Read Hold The Dark: A Markhat story for Free Online Page B

there at my desk.
    “Mama, look, don’t you need a cauldron and a virgin bat for that?”
    “Shut up, boy,” she said, and I did, since her words seemed to come out a fraction of a second before her lips moved.
    My office got cold. I watched frost spread across the glass in my door and then Mama yelped and threw the comb away.
    I caught it. It was cold, like a chunk of ice, but the feeling quickly passed.
    “Mama, what is it?”
    Mama opened her eyes.
    “Damn.”
    I groaned. “All that for nothing?”
    Mama snorted. “That ain’t right. Even if it just sat in a shop window. Even if you’re the only person who ever took hold of it. Even if it was fresh out of the silversmith’s forge—boy, I ought to have seen something.”
    I set it down.
    Mama eyed the comb like it was a snake, coiled up in her biscuits and eyeing her back. “Take it away.”
    “But why—”
    “Take it away!”
    I scooped it up, dropped it in a drawer, closed the drawer.
    “It’s gone. Now tell me—why the hysterics?”
    “I done told you. I ought to have seen something. Felt the touch of someone’s hand. Felt the touch of your fool hand, boy, but I didn’t see nothing.”
    She was rattled. I’d never seen Mama rattled. I sat back and pondered for a moment.
    “All right. Tell me this, Mama, what could make an object feel like it was brand new? What could take away any history of contact with the people who’ve owned it?”
    Mama shook her head. “I couldn’t. Don’t know nobody what could.” She lowered her voice. “That’s black magic, boy. Dire hex. Them what messes with the way things be—well, I don’t even know no names.”
    I leaned forward, made Mama look me in the eye. “We’ve been friends for a long time, Mama. I like you. I respect you, and even if I don’t always show it I believe you when you tell me things, sometimes.” I took in a breath. “But isn’t it possible that maybe, just this once, you just can’t see what might be there?”
    Mama puffed up, but only for a second. Then she deflated. “I reckon that might be so. Maybe I’m gettin’ old and blind.”
    “Never. But even the sharpest eyes can’t see every blade of grass.”
    “That a Troll sayin’?”
    “It is,” I lied. Mama held Trolls in high regard, and their rustic proverbs even higher. “Trolls also say that a single misstep does not doom a march.”
    Mama stood. “You’re a liar, boy. But I reckon you’ve earned them biscuits, all the same.” She cocked her shaggy head, caught up her basket. “What you reckon on doin’ next?”
    I shrugged. “More of the same. Go back uptown. Talk to a watchman named Rupert. Ask strangers on the street.” I nodded toward the drawer that held the comb. “Might drop in on a few silversmiths along the way, see if anybody can tell me anything about that.”
    Mama grunted. “I know some New People, other than Hoobins. I’ll be seein’ ’em, too. I’ll be askin’.” She hesitated. “You reckon that poor girl is still alive?”
    I swallowed, sighed, stood. Eighth day gone , I thought. Eighth day. “Sure she is.”
    Mama left, shaking her head.

Chapter Five

    I scooped up a handful of Hoobin coin and set out. The air was cool and my feet felt better. I decided to walk again, telling myself that the walk would give me more time to think, but knowing all the time that I was just delaying the inevitable failure of finding anyone who’d seen Martha that last day she left the Velvet.
    Traffic was brisk. I’d waited until the dead wagons were packed and gone, waited until the plumes of smoke from the crematoriums that lined the river soared fat and black and rolling. People didn’t look at the smoke, I noticed. And when they did look up, they pretend they didn’t see it.
    I set a leisurely pace. Watchman Rupert probably wouldn’t take his shift until after noon, so I killed time by harassing jewelers about Martha’s comb. There are four jewelers between Cambrit and the Velvet, all much