Dark Arts (3 page)

“Came to get paid, not to fall in love,” Max
said. “Angelo?”

“Upstairs,” Freddy said, thumbing towards
the narrow staircase behind the counter.

Max met Angelo half way up the stairs and
looked him in the eye. The man’s forehead was wrinkled with worry,
an exaggerated expression thanks to the pocked, loose skin on his
head. “Just coming down to get you,” he said quietly.

“I got the number one item on your list,”
Max said as he followed the man upstairs to a small office. He was
in his late fifties, and seemed too thin. The ledger and checkbook
were out on the desk. The small sofa in the room was covered with
paperwork. There was an old French horn hanging over a window
overlooking Durham Street. Angelo closed it. “Lost part of an ear
for it, almost lost my head.”

“Close the door, Max,” Angelo said.

He shut the ill-fitted old door behind him
then put his guitar case down on the sofa. Max opened it, lifted
his old Airliner guitar and retrieved the book he’d taken from
Panos. “Here it is.”

“Oh, my God, you really got it?” Angelo
said. “I mean, I don’t even want to know how, but you got it?”

“Sounds like you sent me on a fool’s errand,
Angelo.” Max held the book out between them, but didn’t cross the
two feet to the desk. “Why don’t you want to know how?”

“Listen, I got a request from someone in
town to get that, someone none of us like, not you, your friends at
the farm, or anyone you know, and it was so much money that I
couldn’t believe it. I put that on my list just because the client
was willing to pay so much.”

“I know about the money,” Max said. “You
made sure you told me about the money before we went on tour.”

“I know, and I know your dad could find
anything, that’s how he made a living, and you’ve done really well
since,” Angelo stopped himself and swallowed nervously. “You’ve
done really well, and you got paid, I got to keep providing certain
groups of people with some interesting stuff, and there are people
around town who know how good you are at this. They even feel they
owe you something, but this is not the same. I never thought anyone
would be able to bring that back when I put it on the list, and
when I heard that your band was making its way back and I didn’t
get a call, I was assuming you didn’t get it. I already told the
interested party that they weren’t going to have it.”

“But this is it,” Max said, holding the book
up. The leather cover wasn’t stamped, but branded with symbols from
seven cultures from what Max could determine. “I managed to read it
from cover to cover – the English translation, anyway. This is the
kind of shit that would get a Catholic schoolboy tossed out of
school, home and church. It’s yours, for that ten thousand you put
up for it.”

“I don’t want to know what’s inside,” Angelo
said, putting his hands up as though he was pushing the idea of the
contents away.

“It’s all translated, old text on one line,
the Queen’s English on every other. Just like you described, just
like your man wanted. So, cash, money, paid – that’s what I want to
be.”

“Listen, Max,” Angelo said, turning red. “A
lot of people have been by the last couple months since you’ve been
gone south with your band. I don’t know how, but they knew you were
looking for that, that most of the people who can find that sort of
thing were looking, and they told me it couldn’t be here, it
couldn’t be in Sudbury. They say bad things would happen, bad
things like –“

“You keep your superstition, your fucking
twisted midnight shite, and give me my money!” Max shouted,
slamming the book onto the table. “I’ve seen oracles, old friends
of my Dad’s who I’ve never wanted to see again, even a shaman, and
then I had to set a bloody gun-toting monk on fire to get this
fucking thing! Paid! That’s what I’ll be as soon as you write some
numbers down on that fancy cheque book of yours!” He riffled the
pages of the large business class cheque binder and shoved it
towards Angelo. “Then we’re done, it’s been a good ride, but there
are other dealers down south who don’t get the jitters when they
see old writing about resurrection and life eternal. There was a
reward of five thousand dollars beside this book’s name on the
list, and here it is.”

Angelo pulled a ring of keys out of his
pocket and fussed with it. “I can’t use the company cheques, I keep
the music and the magic separate.” He opened a drawer and retrieved
a battered lockbox. It was unlocked and flipped open in seconds,
revealing a modest pile of bills. “I can’t give you the five
thousand, but I can give you something for the running around.”

“I went to Detroit tracking this, you
wanker, and we only managed one gig while we drove a week out of
our way.”

“I know, you had to do a lot of research to
get that,” Angelo counted out a stack of fives, tens and
twenties.

“Research? If I believed what the oracles
told me about that book, I wouldn’t have even come back to Sudbury.
The last one said I should give up on finding this and go to
California, take Bernie with me. California! Didn’t sound too bad,
if I’m honest, but I’m here instead.”

“What else did she tell you?” Angelo asked,
deadly serious.

“Cash!”

The sounds of hurried footsteps on the
staircase were too short a warning before Freddie opened the door.
“What’s going on up here? The customers can hear you,” he said,
brows furrowed.

“Your partner here is refusing to pay for
delivery,” Max said.

“Here, it’s three hundred fifty seven,”
Angelo said. “Keep the book, I don’t want it.”

Max let Angelo put the money and the book in
his hand, speechless at the shortfall. He glanced at Angelo, who
was staring at him, sweating, then looked to Freddie. “Your uncle
owes me five thousand and he pays me three hundred bloody fifty
seven.”

“Keep the book,” Angelo said.

Max regarded Angelo and asked; “Who wanted
it? I should just sell direct, yeah?”

“I can’t tell you,” Angelo said. “I’ll lose
my business, both my businesses. Too many people want that out of
Sudbury.”

“You believe this?” Max asked Freddie, who
was turning red like his uncle. “Can’t get paid properly, can’t
find whoever wanted this in the first place.” A thought occurred to
him then. “Freddie, go get the case for the Les Paul, the one I was
just staring at. Get it out from behind glass, put it in the case
and in my hand.”

“The Les Paul? No, I mean, that belongs to
the store,” Freddie stammered.

Max picked the ledger up off the desk and
shook it in the air. “Then fucking pay me!” he thundered. “Or find
a way to grow the bottom part of my bloody ear back.”

Angelo was startled, whether it was just the
sound of shouting, or the ledger being rustled to pieces, Max
didn’t know. He was happy to have found a raw nerve. “Go ahead and
get that ready for Maxwell, Freddy,” he said.

“But it’s the Les Paul,” Freddy said.

“It’s all right, go and do that for me,”
Angelo reassured.

Max put the ledger down and folded the stack
of bills before putting them in the inside pocket of his jacket.
His finger brushed the shard that he’d found in the book. “Oh, and
I’ve found something else inside this book. Maybe you’d like to
take a look.” He held the thing up. It was the first time he’d seen
it in raw daylight, and he was immediately sure it was petrified
wood.

Angelo’s eyes went wide. “No, I don’t know
what that is,” he said. “Can’t be important.”

“Are you sure?” Max said, aware that the
appearance of the thing made Angelo nervous. “Looks like you
swallowed a bug.”

“Your father was right, you’re a thug,”
Angelo said. “No more business from me, there are other people who
can do your work.”

“You sure?” Max said, happy to be out of the
man’s address book, but eager to taunt him one more time. “Bernie’s
not going to go running for you, his father would never have it,
and no one from the Circle will talk to you.”

“I’ll make do without hiring thugs,” Angelo
said, slamming his lockbox shut. “Take that with you.” He pointed
at the book on the edge of the desk.

Max took it and slipped it inside his
jacket. “I’ll go get my guitar now, you can have the Airliner in
trade, overprice that too.”

The teens were gone when he arrived
downstairs, and the black Les Paul Custom was in its velvet lined
case on the counter. Miranda was standing beside it, a little smile
on her lips.

“Here you go, Max,” Freddie said, gesturing
dismissively and retreating upstairs.

“Never heard anyone give someone shit like
that, and I’ve lived in Italy,” Miranda said as she watched Freddie
disappear upstairs. “Owed you a lot of money, huh?”

Max closed the guitar case and slapped all
the latches shut, trying to cool down at the same time. “Sorry,
luv, I’d have a sweeter first meeting after not seeing you for so
long.”

“Hi, yourself,” Miranda said. “Always loved
your accent, it’s better now though.”

“So are you,” Max said, pushing through the
nervousness that was replacing his anger. “You need anything?”

She stared at him for a moment before
comprehension dawned on her. “Oh, here? No, I left my gear at the
farm. I’m staying with the Webbs for the Gathering.”

Max’s heart sunk a little at the thought of
Miranda believing in the occult. Some of his nervousness at seeing
her subsided. “We’d best be off, don’t know if they’ll change their
mind on this,” he said, hefting the guitar case a little for
emphasis. He grabbed a handful of picks, stuffed them into his
pocket, leaned over the counter, grabbed a pair of harmonicas, then
helped himself to a few sets of strings and finished filling his
pockets. It lacked class, but made him feel better.

Miranda’s smirk didn’t subside as she
watched him take a few things. He could feel her eyes on him, and
the only thing that bothered him was that he couldn’t tell what she
was thinking, but he was pretty sure she was amused at least.
“Well, it’s not five grand, but I’ll be good on supplies for a
bit.”

“Right,” she led the way out of the
shop.

“My bike’s just here,” Max said. “I have to
get to the farm, meeting the band there later.” He walked past her,
immediately regretting it, feeling rude. He turned back towards her
after walking into the alley, and she bumped into him. “I’m a
prat,” he told her.

Miranda didn’t step back much, but settled
against him and looked him in the eye, that expression of mild
amusement still on her face. “Just bad timing,” she said.

“We could start over, yeah?” Max asked,
trying desperately to be calm and cool as her nose was two inches
from his.

“No,” she whispered. “I heard everything,
won’t pretend I didn’t. I think this is the side I was meant to see
of you first. You notice I’m not shying away?” Her smile stretched
into something a little more interesting, as though she’d just
given him a dare, or taken and fulfilled one herself. She glanced
over his shoulder after holding his eye for a long moment. “That
yours?”

“My favorite thing in this world,” Max
replied as smoothly as he could, but his quiet response was
gravelly, not gentle.

“Give me a lift to the farm?” she asked.

There was nothing he wanted more in that
moment than to ride back to the farm with Miranda on his bike
behind him, but there was one detail he couldn’t forget. He raised
the guitar case a little. “Don’t know if I have room.”

“Me, or that guitar?” she asked, arching an
eyebrow.

“Wait, I have straps, if you’ll wear ‘em,”
he said.

“Straps?”

Max stepped back and pulled the homemade
straps and loops he used to ride with a guitar on his back off the
seat and wrapped them around the guitar case.

“Yeah, I’ll wear that,” Miranda said,
walking down the alley to his bike and zipping her black leather
jacket closed. She turned around and let him put the arm loops
around her, then tied them tighter. “Not bad,” she said. “Now kick
that thing so we can get down the road.”

“As my Lady wishes,” he said, straddling his
bike and giving it a hard kick-start. It turned over and roared
right away, not something that happened every time.

Miranda climbed on behind him, wrapped her
arms around his waist. “My life’s in your hands, Max” she whispered
against his good ear.

He revved down the alley and onto the
street, breaking out between two cars and roaring towards Elm
Street.

Even though Maxwell’s motorcycle rushed
through the air down the highway, he could still smell her: sweet
vanilla and rose. He’d taken women for rides before, but she fit.
Her feet landed where they were supposed to, her hands were around
his waist, but holding, not gripping or locked tight.

When they took a turn, they leaned together,
and when they were on a long straight stretch, she wasn’t afraid to
rest against his back. He paid close attention to the road, taking
no risks, giving her no reason to doubt her trust in him as a
passenger. The highway to Azilda was far from perfect, and he made
sure that they didn’t hit anything that would interrupt their
smooth ride.

The girl he knew was fading away, and the
reality of the woman Miranda had become was replacing it. He didn’t
know this lady he’d met, but she still felt so familiar that it was
mind-boggling. He felt as though they had found a completely
different place to exist separate from the rest of the world, a
space that was easy and comfortable. Maxwell had never experienced
anything like it, but he still reminded himself of one simple fact
– they had just met.

The barren stone landscape started to become
green again; they had passed through town and made it to Azilda.
Forty minutes of their ride had passed, and it felt like fleeting
moments. The last stretch of highway passed even faster, then they
turned onto a dirt road. In minutes they were rolling on a two
lane, kicking up dust behind them, surrounded by tall, green trees.
The rising heat and humidity of the early afternoon made the air
smell rich, alive.