The pendant glittered like a thousand stars on a moonless night, and Daryl Parker was immediately drawn to it for just that reason. The strangely-shaped object sparkled in the light cast by a small fire someone had started in a nearby garbage can.
"What is it?"
"Does it matter?" Daryl reached out for the object, but stopped when his brother put a hand on his arm.
"I don’t like this, D." Yancy’s eyes showed his concern. "This is too easy. Who leaves something this valuable unguarded?"
Daryl shook his head, his long hair swishing in his face. "Who cares? If they’re too lazy to lock it up, it’s their loss."
Yancy backed up a few steps. "Seriously, D. I don’t like this. It’s too… perfect. No one leaves something like that just lying around where anyone can take it." He looked around for a security guard or even a police patrol.
His innate distrust of everything around him had kept him alive during a lifetime with his parents and their "head games". He’d learned early in life that nothing was what it appeared to be, and that if something seemed too good to be true, it was; the pendant on the window ledge being one such thing. It was solid platinum and adorned with precious gems… or so it appeared. Who was to say that it wasn’t a hollow piece of electroplated tin decorated with pieces of cut glass?
"Let’s just grab it and go," Daryl reached out for the object again, but stopped when he saw his brother back away. "What? Holy God, Yancy, it’s just a stupid pendant that some rich snob didn’t feel was worth bending over to pick up. They’re probably dripping with rubies and emeralds anyway. What do they care if they drop a piece of jewelry? They have enough loose change just in their sofas to get a thousand more pieces to replace it."
Yancy was unconvinced. Instincts honed by years of life with parents who each lived in their own warped, fractured versions of reality had kept Yancy and Daryl alive by alerting them, particularly Yancy, to danger when their parents’ private worlds collided, often violently, with reality and left the brothers in the crossfire between the bizarre weapons and such their parents made to fight the twisted monstrosities their diseased minds created.
"No one’s gonna miss it, Yans," Daryl insisted. "We grab it, melt it down, sell off the gems and metal, split the profit, and live on Easy Street. What could be easier?"
Yancy’s eyes narrowed. He knew that Daryl really meant that they would steal the item, but if they were caught, Daryl wouldn't be the one taking the fall for grand larceny. However, if they succeeded in the heist, because he had a journeyman degree in metallurgy, he would be the one melting the item and separating the gems from the metal under Daryl’s supervision to ensure that he didn’t pocket any of the metal or gems... assuming the metal and gems were what they appeared.
Another thing he knew was that because he didn’t have a criminal record, he would be tasked with selling the metal and gems with Daryl watching him every second to ensure that he didn’t take more than his fair share. He also knew that in the end, once the metal and stones were pawned, he wouldn’t see any of the profit because the heist was Daryl’s planning, and it was Daryl’s expertise that made the event the success that it was. Therefore, when all was said and done, it was Daryl who deserved the reward, not his no-account lackey of a brother, Yancy.
He eyed the glittering pendant. It looked like a stylized "H" with a smaller "O" in the center of it. He didn’t know what it was called, but he knew what it could do to anyone who shouldn't have it, and Daryl shouldn't have it or even touch it. Still, if Daryl insisted...
"Look," Daryl grabbed Yancy’s arm and turned the slim youth to face him. "Are we brothers or not?"
Yancy’s frosted-emerald eyes met his brother’s topaz eyes, and he thought for a moment. The last time Daryl said something like that, it hadn’t ended well for them. More accurately, it hadn’t ended well for him. Daryl had used him as a human shield when they fled their father’s violent rampage when the mysterious beings that only their father could see behind every door and under every table went on the attack and tried to steal their father’s thoughts with tuning forks and store his ideas in shoeboxes locked away in the county morgue.
Later, Daryl had gotten him to join his gang with the "brothers forever" tactic. His innate talent for detecting trouble and sensing danger well before it appeared was a nice bonus and made him a valued member of the gang, but like his skills, it had yet to garner him any fortune or even gratitude.
Yancy looked at the pendant again and then at his brother. So much had changed since the night of their father's shooting rampage, and his relationship with his brother was one such thing. "Not any more, Daryl. I won’t steal for you."
Daryl looked exasperated. His brother has always been a goody two-shoes, but now he was even worse. "You won’t be stealing, Yancy. We’re not stealing anything."
"You mean to take something that isn’t yours," Yancy answered calmly. "Regardless of where you find it, if it isn’t yours, you can’t take it, and I won’t be party to theft."
"Fine. But when I melt and sell this, it’ll be your loss."
"I never see any of the proceeds of my work anyway," Yancy shrugged. He turned and started walking toward the shelter he and Daryl shared ever since Daryl had left the gang and struck out on his own as a burglar in his own right. For his part, Yancy was disillusioned with a life of crime and just wanted to quit the lifestyle completely. And then there was the strange set of rules and commands he was, for some reason, compelled to obey ever since he'd woken up in the cold, sterile room in Lanning Detention Center. "One of these days, Daryl, you’re going to steal the wrong thing," he didn’t look back as he spoke. "And you’ll end up paying for it with your life."
Daryl rolled his eyes and reached out for the pendant. "Whatever." No sooner did his hand close around it than he felt something clamp down around his neck so quickly and so tightly that he couldn’t breathe.
"Don’t say I didn’t warn you." Yancy rounded a corner as he spoke, leaving Daryl to suffocate where he stood. Loss of empathy for his brother was one of the many things that had changed since the night they'd left home three years ago.
A moment later, he heard the tinkling hiss of the glittering, sparkling, emerald-adorned, platinum pendant hitting the ground and sliding to a stop at his feet just before he heard the heavier thud of Daryl’s lifeless body hitting the ground.
He picked up his pendant, an Eye of Caspia, and put it back on the black vinyl dog collar he always wore and walked toward the squad car at the end of the street, leaving Daryl where he’d fallen. He knew that by the time Daryl’s body was found, it wouldn’t be fit for reanimation, and in any case, the cost of removing the curse would be too high to make it worth the effort. It was a fitting end for Daryl though he had to admit to a sense of guilt at betraying his own brother in a sting operation. Then again, orders were orders, so...
"Done deal."
"Good work, Yancy," Phoenix clapped the rookie on the shoulder as his fellow golem got into the car. "One less thief in the world." He looked at the radio when it squawked out a report about a rabid lycanthrope in Langdon Park. Any available U.D. units were to respond. "Dispatch, Uniform Delta Six-fourteen en-route; request all live patrols stay clear of Langdon Park." He flipped a switch and sped off toward the park.
"Ten-four." The dispatcher repeated the advisory on a general broadcast channel as Phoenix rounded a corner at high speed.
Yancy raised his hands as if on a roller coaster. "Whoo-hoo! Ooh-rah chariot race!" He glanced at Phoenix who looked mildly amused. "Think the live ones'll stay clear of the park?"
"They're breathers," Phoenix smirked. "What do you think?"
"I'm thinking no," Yancy answered after a moment. "So... if they get chewed up, it's their problem, not ours?"
"Yep," Phoenix agreed evenly as he sped toward Langdon Park.
In the car, their platinum and emerald pendants glittered and sparkled merrily in the light of passing streetlamps.