Page 21 of Artifacts

“S-stop,” Aldric begged when Darrell kept swallowing and didn’t let up the pressure on his hole, and it took a nudge from his trembling knee to make Darrell pull off. “Get up.”

Again, he didn’t know what he was going to do until he did it, until his hand found Darrell’s erect dick, straining at his zipper. His fingers tangled with Darrell’s, undoing the fastener and releasing Darrell. He was huge, and Aldric raised startled eyes to Darrell’s, finding them fixed on him, which was somehow more personal than Darrell blowing him. Aldric just about managed to close his fingers around Darrel’s shaft when a noise came from just outside the door—someone calling Aldric’s name.

“This is crazy.” Darrell half-turned and zipped himself up—carefully. “I have to go.”

“Darrell.” Aldric’s voice stopped him. “I understand. You’re not in the right place mentally for a real relationship.” He swallowed. “Neither am I, but what I am is brave enough to try. I won’t be a dirty little secret.”

Darrell looked down, then back up at Aldric again. “I know.”

He slipped from the room and was gone. Aldric waited a minute then followed, seeing Darrell’s back view vanishing through the shop door.

Aldric had meant it. He wanted Darrell, and he meant to have him. Fully.

Chapter Nine

Darrell stifled a curse and threw himself back in his chair when the latest image he opened didn’t match either. “How good is this damn database anyway?” he asked no one in particular.

Only Officer Lind replied, crossing on his way to the few filing cabinets the station still had. “Can’t go wrong with paper, I always say.”

The screech of the little-used metal cabinet drawer being forced open jangled Darrell’s nerves. He half-opened his mouth to tell the older officer he really had to get to grips with the wonderful world of IT but closed it. Lind knew that. It didn’t mean he’d do it, though, if he could put it off until retirement.

It wasn’t Lind making him edgy, anyway. It was the fact that Darrell hadn’t been able to find any information on the graffiti tag that had been sprayed outside Intrinsic Value sometime over the course of last night, and which he’d observed this morning. He’d driven past the store just like he had yesterday, with his vague reasoning behind it beinglook out for Aldric. Okay, so Darrell didn’t know if that meantprotect himortry to catch a glimpse of him.

He hadn’t seen Aldric, but had noticed the new graffiti, and waited for Elliot to show up to make the report.A pentagram. Who the fuck spray-paints pentagrams?The same person who’d sprayed the security camera lens black and who’d drawn a weird-looking coffin along with the pentagram, he supposed. Not that the sergeant cared, about either a possible new tagger or problems at an antique store. The crime wasn’t deemed a serious case, not with the amount of graffiti sprayed in that area, so there was no chance of handing it off to a detective. When Darrell had asked Fuentes what he was waiting for—another attack on a staff member there, perhaps—the man had replied, “Yeah”.

So yeah, maybe when a different employee was attacked, Fuentes would connect the dots. Darrell squinted hard at the rectangle shape. Was it a coffin? It could be a box. And if so—

“Hey.” Sean slid behind his desk opposite Darrell, breaking into his thoughts.

Darrell sat straighter. “Anything?” He kept his voice quiet.

Sean shook his head. “Negative. Both those kids seem like your regular accidental Good Samaritans. I think they’re clean. No record at their school either.”

“And it would be too much to hope for that they remembered any other pertinent information,” Darrell muttered. “I can’t match that symbol to any known gang.” One of the reason Fuentes had turned his back on it.

“I’d normally say it’s a wanna-be. A toy.” Sean liked to be up on the latest expressions, the opposite of Lind. “But with that, you could be better off looking up local cults.”

“Like Satanists?” Darrell was scornful but did it anyway. Well, he had the internet right there. “A pentagram’s an occult symbol used to convey a curse?” he read out, not believing.

Sean shrugged. “Worth seeing if we can hand it over now?”

Darrell considered the question. They didn’t have much more than they’d had—he didn’t want to get kicked back twice in one morning. But the least he could do was pass that nugget on, and not to Fuentes. He headed for the break room, but the fresh pot of coffee had drawn a few officers there, chatting as they filled their mugs, making him about-face into the kids’ interview room. It wasn’t used that much, so although it wasn’t big, it tended to be private. He sat at one of the small tables and called the store.

“Intrinsic Value. Elliot speaking. How may I help you?” came smooth, old-fashioned tones not belonging to Aldric.

Darrell held in a sigh. “It’s Officer Williams. No, there’s no news. I—”

“Yes, hello, Officer,” came the pointed reproach.

Now he did sigh, shifting on the child-sized chair. “Sorry to be abrupt. Okay, what I’m about to say’s gonna sound a little out there.” He launched into what Randa believed about her husband’s ghost haunting the place—she’d even used the wordcurse—and how a pentagram indicated that same thing. “I’m not saying I buy into this, of course,” he cautioned. He’d made a pile of the red plastic blocks on the table in front of him, and now started on the white ones.

“Well, thank you, Officer,” Elliot replied at last. “Please don’t concern yourself with looking this up any further. I have my own expert here researching into this. Oh, and I received a call from a Ms. Guyler, the assistant of Randa Buckman.”

“Wanting the items back?” Darrell stirred his finger through the plastic blocks, mixing them up again. “But you won’t.” The guy was quiet but firm and had a stubborn streak. Who did that remind Darrell of?

“No. I’m not inclined to. Not even when the lady herself took the phone and ordered me to ‘name my price’, then sobbed hysterically when I wouldn’t.”

Darrell guessed being haunted would do that to a widow. “That’s up to you, sir. Look, I have no idea what, if anything, is going on, but it seems someone wants those puzzle boxes,” he warned.

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