Page 7 of Deader than Dead

The whisper of my name in the basement floated back into my conscious for consideration. Who had that been? The mask itself? The idea no longer seemed that laughable. Had it been calling to me? If so, why? Had it had been trying to warn me—an entreaty to let it be? I should have listened to my gut. It had been virtually screaming at me to get out of there.

“Mr. Farrell, a meeting place?” Something in the man’s voice gave the impression he was hanging on to civility by his fingernails.

“Tomorrow,” I said. If I met with him tomorrow, at least it would give me some thinking time, an opportunity to work out how I got myself out of this mess.

“Today,” the man insisted. “It has to be today.”

I swore silently, lifting my arm to look at my watch. It was already two thirty in the afternoon. “Six o’clock.”

“Earlier.”

They weren’t leaving me a lot of wriggle room, which presumably was the point.

“Four o’clock,” the man said. “I’ll send details of the venue to your phone.”

They’d obviously given up on any pretense of me having input. It didn’t matter. I’d made my mind up and had no intention of being there. My conscience wouldn’t allow me to deliver a dangerous weapon into anyone’s hands.

The line went dead, signaling that the man had hung up without waiting for my agreement. Perhaps they already suspected I had serious misgivings. No shit, Sherlock. I had misgivings oozing out of me. The four o’clock deadline left me less than an hour and a half before they discovered I had no intention of dancing to their tune.

Tick Tock.

The abandoned car park provided a perfect venue where I wasn’t likely to be disturbed. The mask stared up at me as I liberally doused it with petrol within the confines of the steel barrel. My thinking was straightforward. If something no longer existed, I couldn’t hand it over, could I? Problem solved. They’d be furious, but what could they do? I assumed it was a they, an organization rather than an individual.

The box of matches I pulled from my pocket was a recent purchase. Not from the same petrol station as I’d procured the petrol. I wasn’t that stupid. I lit the match and held it above the barrel, steeling myself to hear that whispered repetition of my name, a plea from the mask not to do it, but the silence was deafening. I delayed so long that a gust of wind extinguished the flame. “Fuck’s sake,” I muttered as I fumbled another one out of the box. “Just burn the fucker.”

I let the match drop, stepping backwards to avoid losing my eyebrows as the petrol caught immediately and ignited in a ball of flame. The thick, black smoke that filled the air had me coughing, the taste unpleasant. There was no stopping the quiet sense of satisfaction, though, as I retreated a safe distance away to let the fire do its job. I might have questionable morals. I might make my living in a less than legal way, but hadn’t I just proved I had limits? That when it came down to it, I wasn’t such a bad person after all? That’s what I’d continue to tell myself, anyway.

The fire burned itself out quickly. I guess it would when there’d been little else inside the barrel except for a couple of crisp packets and an old newspaper. Wafting the remaining smoke away, I leaned over the edge to inspect the ash, wanting to celebrate a job well done. The celebration was put on hold, saliva flooding my mouth in a prelude to wanting to be sick.

There was ash, but lying amongst it was the mask. Untouched. Unburnt. Looking exactly the same as when I’d placed it in there. “No, no, no, no, no,” I said as I fished it out of the barrel, a steel band tightening around my chest. How was it possible? It was a stupid question when Dice had already provided the answer. It was a powerful occult artifact, therefore normal rules didn’t apply.

I turned the mask over, inspecting the other side. Not a single burn mark marred its surface. It wasn’t even warm. The fucker was made of wood. It should have burned away to nothing within minutes. Instead, it had survived the equivalent of a petrol bomb.

“Bellamy.”

“No, you don’t,” I said as I tugged the cloth covering from my jacket pocket that I’d removed before burning. Good job I had. “Now’s not the time to talk to me. Not unless you’re going to tell me what I’m supposed to do with you?”

Silence. I laughed at my belief that it might have done exactly that. Things really were bad if I was seeking answers from inanimate objects. Mask now safely wrapped back up, I jammed it back in my jacket. A quick check of my watch showed it to be half-past three. Only thirty minutes to go before the scheduled meeting. Thirty minutes to come up with some sort of plan.

I paced for a few minutes, hoping it would help. It didn’t. I couldn’t keep the mask on me. I couldn’t take it home because that’s the first place they’d look. I couldn’t destroy it. What was it Dice had told me to do? Take it back to where I’d found it. I’d have to be an idiot to risk breaking into the same place twice, and even if I did, I’d need to wait for nightfall, which was way past the scheduled meeting time.

There was only one thing for it. I needed to hide it. But where? Where could you hide something without risking people stumbling across it? Because there was no way after its refusal to burn that I wanted anyone else getting their hands on it. Ignoring the slight tremor in my fingers as I pulled out my phone, I opened up a map of the surrounding area.

Somewhere quiet. Somewhere off the beaten track. In London, that was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Here might not have been a bad place, but there were no buildings, no bushes, and I knew for a fact that it was an area where the homeless congregated after nightfall. That’s why the steel barrel was here: they used it for a fire to keep themselves warm.

My lips curved up into a smile as I noticed something on the map. There. That was the perfect solution. I set off walking, my steps hurried. It wouldn’t solve the problem, but it would give me a bit of breathing space until I came up with a better idea.

Chapter Four

Bellamy

My phone rang again as I leaned against the bar and sipped a vodka and coke. This time, I didn’t even bother to look who it was. Baker? The person who I’d stood up? Other people in the organization demanding to know where I was? The calls had barely stopped for the last couple of hours, and I hadn’t answered a single one of them.

I drained the rest of my drink and gestured for the bartender to bring me another. He nodded, the place being half empty ensuring that delivery of it was quick. If it’d been the weekend, it would have been packed and I couldn’t decide whether that would have been better. All I knew was that I couldn’t go home. Not when Baker knew my address and would likely give it up in a heartbeat to save his own skin.

“Nice T-shirt.”

I turned to find a man had joined me at the bar. Mid thirties. Dark hair. Handsome in a business man sort of way. His compliment had me dropping my gaze to my chest, fashion not having been my primary thought when I’d gotten dressed this morning. Proof of that stared back at me in the purple T-shirt with Life is for Living emblazoned across the front in rainbow letters. It had been a present from Vicki. I assumed the rainbow letters had made him decide to have a crack at chatting me up, because it certainly hadn’t been my sunny disposition.

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