Dark Arts Read Online Free

just
like your man wanted. So, cash, money, paid – that’s what I want to
be.”
    “Listen, Max,” Angelo said, turning red. “A
lot of people have been by the last couple months since you’ve been
gone south with your band. I don’t know how, but they knew you were
looking for that, that most of the people who can find that sort of
thing were looking, and they told me it couldn’t be here, it
couldn’t be in Sudbury. They say bad things would happen, bad
things like –“
    “You keep your superstition, your fucking
twisted midnight shite, and give me my money!” Max shouted,
slamming the book onto the table. “I’ve seen oracles, old friends
of my Dad’s who I’ve never wanted to see again, even a shaman, and
then I had to set a bloody gun-toting monk on fire to get this
fucking thing! Paid! That’s what I’ll be as soon as you write some
numbers down on that fancy cheque book of yours!” He riffled the
pages of the large business class cheque binder and shoved it
towards Angelo. “Then we’re done, it’s been a good ride, but there
are other dealers down south who don’t get the jitters when they
see old writing about resurrection and life eternal. There was a
reward of five thousand dollars beside this book’s name on the
list, and here it is.”
    Angelo pulled a ring of keys out of his
pocket and fussed with it. “I can’t use the company cheques, I keep
the music and the magic separate.” He opened a drawer and retrieved
a battered lockbox. It was unlocked and flipped open in seconds,
revealing a modest pile of bills. “I can’t give you the five
thousand, but I can give you something for the running around.”
    “I went to Detroit tracking this, you
wanker, and we only managed one gig while we drove a week out of
our way.”
    “I know, you had to do a lot of research to
get that,” Angelo counted out a stack of fives, tens and
twenties.
    “Research? If I believed what the oracles
told me about that book, I wouldn’t have even come back to Sudbury.
The last one said I should give up on finding this and go to
California, take Bernie with me. California! Didn’t sound too bad,
if I’m honest, but I’m here instead.”
    “What else did she tell you?” Angelo asked,
deadly serious.
    “Cash!”
    The sounds of hurried footsteps on the
staircase were too short a warning before Freddie opened the door.
“What’s going on up here? The customers can hear you,” he said,
brows furrowed.
    “Your partner here is refusing to pay for
delivery,” Max said.
    “Here, it’s three hundred fifty seven,”
Angelo said. “Keep the book, I don’t want it.”
    Max let Angelo put the money and the book in
his hand, speechless at the shortfall. He glanced at Angelo, who
was staring at him, sweating, then looked to Freddie. “Your uncle
owes me five thousand and he pays me three hundred bloody fifty
seven.”
    “Keep the book,” Angelo said.
    Max regarded Angelo and asked; “Who wanted
it? I should just sell direct, yeah?”
    “I can’t tell you,” Angelo said. “I’ll lose
my business, both my businesses. Too many people want that out of
Sudbury.”
    “You believe this?” Max asked Freddie, who
was turning red like his uncle. “Can’t get paid properly, can’t
find whoever wanted this in the first place.” A thought occurred to
him then. “Freddie, go get the case for the Les Paul, the one I was
just staring at. Get it out from behind glass, put it in the case
and in my hand.”
    “The Les Paul? No, I mean, that belongs to
the store,” Freddie stammered.
    Max picked the ledger up off the desk and
shook it in the air. “Then fucking pay me!” he thundered. “Or find
a way to grow the bottom part of my bloody ear back.”
    Angelo was startled, whether it was just the
sound of shouting, or the ledger being rustled to pieces, Max
didn’t know. He was happy to have found a raw nerve. “Go ahead and
get that ready for Maxwell, Freddy,” he said.
    “But it’s the Les Paul,”