Hazardous Goods (Arcane Transport) (14 page)

Seven. One.

“It’s your Mother. Call me.”

Great. Typical friendly message from Mom. I would have to call her in the morning.

Seven. One.

“Uh, yeah. Me. Little crazy over here. Buncha idiots from the sales convention started grabbing at April. She’s one of the girls,
unbelievable
. Uh, well, they were grabbing at her, and Ivan tried to step in but one of the guys took a swing at him. They called me in, and I dragged three of these idiots out into the lot. Nothing major, lot of shoving, couple of punches thrown, but no major blood or anything. One of the other tables was starting to act up too, but, uh, hang on... let me call you...”

Huh. I punched one. Time of the call was eleven forty-eight. Nearly three hours ago. Great.

Seven. One. Time of next call – twelve seventeen.

“Christ, place has gone nuts, man.” I lay down on the sofa and closed my eyes. “If you’re not up to anything, we could use some help here. Some guy took a swing at me with a bottle. Didn’t break the skin, but I’m going to have a nasty bump in the morning. He’s a bit messed up, I took him out back, never mind that. We had to call the cops. Nice guys. They took three of the sales idiots in. Can you believe it? Morons are in from Des Moines, see a couple chicks take their thongs off and they completely lose their goddamned... Hey. Hey! Get your hand off her ass! Yeah, you! Don’t you f—!”

Seven. One. Time of next call – twelve fifty-three.

“Good news. Everything’s under control. Total fluke, man. Pete and the boys showed up. You remember the Riverview Ramblers? I mentioned at the game the other night that I would be working door, and they decided to check the place out. Things started running out of control, Melodi was about to call the cops again, and here come the boys. It was like the arrival of the goddamned cavalry. We cleared house, must have thrown out nearly twenty guys. Couple big fights in the parking lot, until Pudge – you remember Pudge, man – he pulls a crowbar out of his trunk, and they suddenly decide it’s time to hightail it out of there. Man, this place is
wild
. Most fun I’ve had in a long time.”

I sighed and punched seven. One. Time of last call – one thirty eight. I just missed him.

“Hey, where are you, man? You out with some girl or something? Just calling to say we’re closed for the night. Melodi seems happy. Sounds like they had a good night at the bar. Couple of broken chairs, but one of the guys says he can get them replaced. There’s a wholesale place off the Danforth that handles restaurant furniture – anyways, never mind. Listen, I’m going to crash at my place tonight. Or sometime tomorrow, anyway. Heh. I’m heading over to an afterhours place with Pete, a couple of guys from the team, and four of the girls. Man, these chicks are... Yeah? Sure, I’m coming. Just letting my brother know what’s up. Okay, man. See ya.”

“You have no more voice-mail messages.”

I smiled, lay my head down, and fell asleep.

I was being mocked.

“Is big Donnie scared of a little rat?”

No question, they were mocking me.

Kara and Maggie had seemed very chipper that morning, with Kara’s bright smile wider than ever.

“You two seem awfully chipper this morning.”

“Don’t try to change the topic.”

“I’m not. You just seem very happy for this time of day.”

“Why wouldn’t we? The birds are out, it’s a sunny day.” They laughed. “And Donnie is a chicken.
Donnie is a chicken. Donnie is a
—.” Maggie sang it as she wandered about the office checking that everything was in order. Quite a nice voice, truth be told.

“Alright, alright.” I admit it, I can’t take taunting. Taunt me, and you can get me to do almost anything.

I pulled the keys from my pocket as I strode to the back. Maggie followed close behind, humming her annoying little song.

“Hey, does that camera work?”

I had just remembered. A security camera mounted high on the wall in the loading bay, but turned to face the corner. Could it have caught the damned rat on tape? Maybe it swiveled.

“No. Clay just had them installed two weeks ago. We haven’t set them up yet.”

“Where else do we have cameras?”

“Reception, outside at the back, and in here. There are cameras in the front parking lot, but those are provided by the landlord. We can access them online, if you ever need to.”

Huh. Well, we would have to get the system up and running once things settled down a bit. But that wasn’t going to solve today’s problem. Mr. Rat.

Key in lock, deep breath. Open door, flick on light and enter.

Nothing.

“Where the hell are you?” I nudged the stack of carpets with a toe, then the coat rack. “For God’s sake. Must’ve gotten out somehow.”

“Or
maybe
your rat was just a little mouse, and he’s
hiding
.” Here came Kara, blonde hair bouncing with her every step.

I snorted and stepped aside. She moved toward the clothes rack, and as she was reaching out to shift a coat aside, a bright light filled the room.

When I was in grade eight, my science partner was Mike Cooke. Mike was all dork. Dungeons and Dragons club, chess on weekends, and threw a baseball like a girl. But when it came to science, no one could have a better partner. He was the mad scientist, never afraid of anything. When it came time to dissect frogs, he was in there with wires and a battery, making muscles twitch and grossing out the girls. And when our teacher introduced us to magnesium strips, well let’s just say that it was the only time in school where I experienced a fire alarm that was not a prank.

You remember that brilliant, almost painful light magnesium emits when it burns? For just a brief moment, that’s what we experienced in the Lost and Found Room.

“Jesus.” I winced at the flash, then rubbed at my eyes. The afterimage glowed, even when my eyelids were closed.

It took a good five seconds for my vision to clear enough to see around the room. I was staring at the far wall, watching a small bright ball of light darken and jitter. Gotta love it when you burn your retina out of your head. In any event, I was looking away from Kara when the next surprise came up. She announced it in the form of a shriek.

“Spider! SPIDER!”

I turned, and she charged past Maggie out of the room. The whole thing was just so bizarre I had to laugh.

“Oh, big brave guy now, are you?”

I glanced down and spotted it. A daddy longlegs. Big one. Leg span a good seven inches across. Freakish big, really. But while I can’t say I’m a fan of spiders, the daddy longlegs bother me the least. They’re all legs (hence the name). More important, they were easy to track and stomp.

That’s me, friend to nature.

I stomped.

A quick check of my shoe confirmed that Mr. Spider was indeed dead. In the off-chance that the brown goop on my shoe was not in fact his innards I checked the floor. Matching goop stain.

“He’s dead.”

“Thanks.” Kara was blushing, her porcelain skin so white that I could see the red rising ten feet away. I decided to hold back on the taunting, just in case she was better at handing it out than taking it.

That would have been the end of it all, had I not bothered to clean the floor and the bottom of my shoe. But I did, and that’s why I found myself staring intently at both for so long that Maggie spoke up.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. I think so. It’s just – this doesn’t – it sounds strange, but this doesn’t look like dead spider to me.”

It didn’t. Sure, I would expect to see brown goop. But that’s all there was. No legs. Every insect I had ever killed ended up looking like a mangled version of its original self, except those rabid little mosquitoes that disappear in a cloud of the blood they just drained from your calf. And I seem to recall that when I last stomped a longlegs, those legs kept twitching for some time afterwards. So what had happened to Mr. Spider?

“What’s up?”

“Hey, Jamar.”

“We had a spider!”

Kara went on to tell Jamar of her close call with the massive spider-beast that had been dwelling in our Lost and Found. The whole time she spoke, he had a hint of a smirk on his face.

“Well, maybe the spider and the rat are working together.”

I snorted. Smartass.

“Come over here for a second.”

I watched as he pulled his shoulders back, pumped his arms up and walked towards me like some Victorian era strongman. All he needed was a one-piece and a handlebar moustache.

“I’ll handle the little spiders, Donnie. Why don’t you go sit with Kara and the two of you can commiserate.”

“Check over by the coat-rack.”

He stepped past me and I took three quick steps back, so that I was just outside the room. If I was right, it was going to happen in just a...

Flash
.

“
A rabbit
? You’re afraid of bloody
rabbits
?”

I laughed so hard my stomach muscles hurt. Jamar and Kara were staring at me as though I had just walked out of the mental health institute, still wearing my white gown and shoes without laces. Unbelievably, Jamar had inched behind Maggie, as though seeking protection from the floppy-eared villain. All I could think of was the vorpal bunny from Monty Python and the Holy Grail (one of my all-time favorites) – “What’s he do, nibble your bum?”

By the time I was done laughing I had to wipe tears from my face. Kara was finally smiling, but Jamar looked like he was going to be sick.

“Sorry, man.” I closed the door on the rabbit. “I had a hunch.”

“Some kind of fear spell, or something?” Kara had her arms crossed, hip jutting out. I was sensing hostility.

Jamar glanced from me to Kara, sensing he was on the outside of this particular conversation. I let him in.

“Hey, not my fault! When John started going on about the rat, I was convinced we just had a pest problem. But then I couldn’t find it, and suddenly the spider shows up when Kara goes in. When I stomped out that one, it looked like that ecto-goo. Ghostbusters slime, or whatever they call it. So I figured I’d test it out on you.”

“Thanks a lot. As if I didn’t have enough crap going wrong right now.”

“Sorry, big guy.” I’d forgotten about the ring. Something to follow up on later.

“Wait a minute – how come it didn’t work on you?”

Kara’s question was a good one. Hadn’t even occurred to me, I was so caught up in the fun.

“Yeah, if it worked on Big John, Kara and me, what about you?”

“No fear, baby. No fear.”

They snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“Don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m new? Maybe the spell takes time to take effect?”

Jamar seemed to accept that as a possibility, though he looked as though he just wanted to get on with the day. Kara seemed less open to the idea. I shrugged, and gave her an apologetic look.

“Listen, why don’t you guys get started, and I’ll try and figure out what caused it.”

Jamar seemed relieved to be moving away from the Lost and Found Room. I waited until both had left the staging area, then headed in to face the killer rabbit.

As I suspected, with Jamar headed out front the rabbit was nowhere to be seen. But the second time, I had paid more attention to the magnesium-like flare. The most intense afterimage was in a very specific location, so I went straight to the spot. I parted the line of coats, cloaks and other sundries on the coat-rack, isolating one double-breasted trench coat, beige. I lifted it from the rack by the coat hook, and laid it out on one of the chairs standing along the west wall.

I felt like I was on CSI. Call it CSI Canada, with half of the episodes dedicated to investigating mysterious deaths involving hypothermia, beer, and a killer moose.

I scanned the coat front and back, looking for something,
anything
, out of the ordinary. Nothing of note. Bit of a smudge on the seat, but looked like normal wear and tear to me. Buttons, shoulder straps, belt, cuff straps – all of it looked standard to me.

I opened the coat. Burberry, so it was higher end than I could afford. Size was 36S. A little guy. Nothing in the front pockets or interior breast pockets. I lifted the jacket by the coat hanger, and balanced the tip of the hanger on my finger. Hmm. It was weighing down on one side. Felt along the hem, and that’s when I found it.

Same place I always found loose change, between the lining and the coat, right at the hem. I unzipped and removed the lining, and voila – a tiny stone egg. Wasn’t just a stray rock or gravel, it was far too smooth. Looked like a tiger’s eye, that neat mix of multiple browns and dark yellows. Small as the tip of my little finger.

It was the only anomaly I had found in the coat, but was it the cause of our haunted house? I figured a test was the only way to find out.

Three minutes later we had another phantom bunny hopping around the premises, and Jamar was packing the van at record speed.

I left the stone in the Lost and Found Room while I worked my morning route. Kara was kind enough to call Professor Irving, who called back later in the morning with some suggestions on how to defuse the damned thing. But first he gave me his thoughts on Jamar’s ring.

“I’m almost positive that it’s cursed.”

“Great.”

My sarcasm seemed to float right past the Prof.

“Not great. No. This is
serious
magic. Imbuing an object with that kind of energy requires a practitioner with considerable ability, or a significant power source. Either way, not good.”

“What do you mean, power source?”

“Think of it like having a rabid dog sicced on you. The practitioner can turn the object into a rabid dog. It bites everyone in its path, unless instructed otherwise. Or the practitioner can turn the object into a sort of alarm bell. When someone triggers the bell, a third party sends a rabid dog your way.”

“Third party?”

“A spirit or a god, notionally. In this case I haven’t been able to identify which type of curse it is, but everything I have read suggests the curse is pretty much impossible to break, unless we can locate the person who cast it in the first place.”