Crime Spells

The window broke.

Eddie fell through, tearing his arm and his sleeve on the jagged glass. He heard the man scream from behind him, and then the first crash of thunder as a storm rolled in. He hit the ground hard, grating his arm to the bone on the pavement, but he forced himself up and into a run. He still held the other goblet.

Peeve would know what to do. If he could get that far. Lightning crashed around him, casting great shadows against the alley walls.

He didn’t look back.

There was a guy at Peeve’s when Eddie got there, a big black man in a nice suit with a wet overcoat. His head was shaved bald-not just his hair, either… no eyebrows, no beard, no nothing-and he was standing near the end of the counter, ignoring Peeve.

Peeve was Peeve. He stood about five-ten, two hundred pounds. His hair was receding, but he kept spiking it up in the front like he had a shark fin on his head. Hawaiian shirt, shorts, flip-flops. He was four or five stereotypes rolled into one. He looked up when Eddie came in, frowning.

“You’re dripping all over everything,” he said.

“Sorry. Listen, Peeve… I need you to look at something.”

“Did you get them?” the black man asked. Eddie looked at him.

“Get what?”

“The rings,” the man said. “The things you were sent to retrieve.” He looked past Eddie at the door. “Where is Gong?”

“Gong’s dead.”

“What?” Peeve hustled out from around the counter. He locked the door behind Eddie and then turned around. “How?”

“Did you get them?” the black man asked.

“Who the hell are you?” Eddie snapped.

“Edan Boukai,” he said, bowing his head slightly. “I am the one who hired Gong to enter Mr. Kim’s home.” He looked at Peeve and then back at Eddie. “This was to be our meeting point.” His voice was think with accent but understandable.

“We never got the safe open,” Eddie said, and turned away from him. “Listen, Peeve-” he began.

“How did Gong die?” Boukai asked.

“That guy-what’s his name, Kim?-he killed him, all right?” Eddie snarled and shook his head. “Listen, Peeve, I need you to tell me what this is.” He reached into a pocket and brought out the goblet.

“It’s a cup,” Peeve said.

“God damn it, Peeve,” Eddie started, but Boukai cut him off.

“Where did you get that?”

“It was on his desk,” Eddie snapped. “Shut up a minute, will you?”

“Were there two?”

Eddie waved the goblet. “I’ve only got the one.”

Boukai looked down at his hands. “Then they are separated…” He turned away, muttering under his breath. Eddie stared at him for a minute, then looked at Peeve.

“Tell me what happened,” Peeve said.

“We were working on the safe, but it wasn’t going well.” He told him how Gong had pulled a gun on him. He explained the markings on the safe and how he couldn’t see inside it. “It was like the markings blocked me.”

Boukai spun around, eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, blocked you?”

Eddie steeled himself. He didn’t advertise, but the guy had already heard most of the conversation. “I can see through things, okay? Walls, doors, metals, anything. Just like Superman. Except I couldn’t see through the safe.”

Boukai’s eyes widened, white-rimmed against the black of his skin. “You are a seer?”

“A what?”

“You can see the inside of things?”

“I just said that, didn’t I?”

“Prove it. What do I wear around my neck?”

Eddie stared at him. He opened his mouth to argue, then thought about it. His head already hurt. His friend was dead. There was a good chance this guy was nuts anyway, and if nothing else, the whatever-that-ate-Gong might catch up with him. He concentrated. “A horse.”

Boukai stared. “Who trained you?”

“No one trained me.”

“A natural…” He shook his head. “How did you come to learn this?” Then he saw the goblet and shook his head. “Never mind. Tell me of these markings.”

“Why do you want to know?”

Boukai took two steps until he was face-to-face with Eddie. “Because I hired you and your friend to retrieve something from Kim’s safe, a pair of rings. Because I recognize the chalice you bear and know that it has a mate that appears identical.” He paused. “Because I know it hurts you here,” he tapped between his eyes, “to use your Sight.” He looked past Eddie, out the window to the rain-filled alley.

“Because I know what is coming, boy. Now tell me everything, begi

“You are very lucky to be alive,” Boukai said when Eddie was finished talking.

“That’s messed up,” Peeve said.

“Yeah.” Telling the entire story again made Eddie’s stomach tighten. He rubbed his sore arm and looked at the cracked linoleum floor. It could have been much closer.

“The cloud you describe is a fakir. That is not its true name, but it serves. It is a servant from another realm, and Kim controls it. He has bound it to his command using black sorcery.” Boukai faced them, Eddie and Peeve, as they sat on the counter. “He uses it to get what he wants.” He spat the last sentence with a vehemence that even Peeve couldn’t miss.

“You really hate this guy, don’t you?” he asked.

Boukai ignored him. “The reason you could not see through his safe door to the tumblers beneath is indeed magic. There are charms that can be worked into metal that protect it from seers or other magical attacks.” He reached into his coat and produced a silver flask. When he held it up, it flashed in the light. “Look inside this.”

Eddie frowned and shook his head. “It’s got booze in it.”

“You haven’t looked. I didn’t ask what was in it. I asked you to look inside.”

Eddie swallowed the angry reply that his headache wanted to shout and concentrated. He stared at the flask in Boukai’s hand. He saw the metal. He set his mind, saw the metal again, and pushed. Then he gasped.

Golden letters flickered on the inside edges of the flask. They were written far too small for him to make out from that distance, and yet they showed clearly in his vision. The letters glowed brightly. He didn’t recognize the alphabet.

“I can’t read it,” he said, after a moment.

“It’s not a language of man,” Boukai said. “I could teach you.”

“Not in an hour,” Eddie said, shaking the Sight from his head. “So I’m a seer. So what? That’s not going to stop Kim from siccing his fakir or whatever its called on me.” He hopped down from the counter and stumbled. His leg had gone to sleep. He bent over to rub the blood back into it, cursing under his breath at the pain of the pins-and-needles sensation.

“You are right. We must deal with Kim first.” Boukai looked around. “He will surely be here soon.”

“Whoa,” Peeve said, standing. “What do you mean, he’ll be here soon? Why would he come here? Why would he even know where here is?” He walked past the two of them and peered out through the store’s front window into the steadily falling rain.

Boukai pointed to the goblet sitting on the counter. “Because of that. Its mate will lead him here as soon as he recovers it. They are linked, you see. In the other realm.” He picked the goblet up and cradled it in his hand. “But perhaps…” He looked at Eddie. “Have you attempted to See this?”

“It’s right there,” Eddie said.

“You know what I mean.”

“Do you have any idea how much my head hurts?” Eddie turned away from him and leaned over the counter. He wanted to rub his head, to reach beneath his skin and stamp out the pain between his eyes. But he couldn’t. He knew if he tried it would only hurt more.

“Your pain is a manifestation of your Sight. Because you’re not trained, you’re forcing it. If you could learn to control it more easily, the pain would lessen.” Boukai’s voice trembled and dropped an octave. Eddie looked over his shoulder. The black man was holding his hand over the top of the goblet and chanting. The words were similar to those Kim had said but not the same. “It’s possible,” Boukai said, a moment later in his own voice, “that you could be shown.”