On the way, I realized that there was a new sound, faint but unmistakable. Chuck was ticking.
“Teag – he’s wearing a bomb!”
I swept for Chuck’s legs as Teag went to pin him down. Thing was, Chuck was former military himself, and he didn’t go down without a fight.
“For the love of God! I don’t have a bomb!” Chuck said. “Get the hell off me! It’s watches. Just watches!”
Before I could stop him, Chuck ripped back the front of his jacket. I braced myself, expecting to be blown to bits. A heartbeat later when I hadn’t exploded, I looked down to see the jacket Chuck was holding open.
Beneath Chuck’s jacket, he wore a vest covered in wristwatches. The timepieces had been taken off their straps and sewn in rows onto the vest so that they covered the fabric completely. From the sound of it, they were all wound and operational.
Teag let out a low whistle. “I haven’t seen that many wristwatches being worn by one person since a guy tried to sell me a cheap Rolex in the New York subway.”
We let Chuck up, and climbed to our feet. Chuck shoved the EMF disruptor in his pocket and glared at us. “I told you, if the watches ever run down, I die. That’s the other reason I tracked you down. You’re my best bet for getting the rest of my clocks out of that godforsaken storage unit and getting rid of that damned demon.”
Flashing lights outside caught my attention, and I went to the window. “Uh oh,” I said. “There’s a police car outside.” I paused. “You two stay here. I’ll handle them.”
I straightened my hair, put on my most innocent smile, and headed toward the door. Lucinda’s warding shouldn’t affect the police, but just in case, I stepped out onto the piazza and walked toward the door to the street.
“Can I help you, officer?”
The cop looked at me, and I knew he was trying to see behind me, onto the porch. “We got calls that someone was attacked by a vicious dog?”
I managed to look annoyed. “Did that pit bull get out again?” I shook my head. “I don’t know who he belongs to, but he’s always getting loose. Big dog, all white, huge teeth. He chased a man down the street, but they’re both gone, now.”
The cop made a note in his book and nodded. “If you see the dog again, give Animal Control a call.
They’ll catch him and we’ll fine the owner.”
“I’ll let you know if I see anything,” I promised, certain Animal Control did not want to deal with a demon minion.
“Have a good evening,” the cop said with a nod, and headed back to his car. I watched him pull out, and then went back inside.
“I’ll make some more tea,” Teag was saying as I returned to the kitchen. I gave Chuck a level glare. “Now, where were we? Did you say, ‘demon’?”
Chuck gave me a no-bullshit glare. “You know damn right I did. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have protections set by a Class 1 Practitioner.”
“A what?” This time, the confusion wasn’t feigned.
Chuck rolled his eyes. “You guys ever hear about how Hitler wanted to collect supernatural objects?
You know, like in Indiana Jones?”
Teag put the kettle on to boil and came over to listen. I nodded in response.
“Yeah, well over the years, he wasn’t the only one. Every two-bit dictator and narco lord thinks he’d be so much more bad-ass if he just had a demon or two on his payroll. Or an old Egyptian artifact that makes enemies turn into cockroaches. You get the picture. Well, we were the guys they sent in to steal that shit back.”
“I’ve heard about soldiers going in to save cultural treasures and artwork,” I said. “I’ve never heard about them being airlifted in to snatch crystal balls.”
Chuck’s smirk returned. “Do you think the government gave a crap about artwork? What do you think was so valuable about those ‘cultural’ treasures?”
Magic. It made sense. Benign or dangerous, magic was powerful, and whoever controlled the artifact controlled the magic. The Alliance couldn’t be the only group out there trying to get dangerous objects out of circulation. On the other hand, the Alliance destroyed or bound the objects. Governments were likely to want anything with special powers for themselves. So did groups like the Family, which employed the likes of Corban Moran. So hard to tell, sometimes, who the real good guys were.
“What happened to the items after you ‘liberated’ them?” Teag asked. I figured he had come to the same conclusions I had.
Chuck shrugged. “You know how everyone talks about Area 51? The place where they think the government hides all the UFOs out in the Nevada desert? The stuff we stole went to a place like that, only they still don’t talk about it.” He crossed his arms over his chest, daring us to contradict him.
“Is that who you’re working for? The military?” I asked. That could pose real problems. I didn’t much fancy being locked up in a secret facility until government researchers figured out what made me tick, and I figured Sorren would be even less thrilled about the prospect.
Chuck shook his head. “Nah. I don’t trust those guys. They said they were locking the stuff up but, they work for the politicians, you know?” He leaned forward. “So why are you so interested in going into a place any sane person would leave the hell alone? I don’t think you’re urban explorers, and I don’t think you’re ghost hunters. Someone paying you? What’s in it for you?”
I exchanged a glance with Teag. I really wanted to say that if I told him, I’d have to kill him, but that was a little too close to the truth. “We work for a global organization that gets dangerous objects off the market,” I said carefully. “It’s kind of a public service. The objects are either destroyed or bound so they can’t hurt anyone. They don’t get funneled into anyone’s arsenal.”
Chuck gave me a look like I was the biggest sap in the world. “Huh. I used to believe that kind of thing, too. But it’s a nice thought.”
I wasn’t going to argue with him. “Something brought you here, Mr. Pettis. I don’t think you were entirely surprised to run into a bad spook. So why did you come?”
For all Chuck’s curmudgeonly manner, there was something very vulnerable about him. Whatever he had seen in the service had scarred him, broken a piece of him, and now that the wife and children I had glimpsed in my vision were gone, those old horrors weighed on his mind.
“I want my clocks. That’s part of it. But some of it’s for Jimmy,” he said, and I knew he meant Jimmy Redshoes. “I saw what killed him, Jimmy and the other men.” He lifted his chin defiantly. “I knew better than to try to tell the cops. Hell’s bells, they’d have locked me up and probably charged me with the murders if I told them I saw a demon flay those men.” He leaned forward. “But I think you’ll believe me. I think you already know that.”
“What do you bring to the party, Mr. Pettis?” I asked. I really wished Sorren was here to glamor the guy and find out if he was telling the truth, although my gut said he was, through a tilted perspective.
“The guy you want is named Moran. Tall, thin guy with a puckered face. Hides under a hat, but he looks like he pruned up in the sun,” Chuck said bluntly. “Jimmy Redshoes and Kevin Harvey, they used to come into Stor-Your-Own and loot the units that were abandoned. They left my stuff alone, and I left them alone. I understood. You gotta do what you gotta do to survive these days.”
Kevin Harvey. That was the name of the man I’d glimpsed in the vision at the Dennison house. “That’s where they got the things they sold,” I said. Chuck nodded.
“I also knew those guys who dove for treasure. Russ and the guys from the Privateer,” Chuck said.
“Nice folks. Something fishy about what happened to them. I think Moran had something to do with it.”