Even across the room I could tell it was a real gem. The glass imitation in my pocket was a vulgar peasant compared with the elegant royalty over there. Simply lying on its white silk padding, the stone glowed like molten gold. It took light and set it on fire. When I shifted, futilely trying to move closer for a better view—I swear it—the thing winked at me.
That was eerie. The longer I stared, the less I liked it. The damned thing was just a chunk of crystallized carbon in an unexpected color with a fancy name, and for some reason, people had decided it was worth something. They killed and died for such shiny baubles. Insane.
Despite that, I wouldn’t have minded having a few locked up in the safe at home. Just not this one.
Hecate’s Eye twinkled goldly at me, and I fought down a shiver.
Clive finished his count and closed the briefcase. Taylor said he could keep it along with the cash. Taylor picked up the Eye and peered through his loupe. Wise of him. He’d been distracted by Agnes; Clive could have slipped a fake in.
“It is beautiful,” Taylor said. “I’ve seen its equal only at the British Museum, and that one had two inclusions, but neither like this simulacrum.”
They made a toast, and everyone looked pleased. Agnes gently took the pendant from Taylor—to have one last look at her darling grandmother’s pride and joy, she said. “I shall miss you,” she said, holding the stone to the light, gravely wistful.
Clive and Taylor exchanged glances, two men in silent agreement about the frail sentiment of the fair sex, shaking their heads and smiling.
By the time they turned back, Agnes had made the switch. She’d practiced; she was so fast, I almost missed it. She put a pendant in the box and closed the lid, handing it to Taylor. The real stone was still in her palm so far as I could tell. While the men shook hands, she slipped it into her dress pocket. Slick, but foolish. Sooner or later, Taylor would take another gander at his toy and call the cops. How could she think she’d get away with it?
Someone eased up behind me, and I did not trust it to be Escott checking to see what was taking so long.
I ducked and twisted in time to avoid the full force of the crooked end of a tire iron on my skull. It smashed into my left shoulder square on the bone joint. Most of the time a regular person hasn’t got the strength to damage me, but the application of raw kinetic force on a single spot with an unbreakable tool—something’s going to give. I heard it do just that with a sickening, meaty pop and dimly knew that it hurt, but was too busy to register how much. I spun the rest of the way around to face Riordan. He was ready and punched the iron hard into my gut. It had a hell of a lot more force than a bare fist. I doubled over.
Not needing to breathe, I wasn’t yet on the mat, and I lunged forward to tackle him. He danced back and almost made it, but collided violently into the dining table, tumbling it and himself over with a satisfyingly noisy crash. A woman screamed.
My left arm was completely useless and hanging. I grabbed at Riordan with my right, but he didn’t stop, cracking the tire iron smartly on the back of my hand. I heard bones snap, but again felt no pain, which meant serious, crippling damage. Before he caught me another one—dammit, he was fast—I got a fist in his belly. It was a lighter tap than I wanted, since I was forced to use my right. No pain—things were moving too quick.
Riordan did have to breathe, and slowed just enough that I had time to stun him silly with an openhanded slap on the side of his head. Again, not my full muscle behind it, but it got the job done so well that I wanted to scream as my shattered bones ground against one another under the skin.
The starch left him, but he fought it, his eyes going in and out of focus. I grabbed the iron. It took effort to pry from his grip, and I had to drop it immediately as my fingers gave up working. Everything came to roaring, agonizing life. One arm dead, the other much too alive, I needed to vanish so I could heal.
“Hands up!”
William D. Taylor (the Fourth) had me covered with an efficient-looking semi-auto. A .32 or .38, it gave the impression of being field artillery from my angle on the floor.
I froze. I hate getting shot. It hurts like hell, I lose precious blood, and the bullets go right through to hit anything and anyone with the bad luck to be behind me. I also tend to involuntarily vanish. With the damage I already had, I’d not be able to stop the process.
Couldn’t risk it in front of this bunch. None of them needed to know that much about me. In the spirit of cooperation, I tried to raise my one moving arm. Pain blazed down it like an electric shock. I gasped and hunched over it, suddenly queasy. My left arm wasn’t responding at all; a major nerve or something was gone, couldn’t feel it except as a heavy dragging weight. I smelled blood where the skin was broken on my shoulder, but the black shirt hid it.
Clive Latshaw, the outraged man of the house, demanded to know who I was and what I was doing there.
Not having a good answer for either, I told him to call the cops.
Their reaction was interesting. When trespassers demolish your home, most folk are eager to turn them in.
This trio hesitated with an exchange of uncomfortable glances.
Taylor spoke first. “I have to be on that train tonight. It’s vital to my business.”
Clive slowly nodded. “Of course. I can take care of this. We don’t need the police.”
Not too strangely, given the switch she’d pulled and the fact that she’d stolen the gem in the first place, Agnes did not utter a single reasonable objection to this extraordinary statement. Instead, she glared at the wreckage that happens to a nice room when two grown men try to kill each other in it.
“Who are they?” she asked, somehow taking me and Riordan in at the same time.
She’d shown no recognition at all for him, but then neither had Clive. They were both competent enough liars. Were they in on it together or separately? Did she have a reason not to tell her husband about hiring a man, or had Clive retained him and not shared with her?
Visible through the parlor curtains, lightning flashed bright. Thunder boomed, shaking the whole house again. We all jumped a little under flickering lights.
Her hand was in her pocket, nervously touching Hecate’s Golden Eye, and I wondered briefly about the curse. This weather had me spooked.
I’d only looked at the damned thing and had a bushel basket of bad luck dropped on me. Had I been normal, I’d be maimed for life.
I needed to vanish; a few seconds out of their sight would be enough. My best option was to hypnotize them into a nap on their feet, but attempting to take all three at once while they were on guard was bound to fail. I was too distracted by pain, which was getting worse.
Get them separated.
“Call the cops,” I said, looking at Clive, willing him to listen. If just one of them left, I had a chance. “I’m a burglar and this is another burglar. We came here to steal everything, and we should be jailed.”
Riordan roused himself enough to mutter, “Y’daft b’sturd.” He was soaked through from the storm. He might have entered the house from some other door than the one in the mudroom, but it wasn’t likely. Worry for Escott and Mabel stabbed through me, breaking my concentration. If he’d gotten the drop on them . . .
Riordan won his struggle back to consciousness and dragged himself to a sitting position. “Jesus, Mary, an’ Joseph, for a skinny git, you know how to scrap.”