The Amulet Thief (The Fitheach Trilogy Book 1)

  FITHEACH (FEE-uch): Raven

  The universe is full of magical things,

  patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

  —EDEN PHILLPOTTS

  ONE

  Home is the place where,

  when you have to go there,

  they have to take you in.

  —Robert Frost

  There are days when I feel like a cat, perfectly content to curl up in a chair and sleep. And then there are days when I feel like a salmon fighting the current to get back to that one place I can’t get out of my head, determined to settle unfinished business before I die.

  Today, I was a restless fish.

  I swam upstream more than seven hundred miles to get back to where I was born. But my homecoming wasn’t going as smoothly as I’d hoped, because I could feel his eyes burning a hole in the back of my head. He wasn’t very good at hiding, which should have been pretty easy in the middle of thousands of people, making me question his intelligence. I suspected he wasn’t really trying to blend. The way he hid behind his copy of the New York Post with his eyes barely lifted over the edge of the page, he really was bad at surveillance. I mean, how stupid did he think I was? Didn’t he get the memo about us women? We have this innate ability to sense danger—we can smell it. Even then we do stupid things like walk into empty elevators with strangers or invite them into our homes, because a little risk is more comfortable than being impolite—or God forbid, looking foolish.

  I wanted to tell him he was wasting his time. There were prettier, more interesting women all over the airport just waiting to be stalked. I’m damaged, sir. You’re going to wish you never saw me get off that plane. You’re going to wish you never took an interest in this one.

  My stomach growled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since making the tough decision between peanuts or pretzels as my inflight snack. I continued down the path of poor eating by grabbing a bag of chips off the newsstand shelf. After dropping eight quarters and a few pennies—eight quarters—into the cashier’s hand, I went back outside to look for my babysitter. He’d either found a new victim or a more discreet perch to watch me from. Either way, I was glad I couldn’t see him anymore, because our game would have to end at the taxi line outside the airport. He wasn’t coming with me.

  The smell of salty potatoes and oil saturated my nose as I popped a handful of chips into my mouth. I finished them off as I followed the signs toward baggage claim, and then crumbled the bag into a ball and sent it sailing toward the trash. Standing behind the can was a different pair of eyes looking back at me—with intent.

  “Shit. Seriously?”

  This one was female. I don’t know why that made me feel worse, but it did. What were the odds of having two stalkers in the middle of an airport—one being female?

  Something hard bumped my shoulder, forcing my face away from the woman as I caught my balance.

  “Hey.” The man kept moving.

  Where I came from people apologized for things like that, but he just hiked his backpack higher on his shoulder and disappeared into the crowd.

  She was gone when I turned back around.

  Maybe I was overreacting. I reminded myself that I wasn’t in Indiana anymore and probably needed to get used to strange men—and women, apparently—looking at me like that. After all, I was fresh meat getting off a plane from corn country, and if I was going to make this work I needed to find the mettle in my belly.

  “God, what am I doing here?” I said under my breath as I slowed to a halt and the crowd flowed around me like a diverting stream of water. I actually stopped in the middle of the packed corridor and considered getting back on a plane. How stupid of me to even think that was an option. So though I felt like throwing up that bag of chips, I shoved all the fear back into the closet because there was no going back. This was my home. Most people would say that after twenty-one years, Indiana was my home. But I was born here, and whether I lived here for a day or a year or a decade, I belonged here.

  I pulled my shit together and ducked into a kiosk to buy a copy of the New York Times—when in Rome, and all that. I paid for the paper. When the cashier handed me my change, his fingertips brushed my open palm with a little too much innuendo. It was one of those things were you weren’t quite sure how to react. Was I offended? Or was he just clumsy?

  He clarified it for me as his tongue played with the corner of his mouth and he said, “It’s going to get interesting around here now.”

  “What did you say?”

  His brow furrowed as he cocked his head and studied my face. “Good luck, sugar.” His mouth broke into a grin, followed by a nervous laugh. A second later, the grin was gone and his eyes turned into black marbles.

  The coins slipped through my fingers and hit the floor as I moved backward toward the corridor. Like a dog catching himself from falling out of an instructed sit position, his body jerked in tight little movements, and I thought he might jump over the narrow counter. I was about as graceful as a clumsy puppy as I plowed into the crowd streaming past the edge of the kiosk, and I could just hear them all laughing at me, pointing at the crazy girl with her mouth hanging open.

  His face shifted away from mine, and he moved on to the next person in line like it was business as usual.

  I moved faster down the corridor toward baggage claim. There was a sports bar on my left filled with current and future AA members sipping glasses of amber liquid an hour before noon. For a moment, I thought I spotted my stalker sitting on one of the stools, but then I realized half the place was looking at me. Was my shirt hanging open? Did I have something stuck to my face? As the interlopers tracked me moving past the open bar, their faces morphed into awkward gazes. I’d seen that look before—someone acknowledging you from the other side of a room, not quite remembering your name but trying to. But these were strangers, and the expressions locked on me like war missiles were more along the lines of the I-can’t-believe-I’m-seeing-you kind.

  “You’re not crazy, Alex,” I told myself. But if I wasn’t, then who were all my new admirers? The New Yorkers I remembered barely made eye contact with you on the street.

  I reached baggage claim and found the carousel for my flight. “Come on, come on,” I whispered as other people’s suitcases moved around the belt. The thought of leaving it and getting the hell out of the asylum crossed my mind, but before I could make that bad decision my thrift shop bag appeared. I never owned a suitcase before. After my mother died and Ava took me to Indiana, I never saw the other side of the Hoosier State line again. I never went anywhere that warranted a whole suitcase, until now.

  I pushed through the airport doors and inhaled the cigarette smoke and fumes coming from the taxis lined up at the curb. Country air wouldn’t have smelled any sweeter.

  “Where are you going?” one of the drivers shouted.

  I read the Manhattan address off of the hotel registration.

  The driver got out of the cab. “Thirty-eight dollars plus tolls,” he said as he reached for my bag.

  I’d pay fifty if it got me out of there.

  I climbed into the back seat, and we drove in silence while I waited for the small talk to begin. The driver eyed me every now and then through the rearview mirror, setting up a segue into a conversation that never happened. My mouth would open but then close without a word as his eyes moved back to the road.

  My left hand wrapped around a small white object in my coat pocket, while my right hand traced the necklace concealed under my sweater. These were two things that would never see the inside of a checked bag. I was five years old when my mother gave me the necklace—days before she was murde
red and I ended up in a car bound for Indiana. Keep it safe. Hide it because others might like to have it, too. It was her nice way of telling me that some people steal. I think she knew she was going to die, and the silver pendant that I thought looked more like a soldier’s dog tag was something she had no intention of taking to the grave. Whatever her reason, the importance of it was made clear.

  We pulled up to an impressive building in the west eighties. I’d read an article in Cosmopolitan about options for young women moving to Manhattan, and after nine months on the wait list a room finally opened up. It was a hotel for women—a safe, affordable option for students, actresses, or girls just looking for a way into one of the most expensive cities in the world. With a weekly rate at a fraction of the cost of a regular hotel, the place was exactly what I needed while I looked for an apartment. Meals and housekeeping were included, making it a no-brainer.

  The article described the place as a dormitory style residence, but the building looked more like an old world hotel than my vision of a YWCA or sorority house. Women only—no men allowed beyond the first floor. This strict house rule was enforced by two women at the front desk and a male guard positioned at a smaller desk near the elevator. The man reminded me more of a retiree supplementing his Social Security check than an actual weapon, but I figured his job was to deter, not to engage. A bluffed attempt to keep the peace. God help the poor man if anyone called him on that bluff.

  “Rent is due on Mondays,” said woman number one. After signing some papers and paying for my first week, I was handed a list of guest policies along with the key to my room. The women, who eventually introduced themselves as Jane West and Mrs. Falconer, looked up and smiled as a much younger woman approached and announced she’d be showing me to my room.

  A pair of large brown eyes reached up to mine from behind dark frames and a hedge of symmetrical black bangs. Her gaze dipped down to my feet before trailing back up to my face.

  “Do I pass?” I asked.

  She acknowledged the remark with a brief smile before reverting back to a face much too seasoned for her age.

  “I’m Alex,” I said.

  “Yes, you are.”

  The hair on the back of my neck rose as a pair of invisible hands caressed the outer aura of my skin. The fingers passed over my elbows and biceps, and then continued over the curvature of my shoulders before stopping at my top vertebra.

  Her eyes shot wide as her breath caught, and her mouth twitched as it resisted another smile.

  That’s my head you’re in. The thought was ridiculous, but it seemed plausible at that moment.

  A ping announcing the arrival of the elevator mediated our awkward standoff. Without taking her eyes off mine until her long neck had no choice but to follow her shoulders, she turned toward the opening door. I followed her into the closet masquerading as an elevator, and we ascended in silence while I scanned the wall for a current inspection sticker. Not a sound was made for nine floors. I wondered how much time had passed as the contraption inched up the old building and the odd woman stood with her back to me. She stared at me through the mirrored door, forcing my eyes down to the shiny patent leather encasing her feet. From her shoes to her leg tights and dress, everything was black. The only spot of color came from a forest green band wrapped around her hair.

  An hour later—it seemed—the doors mercifully opened. I waited for her to lead, but she stood there without showing any intention of moving out of the metal box. As if taking a silent order, I manipulated my suitcase through the cramped space and exited around her. Once again, I waited for her to lead the way, but she remained behind me. I usually didn’t allow strangers that close to my backside, as it was good practice to always have the advantage—something I’d learned years ago when I was too small to rely on my physical power.

  I spun around, nearly slamming into her.

  “Where are you from?” She stood inches from my face, seemingly oblivious to the near collision. The thick black frames combined with a tight ponytail gave her the look of a librarian. Not the tech-savvy kind, but the kind that gave birth to the stereotype.

  “Indiana.” I offered nothing more.

  “Have you been to New York before?” Her eyes roamed over my face without the slightest bit of discretion.

  “No.”

  She did that mouth twitching thing again as the lie registered. I didn’t care. It was none of her business.

  She proceeded down the hall. Door number 913 opened to a small room with hospital green walls, a pedestal sink, and a twin bed in the far corner. If I forewent the tiny desk against the opposite wall, I might be able to actually move around in the space. What did I expect for the price? It appeared to be clean, though, and it was temporary. She handed me the key and stood there looking like a bellhop waiting for a tip.

  “The dining room opens at six a.m. for breakfast and five p.m. for dinner,” she said as she finally moved into the hall. “Maybe I’ll see you down there.”

  “Maybe.” Maybe not. I closed the door, waiting a minute before looking through the peephole. She was still there, unable to see me through the convex lens, but the smirk on her face told me she knew I was spying through the tiny hole. It occurred to me that she’d never told me her name. That was probably a good thing, because it gave me less of a reason to be friendly.

  A few days earlier, through a property search website, I found a lead on an apartment on the Upper West Side. The management company was holding an open house in a couple of days, and as my incentive to get out of this place had just increased, I intended to be there.

  TWO

  I refused to see it. That thing kept showing up in my peripheral vision, but I refused to acknowledge something that made no sense and just might confirm that I really was descending into a very dark place.

  In spite of the thing, I kept moving. For two blocks I hummed an irritating tune to keep my attention focused away from what I hoped was just a hallucination.

  “What are you?” I mumbled, hoping not to get an answer.

  An outline, waving like a ghostly remnant in the darkness, kept hovering behind me like it was waiting for me to turn around. I glanced up and it was above me, partially wrapped around a street post, fading in and out between the darkness and the glaring light coming from the top of the pole. The shape of the thing reminded me of a long barcode of shadows, only this barcode had faces. Six parallel images moved as a single unit, resembling a group of conjoined sextuplets. Sometimes they materialized as interrupted bodies made up of legs, followed by nothing, and then topped off with six sets of shoulders appearing just above the empty space. The next time I saw them, I could make out noses and chins framed by twisting hair and what looked like a wide cape spanning all six sets of shoulders. Each face was different, but the most disturbing attribute was what they didn’t have. None of them had eyes.

  The one constant was that they were always there, eventually blending into the forms moving up and down the sidewalk, appearing more like shadows originating from living breathing pedestrians than distinct entities. I almost convinced myself that the apparitions were nothing more than light mixed with human shadows, instigated by a plethora of sensory stimulation present at any given second on the streets of New York.

  “Shit.” I glance at my watch, taking a long stride in the direction of Broadway. The idea of running into the crazy girl with the dark glasses had me avoiding the dining room, so my nightly dinner run had become a necessity. I needed good food, and Zabar’s was an emporium trafficking in the edible equivalent of porn.

  Ignoring the faces, I walked straight through the gray mist and disrupted its semi-corporeality. I made it less than a block before hearing the voices. The sound seemed to be coming from every direction, neither loud nor quiet. They just sort of resonated through the darkness in an alternating velocity, ping-ponging off the buildings lining the street.

  My head did a one-eighty, but I was the only one on the block. Strange, considering a minute ago there
were people all around me. I’d deviated from the shortest route and ended up on an unfamiliar street.

  I pulled out my phone. “How the hell.” Zabar’s had been closed for ten minutes.

  Vibrations from a train rumbled along the sidewalk, reminding me of the massive infrastructure running below my feet. The possibility that the voices were coming from the subway smoothed the erect hairs prickling my spine.

  “They’re not real,” I muttered as I looked down the deserted street.

  I believed that for about five seconds. Adrenaline seized my chest as I became aware of something behind me. I couldn’t see anything, but the presence of something very big was hovering over and around me like a drop in barometric pressure. My head throbbed in conjunction with the blood racing through my left ventricle. If that wasn’t a recipe for a heart attack, the blacked out section of the street straight ahead of me was.

  As I turned to see what was behind me, my feet locked to the sidewalk as if they were fused to the cement. I couldn’t move. The muscles on the left side of my neck stretched, pulling my head toward my right shoulder in the uncomfortable way a spasm takes control of a limb. I tried to straighten my neck, but that made the involuntary pull worse. As I grabbed at whatever it was that had me, my coat collar peeled back exposing my bare clavicle bone and the red scarf knotted around my neck. My arms fell to my sides in an invisible straitjacket as the scarf moved on its own, reversing the knot configuration before falling to the sidewalk.

  Something cold smacked the side of my head, sending me flying against a heavy iron gate at the entrance of a brownstone. I sat there stunned for a few seconds before the glare of the lone streetlight cued me to get up and run. I’d almost tossed them on more than one occasion, but tonight I was thankful for those comfortable, worn boots I had on. They were keepers.

  My feet pounded the sidewalk, each step feeling like a slog through wet sand. The tip of my boot caught something hard and locked my knee in an awkward jar as a crack in the sidewalk opened out of nowhere. Like a running back foiling a tackle, I slammed against the concrete and then rolled back to my feet.