Hazardous Goods (Arcane Transport) (16 page)

“I’m here about a ring you gave to my friend a few weeks’ back.”

I held a photo out, and the lady took it and glanced down with the eye of a pawn shop jeweler. There was a pause while she assessed the ring in the picture, and I glanced at the girl on the sofa bed, who was now ignoring the TV. Apparently our arrival was somewhat out of the ordinary. She and her friend were eyeing the interaction between us, murmuring in an anonymous (to my ears) Asian language.

“What about it. Never seen it in my life.” The glare she gave us, and the way she said it, together constituted one of the most bald-faced outright lies I have ever experienced. The corner of her mouth even turned up a little, so difficult was it for her to say with a straight face.

“Nice try, lady.” Seemed Ted had recognized that social correctness would get nowhere with this woman. I happened to agree.

“Listen, you gave this damned ring to my friend, and we want you to take it back.”

“Oh ho!” The denials were quickly gone now. “Take it
back
. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get rid of? If not for these stupid girls,” with that she cuffed the back of one’s head, “I never would have been stuck with it. I’m not taking it back.”

“Lady...”

“Listen,” I have always had some success with the role of mediator, so I decided to try the logical route. “Jamar didn’t understand what was involved with the ring when you offered it to him. If you had warned him, he would have been able to think things through, but—.”

A look of complete disbelief was not the response I had hoped for.

“What the
hell
are you talking about. I’m not taking the ring back. Now if you’re not here for the girls, you get out of my goddamned house!” Other than my mother, I don’t believe I’ve ever been frightened of an old lady. But she was rattlesnake mean, that woman.

She began to shove at us, and I had no idea how to react. As I’ve said, my normal response to physical violence is instinctive. Multiply by ten, and return to sender. But the rules went out the window when a woman was involved, no matter how reprehensible. Still, holding my ground seemed not unreasonable, and Ted appeared to have concluded the same.

“Lady, you have single-handedly destroyed this guy’s life, and there is no way—.”

“You get out of my house.” This was delivered face to chest, with her chin jutting out and spittle flying. Ted was staring down at her with a mixture of disgust, anger, confusion and humor. What was she going to do about it? We could stand here all day, whether she liked it or not.

Or so we thought.

I should have recognized the first sign of trouble. Crazy Lady started stabbing Ted in the chest with her index finger, lacing her angry demands with profanities I had never heard or imagined before. The two girls darted out of the common room, high-tailing it to the back of the house. Maybe it was the look in her eye, or maybe the ferocity of her verbal attack, but they saw it coming.

She turned and stormed down the hall, turning into an alcove that might have been the kitchen. Now pissed and hot on her heels, Ted was damn near clipped when a mixing bowl came flying out. It smacked into the wall, leaving a small indent in the drywall, then fell to the floor with a metallic clatter.

“Missed! Hah!” I had a feeling he was a bit overconfident.

The next object to come sailing through the air was a lamp – this one thrown with quite a bit more force than the mixing bowl had been. Ted ducked and it glanced off his shoulder, hitting the far wall and exploding in a flurry of ceramic chips.

“Jeezus!” That seemed a bit extreme.

His face was now showing real fear, and I could see that a few shards of ceramic had caught him in the back. He was still hunched over when a volley of bottles and jars exploded from the doorway, several hitting him flush in the forehead. Those that missed shattered on the far wall, more small shards hailing down on Ted as he brought his arms up to cover his face. A couple of the bottles embedded themselves into the drywall, which was now painted with a muddy brown mixture of salad dressing, tomato pulp and god-knows-what else.

At that I moved forward, intent on stopping Crazy Lady from hurling any more household objects at my brother. But as I rounded the corner I saw that all was not as I had expected. Instead of a bunch of coffee cups dangling from her hands, I found her standing dead still in the middle of the kitchen, eyes closed with a look of sheer fury on her face. And a microwave hovering in mid-air right in front of her.

I stood in front of her, staring open mouthed.
Magic
. This was the real thing. You might have faked the fearstone stuff with holograms or put some drugs in my coffee, but there was no ignoring this.

“Duck!”

It was one of the girls who cried out, and she might have saved my life. I did duck, and the appliance sailed through the air, hammering into Ted’s shoulder.

“Jesus Christ. Are you out of your mind?”

She ignored me, and I felt the blood drain from my face as the refrigerator in the corner of the kitchen began to slide towards the centre of the room.

“
Move
.” I turned and grabbed Ted under the arms. We had to get the hell out of there. I dragged/carried him down the hall to the front door, all the while hearing the squeal of linoleum being gouged by the refrigerator’s foot pads as it moved out into the hall.

I was fumbling with the door knob with Ted at my back, when he began struggling to move forward. I glanced over my shoulder and saw her at the end of the hall, the refrigerator now in front of her. She was going to put a big-time hurt on us if she sent that thing flying through the air.

Ted managed to work the door open and stumble down the steps, but it was too late. I could
see
it. A ripple of energy reached out from her hands and took hold of the refrigerator. Slowly it rose into the air, the freezer door swinging open and frozen packages of peas and fish sticks poured out onto the floor. That had to be at least three hundred pounds hovering in the air. If she hit me with that thing, I was
dead
.

In high school I might have leaped aside in a catlike motion. But that was fifteen years and twenty pounds ago. Now I moved like a toothless tabby who didn’t always make it to the litter box. So maybe it was shock, but I suspect it was just god-awful slow reactions. Whatever. I didn’t move in time. I saw those ripples build, then
expand
, like a sound wave in front of a nuclear explosion. The fridge wobbled, then leaned and flew through the air towards me. I raised my arms, and braced for impact.

There was an impact alright. The fridge lay flat on the floor not two feet from me. The linoleum around it was crumpled, and I could see that even the floor boards had snapped in one or two places. Damned good thing this place didn’t have a basement.

I peeked out from behind my arms, thinking somehow Crazy Lady had recognized the error of her ways. Turned out that was far from the case.

Her face shifted from shock, to cunning, and back to her old familiar. Nasty bitch.

“Pah! So you have simple skills of defense. You are
nothing
.”

Defense? What the hell was she talking about? I didn’t have the chance to try and figure it out, though, because what she did next was fascinating and scary. Leaning forward, she opened her mouth and vomited a stream of particles which expanded as they approached me, reminding me of a pointillist work, distinct points of black and yellow shimmering in the air. On either side of the hall, paint began to bubble on the walls, then peel back from the surface. But while I could
see
the heat emanating from her attack, I couldn’t feel it. Something seemed to be protecting me from its effect.

That became all the more evident when the stream of particles halted in mid-air, two feet in front of my eyes. It was as though I was at the bottom of a waterfall, under a glass roof. The stream bounced, then rippled across some unseen surface, flowing in all directions but getting no nearer to me. I think at that moment I might have added a stinging comment, were it not for the fact that the whole house suddenly seemed to catch on fire.

Flames twitched up the wall, then raced across the ceiling into the common room. Within seconds, the wire TV rabbit ears that I had noticed earlier sagged, as if the rabbit was no longer listening. The plaid sofa bed began to smoke, a thick chemical smog rolling off the cushions as individual tentacles stretching to all corners of the room.

I’m not a stupid guy. I know when I’m no longer welcome. I ran into the front room, grabbed the thin wrists of both girls, and charged out the front of the house.

I left them coughing on the road in front of the smoking home, then joined Ted in a race to the van. As we ran, Crazy Lady exited her house, chalky smoke and dancing flames marking her passage. What scared the crap out of me was that she seemed unfazed by the whole thing. She even buttoned up her cardigan, as though chilled by the crisp Spring air. Ted slid into the passenger side just as I popped the gearshift into drive. I stomped on the gas and his door slammed shut, barely avoiding his fingers and toes.

“What’s she doing?”

He squirmed in his seat to look through the back window, and I hunched down, convinced the back of the van was about to be hit by some hail of magic energy. Or a simple lead projectile, exploding from a rifle she probably kept in a closet by the front door.

“Nothing. She’s just staring at us.”

“You sure? She’s not waving her hands or chanting in foreign tongues?”

“Nah.” We rounded the corner and I began to relax as she disappeared from sight.

“Looks like we’re out of trouble for now.”

I drove faster than I should have through the neighborhood, slowing only to let some kids nudge their hockey nets a few inches out of our path. “That lady was
nuts
.”

“And apparently a witch. Or something.”

I glanced at Ted, realizing he might well be in shock. Bad enough that I had now seen several examples of real world, dangerous magic in action. But Ted might not be as capable of adjusting as I was proving to be. I could also see that he had numerous small nicks and cuts on his forehead and cheeks, from where ceramic shards had glanced off him.

“You alright? You’re bleeding.”

He flipped down the passenger vanity mirror and glanced at the cuts.

“I’m fine. Need to wash these cuts though. God knows what was growing in that lady’s kitchen.” He continued to look over the cuts but I could see he was thinking about something. “Hey. What was with that defense comment?”

I had forgotten about that.

“You picking up a few tricks on the job?”

“No. I don’t know what she was talking about.” And that was the fact of it. “It’s happened a couple of times, where I’ve been around a spell or something, and it doesn’t seem to work on me.”

“Like you have a fairy godmother looking out after you?”

“No.” At least, I didn’t think so. “It doesn’t feel like anybody’s
doing
anything. The spells just seem to run out of steam.”

“Huh. Cool.”

“Listen, you OK? I mean, this is pretty freaky stuff.”

I glanced again, only to find a curious expression on his face.

“Okay? I’m
great
. That was a blast, man. You have got the coolest job ever.” And with that he gave me a punch to the arm.

God help me.

As we headed to the 400 and a long drive south, we heard sirens.

“Fire truck?”

“One of the neighbors must have called.”

“What do you think that crazy bitch is going to say?”

Good question. She couldn’t exactly admit she had been screwing around with black magic. No, she wasn’t the type to accept any responsibility. She would...

“She’s going to say we started it.”

“Yup.” Damn. It took me about thirty seconds to realize I needed to make a call. To Amy Park.

We were home and having dinner when Amy called with an update. I grabbed a plateful of nachos (the ones with the most cheese on them, to Ted’s displeasure) and moved to my bedroom.

“Hey. Sorry again about calling you on a Saturday.”

“You can call me any time you want. You’re making me look like a genius.”

“Really?”

Really. It turned out that my tip to Amy – that Crazy Lady was pimping out two underage Asian girls against their will – was dead on. While the fire investigators were inspecting the damage, two officers from the Ontario Provincial Police had taken the girls aside, despite the protests of her Royal Nuttiness. Turned out she wasn’t their legal guardian, they were illegals, and they had a whole lot to say about life at 441 Bristol Crescent.

The OPP were bringing in a translator to get proper statements, but were very confident that our Crazy Lady Lucas would be charged with forcible confinement, living off the avails of prostitution, and a host of other tasty crimes.

“Very nice.”

“Oh yeah. They
love
me. Between this and the tip on Kuzmenko, I’m having to do a major dance on my sources, but no question I’m not hearing as much bullshit about being an equal opportunity hire. Maybe they’ll even let me work a few cases not involving Koreans. It’d be nice not to have to eat another bowl of pork-bone soup.”

Hearing a woman say the words pork and bone in one sentence proved oddly erotic. I was so distracted that I let my plate tilt, and a clump of nachos, cheese and salsa sauce dropped smack in the middle of my laundry compost.

“Shit.”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing, nothing.” I kicked a stray undershirt over the whole mess, hoping that the nachos would just disintegrate if and when I managed to toss the pile into a washer. “That’s great news. Listen, you might want to warn them about her, though. She may not be easy to keep in custody.”

“Isn’t she like, eighty years old or something?”

“Yeah, but she’s a nasty piece of work.”

“Hm. Well, they seemed to think she was a handful too. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

I hoped so, but there wasn’t much I could do about it anyways. I didn’t see any way to warn the OPP that Miss Crazy Bitch might power up an energy spell and blow a hole in the wall of their local jail.