'Til Death (Part Seven of Fifteen)

‘Til Death

A Trick Molloy Mystery

©2009 Michael A. Stackpole

Part Seven

I awoke slowly, comforted by the scents of tea and lavender. Nothing ached. The only discomfort came from where my cheek pressed against a lace doily on the couch’s arm. A crocheted blanket covered me. I could have easily dropped back to sleep.

“So, Paddy, this is what it takes to get you to come visit?”

I opened my eyes. “You know better than that, Grandma.”

The tiny woman sat in an overstuffed chair. Bony fingers wrapped thread around a crocheting needle, then ducked the hooked end in a silver flash. She wore a grey sweater and her hair pulled back into a bun. Flower-print dress. Sensible shoes. Half-glasses and rosy cheeks that made her the picture of health.

She glanced up. “Your medicine’s there on the table. Mind not to spill.”

I sat up carefully, but didn’t have more than a touch of lingering stiffness. A small teacup and saucer, both featuring red roses, had been filled with an amber liquid. I knew better than to think it was tea.

Those who are talented require three things to work magick. First thing is your trigger: that stimulus which opens you to magick and powers it. Mine is Irish whiskey, which my grandmother knows and thoughtfully provided me. I sipped. It was some very good stuff—the remains of the bottle that helped me heal from three gunshot wounds.

The second thing is the channel through which magick manifests. Most of us only have one: fire, water, glamour, charisma. My grandmother had several, and a number of those were as rare as her multiplicity of channels. She’d even mastered of the least common channels: healing. She’d never brought anything back from the dead, but it was said her grandmother once did—and my grandmother was better than she by all accounts. My feeling almost normal marked her skill.

The last thing was the capacity to actually work great magicks. I was pretty high in power level, but Turpeluk was that much more powerful when triggered. Working big magicks was like running a marathon, and most folks had a hard time crawling. Properly triggered I might have been able to keep pace with the Russian, but I was thinking he’d have the burst of speed to finish the race.

As I mentioned, my grandmother was a bit unusual. Tea was her trigger, but different varieties and strengths gave her access to different channels. She’d somehow worked it all out. Her pantry held more kinds of tea than I even knew existed, and she brewed them with the skill and precision of a research scientist.

I set my cup back on the saucer. “Who fetched me?”

She gave me a glare. “Now, are you suggesting, Paddy, that I was needing any help?”

“No, Grandma, but I know you’d not be driving down to Little Moscow all by yourself. You have more sense.”

“More sense than you, Padraig.” She set her lace down and drank some of her tea. Identical cup to mine, save the roses were yellow. “Seems you were making someone very angry.”

“Trying to do a favor for a friend.” I drank a bit more of the whiskey. It burned going down, but spread warmth and power through my limbs. “This is one I may not be able to do all by myself.”

“Perhaps you should be asking that woman you’ve been seeing for some help.” Little bit of hurt in her voice. “I like to know your friends, Paddy. I’ve liked them all, save for the one.”

“And I’ll be bringing Natalia around to meet you, I promise.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Is she the one you’re helping?”

“Lou Sandberg.”

“Oh, I remember him. A nice boy. He arrested your uncle Tommy, didn’t he?”

“He didn’t have a choice, Grandma. Tommy knocked over a Krispy Kreme. Right in front of Lou.”

My grandmother nodded. “Yes, Tommy never was fiercely bright, was he?”

“No.” My uncle had been on the way to rob First Federal, but was hungry. He figured that as long as he had a note already written out, he’d rob the donut shop till and get a half-dozen donuts to snack on at the bank.

I pulled the afghan off and folded it. “Is he here, Grandma?”

“You don’t want to be bothering him, Patrick Molloy.”

I shivered. When she uses both halves of my name, she is serious. If she’d tossed in my middle and my confirmation names, it would be a decree with the weight of a fatwah. I had a narrow chance to convince her to let me speak to him.

“I don’t want to be bothering him, Grandma, not at all. The guys who beat me up, they have Lou’s wife. They want Lou to steal cocaine for them in exchange. I know it’s going to go badly, but I owe Lou. He saved my life.”

She took a deep breath. “You don’t understand, Patrick, what this does to him.”

“Oh, I do, Grandma. Please.” I stood. “He’s up in the spare room, right?”

“If he tells you no, it’s no. You understand that.”

“I do.”

“You can go then.” She looked up at me. “And you’ll be bringing your Natalia by very soon, yes?”

“Count on it.” I crossed, kissed the top of her head, then smiled. “And, thank you, I feel great.”

“Finish your medicine, then see your cousin.”

She wasn’t just being polite. I drained the cup and almost asked for the rest of the bottle. Most men wouldn’t want to meet Loki Molloy sober.

I didn’t want to see him untriggered despite the fact that, last I knew, he liked me.

I took the stairs two at a time, but slowed as I approached the upper floor’s front room. I knocked very softly, then opened the door slowly. No noise. No surprise.

My cousin Loki is one of those guys that folks are inclined to like at first glance. Painfully handsome, but not vain. Tall, slender and elegant, if he was an actor they’d cast him as James Bond and it would be “Sean who?” Great tenor voice, too, and loves swapping jokes. My age, and when we hit high school, half the girls and a dozen of the teachers had crushes on him.

For a year it was paradise.

Then he discovered his talent.

He sat in a big chair wearing flannel pants, a Cashmere sweater and fuzzy bunny slippers. The room itself had a cloying sweetness about it—half herbal sachet, half Thomas Kinkaid painting. A diabetic walking into the room would have keeled over.

Only modern things in the room were the television and DVD player. Cartoons were showing. Warner Brothers, Disney, lots of bright colors, but nothing too exciting. Which was good. Last time I’d been here it had been a steady diet of Teletubbies.

“How you doing, Loki?”

He didn’t bother to look up. “Get out of here, Trick.”

“I need your help.”

He shook his head slowly. “Can’t help you.”

“The Russian is the nastiest piece of work I’ve ever seen.”

“Present company excepted?”

I squatted down. “You came and got me.”

“Grandma made me some tea. Even so, finding you was easy. Getting away was the hard part.”

I opened my hands. “This one you can take your kid-gloves off.”

He half-smiled. “You don’t listen. Taking ’em off ain’t the problem. Getting ’em back on is.”

“Loki…”

He met my stare with eyes full of despair. “No, Trick. I can’t. You understand?”

I didn’t want to, but I did.

I turned to leave.

My grandmother was there with a cup of tea. I let her past, then closed the door on the last chance for Irina.

If you are enjoying this story and were wondering how we got here, please visit the Stormwolf Store. The short story “The Witch in Scarlet” is the Trick Molloy tale that immediately precedes this one.