Harpoc points ahead, toward the wood shack, and I follow him across the bare dirt yard, up the rickety steps, and onto the porch. He knocks on the door, and I survey the area while we wait. The place seems deserted. Only three dirty, white-haired goats stare at us, chewing their cud behind a primitive fence, to the right, not far away.
Harpoc takes to pounding when no one’s appeared in a couple minutes.
But seconds later, I spot a half-dressed boy—despite the chill he’s got no coat nor shoes—dart behind an old pickup parked beside the goats’ corral. I’m no good at guessing kids’ ages but I’d put him between eleven and twelve.
“King Rose…” I whisper, then nod.
A chicken in our path squawks as we hurry it to join its fellows, as we descend the steps and head toward where the boy disappeared.
We navigate through a section of waist-high, potted-nursery-graduates that look ready to join the rest of the crop before long, and finally find the guy Harpoc has been looking for, at least I assume it’s who he seeks.
A middle-aged, burgundy-turbaned man sits sideways to us, stroking his long beard, puffing on the profits, under a shade tree, before a smoldering fire. His gut tells me he’s not starving despite the modest surroundings.
I take in a tattoo of Islamic writing with a dragon breathing fire that graces his neck. It sends a shiver up my back.
From the six java cups resting on a host of old wood cores arranged in a circle, he hasn’t been alone long. The coffee’s probably still hot.
“Stay here and watch your back,” Harpoc whispers, sauntering toward the dude who’s turned his head toward us.
I scan the clearing. The missing men could be hiding anywhere, and a chill runs up my back.
You wanted adventure, Pell.
Shush.
I swallow hard and scrutinize, for any signs of movement, the chest-high weed that surrounds the clearing.
Harpoc stops before the guy and says, “Zeki, you’re a hard one to find.”
“King of Roses, why are you here?” Zeki asks, sitting up.
“You know why.” Harpoc takes a commanding stance, legs spread, staring down his nose at the guy.
“I did what you asked.” Zeki puts out his joint on the side of the stump playing it cool, but I distinctly see his hand tremble.
“You sure about that? You don’t sound like someone who wants to keep this secret of yours hidden.” Harpoc crosses his arms, his duster shifting.
He hasn’t told me word one about the whole secret-keeping business so far, including his role in it, and I listen intently.
Zeki stands, an elbow of his gray shirt peeking through his red and black wool plaid jacket. “You said you’d make my operation appear legal if I gave you a fifty percent cut.”
That’s the kind of secret Harpoc deals in with this guy?
Harpoc told me to watch and learn. I am definitely learning, because it’s the first time I realize there’s a cost involved in hiding a secret. I suppose it is a “service,” so I guess it makes sense, but still, what kind of shady business is it?
Although fifty percent sounds like extortion. Would Harpoc really do that to someone?
I wonder what the sphinx or Zephyr or Midas had to pay.
Harpoc chuckles. “That I did, and I have, exactly as we sealed your secret. But your partners have started selling the crop and you’re not including that in my share of the profits.”
Zeki raises his hands. “Fifty percent’s a lot of money.”
“You knew that before you agreed to my conditions. No one held a weapon to your head forcing you to make the deal.”
“I know but…” The guy’s voice is turning whiny. I can’t stand whiny.
Zeki isn’t disputing the facts. So he’s reneging.
But my mind’s still spinning. I’ve been thinking some ancient dude or dudes scribed a secret, and Harpoc’s tasked with preserving them. But this conversation feels like what I’ve deduced so far about secret magic—cleaning, shielding, healing, and more—and Harpoc’s involvement in it is all in support of what suddenly feels like the heart of it because…
Harpoc has some sort of power to hide secrets, too… today.
And if that’s the case…
My stomach clenches.
What part might Harpoc play in the political double standards that make me steam?
Chapter Thirty
The thought blows my mind and my breathing hitches.
Harpoc hid Zeki’s secret, recently. My brain starts following the path. Whatever it means to hide a secret, he did it recently.
We’ve been chasing down ancient secrets, or rather the results of them being revealed.
I’m not saying I understand the half of that, but I can wrap my head around something being recent. Harpoc’s here, in the now, and he did whatever he did to keep this guy’s illegal crop secret from the government.
Yes, the government. My thoughts drift to secrets that politicians have these days that create a whole array of double standards. Double standards that drive me ballistic.
I grind my teeth and my shoulders tense.
Is Harpoc at the center of all of it?
How does hiding a secret even work? I know my mind can get really creative, but I’m at a complete and total loss to figure this one out.
Is that why he’s so secretive? The question rises unbidden, and I almost laugh, almost.
I’ve trusted him, but has he been withholding all sorts of things from me? Things he knows tee me off?
I shift from one foot to the
