Maggie for Hire (5 page)

I looked at her, “You realize I’m still armed, right?”

“What?” she asked, batting her eyes.  “He’s cute.”

“He’s a fucking elf,” I said, tossing a couple throwing stars onto the mirrored dressing table.

“Well, at least I know why I haven’t seen you for so long.”

“You’re starting to sound like Mom,” I warned, pointing a stake at her.

“How is she doing?” Mindy asked with such warmth and love.  Evidently, absence makes the heart grow forgetful of all the passive aggressive guilt or something.

I sighed, “Crazy as ever.  Don’t you two talk on the phone, like, every day?”

“But I just wonder how she’s doing, for real.”

I gave a shrug, “She seems to be holding up well.  Barely mentions Dad anymore, so at least she’s stopped pretending he’s coming back.”

Mindy shook her head, “She knew better...”

So, here’s the deal.  You can’t read your own future.  Everyone knows that, but Mom decided she was an exception to the rule.  For almost three years, she had tried gazing into her own fortune and believing in the signs she thought she was seeing.  I wanted Dad magically alive again as bad as anyone.  Hell, I was at ground zero when it happened.  I spent my share of nights wondering what I could have done differently.  But wounds can’t heal if you keep them open with false hope.  Hope just makes it worse.

Austin came into the room and threw himself on the bed beside Mindy, completely messing up the artfully placed pillows.  Mindy gave a sigh.

“Killian’s getting settled.  How long are you here?” he asked.

“Don’t know.  Got myself a skip and another gig, so, we’ll see.”

Mindy snapped her fingers, “Oh!  What was that thing you weren’t allowed to talk about?”

Ah jeez, there wasn’t going to be any way to pussyfoot around the topic, so I just laid it out for her, “Evidently some nutter is trying to weaken the boundary between Earth and the Other Side.”

Mindy sat straight up, “What?”

“And what’s worse is that it turns out that nutter is our uncle.”

“We don’t have an uncle.”

“Actually, we do.  Dad had an evil brother.”

“Nice of Mom and Dad to tell us about this.”

I waved my hand dismissively, “Yah, I guess he came over to Earth to kill us all and then, I guess, this is just from Mom’s side of things, he got stranded here and now is trying to get back to the Other Side.”

“Are you here to take him back over?” asked Mindy.

“Just trying to get him to quit trying to tear through dimensions and stuff.  Hopefully, I can stop the guy from destroying the boundary and he can cool his jets here on Earth in a nice little retirement village or something.”

Austin looked over at Mindy and gave her hands a squeeze, “I’ll make sure to have all our security systems checked in the morning.”

“And here you thought you knew what you were getting into when you married me.  Surprise,” Mindy said as she planted a kiss on his cheek, “Okay, family gossip is officially banned for the next hour while I get dinner ready.”

Mindy heaved herself from the bed, “And you, sir, are going to help me peel carrots.”

With a pleading look to me, Austin groaned as Mindy pulled him up, “Save me!”

But I’m afraid there are some types of trouble beyond even my powers.

Chapter 11

After dinner, Killian and I sat in the living room as Mindy and Austin cleaned up.  Mindy is one of those gals who never lets a guest help.  I quit fighting years ago and tonight I was only too happy to surrender to my belly full of dessert and her comfy couch.  Killian sat beside me looking positively drunk on the sugar high.

“I like pie.”

I patted his knee as he gave me a blissed out little grin.  I dunno what my sister put in with the pecans and caramel, but Killian looked like he might be seeing The Face of God.  My sister had some mad kitchen skills.  I was more the Sara-Lee-thaw-it-on-the-counter type.  Sometimes even that was too much work.

Austin came out with cups of coffee and set about firing up the fireplace.

“So if you were my dad’s evil brother, where would you hide?” I asked him as he got the kindling going.

Austin shrugged his shoulders as he stepped back from his handy work, “No idea, but I have to say, I’m so disappointed you had an evil uncle and didn’t even know it.  No trips to his evil lair or sitting by his side as he took over the world.  You totally got gypped.”

Mindy came out, mug in hand and grinned, “I’m sure as soon as she finds him, Maggie will make up for lost time.”

I laughed, “This family reunion is in dangerous peril if I can’t even figure out where to start.”

“Google him?” offered Austin.

“Right.  A Google search.  With the key words ‘Ulrich MacKay Evil Dimension Destroyer’.  I’m sure the hits will just come rolling in.”

“Have you checked Dad’s office downtown?” asked Mindy.  “Maybe some of his old co-workers know something.”

This was news to me.  I looked over at her, “I helped Dad all the time.  When was he working downtown?”

Mindy blinked, “I always figured the two of you were over at his office filing for justice or billing the forces of evil.”

I shook my head, “Never seemed to be ‘Bring Your Daughter to Work Day’.”  I looked at Killian and shrugged, “Maybe it’s time to see if there is some family business I should be taking over.”

Chapter 12

Mindy had a phone number.  Evidently, Dad had given it to her in case of emergency.  I figured this qualified.  I did a reverse trace and found an address.

The roads of downtown LA are a bizarre mash-up of good times gone by and really good times gone by.  Homeless crackheads camp out beneath the art deco marquees of some of the most beautiful theaters ever to be abandoned.  Sure, much of the space had been converted to lofts and fancy living, but the folks in those homes lived like robber barons under siege, locked behind iron worked gates and security codes.  They were posh overlords with a panoramic view of skid row from every floor-to-ceiling window.

I don’t know if the darkening light was from the shadows of the high rises or something more sinister, but when we turned off Maple into the Toy District, a rundown block of wholesale electronics and piñatas, my Creeped-Out-O-Meter was in the red zone.

I pulled the car over and parked, inserted something crazy like seven dollars worth of quarters into the meter for a measly hour, and we walked down the alley.

There were twinkle lights and faint guitar music drifting down the way.  We stopped in front of a small café whose sign read, “El Diablo.”

I looked over at Killian, “Can you think of any scenario in which this ends well?”

“No.”

I sighed, “Let’s go.”

We climbed the stairs and entered the shop.  It was huge inside with voodoo masks hanging on turquoise walls.  A tattooed man tended the coffee bar while a guy with a scraggly beard strummed the song we had been hearing.

“Other Siders out back,” said the inked dude.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“You heard me.  No elves in the front.”

Killian and I looked at each other and then walked into the back room.  It was a covered patio with tables and heat lamps.  An empty bar sat to the side beneath the metal roofing.  The tables and chairs were mismatched wood.  They all looked like they had been there for a long time.

Sitting at one of the tables was a fat man in a shiny grey suit smoking a cigar.  His eyes were locked upon us from the time we walked through the door.

“Guess the ‘no smoking’ ordinance didn’t hit this side of town, huh?” I said.

“Does it bother you, little lady?” the fat man leered.

“I’m good,” I replied.

“What can I do for you?”

“I don’t know.  What can you?”

“You have a smart mouth.”

Killian placed his hand on my arm, “We are having trouble getting back home.”

The fat man leaned back in his seat and laughed, “Other Siders in need a portal?  Well, even if I could get you one, it will cost you.  How much money do you have?”

“Enough.”

“We heard there was a man named Ulrich...” I said.  From the look on his face, I immediately realized that I had pretty much sent up a flare signal that we were “not cool”.

“How do you know Ulrich?” the fat man asked sharply.

“He’s a family friend,” I lied.

“He seems to have many family friends.”

I gave a shrug.

“I know him,” said the fat man.  “Let me see if he is around.”

He took out his cell phone and typed something quickly before slowly putting it back in his coat pocket.

The door to the kitchen burst open and four dudes the size of rhinoceroses stormed in.

Seriously, I had no beef with the fat man and there was no need to go bringing a gun to a knife fight.  But it was his call.

Killian pulled a collapsible staff out of his sleeve.  At least I hope it was up his sleeve, because in his outfit, there were very few other places it could have come from.  His staff was the kind you could whack people with one moment and flip into nunchuks the next.  He seemed to have his two attackers covered, so I figured I’d take the other two.

The fat man just sat there and watched.  Asshole.

“Four against two?  Come on,” I said.

“I suppose I could make it five, but then it would not be sporting.”

A chair came sailing by my head, missing me by inches and clocking the other bad dude who was trying to sneak up behind me in the face.  I followed through with a one-two punch to his jaw and in a matter of seconds he was on the ground with little tweetie birds circling.

“You okay, Killian?”

“Managing fairly well...”

He looked like he might be breaking a sweat, so since I was done with the one guy, I had enough time to strategically land a Doc Marten in a kneecap of another.

The bad guy crumpled with a cry and Killian finished him off with a foot to the nose.

“Maggie!” Killian cried, rolling over my back beer barrel polka style to nail Thing Three, who was coming at me with a sharp pointy object.

“Come on, fat man.  We’re not trying to permanently hurt anyone here.  It’s just a conversation until someone loses an eye,” I said as I sparred with my attacker, who wasn’t going down as easily as the other guys.

“Perhaps if you talked less, you would not be having your current troubles.”

“Perhaps if you just told us where Ulrich MacKay was, I would buy you a beer and we could call it a day.”

“I am afraid anyone who knows the name of Ulrich is not someone I would be breaking a fast with.”

“Breaking a fast... hold on.”  Nobody talks all old skool without a reason.  “Are you a fucking elf?”

“It is amazing what modern day plastic surgery on Earth is capable of, is it not?  The doctor took just a little off the top,” the fat man said as he showed off his rounded ears.

“Did you notice,”
punch
“that I,”
roundhouse
“am working with an elf?” a
jab to a left cross
.

Total knock out.

Killian sat down to catch his breath as I took on our final opponent.

“You could help,” I said as the guy caught a glancing blow across my chin that could have rung my bell if my dancing skills weren’t so sharp.

“We must win honorably, man-to-man, without stooping to the tactics of our enemy.  I am going to procure a water.”  He walked through the door and pointed a finger at the fat man.  “Anything?”

“I am without need.”

And that fucking fairy walked out to go buy some water from the fucking barista.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Killian was back, “I shall leave yours on the table over here.”

I landed the final earth shattering blow and stepped over the guy’s body to grab the water angrily, “Really?”

Killian placed a calming hand upon my forearm, “Really.”  He looked at the fat man, “You have seen that we fought fairly without deceit.  The rules of engagement would dictate you owe us each a bounty.”

Point for the elf.  I didn’t know there was a random set of secret rules that could win us some favors.

“Indeed.  You have bested my champions,” the fat man replied, as the inked dude brought him a dainty cup of tea.  Of course he would be a fucking tea drinker.

I wasn’t any good with setting contracts with fairy folk, so I turned to my partner, “Killian, ask him for something.”

Killian pulled out a piece of paper, wrote down my number, and handed it to the fat man, “You are hereby bound to call us immediately with any news of Ulrich MacKay or his whereabouts until the time we deem it fit to cease.”

Killian was good.

The fat man nodded his head in acquiescence, “Ulrich has unbalanced the power here.  His trade runs have cut into my territory.  I would be pleased to assist in... dissuading him... from his current business plan.”

I pushed Killian out of the way, “The only dissuading is going to be me punching you in the face.  Why did you tell your goons to attack us if we’re on the same side?!?  Friend of my enemy and all!”

“You did not say that you were friends with my enemy,” the fat guy unhelpfully pointed out.

“I didn’t know that he wasn’t a friend of yours,” I countered.

“Then this was nothing more than an unfortunate misunderstanding.”

“Listen,” I said.  “My dad used to spend a bunch of time here, jerkface,...”

The fat guy looked at me sharply, “Your father?”

“William MacKay.”

“Why did you not say that you were William MacKay’s daughter?” he said, all tension gushing out of the room like rioters pouring out of a soccer game.

“Maybe because you sicced four guards on us before we had a chance.”

“When the name Ulrich MacKay is mentioned, I have found it is best to make the first move and sort things out later, if there are things to sort out.”

“Well... let’s... sort some things out,” I offered weakly.

“Please, sit,” he said, motioning to some chairs.

Killian and I grabbed our bottles and I flung myself into one like a 13-year old girl about to be told she couldn’t go to the mall.  One of the guards started to stir, so I offered him my hand.