Page 14 of Fortress
Tobias looked down, feeling heat flush his face. Glancing to make sure no one was close enough to overhear, he whispered, “D-do you think—the A-ASC will come? Like he said?”
“Hey.” Jake tightened his grip, his voice also pitched low. “Don’t worry about that, dude. Mostly those attention hounds go after bigger fish. Whatever brings in the dough or is already on the nightly news. ’Sides, I grew up dodging those assholes. I’ve got a sixth sense for whenever they’re within a mile. They decide to take up this case, we’ll be a couple counties away before they book a motel room.”
“Okay.” Tobias took in a full breath, trying to relax. They hadn’t yet run into any other hunters on a case, but Mr. Krueger’s remark was a sharp reminder that a lot of civilians were perfectly capable of spotting supernatural evidence anddialing the ASC hotline. Tobias had to trust Jake and stay focused if they wanted to wrap up the hunt before anyone else got wind of it. “W-we’re going to have to wait on t-the research until the library opens tomorrow, b-but we have a witness who works on this street we can question. Do you remember Rob O’Malley?”
“Yeah, that guy who’s related to most of the victims through blood, marriage, and shopping addiction? The one with the junk shop?”
Tobias managed a smirk and attempted to match the aloof tone of one of the mothers they’d talked to earlier. “He prefersantique boutique.”
Jake snorted. “I bet he does.”
Rob’s Antique Boutique, the much-discussed pawn shop and secondhand store, was a block down from the diner, right where the small town’s main tourist street morphed from gift shops, cafes, and quaint streetlights into the humdrum of Subway and Walmart.
The copper chimes that rang as they stepped through the door were fashioned in the shape of little Día de los Muertos skulls, grinning out through their patina of green.
Jake narrowed his eyes at them and glanced at Tobias. “I’m gonna talk to Robbie. Watch my back, maybe case the rest of the joint?”
Tobias nodded. “Should I look for anything in particular?”
“Anything that looks suspicious, supernatural, or like a good deal.” Jake glared at a dusty stuffed emu that had somehow, hideously, been worked into a coffee table. “Though there’s a hell of a lot of suspicious in here.”
Tobias smiled. “I’ll manage. And let you know if I find any evidence of the imminent commie invasion.”
“You guys were talking to old man Krueger!”
The Hawthornes whirled, Tobias’s hands rising defensively, Jake’s twitching toward his pistol. But the guy who had spoken was grinning at them with crooked teeth and a sleeveless white undershirt.
“Your mama ever tell you it’s not nice to sneak up on people?” Jake demanded.
“She told me not to listen in on other people’s conversations too, but it didn’t stick. Know how I know you was talking to old man Krueger? Because he’s the only guy I know who worries about commies.”
Jake let his hand fall from the butt of his gun. “Are you Rob O’Malley?”
“In the flesh.” The guy plucked his shirt away from his thin chest, still grinning. “And not much of that.”
“I’ve got some questions for you,” Jake said and nodded slightly at Tobias.
Sure that Jake would be able to handle one witness who seemed more... peculiar than argumentative, Tobias turned away to investigate the rest of the store.
The first few phrases that came to his mind (hoarder’s stash;dragon or kobold lair) were probably not what a real would use to describe the piles of bent metalwork, chipped china, rusted nails, and unpolished glass lamps without bulbs hanging from the ceiling, sometimes low enough that Tobias had to duck his head to avoid them. Jake would probably have called it junk, but as Tobias moved between the irregular shelves and small tables crammed two-deep in figurines fashioned out of pop cans, he found something comforting about it: so manythingsin one place, reals’ things that might have passed their usefulness but were still there, given a second chance in this little shop. It reminded him a little of Roger’s scrapyard.
With Jake’s and O’Malley’s voices fading behind him, the smell of dust and rust and strong tea mingling in the air, Tobiaswas pretty sure there was nothing particularly evil in this place. Strange things, maybe (like the wooden figurine of a small, smiling man whose round stomach had been carved out to make a cup holder), but nothing truly evil.
That was when he saw it: the glint and curve of bright metal, half-buried in a carpet of felted birds, beasts, and flowers.
Cautious, checking around for any reals watching him, Tobias picked it up.
The coin looked handmade, a little bigger than a quarter. The surface was inscribed as a compass with eight arrows, four big and four small, marking each direction with small letters: N, E, S, W. The circumference was a little uneven, one side thicker than the other, but the metal was solid and sturdy.
It felt heavy and cool in his hand, a good weight, the back worn smooth as though someone had rubbed it down over time.
A small ring pierced a hole in the coin directly above the N for north, like it might have been intended to attach to a key chain. But as Tobias held it in his palm, another idea came to him.
A moment ago, he’d stopped by a stand with a collection of chains—not the ugly things meant to hurt and confine that he’d grown up with, but thinner and far more refined, glinting prettily. The kind meant for reals. He’d studied their clasps, how easily they could be opened with just his thumb and forefinger, and one in particular had caught his eye because it was connected only by two small, round magnets.
He liked that one best because it was the safest. Any strong jerk would break it apart, so it couldn’t be used to hurt or trap the wearer.
Not daring to think too much about it, he brought the ring connecting the compass coin to the end of the silver chain with the magnetic clasp. At first, it didn’t look like it would fit—the ring was too small to fit around the end of the magnet. But then he saw how the magnet unscrewed with a twist of his fingers,allowing him to drop the coin onto the chain before reattaching the magnet end.
