Trouble & Treasure - Dave Moyer (reading rainbow books .TXT) 📗

There was a noise coming from downstairs; from somewhere around the vicinity of the front door I heard a scratching.

It was subtle at first – the light touch of an object brushing against the grain of the wood.

I rolled over, sending a dusty, dog-eared velvet pillow tumbling off the bed and onto the equally dog-eared carpet below.

I closed my eyes, intent on going back to sleep. The noise, however, didn’t stop, and this damn house was so large that even the tiniest sound was magnified like a trumpet as it echoed through these empty dusty halls.

It was probably some unusually persistent woodland creature, I decided, and rolled over again.

A badger maybe, a squirrel? Some lonely puppy dog that’d bolted from one of the near-by country estates only to find life in the rolling woods not nearly as fine as life in the manor?

“Oh, fine then.” I grumbled, pushing the covers off with a great harrumph. If whatever was scratching at my door was so damn intent on ruining the woodwork, I'd give it a piece of my mind.

I thundered down the stairs, tying the cords of my thick dressing gown around my middle.

“I hear you. I hear you,” I mumbled under my breath, “Keep your damn tail on.”

I reached for the handle.

I opened the door.

I didn't see the enterprising woodland creature I expected.

I froze. My stomach sucked in with a tension-filled, electric charge as my eyes widened at the sight before me.

A gun. It was a gun. There was a man with a gun on my doorstep, and the gun was pointed right at me.

The sudden shock spread across my body, sinking hard into my legs and hands.

Every part of me screamed out to run, but the surprise nailed me to the spot.

The man was large and wearing a dark black leather jacket, leather gloves, and a black woolen balaclava.

“Get in,” he rumbled, sounding like a rasp grating over wood. “Scream or try to run, and you're fucking dead.”

I shook, the ties of my bathrobe banging into my knees.

I couldn't think. I couldn't move. All I could feel was nervous tension pressing against my body like a balloon ready to pop.

“Get in,” he repeated, tone so deadly it sounded like the gun was for show. From his sheer size and intense menace, this guy looked like more of a threat than anything old me, Amanda Stanton, in her lumpy old bathrobe could muster.

“D... d... don't kill me,” I whimpered.

The guy replied by using his free hand to shove me back from the door. He pulled the door to behind him with a poignant, careful silence.

My breath filled my awareness as I battled for air. Oh god, oh god, oh god.

He looked around the place, then fixed his gaze on me. “Take me to the goods.”

I stared at him in horror.

Goods?

Did he think I was a drug dealer or some country-living weapons stockist?

“I... I don't know—”

“The fucking antiques, lady – where are they?” He shoved me, pushing me further down the hallway.

He apparently didn't think the antiques, or ‘goods,’ could be in the hallway – perhaps where he came from all 'goods' were kept in basements or attics or in the back of your sedan right next to the bodies....

That thought chilled me through. It seemed my body had turned to the fragile snow that settles above drifts – the kind that can be blown away only to melt in the warmth of a breath.

The antiques, I tried to repeat to myself. The antiques. He's after the antiques.... Which ones? I couldn't stop, turn, and politely enquire whether he was after some ‘30s-era tins or a complete collection of hippie magazines from the ‘60s, could I? This old house was chock full of antiques.

This guy could be after anything, and he wasn't about to play nice and rational to get it.

I sucked in a breath, trying hard to stop myself from hyperventilating. I had to calm down. There was a man in my house with a gun and he was after antiques.

Give him the correct antiques and he goes away, right? In which case, he could have all the freaking antiques, because we were having a special sale for violent armed burglars today. “Take it all,” I pushed the words out, proud I'd managed it in one go.

Slowly, painfully, I was pulling myself together. My legs were wobbling less as he pushed me down the hallway, and the ringing heartbeat in my ears pulsed into a steady white noise.

He shoved me in the back with his gun. “No games.”

Well at least that ruled out the collector's-edition board games I'd unearthed the other day, a trite (but situation-inappropriate) part of my mind concluded.

As the man pushed me towards the darkened library at the end of the hall, another wave of fear broke against me, and my feet tingled with the undeniable urge to run.

My eyes darted to the side as we passed the ornate dresser I'd polished only that morning; it still had the spanner I'd picked up out of the garden shed sitting there. It was well within reach.

I briefly flirted with the idea of grabbing it up and clocking the guy with it – but rationality caught up with me and pointed out that would be a great way of getting shot/and or punched so hard my teeth ended up in China.

I heard something off to my left: a soft thud and a short scrabble. Perhaps it was those woodland creatures I'd dreamed up earlier deciding to try their own paws at breaking and entering.

Join the party.

The scrabbling turned into a tinkling as a window broke in the library before us.

The burglar froze; he obviously didn't think it was a vandalizing bunny rabbit in there.

“Shit,” he said, as quiet as a single drop of water on glass. He grabbed a hand around the top of my chest and thrust me to the side, out of the view of the open library door.

The sudden contact and press of his large bulky arm squeezing into my throat sent such a race of adrenaline barreling through me that I jolted hard.

The abstract concept of the gun at my back had turned into the undeniable reality of an arm closed tightly around my neck.

Desperation kicked through my immobility.

I screamed. I drove my foot into the guy's knee and twisted to the side.

That's when three guys with guns burst from the darkened library. These guys weren't of the leather-jacket, home-burglar variety either. They looked like those SWAT teams I'd seen on TV: machine guns, goggles, helmets, a variety of straps and pockets, and stances that had the undeniable menace of training.

I noticed the men, noticed their guns, noticed that they’d sprung from my library... and I cracked. It tipped me over the edge.

I grabbed the spanner – the one on the dresser, the one still within reach – and I swung it behind me.

It connected with the guy's nose in a haphazard fashion, but there was a definite and welcome cracking sound.

He dropped his gun, his arm slackening around my throat. I ducked down, dropping to my hands and scrabbling to the side like some crazed crab in a scruffy dressing gown.

About a second later, there was a thump as the SWAT guys tasered the burglar with all the speed and efficiency of, well, SWAT guys.

The burglar's body jolted from the sudden violent rush of electricity, and he fell to the floor with a thud that shook the lamp shades above.

He was down. His gun was gone. He was unconscious.

I sat on the ground, back pressed against the wall several meters from the prone man, staring at the scene. The shock and surprise of the situation – and the harrowing, unpredictable, relentless pace with which it had unfolded – had reduced me to a simple pair of eyes backed up by a spluttering, panting breath.

But it was okay now; it was over. The cavalry had come.

I stared up at the three men in my hallway. One leaned down and grabbed the blaggard's gun, another peeling off to check the burglar, and the other... he stood there and stared down at me.

This was the point – TV had taught me – where gallant police officers should be saying “It's alright ma'am; everything is okay.”

Silence.

The guy took several steps towards me, leaned down onto his knees, and rubbed the back of his hand across his chin.

The hair on my arms spiked.

Something wasn't right.

“Where are the artifacts?” the guy asked – voice toneless.

Oh – my – god.

I didn't answer; I stared at the guy in shock.

He looked back. “Take us to the artifacts,” his voice didn't change in pitch; there was no emotion there, only a mechanical ease.

He didn't stand up. He waited.

Again?

I blinked, shook my head, and felt the press of tears welling in my eyes. This was all too much. Getting free from a burglar intent on stealing my goods, only to run into a trained team of mercenaries (because they sure as hell weren't the police) after my more sophisticatedly-named 'artifacts.’

What on earth were these people after?

He motioned me up with a flick of his hand. “Up.”

I didn't want to get up. I wanted to curl into a ball and wake up. This was all so sudden and so unpleasantly, pressingly real.

“Artifacts,” he repeated the single word. He spoke with the right amount of force behind his tone to let me know he didn't need to threaten me. He was a mercenary with two mercenary buddies and a couple of machine guns; I was a puddle of adrenaline fatigue and bathrobe. He would win.

I silently pushed to my feet. “Take everything you want,” I said through a clenched jaw. “I don't know what you're after. Just take everything.”

One of the other mercenaries held up a hand to his ear. His face stretched with a controlled but recognizable tension. He made a fancy gesture to the leader.

“Move,” he said to me. For the first time emotion curled through his voice. It was bitter and sharp like vinegar to a wound.

A mix of fear, tears, bravado and gut-wrenching frustration came upon me all at once, as if every possible emotional reaction to this situation coalesced into a tight lump in my gut.

The emotion swelled, and with it a determination settled over me. It was sharp, it was sudden, and I went with it.

“Go to hell,” I spat, “Get your own damn artifacts.”

Before the lead guy could shoot me for being a bolshie hostage, I realized where I was standing.

Quick as I could I rammed myself backwards into the wall, and right into the light switch.

The hallway lights went out with a click.

I was still holding my spanner. I swung it before me in an arc as I pushed off the wall and ran to the side, heading straight for the darkened room before me.

It was one of the large drawing rooms, and from memory there was a giant mound of dog-eared magazines by the door. I ducked to the side, legs scraping along the edge of the papers, but not enough to trip me up.

I knew the men were right behind me; I could hear their quiet racing steps.

I twisted left and headed for the far end of the room, narrowly edging by the giant oak table scattered with old photos and torn newspaper clippings.

I heard a thud from the door as one of the mercenaries collected the pile of magazines. There was another thud as one of them ran right into the table.

Perhaps they weren't used to navigating cluttered terrain; your average bad-guy-for-hire probably only had to put up with alleyways and abandoned warehouses.

Or perhaps it had only been luck, because seconds later I felt a hand snake out from the darkness and collect around my arm, pulling me backward with a snapped