Ori shuffled through the radio stations as Myra tried to open a bag of candy with her teeth. She pulled on it until her jaw hurt and resorted to poking at it with a plastic knife she had left from some instant lunch she ate in the car. After nearly spilling the entire bag on her lap, she filled her mouth with the gummy crocodiles and leaned back.
“Just settle for something already,” she said after watching Ori change every station he came across.
“It’s not music I’m looking for,” Ori growled and continued to press the same button over and over again.
“Whatever.”
The car echoed with quick rumbles of radio hosts and random bits of musical notes, which when put together created an unbearable torture for the ears. Even though she tried to ignore it, there came a moment when the anger got the better of her. She grabbed his hand and squeezing it tightly enough to make his bones hurt, pulled it away from the radio.
“I’ve had enough of that. Do it in your own car, if you even have one.”
He yanked his hand away, forming the displeased face of a child who had been denied something. “Don’t-”
“Quiet,” she whispered and lowered her head behind the wheel. “We have a visitor.”
“Is that him?” Ori said never minding to stay hidden.
“Yeah. Let’s get him.”
As the intruder went past the gate and into the house, they followed quietly behind. Instead of going in they stopped outside the door, hoping that Liser would not take too long to find the gold they left for him to find.
“Are you sure there’s no other way out?” Ori whispered when he got bored of waiting.
Myra shook her head, reminding him to be quiet.
“Are you?”
“Shut it,” she said through her teeth, and at the very moment realized that the door had opened.
Liser’s eyes widened at the sight of an ambush and he froze, looking straight at the gate.
“Don’t even think about it,” Myra said showing off her gun. “Or we’ll have to have a different kind of conversation.”
“It’s over,” Ori said confidently. “No one else needs to suffer because of your vendetta.”
Liser's teeth rattled as he bolted for the gate, but the weight of gold was too heavy for him to run with. Still, he did not want to give it up.
“Little miscreant,” Myra yelled and ran after him, but before she even left the yard Ori pulled her back and grounded her in place. Some terrifying energy flowed from his hand into her feet and remained in her muscles like pure electricity. There was no pain, just an overwhelming sense of helplessness.
“Stay,” Ori said calmly. “If he thinks you’re a danger to him, the curse will latch onto you.”
“Wh-what did you d…” she tried to speak but her tongue was getting numb leaving only her eyes to wander and see nothing but an empty street.
She did not know if minutes or hours had passed when Harres found her. Startled by her unnatural pose, he winced and fixed his hat as the only rational movement he could muster.
“I was told to bring you this,” he said giving her a sip of water. There was nothing special about it, but the moment it touched her lips the magic began to weaken, releasing her body from the invisible cage.
“I swear I gonna kill that treacherous bastard,” she cried in a voice that was hardly her own.
“He also said you’d be angry.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“Come on, Detective, I should take you home,” Harres offered her another sip but she grabbed the bottle and chugged down all the water in it.
With one of her legs still not functioning properly, the best way for her to move was to drag it behind her like a zombie, all the way to the car. “Like hell, you will.”
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The interrogation had already begun. Liser sat in the cold chair with his head bowing over the table. His hands were spread out on his knees and he avoided every question Ori was asking, by shaking his head in persistent denial.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” Myra said bringing a thin case file into the room. The spell had fully worn off by then, but fury did not. She pulled the chair to the other end of the table and came as close to Liser as she could.
“What are you doing?” Ori said but she didn’t even bother looking back at him, much less giving him an answer.
“The accident, Mr. Liser. Start there.”
Liser closed his eyes and tried to move away, but she held onto his chair and kept him from making a single move.
“There’s nothing more to it than what you already know,” he said quietly.
“I’ll tell you what I know. You and Feri Harec, both employees of the Miralan Corporation, suffered injuries from a hit-and-run that happened in the underground garage of the same company. Is that right?”
“Yes,”
“You suffered several broken bones and internal bleeding, while Mr. Harec died before he reached the hospital. How about that?”
“It’s true.”
“This here is the record of that investigation,” she tore open the file and arranged the few pages that were in it. “Want to know what it says?
“I know what it says. But what was I supposed to do?" Liser cried. “No one believed me. No one cared enough to believe me.”
“What about Alfeen, your deer old friend, what did she do to you?”
“She promised to help me. I would never lie to her, but she used it against me. They paid her to be quiet, and gave her a new job, while I was just a puppet to them. Poor little Liser, who spent a month at the hospital just to be made a victim in an unsolved crime. Which one of us is the guilty one, Detective?”
“I’ll tell you something else,” Myra leaned in even closer. “There was a storm that night. You and Mr. Harec were there to check on the generator because you were usually the only people who stayed overtime. You and the one driving the black Frezeen 99C, as you said in your statement. A company car, used by Mr. Falen himself, the CEO of Miralan Corp. Even though there was no evidence to prove it, you became convinced it was he who hit you. And when Alfeen suddenly abandoned you and took a sizeable bribe, you put two and two together and concluded that she sold you out. The only person you confided in. So instead of moving on, you decided to take your vengeance which is… understandable. I mean, it is so easy to bribe anyone from a street cop to a judge these days, especially with the kind of money they peddle in Miralan. But I must tell you, something bugged me in this story, like when you have a tiny rock in your shoe and when you shake it nothing falls out. Luckily for you, all I could do these past few hours was think.”
“Myra?” Ori said, uncertain of how close she was to crossing the line.
“Almost there,” she returned keeping her eyes on Liser. “Alfeen was afraid of something. She was ready to disappear at any moment. That is a behaviour reserved for those who have something to hide and those on the run. So, let’s try another scenario. What if we put her behind the wheel? What if it’s all a good old insurance scheme? She hits you with a company car, you recover after a few weeks, collect your reward and share the profits. Simple as that. But, on that fateful night, something went wrong, so instead of giving you a few scratches, she killed an innocent man. A month later, you are ready to leave the hospital and take the money, but you discover that you’ve been fooled. She realized that she’d make a lot more if she told Falen everything and made sure there never was any evidence to confirm your claim. For the rest of the time, she kept you locked up in your tiny box to keep you from running your mouth, because no one would believe either way.”
Only then did she back off and let Liser breathe.
“It’s not fair,” he said quietly. “I just wanted a fraction of what those people had. Why does it need to be so difficult.”
“Did you know what this was?” Ori asked placing the cursed figurine on the table. “Did you know what it would do?”
“No, and I didn’t care as long as it made them suffer.”
Ori gently lifted the glass bell that protected it and pushed it closer to Liser.
“So you don’t know that it always kills its master in the end?”
The white in Liser’s eyes turned pink as he lifted his head towards the mirror. Within several seconds he became even paler, like a ghost realizing they were dead. He swallowed, touched his mouth and looked back at Ori, unable to say a single word. Then, with shaking fingers, he touched his stomach and bent over the table once again. Tears began to run down his face.
“One more thing,” Ori added. “You said you didn’t know what this was. Then how is it you knew what to do with it? How did you know to buy it?”
Liser turned his head only slightly, never bothering to wipe his face. “I didn’t… buy it,” he said sniveling through every word. “Someone left it for me at the hospital. It was all written in a note like they knew it was going to happen this way.”
“Someone else? Which hospital?” Myra upstarted.
“The one in Gallaven,” he said quietly.
Something clicked inside her head, the memory of a dying nurse and her words. She did not know if such a thing could be called a coincidence. But before she could act upon an instinct, Estinar had entered the room.
“Time is up,” he said. “We need to do it now.”
“Just a moment,” Myra insisted, but Estinar had already taken his place behind Liser. His posture was that of an executioner, not an investigator.
“Why are you pushing this?” Ori said defiantly. “We still have a case to finish.”
“Orellin, we have our orders. The curse needs to be eradicated,” Estianar said, and like a magic trick, pulled a knife out of thin air. “Time to leave us, Detective,” he added looking at Myra with the coldest looks she’d ever seen on anyone’s face.
“Why?” she argued. “What are you doing to him?”
“Now’s the time to go,” Ori said, as politely as he was able.
The last thing saw before the door closed was Estinar making a cut under Liesr’s elbow and letting the blood run down the figurine.