming to be an expert on Thomas Smith. Claiming, who am I kidding? He was boasting. And now, just a little while after that guy and his friends left here, you show up, interested in Thomas Smith. Seems kind of funny to me,” Brian said.

“I guess that is a coincidence,” Alex said. “Small world.”

“Yeah, real small world,” Brian said. “If you ask me, you guys are all up to something. Now, maybe that English guy is the one who stole that stuff. I’d expect two kind of people to be looking for him if that’s the case: cops, and other crooks. And you don’t look like a cop to me.”

This isn’t going anywhere good, Alex thought.

“Look, this is just a weird case of, uh, synchronicity,” Alex said.

“I’m not buying it,” Brian said. “What can you tell me about Thomas Smith, if you’re actually interested in him?”

“Well, he was an alchemist and a mathematician,” Alex said. “I don’t know, I’m still learning. What do you want to know?”

“What was the deal with him and angels? If you’ve even looked him up on Wikipedia you’ll know about that,” Brian said.

“Uh, well, he, uh, thought he was talking to angels,” Alex said.

It is time to go now, Alex thought. This is going to keep getting worse.

“He thought he was talking to angels?” Brian said.

He suddenly produced a shotgun from behind the counter, and pointed it at Alex.

Holy crap! Alex thought. Time to go. It’s time to go right now. Just run.

“What are you playing at, fella?” Brian said. “Do you know where the Thomas Smith artifacts are?”

Alex put his free hand (that wasn’t weighed down with a forty pound bag of books) up, and started backing away.

This really went in a weird direction. So is this guy after that stuff too? Alex thought.

“Well, you see, uh, the thing about that is, um… Bye!” Alex said. He turned and ran out of the bookstore. He half-expected to hear the BOOM of the shotgun, but it didn’t come. Suddenly, parking two blocks away seemed like it really had been a spectacularly dumb idea.

Alex saw Harold get out of the passenger side of the car and hop in to the driver’s seat.

At least he saw me coming, Alex thought.

Harold had the car running, and started driving the minute Alex was seated.

“So, how did it go, Mr. Minor?” Harold said.

Chapter Eleven

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 04:18:00 +0000

Alex and Harold were still in the car. Alex had found a McDonald’s and pulled in to the drive-thru to grab some lunch.

“What do you want to eat?” Alex asked Harold.

“Nothing, thank you,” Harold said. He was paging through one of the books Alex had just bought.

“Are you sure? You’ve got to be starving by now,” Alex said.

“I’m not hungry, thank you, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. His tone, still completely polite, made it clear that the matter was closed.

“OK,” Alex said, and dropped it. He ordered for himself, and found a place to park and eat.

After he’d finished, Alex dug out his phone and started looking to see what he could find that might get them closer to finding Noah.

Alex was surprised to discover that there was more than one occult bookstore in the surrounding area. There were two more in Arcata, one called Painted Leaf and the other named Books of Shadows. He hoped the folks working in those shops might be able to give him some more useful information than the guy at Tree of Life had.

There hadn’t been anything new posted to the Guild of Smiths forum, unfortunately. Alex hoped Noah and his friends would post a photo that would give him a concrete idea of where they could be found. No such luck.

While Alex was busy with that, Harold had kept his nose deep in the new books. Alex was a little surprised that Harold was at all interested in them. He didn’t think it was likely that there would be any kind of hint about where to find Noah (and the artifacts) in there. However, he also thought that it would be best to just let Harold read them, if that’s what he wanted to do. A Harold engrossed in a book was a Harold not bothering him. It was a nice change of pace since they were travelling together for the time being, whether he liked it or not.

“Well, unless you’ve got a better idea, I think we might as well go check these other bookstores and see if anyone else can help us out,” Alex said.

“I think that’s an excellent idea, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

It was a quick drive to Arcata. The first bookstore they tried was The Painted Leaf.

The Painted Leaf looked more like a conventional bookstore than the Tree Of Life had. The walls were painted a warm beige, and all of the bookshelves looked like they’d been purchased at the same time. It was kind of bland in comparison.

It did smell like incense, and they were playing some kind of new age-y music that was easy to ignore.

There was a woman working behind the counter, and she looked up and smiled as Alex walked in. Her smile fell, however, when Harold walked in behind him.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” she said in a cold voice.

“What?” Alex said. He couldn’t believe this.

“Not you,” she said.

“I’m sorry, have I done something wrong?” Harold said.

“I need you to leave, now,” she said.

“Fine, fine, I don’t want to cause any trouble,” Harold said. He turned around and left the store.

Alex suspected someone was pulling his leg. This was all too weird. Harold hadn’t even had a chance to do something to deserve getting thrown out.

“What on Earth was that about?” Alex asked. He noticed she was wearing a nametag that read, “Ann.”

Ann looked at him as if she was trying to decide if he was joking or if he was particularly simple minded, then composed herself and said, “Is there anything I can help you find?”

“Well, I’m trying to learn more about Thomas Smith. Are you familiar with him?” Alex said.

“Oh, you must be friends with the group of folks who came in earlier asking about him. They bought a bunch of books already, I’m not sure how much on that topic I’ll have left on the shelf,” Ann said.

“Really, there were some other people who came in today asking about him?” Alex said.

“Oh, so you don’t know them? I guess Thomas Smith is just a hot topic, then. Or it’s synchronicity. Yeah, there were some other people who came in. You just missed them, really. They left here about fifteen minutes ago,” Ann said.

“Cool,” Alex said. “You didn’t happen to overhear where they were headed next, did you?”

Ann looked at him suspiciously, “Why would you want to know?”

Alex wasn’t exactly sure how to answer that, and stumbled over himself as he tried to reply.

“Well, you know, it’d just be… interesting, to meet some other people with the same interest. Maybe we could compare notes,” he said.

“Right,” Ann said.

She’s not buying it, Alex thought. Shit.

“Sorry, they didn’t mention where they were off to next. But if you’re looking for folks with similar interests, you could always try looking on the internet. There’s a forum for just about everything now,” Ann said.

“Right, that’s a good idea,” Alex said.

“Well, feel free to have a look around the shop,” Ann said. “I’ve got to finish putting together an order.”

“OK, thanks,” Alex said.

He wandered through the shelves for a couple of minutes before heading back outside. Once again, Harold was waiting just to one side of the door.

“Damn it, we just missed them, apparently,” Alex said. “According to her, they left here about fifteen minutes ago.”

“Interesting. It sounds like we might be on the right track then,” Harold said.

“I guess so,” Alex said. “I’ve got one more bookstore here on the list, let’s go check it out and hope that it is on their list of places to visit too.”

Moments later they were back in the car and on their way to Books of Shadows. Alex hoped they’d be able to spot the group, or at least Noah, and follow them back to where ever it was they had the artifacts.

“So what have you been doing to piss off all these shopkeepers, Harold?” Alex said as they were driving across town.

“I haven’t got the foggiest idea,” Harold said.

“Pretty weird coincidence,” Alex said.

“Indeed, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. “I hope the reason why will become apparent to us.”

They arrived at Books of Shadows a couple of minutes later, and were able to park directly across the street from the entrance to the shop. Alex shut off the car, and sat back in his seat. The shop was in a tidy little bungalow, painted purple with black trim. There was a painted sign in the front yard announcing the name of the shop in a gothic looking font.

“You know,” Alex said. “Maybe you should wait here this time. Drawing attention to ourselves in all of the occult bookstores in the area probably isn’t going to make our job any easier.”

Alex was surprised when Harold agreed with him, and surprised again by what he said next.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. Then, “Oh, look, there he is.”

Harold pointed across the street. Walking down the sidewalk towards Books of Shadows was Noah Tipton, along with a group of people Alex recognized from the photos posted to the Guild of Smiths forum.

“Holy crap!” Alex said. For a second, he wasn’t sure what to do. Part of him, a big part, wanted to charge across the street and tackle Noah. A calmer, more rational, part of him realized that doing so would probably do nothing more that scare Noah and his friends in to hiding the artifacts and being careful to keep themselves and their activities under wraps.

“Stay calm, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. Alex realized his excitement was probably showing more than he realized. “We’ll be able to follow them when they come back out.”

“Right,” Alex said. He did his best to relax. It didn’t quite work, but at least he managed to get his urge to make a flying leap for Noah back under control.

Alex and Harold watched as Noah and his friends walked into the Book of Shadows. Alex felt an icy shard of panic slip into his chest when the door closed behind them, hiding them from view.

OK, they’ll come back out. They have to come back out. We haven’t lost them yet, Alex thought.

He began to drum nervously on the steering wheel. Harold, for his part, waited quietly and patiently.

Five minutes passed, then ten.

“You know, maybe I should go in there and see what I can overhear,” Alex said.

“I think you should stay put, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. “They’ll come back out. They have to leave the store again at some point. If you go in there, you’ll just risk exposing us before we’ve recovered the artifacts, and that will just make our job that much harder.”

Alex had to admit Harold was right. It was kind of maddening.

It was also becoming apparent to Alex that he wasn’t cut out for stakeouts.

They waited. An hour passed. Harold had gone back to reading the books Alex had bought earlier, while Alex watched the shop.

“Where the hell are they?” Alex said. He was starting to feel self-conscious sitting there in a parked car for so long, just hanging out. Someone was going to notice them and get curious sooner or later, he felt. He didn’t want to watch as Noah and his friends walked away again, unable to follow them because he was busy explaining what they were doing there to the local Officer Friendly.

“They’re shopping, Mr. Minor. Be patient,” Harold said.

“Patient my ass. How can they be taking so long in a bookstore? If they’re experts on this, like they’ve apparently been telling everyone, how many books of interest can the shop possibly have?” Alex said.

“They might be showing off their knowledge to a fresh audience, Mr. Minor. It does happen,” Harold said.

“Ugh, so we’re follow a guy who’s a thief and a bore,” Alex said.

“An unforgiveable combination, I agree,” Harold said. “One should never have more than one vice at a time.”

Alex laughed, in spite of himself.

Another half hour passed. Alex had finished drinking the last of his soda from lunch some time ago, and he was starting to wish he’d thought to bring a bottle of water along with them that day.

A group of college-aged men and women wearing black dusters and cloaks came down the sidewalk, and went into the book shop.

“Looks like it’s going to be a party in there,” Alex said.

The front door to the shop opened again, and Alex said, “Or maybe not.”

Noah and his friends came out of the shop again, chatting and laughing. Alex noticed that none of them were carrying a new bag of books. So they had just been in there talking. The jerks.

“Here they come,” Alex said.

Harold put down the book he was reading, and turned to look.

“Excellent,” Harold said. “Let’s follow them.”

Alex started the car and put it in gear. He and Harold watched as the group made their way down the street. They didn’t seem to be in a particular hurry. Alex pulled away from the curb and drove a little further down the street before pulling over and stopping again. He didn’t think that it would be easy to disguise the fact that they were following Noah and his friends if he and Harold were blatantly crawling along in their car at one mile per hour, in broad daylight, on a street without much traffic.

When the group got to the corner, they turned left and quickly vanished from sight. Alex pulled away from the curb again, and rolled up to the intersection. The group was now standing and looking in the window of a bicycle shop. Alex turned left, pulled over just a little ahead of the group (on the far side of the road from them) and stopped.

The five of them walked by again after a couple of minutes. Alex saw one of them glance over at the car he and Harold were in, then look away again at something else.

Good, they didn’t think anything of it, Alex thought.

When the group had gotten about halfway down the street again, Alex crept the car a little further along to keep up with them. He repeated this process for a few blocks. He felt extremely obvious, but so far it seemed like they hadn’t noticed that they were being followed. At some point, they were going to have to either get in a car, or go into a house. Either possibility would work fine for Alex, he just hoped they would hurry up and do one or the other.

Alex noticed one of the group turn and take a quick look back at him, over her shoulder. Harold noticed it too.

“I think they’ve spotted us, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“Could be,” Alex said. “Let’s see what they do.”

Noah and his friends got to the end of the block, and the group suddenly split in two, sprinting off in opposite directions.

“Oh, shit!” Alex said.

Chapter Ten

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 04:17:00 +0000

Alex wasn’t exactly sure what to make of the exchange that had just occurred between Harold and the shopkeeper. Granted, he didn’t know if there was some kind of occult bookstore etiquette that Harold had breached (and he assumed if there was such a thing, Harold would be perfectly aware of what the correct etiquette was) but, so far as he could tell, all Harold had done wrong was to walk into the store. And while Harold was a little scary in a way that was hard to put his finger on, Alex had never found himself tempted to shout Harold out of a room.

It was also a little disturbing to Alex the way the shopkeeper had gone from “Demon, be gone!” fury to obsequious calm so quickly.

Alex told the shopkeeper that he was interested in the work of Thomas Smith.

“Oh, yes, he was an interesting one, wasn’t he? I have a few things that might interest you over here with the ritual magic books. You know, I’ve had a lot of people in the shop lately asking about him. He must be getting trendy at the moment,” the shopkeeper said. He led Alex over to a shelf that looked as if it had originally been in someone’s bedroom before getting repurposed for use in the store. There was a printed tape label on the shelf the shopkeeper was scanning, that read, “Ritual Magick.”

“Really?” Alex said

“Really. In fact, I had an English guy in here just the other day. He claimed he’s an international expert on Thomas Smith. Of course, it’s easy to call yourself an international expert when you’re away from home,” the shopkeeper said.

He pulled a book off the shelf and handed it to Alex. “This is a good one,” he said, and went back to looking through the books.

“Did he say what brought him here to Eureka?” Alex asked.

“It seemed like he has a bunch of friends here locally. They’re all nuts for Thomas Smith. I got the impression they wanted to show off how much they knew about him, because they came in and talked my ear off about magical math, but they didn’t buy a thing. Well, they did buy a couple of candles. They made a point of letting me know they already have all the books I’ve got in stock,” the shopkeeper said.

“Wow, that seems kind of rude,” Alex said.

“Well, we get all sorts in here. Some people are so deep in their own heads they forget how to talk to anyone outside of it,” the shopkeeper said. He plucked another book from the shelf and handed it to Alex. “You’ll like this one,” he said.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I usually just let them talk and feel smart. Eventually folks like that come back and buy things, if they like you. I recognized a couple of them, actually. They come in every now and then, and pick up something really eclectic and then vanish again for a couple of months.”

Pay dirt, Alex thought. He tried to come up with a nonchalant way of asking where he might be able to find these people.

What he said was, “What do you mean by eclectic?”

“Well, for example, one of them came in some time ago and bought a Tibetan singing bowl. Then I didn’t see her again for six months, until she came back and bought a scrying mirror, of all things,” the shopkeeper said.

“That’s strange?” Alex said.

“Well, they don’t really go together, but I guess they don’t have to. Some people like to experiment with different things,” the shopkeeper said.

“I have to be honest, I don’t have any idea what a singing bowl or a scrying mirror is,” Alex said.

“Oh, well, let me show you,” the shopkeeper said. He led Alex over to another shelf where there was an assortment of bowls and dowels made of various materials. He picked up one of the bowls, made of brass, and a wooden dowel. He pressed the dowel against the lip of the bowl and dragged it in circles, until a tone began to come from the bowl. It made kind of a pleasant drone. Alex had seen them earlier, but thought they were for grinding herbs or something like that.

“This is a singing bowl. People use them for meditation and a few other things,” the shopkeeper said.

He set the bowl and dowel down again and led Alex over to another shelf that had a variety of shapes and sizes of black glass, some with designs painted or etched on to them. There were also some thicker, round pieces that Alex realized were made of obsidian. The prices on the little signs next to them made Alex’s jaw drop.

“These are scrying mirrors. People use them for divination. Nostradamus made his predictions using scrying. I think I remember reading that Thomas Smith did some too, but don’t quote me on that,” the shopkeeper said.

“Cool,” Alex said. “Thanks for explaining that for me.”

The shopkeeper led Alex over to the counter, and started to ring up the books. Alex nearly protested that, actually, he didn’t want to buy them, but he caught himself at the last second. He figured it would be best to just buy the books and keep this guy talking.

“So you mentioned these folks are local. Any chance I might bump into them while I’m here in town?” Alex said.

“Well, anything is possible,” the shopkeeper said. “If you want to try to catch them, there’s a group for pagans that meets every Tuesday night at one of the coffee shops here in town. They’ve got some flyers up on the corkboard by the front door you can grab.”

He hit one last button on the cash register, and said, “That’ll be ninety four dollars and sixty three cents.”

Alex nearly gasped. Ninety five dollars for two books? He took a deep breath, got out his wallet, and paid with five twenty dollar bills. The shopkeeper made change, put Alex’s books in a bag, and wished him a pleasant stay in Eureka.

Alex picked up the bag, and made his way back through the shop to the front door. There was indeed a number of flyers there advertising that the Eureka pagan club met every Tuesday at seven o’clock in the evening at a place called Geno’s Chinos. He took one of the flyers, and hoped they’d have tracked down Noah well before that. Seven o’clock on Tuesday night was going to be cutting it way too close if Noah was flying back on Wednesday.

Back outside, Harold was waiting just to the side of the front door of the shop. They both turned and started to walk back to the rental car. If Harold was upset about being rudely ejected from the store, he gave no sign of it that Alex could see.

The weather was beginning to warm a bit, though it was still damp and overcast. There was a strong breeze, and Alex was glad he was wearing a jacket. He thought back to his conversation with the waitress during breakfast, and chuckled to himself about getting some sun while he was in Eureka.

“Did you purchase a little light reading, Mr. Minor?” Harold said.

“Yeah, I was trying to keep the guy in there talking, so I figured it would be better to buy something,” Alex said.

“Did that work?” Harold said.

“Not quite as well as I’d hoped it would,” Alex said. “We already knew Noah and his friends had been in there. Now we know that one of them has bought a singing bowl and a scrying mirror, and that they like to show off how much they know about Thomas Smith. Oh, and there are pagan club meetings on Tuesday nights, if we get desperate. I’d been hoping he might actually tell me how to get ahold of one of these folks. Oh well,” Alex said.

“Interesting,” Harold said. “What books did you get?”

“Um, actually, I don’t know. Let’s see,” Alex said. He reached into the bag and took out the books he’d bought. Their titles were The Modern Alchemist’s Guide and Advanced Ritual Magic.

“Ugh, they sound like textbooks,” Alex said. “No wonder they were so expensive.”

“Interesting. I’d like to take a look at those later, if you don’t mind,” Harold said.

Alex handed him the bag.

“Knock yourself out,” he said. “I’m pretty sure they’ll put me to sleep before I get any useful information out of them.”

They reached the car again after just a couple of minutes, and got back into it. Once they were rolling, Alex said, “So, what did you do to set off the shopkeeper? He just wigged out on you.”

“I have no idea,” Harold said. “It took me completely by surprise. I suspect he was just eccentric, though.”

“If you say so,” Alex said. “I have to admit, I’d be pretty steamed if that had happened to me.”

“Well, there’s no sense in getting upset with someone who isn’t rational. I’ve found it’s best to just get out of their way,” Harold said.

“You’re a bigger man than me,” Alex said. “So, it’s not even eleven o’clock. What do you think we should try next?”

“I think we need to do some research, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. “You can check and see if Noah has posted any more useful information online anywhere, and you may as well look and see if there are any more occult bookstores anywhere nearby. If Noah is playing tourist while he’s here, he’ll probably have visited them all. And, while we’re doing that, we can keep our eyes open and hope to spot him out and about.”

“What are you going to do?” Alex said.

“I’m going to dig through these books you bought and see if they might shine any light on what Noah and his friends are up to,” Harold said.

Chapter Nine

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 04:28:00 +0000

There was a new photo of Noah and his local friends posted to the Guild of Smiths forum. Actually, there were several new photos, but the one that provided the most useful information to Alex, for the moment, was one of the group of them in front of a shop. An occult bookstore.

An occult bookstore named The Tree of Life Curiosities and Metaphysical Supplies, according to the name painted on the window of the shop.

The note under the photo said, “Had a great time picking out a few things and chatting with the wonderful owner of the shop today.”

A couple of quick minutes searching online revealed that The Tree of Life Curiosities and Metaphysical Supplies was located just a couple of miles away, and would be open again at ten o’clock.

“I think it might be worth visiting this shop, and maybe chatting with the owner a little,” Alex said.

“Certainly,” Harold said.

Alex glanced at his watch. It was barely eight o’clock in the morning, and Alex was famished. There was definitely enough time to see about getting some breakfast before the two of them needed to cruise over to the occult bookstore.

“What do you say we go down to the restaurant here and get some breakfast? We have some time to kill, and I’m starving,” Alex said.

“I’m not hungry, but please go ahead, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“OK, if you’re sure,” Alex said. “Would you like some coffee or tea or anything? I can bring you a cup when I come back.”

“A cup of coffee would be fine, thank you Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“OK, see you after breakfast then,” Alex said. He left their hotel room and went in search of the hotel’s restaurant.

Alex tried to think of the last time he’d seen Harold eat anything. The closest thing he could think of was the martinis Harold had made the other night. And as he thought about it, he wasn’t sure if he’d actually seen Harold drinking his.

So he eats in secret, and he sleeps in secret, Alex thought. Unless he just doesn’t eat or sleep at all. Weird guy.

He wondered again how Harold, a (surprisingly fast and strong) butler, had come to work for Mr. Darcy.

The hotel restaurant, naturally, was also decorated to look like it was an Olde English establishment. Alex had been expecting the restaurant to be very busy, since it was a Sunday morning, and figured he would have to wait for a table to open up, but he was seated right away.

“Good morning,” said the waitress. She seemed friendly, but not in an over the top way. It was a relief, Alex had a hard time tolerating obnoxiously friendly people before nine in the morning. “Can I get you some coffee to start?”

“That would be perfect,” Alex said.

“You’ve got it,” she said.

Alex looked at the menu, and was glad to see that the first thing listed was something called a Full English breakfast. It looked like it was basically a huge pile of fried meats. That would be perfect.

The waitress came back with his coffee, and took his order. Once she had left, Alex sat back and tried to relax, with little success. He was too excited by all of the developments of the past twenty four hours. After a couple of weeks without an assignment, it was good to be working again.

Too bad my car had to get smashed up, though, Alex thought. He wondered if that incident had anything to do with his current assignment, or if it was because of someone he’d pissed off in the past. Some of the people he had recovered things from had been less than gracious about it, after all. It was one of the hazards of the job.

Before long, the waitress came back with a glorious plate piled high with bacon, sausage, ham, baked beans, and more. Alex was thrilled.

She came back a short while later to refill his coffee.

“So what brings you to sunny Eureka?” she asked him.

Alex glanced out the window. It was foggy and grey outside. He smiled and said, “Just a little rest and relaxation. I thought I might do a little sun tanning, maybe try my hand at surfing.”

The waitress laughed. “You’d be a brave man to try surfing around here,” she said. “I’m pretty sure you’d turn blue before you even got out far enough to try to catch a wave.”

Alex grinned, and said, “Well, in that case I guess I’ll just try to catch up with some friends of mine who are here in town. A guy I used to work with is in town from England, so I came out to see him while he’s here. You haven’t seen any eccentric English types around, have you?”

“Are you kidding? Practically half of the clientele here is English. I’m not sure if they come in here to see how badly we mess things up or what,” the waitress said.

“Maybe it’s like Americans going overseas, just to eat at McDonald’s?” Alex said.

“Maybe that’s it,” she said, and smiled. “Anyway, if I notice any particularly eccentric English men, I’ll be sure to let them know you’re here.”

She walked off to wait on another table, and Alex got back to his breakfast.

Alex happened to look out the window just as someone familiar looking was walking by. A booking, balding man.

Holy crap, Alex thought. There was the man they were looking for, just outside the restaurant!

Alex got up quickly and hurried through the restaurant towards the entrance. He thought he heard someone shout, but he didn’t think it was for him until a couple of waiters stepped in front of him and the entrance. Alex stopped before he ran into them, barely.

“We are going to have to insist that you pay for your meal before leaving,” one of them said.

“Oh,” Alex said. “Uh, right. I wasn’t thinking clearly, I just saw my friend go past and I wanted to go greet him. Sorry about that.”

Shit, shit, shit, he thought. There went that opportunity. By the time I get this taken care of, he’ll be long gone.

“You know what? I’ll just finish my breakfast and catch up with him later,” Alex said. He turned around and went back to the table he’d been sitting at. The two waiters who had stopped him waited until Alex had picked up his silverware again before they went back to work again.

The waitress came by, and said, “A little excited to see your friend, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s been a while,” Alex said.

And he’s going to be going back to England in a couple of days, with the stuff I’m supposed to be recovering, Alex thought.

“Well, I assume you’d like the check sooner than later. Is there anything else I can get for you?” she said.

“Could I get two cups of coffee to go?” Alex said.

“You bet,” the waitress said.

When Alex got back to the hotel, Harold was still sitting in the same chair, reading.

Alex handed him one of the cups of coffee, and said, “Well, I saw the guy we’re looking for walk by while I was down in the restaurant.”

Harold looked up at Alex and closed his book.

“Really? Why are you back up here, then? I would think you’d have started following him right away,” Harold said.

“I tried to, but apparently the restaurant really doesn’t like people who dine and dash. By the time I was able to get out of there, he would have been long gone anyway,” Alex said. “But the good news is, we know he’s hanging out around here. We’ll just have to keep our eyes peeled and wait for him to turn up again.”

“Hmm. It’s a shame you weren’t able to follow him. He might well have led you right to the artifacts we’re looking for,” Harold said.

“Yeah, but you would have been disappointed if you hadn’t been involved, wouldn’t you?” Alex said.

Harold raised an eyebrow, and chuckled slightly.

“I suppose I would have been a bit disappointed, at that,” Harold said. “It looks like it’s about time for the bookstore to open, too. Shall we head over to The Tree of Life and see what we can learn there?”

“Don’t you want to have some coffee first?” Alex said.

“I’ll bring it with me, thank you, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“OK, works for me,” Alex said.

It was a short drive from the hotel to The Tree of Life Curiosities and Metaphysical Supplies. Alex parked just down the block from the shop, and they only had to walk a little ways back to reach it. Alex carried his coffee with him, but Harold left his in the car. Alex didn’t mention it.

The Tree of Life Curiosities and Metaphysical Supplies was a charming little shop. Clearly the owner had a flair for the artistic. The walls were painted a deep pink color, and the exposed beams and trim were all painted bright blue. There was some kind of droning, ambient music playing on a stereo hidden somewhere, and the shop smelled like incense.

The inventory didn’t seem “organized” so much as “roughly grouped together by shape.” There were shelves that had various bins full of crystals, shelves with books, shelves of little sculptures and idols, an astonishing array of candles, piles of odd musical instruments, all of these sections in varying states of disarray.

“Wow,” Alex said. He had never been in a shop like it before, and this really wasn’t what he’d been imagining when he thought of an “occult bookstore.” He’d kind of figured the emphasis would be on bookstore, so he’d been expecting Barnes & Noble, except with the collected works of Aleister Crowley instead of Fifty Shade of Grey.

The man behind the counter looked a little bit like Santa Claus, if Santa Claus wore a tunic, loose linen pants and sandals rather than a red suit trimmed in white fur. He appeared to be deeply engrossed in the book he was reading. After a minute or two, he seemed to notice that Alex and Harold had come in to the shop. He picked up a bookmark from the counter and marked his place in what he was reading as if he had all the time in the world.

“Welcome to The Tree of Life Curiosities and…” he began to say in a relaxed, sing-song voice, before he caught sight of Harold.

The proprietor’s breath seemed to catch in his throat, and he stared for a moment, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Then he took a breath, pointed at Harold, and forcefully said, “You, get the fuck out!”

“I beg your pardon?” Harold said, taken aback. “Have I offended you somehow?”

“Out! Out! Out!” the shopkeeper said. He came around the corner and brushed past Alex, making shooing motions towards Harold.

“I don’t understand, but I’ll go,” Harold said. To Alex, he said, “I’ll just wait outside, Mr. Minor.”

Harold turned and left the shop. The shopkeeper sighed deeply, brushed himself off, and turned to Alex.

“Is there anything I can help you find?” he asked, as serenely as if nothing unusual at all had just taken place.

Chapter Eight

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Sun, 15 Nov 2015 05:16:00 +0000

Alex was amazed that upon arriving at the airport, they didn’t have to navigate a maze of parking ramps, deal with a crowd to check in for their flight, get poked and prodded and x-rayed at a security checkpoint, and then spend an hour or so hanging around with three hundred other people just to enjoy the luxury of being crammed in to a seat for several hours and mildly abused by the flight attendants.

And, of course, feeling like he had to rush through the entire process.

Instead, they were able to simply pull off the road that led to the airport and into a paved parking lot. Finding a parking spot took thirty seconds. There was someone waiting there to lead them to the airplane, which was only a few hundred feet away. Alex and Harold were on board the airplane less than five minutes after getting to the airport.

This really is the way to fly, Alex thought.

He and Harold had barely taken their seats (which were actually comfortable, upholstered in cream colored leather) before the plane started taxiing to the runway. Even though it was dark outside, Alex watched out the window as they taxied. He’d flown at night before, but never from a small airport. There were no other people around, no tugs hauling carts full of luggage, no other planes moving around, it seemed like the had the entire place to themselves.

Moments later, they turned on to the runway, and the engines spooled up. The takeoffs were always Alex’s favorite part of flying. He kept watching as the lights outside passed by, faster and faster, and then began to fall away below them. A few minutes later they were well out of the city limits, and the only thing to see beneath them was an occasional light in a sea of darkness.

Not long after that, Alex realized that, even with the luxury seating and service, sitting in an airplane with nothing to look at for several hours was going to be just as boring as if they’d been flying in an airliner.

Alex looked over at Harold, and saw that he was already engrossed in a copy of The Picture of Dorian Grey. He briefly wished he’d thought to bring a book along. A quick glance around the cabin didn’t reveal any magazines or other diversions, either. He looked at his watch. It told him it was two thirteen in the morning.

Getting some sleep was probably the best option, Alex figured. He settled back in his seat and closed his eyes, without much hope of actually sleeping. He’d never been able to sleep on airplanes.

Minutes later, he was deeply asleep.

When Alex woke up again, he had no idea how much time had passed. He stretched and glanced at his watch again. It was now roughly six in the morning. Alex couldn’t believe he’d been asleep for four hours.

It was still dark outside, which didn’t seem right. It was mid-July, he figured the sun ought to be rising already.

Alex looked over and noticed that Harold was awake too. He was sitting quietly, impassive as always, apparently just waiting patiently to land.

“Did you get any sleep?” Alex asked him.

“No, I don’t need much sleep,” Harold said. “Did you rest well, Mr. Minor?”

“Better than I’d expected to, honestly. Usually I can’t sleep on airplanes,” Alex said. He thought for a minute and then said, “Hang on, you were up before me yesterday morning. When is the last time you slept?”

“It’s been a while,” Harold said.

Something about the way he said it gave Alex the impression that he should drop the subject. Every now and then, he wished he co-workers were a little less private. It’s hard to converse with someone who won’t answer any questions you ask.

“I’m surprised it’s still dark outside,” Alex said, to change the subject. “I’d expect the sun to be rising already, this time of year.”

“Have you set your watch to Pacific time yet, Mr. Minor? It’s four in the morning here,” Harold said.

Alex felt foolish. Of course, the time difference, that was why it was still dark. Good morning, dimbulb, he thought. He made a note to remember not try to watch the sun rise over the ocean while they were in California.

“How much longer until we land?” Alex asked.

“I don’t think it’ll be much more than an hour,” Harold said.

Ugh, another hour, Alex thought. Another boring hour waiting to get off the plane and do something more interesting.

Harold seemed entirely content to sit quietly and wait until they landed.

How the heck does he stay so calm all the time? Alex thought. I wonder if he ever gets riled up about anything. And how did he end up working with Mr. Darcy?

Everyone else Alex worked with was, in a word, intense. Private, definitely; professional, certainly, and usually courteous to an extent, but there was no mistaking the fact that they were largely like him in that they were itching for action. Megan, for example, was positively brimming over with her eagerness to jump in to a situation and help out, despite her usual sarcasm.

But Harold was different. There was something threatening about him, for sure, but it was just impossible for Alex to put his finger on what it was that made him seem like a threat. Apart from his extreme stealth, of course. Maybe it was, in fact, his impenetrable calm that made him threatening. He was like a brick wall that could make pie and perfect martinis, and also make it clear that it could crush you at any second. And either way, there was no rush. Harold could wait.

“Who was the last person you worked as a butler for, Harold?” Alex asked.

“Discretion is a large part of the job, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“Well, you’ve already told me you have excellent references, who were they?” Alex said.

“Are you trying to offer me a job?” Harold said. Alex realized there was the slightest hint of humor in the question. It was barely perceptible, but there.

“No, I’m trying to get to know you,” Alex said. “But fine, don’t tell me who they were. How about what they did? Were they nobles, with a grand estate, and fox hunts and stuff like that?”

“I prefer not to talk about my past,” Harold said. “You’ll just have to get to know me in the present. But, since you asked, no, my last employer was an industrialist. He and his wife do have a mansion, but they aren’t nobles.”

“But you have worked for nobles before?” Alex said.

“Yes, for some of the finest families in the United Kingdom,” Harold said.

“How did you end up here in the United States, then?” Alex said.

“This is the land of opportunity, is it not?” Harold said. “I came for an opportunity.”

“Working for Mr. Darcy?” Alex said.

Harold said nothing, to Alex’s annoyance.

“Fine, be that way,” Alex said. He hoped they’d land soon so they could get on with the job.

Thirty minutes later, they landed at the Arcata / Eureka Airport. Five minutes after that, they were stepping out of the airplane on to a red carpet.

Fancy, Alex thought.

There was a black Lincoln waiting twenty feet away, with the passenger doors and trunk open, and a driver standing to meet them.

He walked to meet them as they approached, took Alex and Harold’s bags and put them in the trunk as they got into the car. Alex felt a little surreal – he didn’t think he would ever get accustomed to having people wait on him.

“We’re going to have a driver while we’re here?” he said to Harold.

“No, there’s a car waiting for us to use. This is just our ride to the car,” Harold said.

“We don’t even have to walk to the car? How much is all this going to cost us?” Alex said.

“It’s perfectly reasonable for the amount of time it has already saved us,” Harold said. “Is just having enough money still a concern for you?”

Alex was taken aback by the question. He’d always seen his money as a way to acquire toys and pay for living expenses. He certainly had enough for that. He’d never considered using it for paying other people to make his life easier. It was a foreign idea to him, and seemed almost wrong.

“Listen to me,” Harold said. “The point of hiring a private jet, or a driver, or having a housekeeper, or any other kind of assistant, isn’t just so you don’t have to do the work. It’s so you can spend the time you would have spent on trivial things doing something else more important, or at least more interesting to you. We’ve already saved ourselves at least four hours of time wasted at an airport, and given that the person we’re after is going to be leaving the country again in a matter of days, I’d say we’ll be able to use those four hours for something better. We could go waste our time trying to rent a car, or we can pay someone to take us straight to a car that is already waiting for us, and we can use that time to get to work.”

“You’re a fifth generation butler, though,” Alex said. “Isn’t attending to trivial details kind of your thing?”

“That is a service I am proud to provide, yes. I have been fortunate enough to learn from and observe the people who hire butlers, however. And, currently, I am not employed as a butler, and I am aware my time is valuable and better spent focused on our greater pursuit,” Harold said.

While they had been conversing, the driver had sped them from the tarmac to a parking lot at the edge of the airport, where there was another car waiting for them with the doors open and an attendant.

The car that was waiting for them was a dark grey Dodge Dart. Alex was a little disappointed when he saw it.

“An economy car?” he said.

“The better to remain incognito, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“I guess. Couldn’t we have been incognito in something faster?” Alex said. He didn’t think there was much chance that they would need a fast car (something told him the kind of person who steals artifacts belonging to a long dead alchemist wasn’t typically the kind of person who also engages in high speed chases), but all the same, he would have liked a fast car.

“I don’t think you’ll be disappointed, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. “I’ll drive.”

“You’ve got to be exhausted,” Alex said. “I can drive and let you rest.”

“I already told you, Mr. Minor, I don’t need much sleep,” Harold said. He got into the driver’s seat, and shut the door. Alex shrugged and got in on the passenger side.

The sky was just beginning to brighten, and the weather was cool. It felt humid outside, too. Harold drove them out of the parking lot and away from the airport. Minutes later, they were driving south along the coast towards Eureka.

Alex looked to his right, hoping to see the ocean, but there was only dark grey fog.

About twenty minutes later, they arrived at the Eureka Inn. Harold stopped the car in front of the main entrance, and shut it off. He got out of the car and grabbed his bag and Alex’s out of the trunk.

Alex looked at him sideways. “We’re going to check in the same hotel as the guy we’re looking for?”

“Yes,” Harold said. “We’ll be able to watch for him, and none of the employees will think twice about paying guests hanging around in the hotel. On the other hand, they’ll definitely notice a couple of random people staking out the hotel in their car.”

“OK, I guess that makes sense,” Alex said.

The two of them went inside. Alex was impressed with the interior, it continued the Tudor scheme, with dark wood beams everywhere. There were also portraits of famous guests who had stayed there.

The desk clerk seemed barely awake. Alex guessed that he was at the end of his shift. Or he was at the very start of his shift, and still needed coffee.

“We have a reservation under Derby,” Harold said.

“Check in isn’t until one o’clock,” the clerk said. “You guys are a little early.”

“I did request an early check-in when I made the reservation,” Harold said.

Alex was fairly sure he’d felt the temperature drop a few degrees in the room. The clerk didn’t seem to notice.

“You’re welcome to wait here in the lobby until check-in,” he said. He sounded like he didn’t care if they waited there, or went anywhere else, so long as he didn’t have to deal with them.

The temperature seemed to drop a little more, and Alex could have sworn the room got darker as well.

“I was assured it would not be a problem to check in immediately upon our arrival,” Harold said. There was the slightest hint of malice in his voice. The barest trace of anger. His expression remained perfectly calm and polite.

“Sorry, man, I don’t make the rules,” the clerk said.

Alex jumped back slightly as Harold suddenly sprung into action, stepping forward and grabbing the clerk by the collar in the blink of an eye. He pulled the clerk towards him, over the counter. Alex realized Harold must have lifted the clerk clean off of his feet.

The clerk and Harold were now face to face, inches apart. The clerk was wild-eyed, grabbing at Harold’s hand to no effect.

Harold still appeared completely calm. He didn’t even seem to be straining to hold the clerk.

“Are you certain there isn’t anything you can do to help us?” Harold said.

“Let me check, let me check,” the clerk said. He suddenly seemed much more eager to help. “There’s probably a room that’s already been turned. Let me see what I can find.”

Harold lowered the clerk to the floor again on his own side of the counter, slowly. He let go and stood back again. He appeared completely unruffled.

“Thank you,” Harold said.

Alex was stunned, and couldn’t quite believe what he’d just seen. He had never seen anyone move that quickly before.

Remarkably, the clerk was able to find a room that was ready for them after just a few moments of looking at his computer. He handed them the keys to their room, and asked if they needed help carrying their bags to their room.

“Yes, thank you,” Harold said.

The clerk hurried around the desk and took Harold and Alex’s bags, and led them to the room.

Alex opened the door, and the clerk hurried inside and set their bags in the middle of the room. Alex and Harold followed him in. He hurried back out of the room, and said, “I hope you’ll enjoy your stay with us. If there’s anything else you need, please let me know.”

“Thank you,” Harold said, and shut the door in his face.

OK, I guess that’s what it looks like when Harold gets pissed off, Alex thought. Remember not to make him mad.

Their room had two full sized beds, a desk, a couple of chairs and a TV. It was clean, and overall not particularly remarkable. Alex had been expecting a little more charm, from the Tudor decorating scheme everywhere else around the hotel.

“What do you think our next move should be, Mr. Minor?” Harold said. He took off his coat and hung it up, then sat down in one of the easy chairs in the room.

“Uh, well, I guess we can do a little research and see what places our friend Noah might be likely to visit around here. And, of course, we can check and see if he’s posted anything new about what he’s up to on Facebook, or in that forum.”

Alex took his laptop out of his bag, and set it up on the desk in the room. After he’d checked his email (nothing new), he figured he’d start with the Thomas Smith forum. He hoped this Noah guy would have left a few more hints about what he was up to, or maybe some new photos. He was pleasantly surprised.

“Well, would you look at that,” Alex said.

Chapter Seven

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 02:15:00 +0000

The email from Kaylee was quick and to the point. It said, “Hey Alex, I stumbled across this and thought you might want to see it.” Then there was a link to a website of some kind, and that was it. Alex clicked on the link, and it opened an online forum. The site was called The Learned Elders of Ritual Magick, the forum he was currently looking at was the Guild of Smiths, and specific post that Kaylee had linked him to was titled “A Promising Development.”

The post read, “Happy to be here on the northern coast of California with the local Guild members. The weather here reminds me of home, though the trees are a lot bigger than any we have. We’ve been working, of course, and we’ve been getting some promising results. It’s helping that, among us, we now have a full set of tools.

“We haven’t made any tangible contacts, but there were clear signs that we were getting through. We’ll be working for the next couple of days until, unfortunately, I’ll need to collect up the new toys I’ve brought and head home again.

“Here are a couple of photos of the fun we’ve been having.”

Underneath, there was a photo of a group of five average looking folks in the woods,, all wearing fleece jackets or hoodies and big smiles. They were standing next a sign that read “Giant Tree.”

Alex had to agree that it was, indeed, a very large tree behind them.

The next picture was more interesting. It was a photo of what looked like someone’s living room, with all of the chairs and tables shoved against the walls to get them out of the way. The floor was wood, and was covered with symbols drawn, with what looked like white chalk, in a circle around a three legged table in the middle of the room. The table itself was sturdy looking but amateurishly built, and kind of looked like it might give you a splinter if you so much as looked at it wrong. Each of the legs had what Alex guessed was one of the smaller disks under them. So someone there did have the third one, unless they’d simply made themselves a copy of the others.

It kind of looked like the bigger disk was on top of the table, in the center, but it was hard to tell for sure, because it was obscured from view by what looked like a piece of highly polished black glass placed on top of it.

The username of the person who had posted the photos was “Archimagus.” Whoever Archimagus was, “home” for them was apparently Dover, England.

Someone further down the thread had asked when Archimagus was going to be heading home again, and said they couldn’t wait to get together to discuss the results over a pint of beer. Archimagus replied, telling them he’d be back on Wednesday.

“Shit!” Alex said. “Harold, the guy who has the disks, well, I assume it’s a guy, anyway, he’s in Northern Callifornia somewhere right now, but he’s heading back to England on Wednesday. We need to get out there and find him before we have to chase him to England.”

Harold moved to stand behind Alex, and looked over his shoulder at the screen.

“Is there any more information about where they are at the moment?” Harold said.

“Just that they’re in Northern California, and this picture has them standing next to a sign that says Giant Tree,” Alex said.

Harold looked intently at the photo of the group in front of the tree for several seconds.

“Have you tried searching for ‘Giant Tree’?” Harold asked Alex.

“Um, no. Good idea,” Alex said. He switched over to a web browser and tried searching. He was a little amazed by the number of results there were. A bit of clicking around was didn’t provide any results.

“Show the photo again, please,” Harold said.

Alex switched back and they looked again for a clue.

“There, at the bottom of the sign, it says ‘Humboldt Redwoods State Park.’ Where is that?” Harold said.

“Let’s find out,” Alex said, and added ‘Humboldt Redwoods State Park’ to the search. The list of results came back, and there were several other photos that looked remarkably similar to the one Archimagus had posted. Alex brought up a map to see where, exactly, the park was.

“Wow, that’s the middle of nowhere,” Alex said. “I’m thinking they just made a day trip to visit the park. Which means they could still be anywhere in Northern California.”

“Hmm,” Harold said. He was quiet for a moment, and then said, “Is there any more information on that site about Archimagus?”

“I don’t know,” Alex said. “Let’s find out.”

A bit more digging and they hit upon something that was almost too convenient: a link to Archimagus’s Facebook profile.

Incredibly, it appeared to be a genuine Facebook profile for someone named Noah Tipton. The profile photo was of a balding, bookish man wearing a cable-knit sweater. He happened to be one of the people in the photo in front of the tree as well.

Alex was amazed to find that Noah’s profile was entirely public. There was a photo from a couple of days ago of a hotel done in a Tudor style. The caption read, “Happy to be staying at the Eureka Inn. It’s like I never left home!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Alex said. “Could he have made this any easier?”

“He’s either a complete idiot, or he’s trying to be found,” Harold said. “Or, possibly, he’s leaving a fake trail of breadcrumbs. I think we should assume it’s one of the latter two options.”

Alex was already searching for airfares to get out to Northern California. “Sweet,” he said, “Did you know we can fly right to Eureka? Ouch, though, looks like it’s a six or seven hour trip, with connections.”

“Would it be worth it to simply charter a private jet? We could be under way in an hour and I suspect we’ll be able to fly directly to Eureka,” Harold said.

Alex paused, then said, “Really? I’ve never done that before. What will it cost?”

“Less than our time is worth, I expect,” Harold said.

“OK. How do we do that?” Alex said.

“Leave it to me, I’ll make a call,” Harold said.

Thirty minutes later, they were back in the Mustang heading for a regional airport nearby that Alex hadn’t even heard of before.

“Are you sure this place is legitimate?” Alex asked Harold.

“Yes, Mr. Minor. This is the only way I fly anymore,” Harold said.

Alex felt a little conflicted. On the one hand, he was excited to see what flying in a private jet was like. On the other hand, it seemed extremely extravagant. He suspected a private flight to the coast of California from Minneapolis wouldn’t be cheap.

He also suspected that it might be totally worth it.

Chapter Six

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 02:13:00 +0000

It was disappointing that the best Kaylee could come up with was another list of names of people who might be interested in the artifacts. Some hints about a person who’d been gloating about something, or perhaps just expressing a great deal of interest in these disks or the museum and suddenly going quiet about it, would have been nice.

Alex and Harold were driving back to the loft, mostly in silence. There was some other traffic on the road with them, but not much. He was driving about ten miles per hour over the speed limit, trying not to tempt any passing highway patrol officers, and it felt like they were barely moving.

I hope we didn’t go all the way out to the middle of freaking nowhere for coffee for nothing, Alex thought. If we have to waste our time, we could have at least wasted it doing something fun.

Speaking of wasting time, Alex realized he was going to have to put a good amount of effort into contacting more people who probably weren’t going to have any more info. He was really more of an action guy, and that kind of work seemed an awful lot like a dull office job. And he had to put up with Harold on top of it.

Harold, Alex thought. That’s it. I can let him do the calling, and find something more entertaining to do while he’s at it.

Alex suddenly felt much better about things. He was, after all, supposed to be working with Harold, so he might as well share the work.

“Say, Harold,” Alex said. “How would you feel about getting in touch with the folks on the list Kaylee gave us?”

“I would be happy to, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. “Anything I can do to help.”

“Excellent,” Alex said.

Problem solved, he thought.

Alex had not even had a chance to start daydreaming about what he could do with his time while Harold was busy making phone calls, when a car passed in the left lane. It was a bright blue and looked kind of like a rally car, with a ridiculous spoiler on the back. Alex guessed it was a Subaru. He wouldn’t have thought anything of it, if the passing car hadn’t cut sharply in front of Alex, barely missing his fender and forcing him to brake hard. Harold and Alex were pitched forward against their seatbelts.

The blue car continued moving to the right, past Alex’s car, through the right hand lane, and up an exit ramp.

“Wow, what was that about?” Alex said. His heart was pounding, and he was glad he’d seen the other driver in time to hit the brakes.

Harold didn’t seem particularly concerned by the close call. He’d just taken a breath to answer Alex when another car, this one an orange hatchback of some sort, did nearly the same thing, coming from the right this time.

“What the hell?” Alex said, perhaps a little more forcefully than he needed to.

The orange hatchback did not continue in to the left lane, but stayed directly in front of Alex’s Mustang. And slammed on the brakes.

“Holy buckets!” Alex said, and slammed on his own brakes. There wasn’t enough room between them, and the Mustang ran into the back of the orange car with a shockingly loud bang. Alex and Harold were both thrown against their seatbelts, again.

“What the hell was that?” Alex said. “Why did they brake like that? Did you see anything ahead of them?”

Harold was just saying that no, he hadn’t seen anything, when the orange car accelerated hard away from them again. Alex watched, dumb-founded, as the other car continued down the road, still accelerating. He’d never heard of a hit and run where the car that got hit was the one to run from the scene.

“I guess we should probably get off the road and inspect the damage,” Alex said.

Harold said nothing.

Alex started accelerating, slowly in case anything important had been damaged. He was going about forty five miles per hour and moving from the center lane to the right when he noticed the headlights in his rear view mirror were awfully bright and awfully close.

He was still surprised when the car behind them rammed into the back left corner of the Mustang. The force of the impact caused the Mustang to swerve a bit, and Alex felt like they were right on the edge of fishtailing for a couple of seconds. As he wrestled the car back under control, they drifted on to the shoulder of the freeway. Alex was dimly aware that the car that had rear ended them was passing by on the left, accelerating hard. Whatever it was, it was big, and dark colored.

Alex brought the Mustang to a stop there on the shoulder.

“Are you OK?” Alex asked Harold.

“Yes, I’m quite all right. How are you, Mr. Minor?” Harold said. He sounded entirely calm, even disinterested.

He sounds like I’d lightly bumped into him while walking by, Alex thought. Does this guy ever get riled up?

Alex wondered how it was that all of his co-workers seemed to be entirely cool and in control in intense situations that left him in a sweat with his heart pounding.

“Fine, I’m fine,” Alex said. “God damn it, what the hell is going on? There’s no way that was a coincidence.”

“No, I would say not,” Harold said.

“Have you pissed someone off?” Alex asked Harold.

Harold looked blankly back at him.

“Lighten up, Harold. I’m just trying to make a joke,” Alex said. He swung the door open, and got out to see how badly bent the Mustang was.

Alex went to the front of the car first. It was looking pretty mashed in, but it didn’t seem to be leaking any important liquids. He figured he’d be able to get away with driving it a ways further.

The back left corner of the bumper was also looking pretty beat up. The bumper had a big, ugly dent in it, and the tail light was smashed.

The car was definitely worse for wear, but seemed like it was still completely drivable.

Alex got back in the car. He said to Harold, “Do you think we should call the Police and report the accident?”

“Do you think that will actually help the situation, Mr. Minor?” Harold asked.

“I don’t know. It might help with the insurance claim. Did you managed to get any of their license plates?” Alex said.

“Of course I did, Mr. Minor. I’m surprised you didn’t, but I suppose your attention was focused on driving the car,” Harold said. “Are you planning to actually file an insurance claim?”

Alex thought about it for a minute. He’d just been in two hit and run accidents in short succession, and he himself had clearly rear-ended someone. The Mustang was so powerful it was barely street-legal, and the insurance on it was already criminally expensive. He suspected that his insurance rates were going to get a big hike if he filed a claim. It would probably be easier, and less expensive in the long run, to just get the car fixed himself.

Mr. Darcy probably knew someone who could do it, too.

“No, I don’t think I will. You’re right. And I suppose the police aren’t going to be much help in tracking down the people behind this,” Alex said. He sighed, then said, “Come on, let’s roll back to the loft and figure out our next move.”

Alex was already pretty sure that the best move they could make next would be to make themselves a couple of strong drinks. The Mustang started immediately when Alex turned the key, and the rest of the drive was uneventful.

In the fluorescent light of the parking garage, the damage to the Mustang was that much easier to see. It was pretty ugly. Alex felt a spark of anger looking at it. He knew that risk and danger were part of the job, but he also knew that the Mustang was his favorite thing, and there were at least three assholes out there responsible for its current state.

He grimaced as he looked at the front end again, then said to Harold, “Let’s head up and make ourselves some strong drinks, Harold.”

“That sounds like an excellent plan, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

Back in the loft, Alex’s first order of business was to get into some more comfortable clothes. After an evening like the one he’d just had, the only appropriate attire was sweatpants, slippers and a t-shirt.

Once he had changed, Alex went back into the kitchen, only to find Harold had already made him a Martini, and was working on making one for himself.

Alex took his drink and said, “Thanks Harold. Here’s to excitement and adventure.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. “And here’s to a fruitful day.”

Alex nearly choked on his drink. “Fruitful?”

“Indeed. We have a list of contacts to investigate, and someone is apparently interested enough in what we’re doing to try to intimidate us. We’ve got the license plates of the three cars involved in the little escapade earlier. Those may or may not lead us to some more interesting information. I would say we’ve done pretty well for not doing much more than a coffee run this evening,” Harold said.

“Fair enough,” Alex said. “Though I wish we could have gotten all this information without having to sacrifice the Mustang. It seems like kind of a steep price to pay.”

“I think that’s just part of the cost of being in this business, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

Alex gave him a noncommittal grunt, and wandered over to his desk carrying his drink. He turned on the computer, and opened his email client. It was more out of habit and boredom than anything. He was mostly concerned with getting the Mustang repaired, so a distraction was welcome. He was pleased and surprised, then, to see there was a new email waiting for him.

It was from Kaylee, and the subject line said, “You may find this interesting.”

Chapter Five

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 02:11:00 +0000

It was about seven o’clock on Saturday night, and Alex and Harold were in a coffee shop in Maple Grove, one of the northwestern suburbs of Minneapolis. There were a couple of other people there, but it was hardly a hot spot. At a table in the corner there was a small group of guys playing Magic: The Gathering. By the window was a woman who was completely engrossed in whatever she was looking at on her phone. And Harold and Alex were sitting in the armchairs by the fake fireplace, waiting to meet Dr. Porter’s assistant.

All Alex knew about her so far was that she worked for Dr. Porter, and that her name was Kaylee.

She came in to the coffee shop around seven thirty, and joined them after she’d gotten a latte and a black and white cookie.

“I’m glad you guys didn’t stand me up. It was a long drive for me to get here,” Kaylee said.

“It was a jaunt for us, too. Why did you want to meet way out here if it’s not convenient for you either?” Alex said.

“Because we can be one hundred percent certain that Dr. Porter won’t show up here. She lives in St. Paul, and wouldn’t be caught dead out in the suburbs. Especially in a suburb that built a fake downtown in what used to be a gravel pit. She considers herself far too cultured and urbane to tolerate this kind of thing,” Kaylee said.

“Fair enough. I take it you don’t particularly like working for her, then,” Alex said.

Kaylee shrugged and said, “She’s not any worse than any other boss I’ve had. And working for her means my tuition is covered, so I can put up with her ego for a while longer.”

Kaylee took a bite of her cookie, and grimaced.

“Ugh, yuck. Why does this taste like anise?” she said. She took a couple of sips of coffee in quick succession, and pushed the cookie away from herself.

“OK, well, if you don’t mind working for her, and you also don’t want her to know that you’re meeting with us, I have to ask - why did you offer to help us? It doesn’t seem like it’s in your own best interest.” Alex said.

“Well, I was eavesdropping. And you guys didn’t sound like the usual people who come around asking about Thomas Smith. Dr. Porter actually knows a ton about him, she’s just tired of dealing with people who show up and expect her to give them all of her expertise for free. People can be pretty rude. If she hadn’t gotten all defensive right away, she would have understood that you’re just trying to get some things back to their rightful owner.”

Kaylee then smiled slightly, and said, “It might have gone a little smoother if you’d made an appointment, too.”

She took another sip of her coffee then, and continued. “Anyway, it sounded to me like you guys aren’t trying to summon demons, or turn lead into gold, or do anything else ridiculous, and you don’t sound like you’re trying to take someone else’s research and call it your own, so I figured I’d help you out, if I can.”

“So, if I’ve understood you right, you’ve come well out of your way to meet us, just because you want to be helpful?” Harold said.

“Well, I guess so,” Kaylee said.

“You would probably make an excellent butler,” Harold said.

“Um. OK,” Kaylee said. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and looked mildly insulted.

“Don’t mind him,” Alex said. “Coming from Harold, that’s incredibly high praise.”

“I’m sure,” Kaylee said. “So, what do you guys want to know about Thomas Smith?”

Alex took a sip of his coffee, and said, “Well, honestly, I think we really just want to know who might have been motivated enough to steal these disks from a museum in London.”

He took out the photos Mr. Darcy had provided and handed them to Kaylee. She took them, and had a look at them. Surprise, or shock, crossed her face momentarily.

“Wow, someone stole these from a museum? I didn’t realize I’d be helping out with investigating an art heist,” Kaylee said.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I mentioned that yesterday. Any ideas about who might want them?” Alex said.

“Well, I didn’t overhear everything you said. Anyway, tough question. Who wouldn’t want them? At least, among people who have an interest in Thomas Smith, or his work. Hmm, I’ll need to think about it a bit,” Kaylee said.

She took out a notepad and a pen, then sat and thought quietly for a minute.

Alex checked his watch.

After a couple of minutes, Kaylee began writing down what looked like names, websites and email addresses. Once she had filled about half of the page, she handed the list to Alex.

“These folks are who I think would be interested enough to be involved. And if they’re not, they might have some idea about who actually was involved,” Kaylee said.

Alex looked at the list. There were a couple of names that had been in the information Mr. Darcy had given him, but a lot of the names were new to him.

“Who are these people?” Alex asked. “I mean, are they collectors, or occultists, or what?”

Kaylee was putting away her notebook, and gathering her things. She said, “Collectors, occultists, academics… They’re all experts on Thomas Smith, anyway. Any of them would love to get their hands on some of his stuff. They’re all looking for the key that will unlock whatever mystery it is they’re particularly interested in. Anyway, I hope it helps. Good luck with the search.”

She got up and left the coffee shop.

Alex said, partly to himself and partly to Harold, “I hope this gets us a little closer to reaching the right person. I’d been hoping she might have been able to give us a little more than just another list of names.”

Chapter Four

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 04:26:00 +0000

Harold’s suggestion that there might be someone out there that knew the key to decoding Thomas Smith’s codes was an interesting one. Alex figured a person like that would just be looking for the final pieces of the puzzle he, or she, was trying to solve.

Unless they were just a collector trying to get the complete set of Thomas Smith memorabilia.

Really, Alex realized, Harold’s suggestion hadn’t made picking a place to start searching for information any easier at all. He suspected figuring out where to start might be the toughest part of this assignment.

It was ten o’clock in the morning, and Alex was sitting at his kitchen table with a cup of coffee, the folder Mr. Darcy had given him, and a notepad. He was wearing a pair of brown wool slacks, a hockey jersey, and mis-matched ankle socks. It was not the outfit Harold had laid out for him, which is exactly why he was wearing it.

He had been slightly disappointed when Harold had simply given him a cup of coffee and said good morning without giving the slightest hint that he had even noticed Alex wasn’t wearing what he’d put out for him.

It was extra annoying that, since Harold wouldn’t even react to how he was dressed, Alex was going to have to change into something less embarrassing before leaving the house. It’s no fun to mess with someone who won’t even be good enough to acknowledge that they’re being messed with. Embarrassing himself in public would only be worth it if it bothered Harold too.

On his notepad, he had a brief summary of the people who might have the disks. This list read, “Occultists, historians, collectors.”

It wasn’t much of a list.

At this point, Alex figured he might as well just dive in somewhere and see where he ended up. He figured his best shot would be starting with the historians, simply because they were the most likely to have their own, real, names associated with Thomas Smith as a subject. From there he could make a list of contact info and just start calling people. Coming up with a list of the people trying to carry on Thomas’s work was going to be tricky, and figuring out who might collect that kind of thing would be even trickier.

He hoped talking to the historians would get him some quick results. Trying to track these people down seemed like it would involve spending a lot of time on the internet otherwise, which sounded terribly boring.

After a few minutes of searching, Alex was very pleased when he discovered that one of the first academics whose name was affiliated with Thomas Smith also happened to teach at the University of Minnesota. That was practically just down the street!

A quick phone call was all it took to find Dr. Jacqueline Porter’s office hours. It looked like she was going to be in her office all afternoon that day, in fact. Alex decided a field trip was in order.

“Have you made any breakthroughs, Mr. Minor?” Harold said. He was standing just behind Alex’s shoulder.

Alex jumped, and nearly spilled his coffee.

“Dang it, Harold,” Alex said before he knew it. He composed himself, then said, “Yes, I think so. There’s a professor who has mentioned him in some of her papers at the U of M. I was thinking I’d go talk to her this afternoon and see if she can give me any guidance.”

“That’s fantastic, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. “I think I’ll come with you.”

“What? No!” Alex said. “Um, I mean, you don’t have to do that, Harold. I don’t think a professor of history is going to give me too much trouble.”

“It’s no trouble, and I’d like to hear what she has to say for myself. Call it an interest in family history,” Harold said.

Alex sighed, resigned, and said, “Sure, sure. I was thinking we’d leave here just after lunch, right around one o’clock. That should give us plenty of time.”

Harold glanced at his watch. “It’s eleven thirty now. I’ll get to work on making some lunch for you.”

“You really don’t have to do that,” Alex said, and trailed off. Harold had already started pulling things out of cabinets, and had turned on the stove.

“It’s no trouble, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“I’ll just go change into something more presentable,” Alex said.

The two of them hadn’t had too much trouble finding Dr. Porter’s office. Alex had felt slightly ridiculous walking past all of the college kids ten years his junior, being closely trailed by a serious looking, and silent, giant in a sober grey suit. Plus, having Harold there was making it hard to flirt with the coeds. Butlers didn’t make good wingmen, in Alex’s opinion.

Dr. Porter’s door was closed. Alex checked his watch, and noted that her scheduled office hours had started forty five minutes ago. He knocked on the door.

There was no reply.

There were, however, two chairs right next to her door. Alex shrugged and took a seat.

“Perhaps we should have made an appointment,” Harold said.

“What fun would that be?” Alex asked in reply.

“Indeed,” Harold said. He sat down next to Alex.

They sat in silence for several minutes, until Alex couldn’t stand the quiet any more.

“So, Harold, how is it that you started working for Mr. Darcy, anyway?” Alex said.

Harold arched an eyebrow at him, and said, “Much like you, I’m sure, Mr. Darcy felt my skills were indispensable to his organization and made me an offer, Mr. Minor. How did you come to work for him?”

Well there was a non-answer if there ever was one, Alex thought. Sometimes he wondered if he’d missed the Evasive Answer seminar the rest of his co-workers had all apparently been a part of.

“I work for him because I was terrible at pretty much everything else, and eventually he found me,” Alex said.

“How interesting, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“You know, I really wish you’d call me Alex,” Alex said. “It’s OK with me if you do.”

“Old habits die hard, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

Alex was trying to come up with a suitably smart reply, when the Dr. Porter’s office door opened. A woman who looked like she was in her twenties came out of the office. She was wearing sandals, tan shorts, and a grey t-shirt. She seemed surprised to see Alex and Harold.

“Dr. Porter?” Alex asked. She sure didn’t look like a professor to him, but he figured it was better to assume she was, rather than the other way around.

“Uh, no, I’m her assistant,” she said. “Do you have an appointment to see her?”

“No,” Alex said. “Do we need one? I thought it’d be OK if we just stopped by.”

“Well, you don’t need one, but,” she began saying, and trailed off. “Hang on.”

She stepped back in to the office, and Alex heard her say, “Dr. Porter, there’s some guy and his vampire friend out here to see you.”

Alex snickered.

She came back out of Dr. Porter’s office.

“She’s free, you can go in,” she said. She then walked across the narrow hallway, opened the door to another office and went inside, leaving the door open behind her.

Alex and Harold stood up, and walked in to Dr. Porter’s office.

Dr. Porter was seated at her desk, which faced out a large window. She spun around in her chair to face the two of them. She looked puzzled.

“Are you students here? How can I help you?” Dr. Porter said. She had light brown hair that didn’t quite reach her shoulders, and glasses with chunky frames.

“No, we’re not students,” Alex said. “My name is Alex Minor and this is, uh…”

Harold bowed slightly, and said “Harold Derby. I’m pleased to meet you, Dr. Porter.”

Dr. Porter still looked confused. “Yes, well, it’s nice to meet you both, but what can I do for you?”

“We were hoping you might be able to give us some guidance,” Harold said.

“Well, I can try. Fire away,” Dr. Porter said. She leaned back in her chair and looked expectantly at both of them.

“We’re trying to track down some historical artifacts that were stolen from a museum in London,” Alex began. Dr. Porter interrupted him.

“Why would I know anything about a theft in London?” She said. “What was stolen?”

“Well, we were hoping you might just be able to get us pointed in the direction. The reason we came to you was that you have some expertise in the subject. What was stolen were three wax disks, two smaller ones, and a large one, as well as one gold disk. They were recently uncovered, and are believed to be from the estate of Thomas Smith,” Alex said.

Dr. Porter looked at him, without replying.

Alex continued, “I saw that you’ve done some research on Thomas Smith, and I thought you might have some ideas about who else might be interested enough in Thomas Smith, or in his work, that they’d resort to stealing these disks.”

“So, what, because I wrote a paper with a bit about Thomas Smith in it, you think I’d know about every kook out there who might want to get their hands on his stuff? Do you think I stole this stuff? Is that why you’re here?” she said.

“What? No. Well, we were hoping you might have some ideas,” Alex said.

“Well, I don’t. Because Thomas Smith is not all that interesting to me. I think he was an eccentric Englishman who was pretty good at math and thought he was talking to angels. But somehow now everyone thinks I’m a huge fan of his because I included him in a paper about how alchemy and chemistry became separate disciplines. I’ve got some nut bothering me almost every month about the alchemists and whether or not I think any of them actually figured out a way to turn lead into gold. If I could go back in time and not write about Thomas Smith, I would. So, do I have any idea which of these nuts might have wanted to steal his crap? No! Now get out of here and quit wasting my time.”

Alex had not been expecting Dr. Porter to react like that. It took him a second to gather his thoughts and figure out how to respond. Once he was composed again, he stood up and said, “OK, I’m sorry to bother you. No offense was intended. I hope you have a good day.”

With that, he and Harold quickly left Dr. Porter’s office.

“Wow, she kind of went from zero to one hundred in no time flat, didn’t she?” Alex said to Harold as they walked down the hallway. The current class session had apparently just ended so the halls were full of student hurrying to their next class.

“It certainly was a strong reaction,” Harold said.

“I guess we’ll have to try finding someone else to help us out. Hopefully we’ll have better luck next time,” Alex said.

He wondered if maybe it would have been better to just call rather than dropping in unannounced.

Just behind them, Alex heard someone say, “Psst. Hey, you two.”

He turned and was surprised to see Dr. Porter’s assistant hurrying to keep up with them. Alex stopped and let her catch up.

“I overheard a bit of your conversation with Dr. Porter. You guys want to know about Thomas Smith?” she said.

“Yes, we do,” Alex said. “Do you know anything about him?”

She didn’t answer, instead opening her notebook and writing something down. She tore out the sheet of paper she’d been writing on and handed it to Alex.

“I can’t talk about him now, it’ll drive Dr. Porter nuts. Here’s how you can get ahold of me. Call in the evening and we can chat,” she said.

Chapter Three

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 02:24:00 +0000

What Alex wanted to know was, why did he have to bring Harold along? Getting an assignment was supposed to be a relief. It was supposed to be an excuse to get out of the house and away from Harold. It was not supposed to be a male-bonding opportunity. Alex was pretty sure the time for that had passed just before Harold starting picking outfits for him to wear.

Megan had already left for the evening when Alex got out of Mr. Darcy’s office. Not that she would have been eager to lend an ear about Alex’s new butler woes, but she was usually good for a little banter. And she was significantly better at finding information than Alex. She might be able to give him a few idea for where to start looking for information about this Thomas Smith person, as well as who might be interested in getting their hands on his stuff.

Also, talking to her would delay his inevitable return to his loft. Not only was he going to have to work with Harold, but he was going to have to apologize for the creepy butler comment he’d made, too.

Alex took his time walking down the stairs and out of the building. He considered stopping somewhere to get dinner, but had to admit that he was still stuffed from eating what must have been two pounds of meat and another pound of fried potato for lunch. He reached the Mustang before long, settled in to the driver’s seat, took a deep breath and sighed.

I might as well get this over with, he thought.

Back at the loft, there was no sign of Harold. The furniture was casting long shadows from the evening sun, but it wasn’t dark enough that he would need to turn the lights on yet. Alex was relieved that he was going to have a chance to unwind a bit before he had to deal with him. He tossed his keys on a side table and slipped off his shoes.

“How are you tonight, Mr. Minor,” a voice directly behind Alex said.

Alex started hard enough that he nearly fell down. He turned around, without much grace, to see who was there.

“Jesus! Harold…” Alex said. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were here, I thought I had the place to myself.”

“I did go out earlier, to pick up some groceries. Apart from that, I’ve been in my bedroom, reading,” Harold said.

“Cool,” Alex said. “Look, uh, Harold. I’m sorry about the creepy butler comment I made this morning. That wasn’t very nice of me, and I didn’t really mean it. I guess I was just a little out of sorts this morning, and I was very surprised when I found my clothes laid out again, and I lost my cool. I shouldn’t have said what I said.”

Harold, impassive as ever, paused for a moment, and said, “It’s quite all right, Mr. Minor. I can understand how it might be unsettling for someone not accustomed to receiving service to find his things laid out and ready for him upon waking.”

“OK, thanks for being so understanding. So, you’re going to stop laying out my clothes?” Alex asked.

“Oh, no, of course not, Mr. Minor,” Harold said.

“Great,” Alex said, under his breath. He started to head for the sofa.

“Would you like some pie and coffee, Mr. Minor?” Harold said.

“You know, you can call me Alex. It’s OK with me,” Alex said, then paused. “Did you say you’ve got pie?”

“Yes, Mr. Minor. I made it this afternoon. It will just take a moment to make some coffee to go with it, if you’d like,” Harold said.

On the one hand, Alex was still full, and knew he really didn’t need any pie. On the other hand, there was pie. And any pie was better than no pie.

Assuming Harold hasn’t poisoned it, Alex thought. All the same, it seemed like it would be rude to refuse. Especially since there was pie involved. A life without risks (and pie), is a life not worth living.

“OK, sure, pie sounds great,” Alex said.

It turned out that Harold could make a mean pie. Alex’s concerns about poisoning were quickly laid to rest when Harold brought out a slice for himself as well.

“So, Mr. Minor, when I spoke with Mr. Darcy earlier today, he mentioned that he had an assignment for us, and that you would share the details with me once you’d gotten back. What can you tell me?” Harold said.

Nice of Mr. Darcy to make sure Harold knew about it, Alex thought. So much for leaving him in the dark for the time being.

“Well, I guess we have to recover some artifacts that have been stolen from a museum in London. I guess they belonged to an alchemist of some sort. Hang on, let me get the folder Mr. Darcy gave me,” Alex said.

He got up from the sofa, and went back to the entry way, where he’d left his courier bag. A moment later, he was settling back in on the sofa and handing the folder to Harold. Harold opened the folder and examined the papers inside.

Alex was surprised to see a brief expression of polite surprise cross Harold’s face. Alex leaned forward a bit.

“It looks like you already know something about this,” Alex said. Harold continued reading.

“Hmm?” Harold said. “Well, no, I don’t know a great deal about it. I’m surprised to see the name Thomas Smith, however. My great, great grandfather was his butler, for a time, you see.”

Alex laughed, and said, “That can’t be possible. If I remember right, Thomas Smith died sometime in the late seventeen hundreds.”

“Seventeen eighty four, I believe, yes,” Harold said.

“That was more than two hundred years ago. It’s impossible. Your great great grandfather couldn’t have even been born yet,” Alex said.

“Well, granted, he was still a young man at the time. My family is exceptionally long-lived,” Harold said.

Alex stared at Harold for longer than was polite. Harold simply looked back at him, waiting for his response.

It was hard to decide whether he should laugh at what sure seemed like a joke, or ask Harold to explain his family tree a bit. It just wasn’t possible. Harold didn’t look like he was a day over thirty years old. He might have even been younger than that. Some quick mental math told Alex each generation of men in Harold’s family would have had to be around fifty years old before having the next generation of children for it to be true. If he had done the math right.

“Well, OK Harold, why not? Maybe your family connection is why Mr. Darcy wants you to work with me on this assignment,” Alex said.

“The thought had crossed my mind,” Harold said. He continued reading the documents about Thomas Smith.

“I’m sure,” Alex said. “So, have you got any ideas on where we should start looking? I’m thinking we’ve got a trip to London in our immediate future.”

“According to the information Mr. Darcy has given us, there’s a good chance that the missing artifacts are here in the United States, actually. We might not even need to leave Minneapolis,” Harold said.

Alex’s heart sank a little. A trip to London would have been fun. He’d already done plenty of jobs around Minneapolis, and was having a hard time remember the last time he’d left the state on something work related. More Minneapolis was boring.

Of course, there was still a strong chance that none of it was in Minneapolis. And just because Harold didn’t think they’d need to go overseas didn’t mean that they actually wouldn’t. Alex hoped Harold was wrong.

“Really? You’d think that whoever took this stuff would be English,” Alex said.

“Not necessarily. Plenty of missing antiquities have turned up the personal collections of Americans with the desire and means to acquire them,” Harold said. “There seems to be a certain type that, short of significant historical American artifacts, will cheerfully pursue the historical treasures of other nations that have a longer history. It even makes a certain amount of sense. After all, England has thousands of years of history. There’s enough that one item going missing is hardly even missed. For comparison, imagine if someone tried to steal the Liberty Bell.”

“I guess I never thought about it that way. It makes sense. OK, well, where do you think we should start?” Alex said.

Harold looked up at Alex from the papers, flipped the folder closed, and handed it back to him.

“I think you should start by studying the documents in here, and once you have an understanding of what we’re actually looking for, then we can come up with a strategy for finding the missing artifacts,” he said. “I’ll get you some more coffee.”

Alex had barely had a chance to register that Harold was even moving before he had gone into the kitchen and returned with a fresh cup of coffee for him. It was spooky.

Harold set the freshly filled mug down on the coffee table in front of Alex, and said, “I’ll leave you alone so you can study the information Mr. Darcy provided,” he said.

“Thanks Harold,” Alex said.

Ugh, studying, Alex thought. And worse, being told to study by my self-appointed butler.

This assignment seemed to be getting less fun by the minute.

Alex opened the folder and began to look through the documents again.

He learned that Thomas Smith had been the astrologer and trusted advisor to the queen for a time, before falling out of favor. His fall from grace, as it were, occurred shortly after he took on a new assistant, a man called John Spencer. There wasn’t much information about what he did to lose favor with the queen, only a mention that his theories and ideas, the fruits of his collaboration with John Spencer, had become wild enough that even the previously credulous queen dismissed them as ridiculous ravings.

This considerable setback had not stopped Thomas from pursuing his work, however. Little verifiable detail was available about this collaborative work, apart from the occasional mention of angels found in his surviving writings. He had apparently been using a crystal ball, as Mr. Darcy had mentioned, as well as something called a scrying mirror. Alex had never heard of such a thing before, and made a note to look it up.

Thomas Smith had been also been, by all accounts, a brilliant mathematician. His methods had helped several astronomers of the time with their work, although astronomy was not Thomas Smith’s reason for pursuing mathematics. Indeed, he believed mathematics would lead him to a key that would unlock occult mysteries, and worked feverishly in pursuit of this key.

Reading on, Alex learned that there was currently a group working to carry on Thomas Smith’s occult experiments, based on the information in his surviving writings. In addition to the lack of documentation, this group was further stymied by how much of Thomas’s writing was in code. The bulk of their work was, in fact, trying to decode what he had written.

It was possible they would like to get their hands on the missing artifacts, in hopes of finding a clue that would help them decode his writings.

There were also a handful of historians who were interested in Thomas Smith. Due to the fact that Thomas was regarded by many academics as one of history’s great kooks, several of the historians researching his life and work were also somewhat eccentric.

Again, it would be possible for one or several of them to have stolen the missing disks in pursuit of their own work, seeing as the museum that had been in possession of them had generally been reluctant to let anyone actually examine or handle them.

And, finally, there was a list of various private collectors of the macabre and occult, any of whom may have taken an interest in Thomas Smith and desired to add his artifacts to their own collections.

“Nerds,” Alex said to himself, “we’re going to have to track down some nerd, and maybe a couple of his friends, who are all way too into mathemagicians. Great.”

He nearly jumped out of his skin when someone just behind him said, “You sound disappointed, Mr. Minor.”

“Jesus, Harold, could you try not to startle me like that?” Alex said.

“My apologies, Mr. Minor,” Harold said. “As I was saying, you sound disappointed.”

“Yeah, well, shaking down a bunch of math club geeks doesn’t sound like it’s going to be particularly exciting,” Alex said.

“I would think an easy recovery would be appealing to you, Mr. Minor. If they are, as you say, math club geeks, then it shouldn’t be much trouble getting the missing items back,” Harold said. There was something, barely perceptible (like usual), in his tone that made Alex think there might be more to this assignment than he realized.

“Are you thinking there’s something else going on here, Harold? Because this has ‘bored nerd’ written all over it to me,” Alex said.

Harold said, “I just think there’s a strong possibility that the people who have stolen these disks from the museum have a purpose behind their actions. Something more than a desire to just add a few more interesting objects to their collection.”

“Any ideas on what that purpose might be?” Alex said. “Because it looks to me like they either want some shiny new toys, or they’re hoping for a secret decoder ring.”

“Have you considered, Mr. Minor, that the person or persons who took the disks might already have the decoder ring?” Harold said.

Chapter Two

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 02:22:00 +0000

Alex was happy to see a parking spot was open on the street close to Mr. Darcy’s office. It was nearly five o’clock in the afternoon, and he didn’t want to spend any more time walking than he had to.

Mr. Darcy’s office was in a beautiful old building in a historic part of Minneapolis. Alex guessed that at one time it had been a warehouse or a factory. Now it was divided up into various offices and studios, however.

Beautiful as it was, Alex was not a particularly big fan of the antique elevator that serviced the building. It was kept up as well as the rest of the building, and it didn’t feel unsafe, it was just too darn slow. It would be easy, in Alex’s estimation, to take the stairs to the third floor and back down again in the amount of time it took just for the elevator to reach the third floor.

On the right, there was a plain looking door, with a small sign that simply read, “Stair,” next to it. Alex made a beeline across the lobby, and started up the stairs on his way to the third floor.

Emerging into the hallway from the stair, Alex was struck (as always) by how much it looked like a scene from a film noir detective movie. The walls rose from the floor to about waist height, and were painted a green that was just a shade too dark to make him think of a hospital. Above that were large panes of frosted glass. There were only a few offices on this floor, and most of them had hand-painted lettering on the glass announcing the name of the company within.

Alex walked to the door numbered 310. There still was not a company name painted on the door here. He opened the door and walked in to the office.

Megan sat behind her huge, dark oak desk. She glanced from the screen of her computer to him, then looked back at what she’d been working on again.

“Hello, Mr. Minor,” Megan said. “Mr. Darcy will be with you in just a moment.”

“Hi Megan,” Alex said. “OK, great.”

Alex had been trying to get Megan to call him by his first name without success nearly since he’d first begun working with Mr. Darcy. He supposed it was fair that she called him by his last name, however. Megan was her last name too. Her first name was Melissa, and she preferred not to be called by the title Ms.

He was happy to address her however she liked, since people who crossed her had a funny way of finding themselves dropped off on the side of the road in a remote location in a neighboring state with nothing but a coupon for the Sizzler to show for their trouble. And she had saved his ass on several occasions. Megan might sit at a desk in the front office, however, she was anything but a receptionist.

Alex had a seat in one of the luxurious leather chairs, and waited until Mr. Darcy was ready to see him. He fought the urge to fidget, with mixed success.

After some time, Mr. Darcy’s office door opened, and Mr. Darcy himself came through part way into the front office. He gave Alex a cordial smile, and said, “Good evening, Mr. Minor. Please, come in.”

Alex followed Mr. Darcy into his office. Mr. Darcy sat down behind his desk (which was, if anything, even more massive than Megan’s desk), and gestured for Alex to have a seat in one of the chairs in front of his desk.

Once Alex was seated again, Mr. Darcy said, “How was your drive back from South Dakota?”

How did he know where I was today? I didn’t tell him where I was when we were on the phone, Alex thought. Alex knew that Mr. Darcy had people working for him everywhere, but he had figured there probably wouldn’t be anyone affiliated with Mr. Darcy in middle of nowhere South Dakota. Then he remembered feeling like he was being watched in the restaurant, and shuddered.

“I don’t think I told you I was in South Dakota,” Alex said in reply.

“You didn’t,” Mr. Darcy said in an agreeable manner. “I spoke with your house guest earlier today. He said you’d mentioned something about going to South Dakota for the day to get away from his, how did you put it? I believe it was, ‘creepy English butler-ing ass’.”

Mr. Darcy arched an eyebrow at him, and Alex could feel blood rushing to his face. He supposed he was going to have to apologize to Harold for that. In hindsight, did seem like it was kind of a rude thing to say.

Mr. Darcy took a folder out from one of the drawers in his desk. He pushed it across the desk to Alex.

“Anyway, I have something interesting for you. I think you’ll enjoy this, Mr. Minor,” Mr. Darcy said.

Alex picked up the folder, and opened it. The first few items in the folder were photographs, followed by a couple of drawings, of what looked like disks covered with occult symbols. Alex had no idea what he was looking at, but he wasn’t entirely surprised by these pictures either. Most of the work Mr. Darcy gave him involved locating and delivering artifacts that may or may not have mythological origins. If he believed what Mr. Darcy had told him, he’d personally picked up delivered Pandora’s box, once. Magical coasters wouldn’t be much of a stretch.

“What do you know about Thomas Smith?” Mr. Darcy asked Alex.

“I think he’s related to John, isn’t it?” Alex said, cracking a grin.

“Very amusing,” Mr. Darcy said. “I didn’t really expect you to know much about him, to be honest. Outside of a handful of historians and occult study enthusiasts, he isn’t very well-known. Among those same historians and enthusiasts, however, he’s the subject of considerable discussion and curiosity.

“You see,” Mr. Darcy continued, “Thomas Smith was a brilliant mathematician and scientist at a time when magic, science, math and alchemy were all considered parts of the same whole. They were all, ultimately, tools an inquiring mind could use in looking for a source of truth. So in addition to being a mathematician and a scientist, he was also an alchemist, and a magician.”

“Cool,” Alex said. “Did he conjure up anything interesting?”

“Well, that depends,” Mr. Darcy said. His eyes twinkled, and he chuckled slightly. “Some of his ideas laid the foundation for modern scientific thought. People with an interest in some esoteric branches of math still study his work. And then there were the angels.”

Alex had been idly flipping through the folder Mr. Darcy had given him, but here he stopped what he was doing and looked up at Mr. Darcy.

“Angels?” Alex said.

“Well, that’s what Thomas Smith thought they were, anyway. Of course, it’s hard to know what the truth is. All we have are his surviving papers, and some of the writings of his assistant. And his assistant is largely thought to be entirely unreliable,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Was there anything compelling in Thomas Smith’s papers, then?” Alex said. Alex didn’t believe in angels. At least, not in the harp playing, head of a pin dancing, biblical figure wrestling, wings and halos sense. On the other hand, he’d seen a lot of things he couldn’t explain since he’d started working for Mr. Darcy.

So, Thomas Smith’s angels could have been hallucinations, or a misunderstood physical force. Or, maybe, something else.

“There were hints of things in his surviving papers. Unfortunately, when he passed away, his estate was scattered. A shame, he’d had one of the finest libraries in Europe according to the surviving records. Most of his writings and apparatus are presumed lost forever, all that are left are scraps of the whole,” Mr. Darcy said.

“Interestingly enough,” he continued, “maybe they aren’t entirely lost, however. Within the last few years, a few interesting items have turned up. You’ve seen the photos in the folder already, but let me show you.”

Mr. Darcy held his hand out to Alex, who handed the folder back to him. Mr. Darcy took the photos out and spread them on the desk in front of Alex.

He pointed at the first photo, which was of a pair of brownish disks on a black background. They looked like they were about an inch thick, and the top and sides of the disks were closely engraved with odd little symbols that didn’t mean anything to Alex. They might have been astrological signs, or runes, or Celtic markings, or complete nonsense.

“According to Thomas’s papers, there should be a third one of these, somewhere. They’re wax disks, about four inches in diameter and one inch thick. Thomas would put them under the legs of the table he worked at,” Mr. Darcy said.

“He used a three legged table?” Thomas asked.

Mr. Darcy smiled. “Of course. The power of three featured prominently in Thomas’s work. It’s not clear if they were intended to amplify magical energy, or to protect him from hostile forces, while he was working.”

“OK,” Alex said. He wasn’t too trouble by their actual use either way, unless it was somehow relevant to the assignment Mr. Darcy had yet to explain.

Mr. Darcy directed Alex’s attention to the next photo, which was another disk. It looked bigger than the others, but there was nothing to provide a sense of scale in the photo.

“This is also made of wax, and is the base Thomas used for his crystal ball while he worked,” Mr. Darcy said.

Crystal ball? Alex thought. Seriously?

“Really?” is what Alex said.

“Really,” Mr. Darcy said. “This disk is about eight inches in diameter, and two inches thick.”

He set aside the first two photos they’d looked at, and put the third photo in the center of the desk in front of Alex.

“This piece is particularly interesting,” Mr. Darcy said.

I’ll say, Alex thought. It was another disk, but this one was thinner than the others. And it looked like it was made of gold.

Mr. Darcy said, “It’s not exactly clear what the intended use of this piece was, but the drawings and writing on it are consistent with subjects in Thomas’s papers. Notice the four figures engraved near the edges, one for each of the cardinal directions.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Alex said. “So, what do you need me to do?”

“These pieces had all been in a museum in London until recently. They belong to a descendant of Thomas Smith who, amusingly, found them in a trunk in the attic in his family’s estate while looking for a suitable item to use in a white elephant gift exchange. He hadn’t the faintest idea what they were when he found them, but his curiosity drove him to find an appraiser. Eventually, with help, they uncovered the lineage of these items, and as something of a history buff, he ultimately loaned them to the museum.”

“Cool,” Alex said. “So, what’s the problem?”

Mr. Darcy smiled again.

“The problem,” he said, “is that someone seems to have borrowed them from the museum, without permission. Our client believes that the person who took them may already have the missing wax disk, and may also have some of Thomas Smith’s artifacts.”

“So we’re looking for another collector?” Alex said.

“Possibly a collector, or possibly someone who wants to continue Thomas’s work. Ultimately, the person who took them doesn’t matter. Your assignment, Mr. Minor is to get them back, along with any other papers or items this person may have from Thomas Smith’s estate. All of the available information is there in the folder. You’re going to have to do plenty of research and snooping on your own as well, I’m afraid.”

“No problem,” Alex said. Finally, back to work. And it sounded like some international travel was in store for him, to boot. It would be like going on a paid vacation, only more fun.

Alex took the photos and folder back from Mr. Darcy, and stood up. He was just about back at the door when Mr. Darcy cleared his throat and spoke.

“Oh, and Mr. Minor,” he said.

Alex turned back to face Mr. Darcy, and said, “Yeah?”

“You’re going to want Mr. Derby’s help this time.”

Mr. Derby? Alex thought, and tried to remember who that was. After a moment, it came to him. Shit… Harold.

Chapter One

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Sun, 01 Nov 2015 23:33:00 +0000

Alex Minor was aware that one of his weaknesses was an inability to tolerate boredom. It had taken him a while to realize it, costing him several jobs and, he realized, probably some friendships. He was grateful, at least, that now he knew, and therefore he was able to work on correcting himself.

So far, he’d failed at correcting himself. He had, however, gotten better at keeping himself from getting bored. And since he’d been recruited to work for Mr. Darcy, he hadn’t found himself fighting boredom very often.

If Alex was being honest, and usually he was, he’d tell you that getting recruited by Mr. Darcy had turned out to be one of the best things that had ever happened to him. Even if it did mean he found himself in dangerous situations, impossible situations, and now and then, impossibly dangerous situations.

It beat being bored.

That morning, however, Alex had realized he was bored. Mr. Darcy hadn’t had an assignment for him in a couple of weeks. So, there he was on a Tuesday morning, without anything to do. Some people might cherish the opportunity to relax and take care of any odds and ends that they hadn’t been able to take care of due to work obligations.

Alex, however, was losing his mind. He’d tried sleeping in before giving up on it, getting out of bed, making coffee, briefly looking through a few of his favorite websites, and realizing if he didn’t get out of the apartment as soon as possible, he was going to go barking mad.

Which is how it came to be that on a fine Tuesday afternoon, he was running his Mustang flat out along the road approaching the border of South Dakota. He had Fu Manchu blasting on the Mustang’s sound system, just barely audible above the song of the exhaust, wind and road noise. The road wasn’t in the best shape, and the stiff suspension in the Mustang let Alex know about every single bump in the road.

Alex felt relaxed and focused. The noise and sheer immediacy of his forward velocity (currently in the triple digits, and holding) worked better than meditation when it came to quieting down his brain. The sun was high in the sky, a fine July day, not a cloud to be seen.

Alex turned on the air conditioning. In the distance he saw the twinkle of sunlight off of glass. A windshield. He’d had the road to himself for nearly an hour. Glancing down at the speedometer, Alex figured it would only be another twenty minutes or so until he was in South Dakota. At the moment, his plan was to find the first restaurant that looked like they served steak and stop there for lunch.

The road was only one lane in each direction, and the windshield Alex had noticed in the distance was getting closer, quickly. Something about it seemed familiar, and Alex took another look.

His stomach sank as he realized it looked familiar because, as it got closer and closer, it was in the exact shape of a police car. Alex glanced at the speedometer.

“Crap,” he muttered to himself. There was no way he was going to be able to avoid getting a ticket. At this point, the best he could do is try to scrub off speed and hope he was able to get it low enough that he didn’t get himself a ticket for going over one hundred miles per hour. That could mean a one thousand dollar fine (not that big a deal), ninety days in jail (definitely a problem) and possibly even losing his license (a huge problem).

Stepping firmly on the brake pedal, Alex felt the Mustang’s big brakes bite and he needed to hold himself up to keep from pitching forward. He alternated between watching the road, the approaching cop, and the speedometer. The needle fell past 135, 125, 115, 100, 95, 85. The cop was close enough now that Alex could see the lightbar clearly on top of the officer’s car. It was not lit, yet. 75, 70, 65… The cop was right on top of him. Alex looked to see what the officer driving was doing.

What he was doing, Alex realized, was wagging his finger, No-no, at him.

The cop passed by, and kept going. To Alex’s amazement, the cop didn’t swing a fast u-turn and come charging up behind Alex. Instead, in a matter of minutes, Alex couldn’t even see the police car in his rearview mirror any longer.

He laughed to himself, and said, “I can’t believe that just happened.” Someone was on his side today, apparently.

Alex promptly downshifted and stomped on the gas. He wasn’t able to suppress his smile as the engine howled and the car leapt forward once more. The force of the acceleration, even at seventy miles per hour, shoved him back into his seat

The Mustang was pretty new, and was his favorite toy. Alex had owned other Mustangs in the past, but this one was the best yet. Super-charged, tuned, bright red and barely even street legal, it was impossible to be bored in that car, since the slightest lapse in attention would probably send the driver careening into a high-speed collision.

The last car Alex had owned was also a Mustang, but it had been pretty worn out. Since then, he’d been using cars owned by Mr. Darcy until Alex realized he wanted his own car. And there was no reason not to buy the exact car he wanted.

Working for Mr. Darcy was, well, highly remunerative. He’d managed to amass a small fortune, watch it go up in flames in a house-fire, and had made it all back again in a matter of weeks. He’d thought about buying himself a very nice house, and had even shopped several homes (ones with ballrooms), before realizing that he typically spent less than one night a week in his own bed. And he almost never entertained anyone that wasn’t a co-worker. A big house would have just been a source of boring problems.

So, instead, Alex rented a nice loft in Minneapolis. He was on the top floor, and the building was well secured. He had enough space for himself, and room for the occasional guest. He couldn’t ask for more. As such, the Mustang was, pretty much, his biggest indulgence.

Alex saw a billboard for a restaurant called The Chuck House. It had a photo of an enormous steak. The sign said it was just five miles up the road, too. Good thing too, Alex was ready for a steak.

A couple of minutes later, Alex pulled off the road into a dirt parking lot in front of a run down looking building that had a big sign over the door that proclaimed that this was The Chuck House. Every other vehicle in the lot was a lifted pickup truck, none of them newer than 1985. Alex was pretty sure this place would make a mean steak.

Stretching as he got out of the Mustang, Alex looked around and noted that this was the only building visible in any direction. Apart from The Chuck House, the only thing to see was miles and miles of corn fields.

It kind of gave him the creeps. Alex had to admit, he was a city kid all the way through.

The gravel crunched under his feet as he crossed the parking lot. After the door to the restaurant closed behind him, it took a couple of minutes for his eyes to adjust to the dark inside. There were neon signs over the bar, and all of the furniture was made of heavy, dark wood. He felt like he was in his grandparent’s basement. He also became aware that everyone in the restaurant was looking at him.

“Have a seat where ever you like,” a woman’s voice said. The woman speaking to him was standing behind the bar, wiping out beer mugs with a white cloth.

There were several stools open at the bar. Alex picked one and sat down.

“What’ll you have?” the bartender asked him, setting down a napkin in front of him.

“A glass of Budweiser, I guess, and a menu,” Alex said.

The bartender produced a bottle of Budweiser from a cooler right in front of Alex, opened it and set it down in front of him. She pulled a menu off the counter behind her and handed to Alex.

“You want me to get some chislic going for you while you decide?” She said.

“Some what?” Alex said. He wasn’t sure he’d even heard what she’d said.

“Chislic,” she said again. “It goes down good with beer.”

“What’s that?” Alex said.

“Food of the gods,” she said. “And the best kept secret of South Dakota.”

Alex smiled. “OK, but what is it?”

“Deep-fried chunks of meat, with toothpicks.”

“Well, I don’t see how I can go wrong with that,” Alex said. “I just wanted to be sure it’s not lightly battered and fried bull’s balls.”

The bartender raised an eyebrow at him. “What kind of place do you think I’m running here?”

“OK, OK, I’ll try it. Have you got ribeye steaks?”

“Best ribeye you’ll ever eat. If your mom reached to take some, you’d slap her hand,” the bartender said.

“OK, one of those too. Rare. And some fries,” Alex said.

“You’ve got it,” the bartender said, and walked away.

Alex looked to see who else was at the bar. There was a couple, both wearing denim shirts, at the far end of the bar on his right. On his left there were a few men wearing flannel shirts and un-ironic trucker caps. Everyone seemed to be wearing work boots.

He suddenly felt out of place in his white oxford shirt and suede driving shoes.

Alex also felt as though he was being watched. He wasn’t able to catch anyone staring at him, but he knew all the same that he was probably the most interesting thing to happen in that restaurant in weeks, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. He hoped it wouldn’t be an issue.

It was somewhat ironic that feeling like he was being observed, without knowing where the person watching him was, had been the other reason he’d decided that a road trip was in order.

The thing about his co-workers, for want of a better way of describing the other people who worked for Mr. Darcy, was that none of them were really cut out to do anything else. That seemed to be a part of how Mr. Darcy found them. Alex had been recruited after getting fired from yet another menial office job where he just couldn’t stay awake. Prior to working for Mr. Darcy, the last job Alex had that had actually engaged him had been serving in the military.

Everyone who worked for Mr. Darcy had a similar story, if they were willing to tell it (his co-workers also tended to be, shall we say, private). Alex had never heard any of them so much as mention family, or spouses. As far as he could tell, they were all odd ducks.

Which meant that, despite their strong desires for privacy, they all helped out any co-workers who needed it. More than once, Alex’s co-worker Megan had shown up to help him when he was stranded, or in need of a place to stay due to, for example, a fluke house fire.

The unspoken agreement to help each other out meant that Alex was currently playing host to Harold. And Alex really needed a break from Harold.

Harold was, apparently, English. His accent was so slight that it was barely perceptible. He was unfailingly polite.

“Fifth generation butler,” Harold had told him when Alex had asked him about his background. “My father was a butler, his father was a butler, and so on.”

“So, were you a butler?” Alex had asked.

“How could I not be butler?” Harold had asked in reply. “I’ve been the butler for several noble families in the U.K. My references are impeccable.”

“So what are you doing working for Mr. Darcy?” Alex had asked.

Harold had simply raised an eyebrow at him, ever so slightly, and said nothing.

“OK, understood,” Alex said, and let the subject drop.

Having spent the last couple of weeks around his loft meant that Alex had spent a lot of time with Harold. Or, at least, aware that he was in the same space as Harold.

Harold had the uncanny ability to slip unnoticed from room to room. Alex would be reading on sofa, thinking Harold was in his own bedroom, only to be surprised when Harold came out of the kitchen carrying a teapot and two cups.

Surprise tea parties weren’t the unsettling part, however. The unsettling thing about Harold was his understated aura of menace. He could somehow stand just slightly too close to a person. It was nothing you could take offense at, directly. It bothered Alex how Harold would look at him, politely impassive, yet giving off the impression at the same time that he was sizing Alex up, and deciding what the best, or most entertaining, way to incapacitate him would be.

Making it worse was Harold’s attempts to repay Alex’s hospitality. Harold kept, well, being the butler for Alex. Since Alex didn’t exactly have a household of servants, or much of a kitchen to oversee, or even guests to receive, that meant Harold kept finding other ways to helpful.

Such as somehow entering Alex’s bedroom and laying out an outfit for him to wear every morning, without Alex noticing him. And Alex was, generally speaking, a light sleeper. He would usually wake up every time the central air kicked on. Yet this six foot four giant in house shoes with leather soles was sneaking in, coordinating an outfit from Alex’s disorganized closet, laying it out for him, and leaving the room undetected.

Making it even more puzzling was the fact that Alex’s bedroom door squeaked. Because of this, Alex had spent a good ten minutes trying to find a way to open the door without making it squeak the other day, without success.

Alex had asked Harold to please stop it.

In response, Harold had said, “Forgive me, being a butler is in my blood, and I can’t bear to stop.”

So Alex decided to start locking his bedroom door.

The following morning, he was supremely surprised to find another outfit laid out for him. And the door was still locked.

In the kitchen that morning, all Harold said was “Good morning Mr. Minor, did you sleep well?”

Alex was startled out of his rumination by the bartender, who set down a plastic tray lined with red checkered wax paper, filled with cubes of fried meat. It smelled divine.

“Let me know what you think,” the bartender said, before walking away again.

Alex had just picked up one of the toothpicks and skewered a piece of meat with it when his cell phone rang.

“Dang it,” Alex muttered.

He thought about letting it just go to voicemail for a moment, but finally took it out and looked to see who was calling him.

“Darcy Custom Brokers” was the name on the display. He answered.

“Mr. Minor, hello!” Mr. Darcy said, “I have a new assignment for you, I think you’ll enjoy it. Can you come down to the office right away?”

Alex smiled, and looked at his watch.

“I can be there in about four hours,” he said.

Welcome!

noreply@blogger.com (Lucky) — Sat, 31 Oct 2015 18:36:00 +0000

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