sometimes he saved his considerable skin. He always survived.
The customers bought lottery tickets and wandered out. Belgor’s eyes shifted within fat-folded lids, his long, pointed ears flexing down. We tolerated each other, our association based on needs we wished we could satisfy elsewhere.
“You should clear your sidewalk, Belgor. Someone might get hurt,” I said.
He folded thick arms over his ample stomach. “I do not have a sidewalk, Mr. Grey.”
He was right, technically. Calvin Place was too narrow to have sidewalks. I dropped the newspaper on the counter. “Kind of interesting.”
His eyes scanned the headlines. “Fighting has always been a way of life here.”
I turned the newspaper back to face me, pretending to read the article. “True. And death,” I said.
Belgor pumped his fleshy lips. “You more than anyone knows that.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a dig or not. “I have a question for you, Belgor. Actually, it’s your expertise I need to consult.”
Belgor rolled his wide expanse of shoulders. “I am a simple store merchant, Mr. Grey.”
“Can we cut the bullshit for once, Belgor? I need an answer on something, and if you know something, I’ll be out of here faster than this conversation is going.”
His ears flexed down and back. “And here I thought this was a social call from a dear old friend. What can I do for you?”
I leaned down and withdrew the dagger from my right boot and placed it on the counter. “What can you tell me about this?”
Belgor’s face smoothed in surprise, and his ears shot up. “Where did you get it?”
“That’s not important. I want to hear what you have to say without any context,” I said.
As he reached for the dagger, his hand trembled. A few runes etched in the blade lit with a cool blue light, and Belgor withdrew his hand. “A moment,” he said.
He maneuvered his large mass sideways behind the corner and ducked behind the curtain that led to his back room. He returned wearing an antique pair of jeweler’s glasses, a wired contraption that hooked around his ears. Thin metal arms jutted from the bridge and ended with polished lenses that hovered several inches from his eyes. He used a thick cloth embedded with glass to pick up the dagger. “It’s an old blade out of Faerie. The markings indicate it has passed through several hands.”
“Enchanted swords were a dime a dozen in Faerie,” I said.
“Not like this. There are ancient magics on this blade from more than one source. I do not recognize some of these runes,” Belgor said.
“Does it have a name?” I asked. Swords—important ones anyway—often had names in the deep past. They commemorated great battles or where they were fought, famous people who owned them or died. The dagger was hard to read. While runes covered parts of the blade and pommel, they seemed related to spells. I hadn’t been able to tease a name out.
Belgor hummed, tilting his head up and down to adjust his vision through the lenses. “I see many references to chaos and….” He frowned. “It is hard to say. The phrasing is old, like Old Elvish or even Gaelic. Break? Notch? Perhaps, a gap between two forces.”
“Gap?” I said. That’s the word Brokke had used when he spoke of the darkness within me. He called it the Gap that arose in the moment between the end and the beginning of the Wheel of the World.
Belgor shifted the blade and sighted down its length. “Perhaps. How did this come into your possession?”
“It was a gift, a loan of sorts,” I said. When Briallen had given it to me, I had sensed its age and value, and thought it was too much to accept. I took it on the condition I could give it back to her when I was done with it. I wasn’t sure I regretted that decision now, but it might not have been one of my best. I had no idea at the time that I was binding myself to the blade with a geasa—a form of taboo that would have ruinous consequences if I broke it.
Belgor placed the dagger back on the counter. “Someone did you no favor. I do not know this blade, which, I must say, concerns me. There is something of the Wheel about it, something dire. I do not think it serves the wielder but purposes beyond our ken. How much do you want for it?”
That made me laugh. “Like I said, it’s not really mine to give.”
“I do not think it is anyone’s to give, Mr. Grey. Things like this appear where they need to. It will be difficult to move, but I am sure it will find its next possessor,” he said.
“I wanted confirmation that it was as old as I thought it was,” I said.
“Older than any I have seen. I would not use it. Such things appear at times of war and chaos, and bode no good thing,” he said.
I pushed away from the counter. His words echoed Brokke’s too much for comfort. “Thanks, Belgor. Keep your head down. I’d hate to see you get caught in the middle of a war zone.”
Belgor nodded. “I have lived a long, long time, Mr. Grey. When you realize war is imminent, it is already too late to stop it.”
When I reached the door, he called my name. “It occurs to me that you do not seem yourself.”
It would be an overstatement to say that Belgor sounded sincere, but that he was inquiring about me personally surprised the hell out of me. “How do you mean?”
“You seem to be lacking a certain passion in our interaction. I am in your debt, as you know. If there is anything I can do, let me know.”
I didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t smiling, so it wasn’t all warm and fuzzy between us. I had covered up his involvement in a pretty high-profile crime that would have sent him to prison. Whatever Belgor’s motivations, he saw that as an obligation to me. If even he thought I wasn’t myself and was concerned that I wasn’t, then maybe I needed to take a step back for some serious reassessment.
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Outside, the harsh, white sliver of sky between the buildings cast the street in stark, grim light. Spring was having a hard time wrenching winter out of the air. I hesitated at the end of the street as nonchalantly as possible without looking paranoid. Checking my surroundings was second nature at that point in my life and, given recent events, was fast becoming my first nature.
Pittsburgh Street stretched in both directions. Not far off was a door to a basement where I had hidden the stone bowl that generated essence. The dark mass in my head yearned for essence, and the bowl had provided enough to take the edge off my pain. It also filled a deep physical need, one that had clear addiction issues revolving around it. When I had first picked the hideout location, it was convenient to my apartment. In a few short blocks, I was able to sate the urge. Now, my apartment wasn’t safe, and the Tangle was far enough down Old Northern that a quickie wasn’t feasible. It would have been a shame to miss the opportunity.
On this end of the neighborhood, the streets between Congress and Old Northern were longer than the average city block. Warehouses fronted on Stillings and Pittsburgh, with a long central alley between them. At various points along the way, access lanes allowed egress to the back. I ducked down the nearest one, no more than a pedestrian tunnel four feet wide.
The main alley was a picture of waste and abandonment—dumpsters long gone to rust, wood pallets gone gray, and businesses just gone. Belgor’s was the closest thing to a legitimate business on the block. At night, the darkened warehouses came alive with music and dancing down near Congress. Things people didn’t like to think about happened on this end, both day and night. I walked past boarded-up doors and windows, picking up my pace the closer I got to the squat.
A gunshot echoed up the alley, the sound slapping back and forth against the bricks, growing fainter and fainter as it reached me. Gunfire was not unusual in the Weird, during the day it was less common, though.
I hesitated, considering what I was about to do. I’d told myself I wouldn’t do it anymore, wouldn’t seek out the essence in the stone bowl like some junkie after a fix. I’d told myself that it wasn’t me that wanted it, but the dark mass in my head. I’d told myself that giving in to the urge was giving in to the dark mass, giving in to baser wants that I had left behind. I’d told myself all that, yet found myself drawn to the bowl like a moth to flame.
I put my back to the alley, still hesitating. I wasn’t going to do it. I wasn’t going to give in to the dark mass, give in to its control. I wasn’t going to be manipulated like that.
A shot rang out, and this time I jumped at its nearness, the distinct sound of a ricochet off metal close by,
