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He nodded. “Yes. Mary and Billy-that is, Mary Loomer and William Highcrest. They play the game, too.”
“Did you tell your parents about that?” I wondered.
Lew hung his head. “Yes, but they wouldn’t listen. They told me the cards couldn’t do anything like that. The magic alarms around the house would go off if they did.”
I lifted an eyebrow and my eyes invariably traveled down to the very magical item wrapped around my wrist. “What magic alarms?”
“The ones the guy put in last year,” Lew told me as he wrinkled his nose. “He wasn’t a very nice guy, either. He told me to get out of the house while he was working or he would put a hex on me.”
“How do these alarms work?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “I don’t know, but Mother said they go off when a magical item enters the house that means to do us harm, so it couldn’t be the cards.”
“How very interesting,” I mused as the door to the room opened. Ben slipped inside, and there was a grim expression on his face. My heart fell. “That bad?”
“Their most priceless items have been stolen,” he told me as he resumed his seat in the chair opposite us. “Many are the only ones of their kind, including several magical items that are centuries old.”
Lew winced, but I set my arm on his shoulders and squeezed them. “It’s not your fault. Whoever did this is the only one to blame.”
Ben lifted an eyebrow. “Why would you believe you’re at fault?”
The young lad shrank away from Ben, but I smiled down at him. “It’s alright. You can tell Ben what you told me. He won’t laugh at you.”
Lew swallowed the lump in his throat but he didn’t raise his eyes from the deck clutched in his trembling hands. “I. . .I think these cards might have something to do with the thefts.”
Ben knelt in front of us and leaned his head down to catch the young lad’s eyes. “What makes you so certain?”
The young boy rubbed his thumbs over the top card. “The. . .that is, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but Darren told us that putting the cards next to magical items will increase their luck.”
My heart skipped a beat. “And did you?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I. . .I put one of the cards next to a wand my mom bought. She keeps it near the silver cabinet, and a lot of that stuff is missing.”
Ben held out his hand. “May I see the card?”
Lew drew out one of the cards and handed it over. I stretched my neck for a look and found the card face contained a picture of a jackal-like creature. The thing had the unruly thin fur of the African animal, but its head was stretched out like a snake and its hind legs were those of a lion. A serpent tail slithered out of its butt and a pair of hideous red eyes bulged out of its elongated head.
I had to keep down some bile at the hideousness of it all. “What the hell is that?”
“A polla,” Ben explained as he studied the card and its hideous face.
“You’ve never seen a polla?” Lew piped up.
I shrugged. “I prefer to keep my lunch down.”
“Who is this Darren fellow?” Ben inquired.
“It’s the guy who owns the shop where we buy our cards,” Lew explained as he nodded in the direction down the street. “His place is north of here on Brisbane Street.”
Ben frowned down at the lad. “That’s a rather sordid neighborhood.”
Lew shrugged. “It’s the only place we can get the cards. Only Darren sells them, and he won’t give them to other shop owners even though they’ve offered him a lot of money.”
“And your parents still allow you to travel there and buy the cards?” Ben questioned him.
Lew winced. “Well, actually, my parents think the shop is in the Plaza. At least, that’s what I have told them.”
“Then we must pay this Mr. Darren a visit, and I suggest you do not do so again,” Ben mused as he held the card up in front of Lew. “May I keep this card?”
