The Bone Triangle Read online

  I couldn’t be sure, but I thought the tug had come from in front of me and pulled the bill away over my wrist. I stuffed my cash down to the bottom of my front pocket, did an about-face, and started walking the way I’d come. Eyes wide, I watched everything—every shadow, every object on the street. I had no idea how the trick had been performed, but I was sure I’d just been hit by someone’s power. I’d met up with enough people with artifacts to know the signs.

  The stretch of sidewalk I was on ran between two of the big casinos. It wasn’t exactly dark, but it wasn’t lit up like a carnival funhouse, either. Much of the Strip rippled with blinking lights and blaring music. This particular region was relatively quiet. I listened closely. Artifacts rarely had much range. Whoever had performed this vile trick on me was probably still nearby.

  “I know you’re here,” I said, “and I’m going to find you.”

  That did it. I heard slapping feet. I didn’t see anyone, but I heard light shoes on concrete. I sped up, beginning to trot.

  That’s when I saw it, as a car drove by. The headlights splashed the wall of a closed head shop to my left. I grinned, seeing the stark shadow of a running person. The shadow was there, but the person wasn’t. The thief was invisible, as least to my eyes. But somehow, the runner threw a full shadow on the wall when the bright headlights hit her. The running shadow was tall, thin, and had long flowing hair.

  I rushed forward, pretending I didn’t have any idea where the invisible trickster was. Then, when I thought I was at about the right point, I lunged to my left, sweeping my arms in a wide motion. My fingers made contact.

  “Gotcha!” I shouted triumphantly. I got an arm around her waist—at least I figured it was her waist. I still couldn’t see her.

  She screamed, and I knew I’d caught myself a rogue. She scratched me, and I threw her down, feeling a trifle bad about it. I couldn’t take the chance she’d claw my eyes out when I couldn’t see her. I knelt and put my hands on her back, holding her down. I figured even if she had a weapon, it would be hard to shoot me from that position.

  “Get off me,” she said. She sounded pissed off.

  I smiled, shaking my head. “Are you going to give me back my money, Jacqueline?” I asked.

  She stopped thrashing around. I had the palm of my hand pressed down on her back, and I felt her ribs heaving under my fingers in a near panic.

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  “Quentin Draith,” I said. “Turn off your trick. I can see you anyway.”

  “Can you see this?”

  I chuckled. “You’re giving me the finger, right?”

  Jacqueline let herself become visible then, and I smiled down at her. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You could really see me? How?”

  “I lied,” I said. “The finger was just a lucky guess.”

  For some reason, this made her angry again. Maybe it was the grin on my face. “Help!” she screamed. “Somebody get this rapist off me!”

  That worked. I stood up quickly and let her climb to her feet. A few passersby took notice and stopped walking. That was the first phase, I knew. When witnessing a crime, most potential heroes didn’t charge right in. They stood and stared for a moment, figuring out what they were looking at. Then, if it looked safe enough, or if they were brave enough, they might approach, shouting at the attacker. Before reaching that stage, however, they would pull out a cell and call the cops.

  “I’m calling McKesson,” I said, pulling out my own cell phone. “If the cops come, I’ll make sure he’ll get his hands on you. He’ll strip you down to your undies, and you won’t be getting out of his car a second time.”

  She looked at me with big blue eyes. They weren’t happy eyes. “Here,” she said, holding out my hundred dollar bill. “Take this. We’ll call it even.”

  I took the money and stuffed it away. “Did you really need a hundred bucks that badly?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “No. It was kind of a joke. I usually lift a map or something from a tourist. The look on people’s faces is priceless.”

  Now that we were talking calmly, the staring people started moving again. They put away their cells and walked off, talking among themselves and casting frequent glances our way. I felt a wave of relief. Things might have gone much worse.

  “Truce?” I asked. “How about if I buy you a cup of coffee?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I was robbing you, not asking for a date.”

  “In that case, you can buy the coffee.”

  She gave a puff of laughter and pushed her hair out of her face. “You were a bastard, knocking me down like that.”

  “Sorry. I couldn’t see you, remember? I didn’t know what I was up against. You might have been armed.”

  “Are you a cop? You tackled me like a cop.”

  “I get that a lot. But no, I’m not.”

  We found a place and sat down in a booth across from one another. She was quite attractive, and my earlier surge of anger faded. Having my hundred bucks back in my pocket had improved my attitude, too.

  “So,” I said, “let’s see what I can figure out from what I know about your story. You were happy as a rich girl in college, but that ended and then people expected you to get a job. Getting a job is tough these days—especially for people with degrees in…” Here, I stopped and gestured for her to fill in the blank.

  “Cognitive studies,” she said unhappily.

  “Exactly. Soon, you were upper-twenties, with Mom urging you to find a nice man with an MBA to marry. Am I getting warm here?”

  She crossed her arms and shrugged.

  “Somewhere along the way, you discovered this artifact…” I said, pausing in hopes she would identify it. She did not, she merely nodded. I continued, hiding my disappointment. “You found a new source of joy in life, and began playing a few tricks. You were low on money, as Mom wasn’t interested in upping your allowance years after graduation. Maybe at first, you only took a few candy bars—”

  “Shoes,” she said. “It was shoes. They’re insanely expensive.”

  “Right. And then maybe Mom discovered this horde of ill-gotten shoes and the questions flew. Questions you couldn’t answer. So, you decided to strike out on your own. Who needs a bedroom and a curfew when you can go invisible and take whatever you need?”

  Jacqueline shook her head and sipped her coffee. “It wasn’t exactly like that, but you are close enough. Are you done?”

  “Almost. The power has a flaw, it seems. It only clouds the mind of those who see you. They can’t see you—can’t notice you. But they can still see physical effects like shadows. Worse, cameras aren’t affected at all. There are videos all over town of you stealing things. You figured this out and panicked.”

  She was staring at me now, impressed. She licked her lips. “There is no way you know all this just from running into me. What’s your story?”

  I threw her picture down on the table between us and sipped my coffee. It was hot, but tasted like plastic. For once, I wished I’d ordered one loaded with sugar and cream.

  “My mom hired you,” she said, staring at the picture. “And I have to admit, you are incredibly good at finding people. What do you have?”

  I shrugged.

  “Come on,” she said, leaning close. “I know other people must have something magical like I do. You know all about it, so give me a hint. You’ve got to have something.”

  I thought about it for a second. One rule almost all rogues develop eventually is a very tight lip when it comes to the nature of their own artifacts. But I wanted more from her, so I figured I would have to give a little bit.

  I took out a red plastic cube from my pocket. It was a six-sided die. Each of the pips was drilled into the plastic and painted white. I rolled it on the table between us, and it clattered. I rolled a five.

  “Roll it,” I said.

  “Dice? That’s your power? What do they do?”

  “Just try it.”

  She took up t
he die with her eyes brightly lit. For the first time since I met her, she seemed entranced. The artifacts were like that—they often filled a person with greed. As she took it up, I half expected her to vanish and run off with my die. It didn’t have any power, of course. I had no intentions of handing over a real item of power to a thief I’d just met.

  She rolled a four. I took the die from the table and shook it in my hand.

  “Name a number,” I said.

  “What? Oh, um…six.”

  I used the power of the wedding ring and rolled a six. I picked the die up and repeated the stunt four more times. Each time, she named a number and I rolled that exact number.

  “That is pretty cool,” she admitted, “but I don’t see how this led you to me.”

  I smiled. “It’s not just about rolling what you want,” I said. “It’s about odds—luck in general.”

  Her eyes widened again. “You mean…you can, like, win the lottery if you want to?”

  I put away the red die. Her eyes followed it as I did so. “Sort of. Anyway, I showed you mine.”

  “Okay, yeah, you did. Now what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you going to try to drag me back to my mom?”

  I shook my head. “No, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to take your picture with my cell.”

  “To prove you found me?”

  “Exactly.”

  She let me do it, and gave me a big smile and the finger as my phone flashed. I laughed. She was a wild one, all right. I felt a certain attraction toward her. I liked the wild ones. I knew it was a personality flaw, but I couldn’t help it. I sent the picture to Karen Swanson electronically. That should be worth another five thousand. I wouldn’t call it easy money, but I’ve had worse days.

  When Jacqueline and I left the restaurant it was about midnight.

  “Where are you headed?” I asked.

  “Have you got a car?”

  I shook my head.

  She frowned. “You can roll whatever you want with dice, and you don’t have a car?”

  “The casinos catch on eventually. They have cameras, and they remember faces. They aren’t too thrilled with me.”

  “I see,” she said, looking at me oddly.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “That you and I are quite a bit alike.”

  I didn’t really agree, but I knew what she meant.

  “I guess this is where we go our own ways,” she said.

  I looked at her and nodded. I pulled out my cell phone. “Your mother thought you might be in trouble. I can see you are—but only through faults of your own. You don’t need rescuing at the moment.”

  “I thank you for recognizing that fact.”

  “But I was hired to help you if you needed the help. So here, let’s exchange info. If you need me you can call this number.”

  We tapped data into two tiny screens. Suddenly, she leaned close to me and kissed me. I blinked in surprise. She pulled back, beaming up at me. “Thanks a lot for finding me. Just tell Mom I’m fine, and I’ll come back when I’m really, really bored. Bye now!”

  I caught her wrist with my left hand. She gasped and sputtered. I held out my hand.

  “Give it back,” I said.

  She looked embarrassed and I let go of her. A small red cube fell out of her hand into my waiting palm. She’d dug it out of my pocket while covering the move with that surprise kiss.

  “Do you really need a lucky die when you can already go invisible?” I asked her in annoyance.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know—I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.”

  “The objects make most people want them. Fight the feeling, you’ll live longer.”

  Jacqueline cocked her head to one side and eyed me. “You don’t seem as curious about my source of power. Why is that?”

  “I said most people want them. I feel it, too, but I can control my greed.”

  She nodded and walked away down the Strip. The red die didn’t have any powers, but I was still annoyed since she’d tried to rob me twice within the span of an hour.

  I reached the corner and stood under a stoplight, waiting for the red hand to change into the green walking man. I glanced back, but she wasn’t in sight. I felt a pang of regret. I told myself I should have been nicer to her as we parted. I shook my head, trying to erase all thoughts of Jacqueline Swanson. It was difficult. She’d looked good in her picture and even better in person. Why was I always attracted to troublemakers?

  I pulled out my cell and phoned the woman’s mother to give her the good news, in case she hadn’t read her e-mail yet. There was no answer, so I texted her the photo again and a brief message asking when we should meet. I could really use another five thousand about now.

  The next problem was one of sleeping arrangements. I was getting tired, and I was still sore from Cartoon’s fists. A normal man would be swollen and marked up, but my bruises were already fading. I always healed fast, a power given to me by an old photograph that may or may not be a picture of me as a baby. That one I kept taped against my skin. I possessed four artifacts in all: the sunglasses, the photo, the wedding ring, and one more that was weird enough to get me arrested if it was ever found. This last artifact was a dead alien’s finger. It caused other people’s powers to fail when used against me directly. It didn’t stop effects like Jacqueline’s invisibility or the cat-assassin’s thrown projectiles. Just powers that came at me head-on like fireballs and mental attacks. I wore it like a talisman, hung in a tiny vial around my neck on a leather thong.

  I walked to the south end of the Strip where the hotels were cheap and small. Taking a room at a place that had a sleeping sheep as a logo, I paid with the cash I’d gotten back from Jacqueline and went in to take a shower. I took all my special items with me, of course, and locked the door.

  After a steamy fifteen minutes, I felt a lot better. I came out rubbing a towel on my head.

  “You take forever to shower,” a female voice said.

  I stopped rubbing my wet hair and jerked my head up. Jacqueline stood in the room. She had my gun in one hand and my red die in the other.

  I stared at her, taking it all in. I’d taken my real items of power into the bathroom—but not my gun. I was slipping up.

  “Could you aim that somewhere else?” I asked.

  “Could you put your clothes on?”

  We both complied with the other’s wishes. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. There were moments when I felt I could have safely attacked her and taken her down, but I didn’t. I wanted to know why she was in my room.

  “I was under the impression that our date was over,” I said. “I hadn’t taken you for the stalker type.”

  She snorted. She threw the red die on the table. It bounced and clattered. When it came to rest, it displayed two white dots on top.

  “Do you know what number I wished to roll?” she asked.

  “A seven?”

  “A five. You lied. I tried this thing, like, twenty times. It never rolls what I want—well, almost never. It did twice in a row once, and I thought I had it. After that, nothing. You conned me. This die doesn’t do anything, does it?”

  “You followed me all the way down here and snuck into my room. How the hell did you do that?”

  She looked slightly proud. “I was there when you checked in. I saw what room they gave you—then I stole the extra key.”

  I walked over to the red die on the table. I considered jumping her then. I was very close. I figured she might not know enough about guns to shoot me with my .32. I considered my chances—they were pretty good. If she did hit me, I would probably heal up before I died. But still, it would hurt a lot. Sadly, none of my objects gave me the power to ignore pain.

  “So, is this a robbery, or what?”

  “No,” she said, placing the gun on the table.

  I snatched it up the moment she did so. She watched me warily. “Why do you have a gun, anyway?”

&nbs
p; “To shoot nosy people who break into my room.”

  She laughed nervously. “I came because I want to know more. You bullshitted me a bit back there at the restaurant. I don’t blame you for that. I wouldn’t trust me, either. So, forget about how your powers work. I don’t care. Just help me understand mine. Tell me how these objects work. How many are there? Who has them? So many questions! After you walked off, I couldn’t stand it. I want to know—everything!”

  “Do you have money?”

  “Some, yeah. Why?”

  “Go buy a twelve-pack of beer and bring it back. And get yourself something, too. What do you like? Wine coolers?”

  She made a face. “Champagne.”

  “Okay, go buy some of the best. Bring it back here. We’ll talk. It will take awhile.”

  Her face lit up again, but she was still suspicious. “You’ll really be here when I get back? You aren’t just saying this to ditch me?”

  “I should ditch you. I have every reason in the world to do so. But I’m not that bright.”

  Jacqueline squinted at me, trying to read my meaning.

  “I’ll still be here,” I said gently.

  She left, and I stretched out on the bed, wondering what I was getting myself into.

  I told her the whole story. All about the artifacts and how they were made. She’d learned about the nuclear tests out in the Nevada desert from school, but I filled in the blanks I had pieced together. As best I and others could surmise, those tests had disrupted the physics on this part of the planet.

  “Possibly, they did more than just develop the atomic bomb out here. I think they tried other experiments—maybe tests that weren’t successful. I think they woke up some things. Bad things.”

  Jacqueline looked at me thoughtfully. “So these items with strange powers only seem to show up around here? In southern Nevada?”

  “As far as anyone I’ve met knows, it is restricted to this area.”

  “But why isn’t the government in on it? Aren’t there scientists and reporters trying to dig deeper?”

  I shrugged. “It’s not under the jurisdiction of any official group. I think the FBI rolls their eyes at the reports coming out of this town. I think the really wild stuff gets buried along with the hoaxes and crackpots. Imagine if Bigfoot were real—he’d have a hard time getting an interview today after so many people have embarrassed themselves publicly with false evidence. I’m sure these events have been brought to the attention of the media, but they assume it’s all nonsense. In the end, freak events are reported on websites like mine, for the most part. They might get mentioned on midnight radio stations after that; then someone in the mainstream media looks at it, laughs, and the report is forgotten.”