Chapter Thirty-Nine
The street corner was unusually dark, since two of its streetlights weren’t working. The third emitted a sharp electrical hum, perhaps the streetlight equivalent of a dying man’s breath. Across the street was a nearly empty parking lot and a closed McDonald’s, the yellow M looking faded and old. The traffic lights in the corner had changed endlessly since I’d shown up here—green, yellow, red.
I checked my phone again, rereading Breadknife’s message for what must have been the twentieth time. Corner of Warren and Dale. Half past midnight. No one but you. Come only with the box.
It was now twelve forty-three and I was getting anxious, even though I knew it was part of Breadknife’s strategy. He wanted me stressed and full of doubt. He knew me well enough to guess I might try something, that this evening was the equivalent of a very violent chess game between us, with everything on the line.
A battered gray Lexus slowed down as it got closer, and I tensed. The driver was obscured in the darkness, and for one moment I almost believed it was Breadknife himself. That he would step out of the car, shoot me, and take the box.
But when the car stopped, the brakes squeaking, I saw it was only Steve O’Sullivan, Breadknife’s flat-headed, obedient soldier. Of course; Breadknife would never risk an ambush. He’d sent one of his minions to fetch me.
Steve stepped out of the car, leaving the engine running, and approached me. His face was blank, an expression of a man with one goal in mind—following his boss’ orders. He looked at me, at the small pouch in my hand.
“Is it in there?”
“It is.” I tensed. Would he try and take it from me now? Leave without freeing my daughter? “Where’s the girl?”
“You’ll see her soon enough. Open it.”
I opened the pouch, cursing myself for telling Kane to stay far away. I needed backup right now. If Steve took the box, I would have to stop him from leaving myself.
But he never even touched it. He examined the pouch, verifying it was empty aside from the box, feeling the fabric for any hidden pockets. Then he patted me down to make sure I carried nothing else. He did a shoddy job, and I suspected that deep inside, Steve O’Sullivan was wary of becoming too intimate with a female body. He found nothing, which demonstrated his carelessness. I had two items on me that he should have confiscated. He did take my phone, and removed the battery. Then he swiped me with some sort of electrical device, which hummed and buzzed as it brushed my body. He was looking for a wire. There was none.
“Get in the car,” he said, holding the rear passenger door open.
I did, hugging the pouch close to me. The car stank of sweat, accompanied by a moldy smell that hinted of a forgotten snack left to rot, probably under one of the seats. Steve got into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
The ride was long, and Steve drove in a roundabout way, circling Boston, taking side roads with little traffic, trying to spot anyone who was following him. I was relieved that I had expressly forbidden Sinead and Kane to do that. I’d known Breadknife would suspect a tail.
I also knew something else, and the knowledge made me tremble in fear. Breadknife suspected a decoy. That was the only reason for not simply shooting me on the spot and taking the box. Breadknife knew I might use a forged crystal, and not the real one. And if that was the case, he wanted me alive to find out where the real crystal was.
How good was Kane’s forgery? The incantation had taken more than an hour, slowly morphing a piece of wood into an identical-looking crystal. I couldn’t spot any difference. Even the strange light in the crystal looked the same. But there was no ignoring the fact that the crystal that currently sat in the box was a stick, disguised with glamour. If Breadknife checked hard enough, he would spot the forgery. And then this night would probably end very badly, for both my daughter and for me.
Finally, the car stopped by an abandoned warehouse in Hyde Park. Its gray walls were marred by unimaginative graffiti and dirt. The door had been white once, but was now covered in brown rust, its color cracked and peeling. Steve got out of the car, and waited for me to get out as well. He did not hurry me, did not seem to care if I got out of the car or not. He simply waited.
Following the script, I got out of the car. I walked behind him to the door, which he unlocked with a key from his pocket. Then he motioned me inside.
To say my chest thudded would be an understatement. It boomed. It shook. It seemed as if my entire body was one pulsing, panicky heart as I stepped into the dark warehouse.
The warehouse seemed to be half-full of long forgotten building supplies. Discarded timber logs, some long iron scaffolding, rusty cans of oil paint. Three men waited inside. One was a huge man I didn’t know, though something about him was familiar. He leaned against a small door at the far end of the empty space. The other two men stood by the table—Breadknife and his cruel right-hand goon, Matteo “Ear” Ricci.
Steve closed the door behind me and locked it. Then he crossed the room to stand by Breadknife and Matteo. I was surrounded and outnumbered. All the men in the room had guns strapped to their waist, except for the large man in the corner.
That rang a bell in my mind. I had seen him before. He was one of the four assholes who had robbed me, the night before Breadknife had showed up in my store asking for his money. He was Hardy! And he was one of Breadknife’s goons.
Breadknife had orchestrated that robbery, probably knowing in advance that I was returning with a lot of cash in my bag. Enough to make his monthly payment. But he had wanted me to miss my payment. To know I was indebted to him. To make sure I would break into the dragon’s vault for him.
His smile widened when he saw the realization on my face. He had wanted me to know. That’s why he’d told this goon to be here tonight. Another chess move. He wanted me to feel outmaneuvered, weak, foolish. And it worked.
“Where’s my daughter?” I asked, trying to keep my voice natural.
“She’s over there,” he motioned to the door that Hardy leaned against. “I didn’t want to wake her up. She was exhausted, poor thing, constantly crying for her mommy. The wrong mommy, of course.”
“Did you tell her?” My tone was cold.
He shrugged. “I didn’t exchange one word with her, Lou. Why would I bother?”
I raised the pouch. “I have your damn crystal here.”
Breadknife nodded at Matteo. The man strutted over to me, a cruel glint in his eye, gun in hand.
“Frisk her,” Breadknife said. “Take everything. Lou is a cunning woman. She could turn a pin into a deadly weapon.”
“You really overestimate me,” I said.
“Take any jewelry, too. She owns a bracelet that can do some quite deadly tricks.”
Matteo began running his hands over me. He didn’t suffer from Steve’s aversion to touching me. In fact, he relished it, groping my body thoroughly. I kept my face neutral, knowing that showing any disgust or outrage at his prodding would only delight him.
“What’s this?” he asked, feeling a slight bump in my sleeve. His fingers investigated, finding the secret pocket, and he retrieved a small vial of purple liquid.
I let a small flicker of despair show on my face, then quickly masked it. “Open it and find out.”
He laughed, and kept searching me, the vial in his palm.
The truth was, the vial contained water and a drop of artificial food coloring. Breadknife would never have believed I didn’t have a plan of some sort when I walked inside, so I hid the vial as a red herring. Make him think that the vial was part of my foiled plan to outsmart him.
Breadknife’s strategy was to fill me with doubt. My strategy was to fill him with false confidence.
He located a cigarette packet in my back pocket and retrieved it, smirking. “Marlboro Light, huh? This brings back memories.” Matteo used to take those from me whenever he found them, when I was a teen, delighting in smoking them in front of me while I trembled in anger.
Finding nothing else, he returned with the cigarettes, the vial, and the pouch to the table, laying them down one after the other.
Breadknife picked up the pouch, and took out the box. He looked at it for a long moment with wide eyes, and then his gaze flicked to me. “Why didn’t you hand it over as soon as you had it? Why take us through this elaborate… mess?”
“There were some complications,” I said evenly. “Why didn’t you wait a few hours before kidnapping a five-year-old girl?”
“When I smell a stench in the air, I act. You know that, Lou.” He sighed, shaking his head sadly. “Now, let’s see. If I open this box, will I find the crystal inside? Or will my finger be pricked by one of your poisonous traps?”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re paranoid, Mr. Cisternino.”
“Am I?” He glanced at Hardy, who picked at the dirt in one of his fingernails. “If something happens to me when I open the box, walk into that room, and kill the girl.”
The man nodded. Breadknife raised an eyebrow, looking at me expectantly. I said nothing.
He twisted the key once in the lock, and pried the lid open. He picked up the chain holding the crystal and gazed at it. Despite myself, I tensed. Would he notice a flaw I couldn’t see? Could he see through the glamour?
And then he discarded it with disinterest on the table. My heart plunged. He knew. He had seen through it somehow. Now he would torture me. Or my daughter. Do whatever he could to get the real crystal.
But he didn’t. Instead, he focused on the black box. Caressing its lid with a trembling finger. Touching the key in the lock. I had no idea what he was thinking.
“What does your client want with the crystal?” I asked. “Is it really the Yliaster crystal?”
“The crystal?” He frowned. “I don’t know.”
I blinked. He didn’t know? What was he…
And then it dawned on me. I was dizzy with horror, the knowledge of what I’d done terrifying. “It was never about the crystal,” I said. “It was the box you were interested in.”
“It’s amazing how something so small can contain such a huge change,” he whispered, half to himself, still looking at the box.
“But there was nothing in it! Nothing except the crystal.”
“That’s what the first woman who ever received it thought as well—at first. She opened it, only to find it empty. But then she found out you could twist the key in the lock over and over. And if you twist it eleven times… the true contents of the box are exposed.” He put it on the table, shutting the lid.
Eleven times. My mind whirled. What was in that box? Whatever it was, it would lead to what Isabel had seen in the cards.
He twisted the key, and it clicked. One. No, along with the first twist from before, Breadknife had twisted the key twice already.
He twisted it again. Three.
“Can you guess her name? The woman who first received the box?” His voice quavered.
I thought hard. A box that contained horrors, kept in a secure vault. And then I recalled his words when he had first told me about it. The box was lost when Troy fell. Troy. Ancient Greece. What box could it be? But I already knew.
“Was her name… Pandora?” I asked.
The key turned again in the lock, the click echoing much louder than it should have in the empty warehouse. Four.
“You were always a smart girl, Lou. That’s right. This is Pandora’s box. The gods placed all the horrors of the world inside it, and when Pandora, overcome by curiosity, opened it, those horrors were unleashed on humanity. Oh, and supposedly the box also contained hope or something. I don’t know, sounds ludicrous to me.”
Click. Five.
“But the truth is that before all the horrors got out, Pandora managed to shut the lid and lock the box. Only some of the things in the box got out. But many remained.”
“Who is your client? Why does he want it opened?”
“My client is a she, not a he.”
Click. Six.
“And she wants it open because she was one of the things unleashed back then. And I guess she misses her family.”
Click. Seven.
Nervous, Matteo picked up the Marlboro pack from the table and knocked out a cigarette. He put it in his mouth and lit it, looking at his boss, who paused between each key twist as if drawing out the moment of triumph.
I was desperate. “Mr. Cisternino, if you open that box, it will destroy the entire world. Isabel saw it in the cards.”
“Not the entire world. Some of it. I would remain. And would receive a more than adequate compensation for my actions.”
Click. Eight.
“Steve, Matteo… you can’t be fine with this? Your boss is insane. He wants to kill us all!”
Steve’s face remained impassive. Matteo’s eyes were anxious, but he said nothing, taking another puff on the cigarette.
Breadknife glanced at me. “Loyalty, Vitalis, is an amazing quality. You could learn something from these men. If you had any time to do so.”
Click. Nine.
Shadows began gathering around the warehouse, the lights dimming. Each twist of the key sounded louder than the last, and by now they were like loud drums, vibrating long after the key had turned. I took a step toward the table. Steve raised a gun and pointed it squarely at me, his eyes blank, free of emotion. He scared me even more than Matteo. I could understand Matteo; I’ve seen others like him over the years. But Steve’s motivations were something I couldn’t fathom.
Click. Ten.
The shadows lurking around us seemed to be taking on forms. Strange, predatory creatures, all waiting for the box to open, for hell to be unleashed upon the world. Breadknife’s fingers hovered over the key, as if even he was suddenly hesitant to turn it one final time.
“Mr. Cisternino… Anthony. Please think about this.”
“I have, Lou,” he whispered. “I’ve thought about it long and hard.”
Steve’s attention was on me, while the rest of the men were looking at the box. No one looked at Matteo.
He was, unbeknownst to him, smoking one of my nightmare cigarettes. I’d transferred the contents to a Marlboro light, hoping that he wouldn’t be able to resist the allure of stealing my smokes again, especially if they were his favorite brand. Now, as the shadows loomed above us, his body transformed. It became thin, bony and pale, with numerous leering mouths pocking his skin. His hair grew longer, turned white and wispy. The kids who had dreamed this particular nightmare had been quite imaginative.
I glanced at him, letting my mouth drop, my eyes widen in fear. Steve, attention focused solely on me, glanced sideways to see what I was staring at. And he saw a nightmarish, deformed witch, standing over his boss, close enough to touch.
He swiveled his gun and began shooting, the explosions sharp and painful in my ears. The bullets tore through Matteo’s bony form as if he were made of paper, and he howled, a tormented, screechy wail.
I lunged forward, flames erupting from my fingers, burning high up to my elbows and casting a hellish light. I grabbed for Steve’s gun hand, and he screamed as I gripped him, the fire sizzling on his skin. He pushed me away and I tumbled back, falling to the floor. But he was too late.
The fire had caught his sleeve, and spread up his shirt. He let out a tortured screech, and began running around, waving his arm, trying to extinguish it but only fanning the flames. I used the distraction and lunged for the table, going for the crystal.
A gun barrel smashed into my face, and I stumbled backward, my vision blurry and tinged with red. Breadknife held his gun pointed at me.
“Good try,” he said vehemently, his words echoed by Steve’s wails as he ran around the room, his whole body a blazing inferno. On the floor, Matteo lay dead, the numerous mouths on his body slack.
“What were you going to do with this?” he asked, raising the crystal from the table. “Smash it and let loose the soul inside? Or did you have an even cleverer plan?”
There was a sudden detonation, and both of us flinched. Steve, his body blazing, had knocked into one of the oil cans, and it cracked. The years-old vapors that had accumulated inside caught fire instantly, and it exploded. Then, exposed to the heat and the flames, other cans exploded as well. Timbers were now catching fire at an alarming rate.
I lunged for Breadknife’s gun, but I was dizzy, my movement sluggish, and he simply stepped back, the gun still pointed at me, the other holding the crystal.
He draped the crystal’s chain around his neck. “You were the best, Lou. I hope the things in the box will find you as useful as I did.”
“I wasn’t going for the crystal, Breadknife,” I said. “Angustus!”
The chain around Breadknife’s throat suddenly constricted, biting into his skin. His eyes went wide, and he began clawing at it with one hand.
“Angustus,” I said again, making the chain constrict even more. His face became purple as his throat made rasping sounds. He raised his gun, but his aim wavered, and he shot wide, the gun dropping from his hand. He clawed at the constricting chain with both hands.
A movement flickered in the corner of my eye. It was Hardy, running toward me. I lunged at the table, grabbing the vial with the purple water. I swiveled to face the huge man, who was only five yards away. I lifted the vial high above my head, and shouted “Stop!”
He did, nearly tumbling down.
“If you touch me, I’ll shatter this,” I warned him. “And then we’ll both be dead.”
He blinked.
“Your boss is gone,” I said, speaking steadily over the roar of the fire around me. Smoke filled the warehouse. “This place is about to burn to the ground. You have nothing left to do here.”
For a long moment we glared at each other. Then without saying a word, he whirled and ran for the exit.
I breathed in relief, and waited for him to unlock the door and leave. Only then did I put the colored water on the table and pick up the box. Gingerly, I removed the key from the lock, placing it in my pocket.
Breadknife was motionless by my feet. His eyes were vacant, his mouth ajar in a wordless scream. I touched the tight chain on his throat, and it became lax, then slithered up my wrist, and linked into a bracelet. I grabbed the pouch from the table, and tossed the still-closed box inside. I had no idea what would happen if I left it behind to burn. Perhaps the things inside it would be free. Better to take it with me.
I stepped over Breadknife’s body and ran to the door at the other end of the warehouse. I prayed that, for once, no lock would stand in my way.
None did. The door opened to a small room, which must at some point have been an office. Now, the only remnants of its original function were severed phone cables protruding from the walls, and abandoned electrical outlets. A sleeping bag was unrolled on the floor, and on it lay Tammi, asleep. She was tucked in a fetal position, a stray curl on top of her cheek. I crouched by her side, brushing the curl away. Her skin was soft and warm. She breathed deeply, her lips in a pout, moving slightly as she dreamed.
The air became hazy and suffocating. I coughed into my sleeve, and then picked Tammi up, resting her head on my shoulder. To my amazement, she remained asleep.
She weighed almost nothing, and I easily carried her out of the room. The fire had spread to the far corners of the warehouse. The glass windows had cracked, then broken, and the flames roared as additional oxygen began fueling them.
The doorway out was engulfed in smoke. Flames licked at it, hungry for the air outside. I thought of my parents’ death and shuddered.
But then, the longer I waited, the worse the fire would become. Holding tight to my daughter, I ran across the room, the heat becoming more and more unbearable. My breathing, heavy from the effort, became a coughing fit as I inhaled a lungful of smoke. Tammi began moving in my arms, slowly waking up to an inferno.
And then we were plunging through the flames and I hugged her tight as she screamed, half blind with my eyes blurring from tears, running, running.
It took a while for me to realize we were out, that the air was cool and fresh around us. That we stood in a dark street, and not in a warehouse, orange with flames.
Tammi cried and squirmed. I quickly put her down, checking her for flames, for burns.
“What is it, sweetie? Are you in pain? Where are you hurt?”
“I want my mommy,” she sobbed.
She was whole and unhurt. Endless conflicting emotions drowned my heart as I hugged her, whispering, “Okay, sweetie. I’ll take you to your mommy. Calm down now. Stop crying. You’ll see mommy very soon.”