The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(51)

“Excalibur,” I said flatly.

“That’s the story, but who knows? Nobody’s ever gotten it to open, and if you ask me, nobody ever will. Some ancient wizard’s bad joke. As far as my heart’s desire goes, well, you know me. My dream is cold, hard cash. This is the score of a lifetime.”

Spengler was bush-league compared to the rest of the regulars at the Garden, just magically aware enough to qualify for entry, but no real talent. Even so, I couldn’t believe how casual he was, unable to feel the chill radiating from inside the crate on the wings of a gale-force wind.

“Let’s hope you’re right about it staying sealed,” I said, backing away from it.

“Why’s that?”

“Because something is alive inside that casket,” I said, “and I think it hates us.”

The doorbell chimed.

We looked at each other, then rushed to the security monitors. A pretty girl in her twenties, platinum blond with a California tan, stood on the doorstep and smiled hopefully up at the security camera.

“Candi,” Spengler breathed.

I slapped his arm, glaring. “You were supposed to tell her not to come over!”

“I did! I swear I did! She was almost here when I called, and she said she was going to turn around and go home!”

She gave a little wave up at the camera, flashing a perfect smile, and pressed the doorbell again.

“Something’s wrong.” I paced the safe room.

“Dan, if she’s on the doorstep when these guys show up, what will they do to her?”

“Nothing good,” I said, eying the screen, “but we have to think about this. Are you sure that’s her? Absolutely, one hundred percent certain?”

“That pleated skirt,” Spengler said, pointing at the tiny screen. “I asked her to wear that for me. Even if somebody was screwing with the camera feed, projecting an illusion or something, there’s no way they’d know what she was going to be wearing. It’s her.”

If something looks like a trap and smells like a trap, it’s a trap, but we’d be safe as long as we hid inside Spengler’s armored nook. Staying put offered our best chance of making it to dawn in one piece. On the other hand, if I was wrong, an innocent girl was standing in the line of fire with no idea what kind of horror was heading her way.

Another smile, another ring of the doorbell.

“Shit,” I said, drawing my deck of cards from my hip pocket. “We have to risk it. Bring a gun. We grab her off the porch, we drag her back to the safe room, we stop for absolutely nothing, got it?”

“Got it,” Spengler said, grabbing one of the bulky pistols from the wall rack and checking the clip.

I shuffled my cards as we jogged through the house. The glossy cardboard crackled under my fingertips, pregnant with raw energy and eager to play. I stood back from the front door and nodded to Spengler. He clutched his gun behind his back, reaching for the doorknob with his other hand.

He hauled open the door, reached out and grabbed Candi by her wrist, and roughly yanked her inside. I ran up and slammed the door behind her.

“No time to explain,” he said. “I’m sorry, but you’ve gotta come with us, I’ll tell you everything in a second—”

Reaching for the lock, I caught a glimpse of Candi’s face in the corner of my eye. Her real face. Heart sinking, I turned.

“Spengler.”

“C’mon honey, don’t argue, it’ll all make sense in a minute—”

“Spengler,” I said more firmly.

“—I’m not going to hurt you, you know me, you can trust me—”

“Spengler!”

He looked at me, clutching Candi in his arms, startled.

“What?”

I pointed. “Look at her. Take a deep breath, clear your mind, and really look at her.”

The thing in Spengler’s arms was nothing but a life-size mannequin, carved from jointed wood like an artist’s posing model, with a crudely painted face. It wore Candi’s clothes. A gash in the sweater where her heart would have been, stained with fresh blood, told me what had happened to the real girl.

“Shit,” Spengler said, and then the mannequin turned its head toward me.

I didn’t have time to shield myself. Its puppet-head lolled back and its mouth opened wide. Golden sigils glittered inside its maw, a glyph-spell primed and ready to fire. A Trojan horse.

The pulse of magic blasted through the room with the force of a flashbang grenade. Spengler fell backward, the mannequin clinging to him like a lamprey as he desperately rubbed at his eyes, reeling. My muscles didn’t want to obey me. Chimes in impossible keys rang in my ears in the aftershock. Behind me, a boot kicked the front door in, slamming it into me and sending me sprawling to the carpet. Cards flew from my outstretched hand.

“I told you arts and crafts were kinda my thing, right?” Meadow Brand asked, standing over me. “We didn’t buy your reporter routine for a second, by the way. Half an hour after you left my office we had a full dossier on you. Weren’t sure you’d put the pieces together, but I figured I should bring out the big guns just to be safe.”

Behind her, other forms filed into the room, hazy in my light-flooded vision.

“Silly locals,” Lauren Carmichael said, “always having to throw their weight around. You made a mistake, Mr. Faust. You should have sided with us.”