Chapter 11 The Golden Goose
Chapter Eleven
The Golden Goose
Blood on his sleeve. Blood on his hands. Blood pounding in his ears.
Jack tore through the Chancellor’s study, ripping drawers from their tracks, scattering papers across the Persian carpet. His fingers trembled so violently he could barely grip the files as he shoved them into the sack.
Move. Move. Move.
Bloody fingerprints smeared across pristine notes.
He wasn’t dead. Any second, someone could find him. Jack could still feel his crushing weight collapsing on top of him, still hear that wet gurgle of breath, the sickening crack of weighted gold smashing against his skull.
Jack left him upstairs, lying in a pool of blood.
He’s not dead. What if he dies?
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, except getting out.
Yanking open another drawer, he ransacked the contents. Financial records. Account numbers. A paper trail of corruption. Jack shoved anything of possible value into the pillowcase.
Take it all. Take everything.
In the hall, the grandfather clock chimed quarter to the hour. Fifteen minutes until supper. Fifteen minutes until someone went searching for the chancellor.
Hurry.
He rushed to the wall where a painting of Genghis Khan hung on hidden hinges, swinging it open to expose the squat, black safe. Jack had watched the chancellor open it a hundred times, stuffing it full of crisp bills that would only resurface as hush money.
Jack needed that money. Without it, he wouldn’t last a week.
His fingers hovered over the keypad. Four digits. But the selection was always hidden, blocked by his fat body.
Think. What would he choose?
His birthday.
Jack typed the numbers in with shaky hands and the safe gave a shrill beep followed with a punishing red flash.
Fuck.
The year on the diploma. 1-9-7-2.
Beep. Red light. A longer tone warning.
Jack’s palms slicked as he breathed heavily. How many attempts before it locked him out? He wiped his hands on his trousers and blinked to clear the sweat from his eyes.
Rusty smears blurred the buttons on the safe.
The house number. 4-5-4-7.
Three beeps. Three warning tones!
“Come on,” Jack hissed. “Come on, come on, come on—”
Footsteps passed in the corridor, and Jack pressed himself against the wall, heart slamming against his ribs as the beeping faded.
He was running out of time. One more wrong attempt could lock him out and trigger the alarm.
“Fuck!” He needed to think like the chancellor.
Aurin saw himself as an imperial force. Number one. Master of his domain.
0-0-0-1.
Beeeeeeeeeep. Red. Three flickers.
1-3-1-3. Unlucky for everyone else, but rules don’t apply to him—“Damnit! Fuck!”
A yellow light now accompanied the red light, warning that no longer went off. Was it a silent alarm? What did it mean?
Jack’s hands shook violently. Sweat burned his eyes, further blurring the smeared buttons. He wiped his face, smearing the chancellor’s blood.
Stop. Breathe. Think.
Mr. Carrow’s voice drifted through his memory. “The mind sharpens under pressure, Jack. But only if you stay in control of your emotions. Wise men know how to stay calm in a crisis.”
He closed his eyes. Forced his breathing to slow. And in the darkness behind his eyelids, he heard it.
The tune the safe made when Aurin opened it. Beep-beep. Beep. Beep-beep. Beep. Click.
Double digit. Single digit. Double digit. Single digit. Unlock.
Four numbers. Six digits.
But what if they weren’t just numbers? What if it was a word?
Jack scrambled to the desk, scratching out the alphabet, numbering each letter. He sectioned off the single digits, A through I. Everything after that point was double-digits.
What would he pick?
Aurin believed himself invincible. A god among men. He surrounded himself with gold and power and…
“Bingo,” Jack breathed.
He rushed back to the safe. “Eleven, nine, fourteen, seven.” Double. Single. Double. Single. The beeps were familiar, but he had to be sure. His finger hovered over the ENTER key. One more wrong attempt would surely trigger the alarm.
Trust yourself. Mr. Carrow’s voice echoed in his mind.
“Please be right…” Jack pressed ENTER.
The safe chirped. Something inside clicked then whirred. And the door loosened.
He nearly sobbed.
Money. More money than he’d ever seen in his life. Thick stacks bound with paper bands, arranged in neat rows. Pounds and euros, American dollars, currencies he didn’t recognize, all of it untraceable, all of it extorted from others.
Jack stuffed the pillowcase in a frantic rush.
When it bulged, and he couldn’t fit another pence, he shoved wads into his pockets, his underwear, anywhere he could fit it.
Money fell from him like feathers from a molting bird.
He snatched up the stack of files and dragged the sack toward the door, only to stop.
So close. Just a few strides and he could be out the door, but he needed one more thing. The most important thing. He couldn’t leave without it.
Jack scanned the corridor and eyed the small closet beneath the servants’ stairs, then darted across the hall. Wrenching it open, he stuffed the money inside and shoved the door shut. Footsteps approached.
“Shit.” He slipped into the dark closet with the cash and files.
Breath beat out of him, hard and heavy. He could smell it, the blood. Thick enough to taste.
Voices neared, and he covered his bruised mouth. Pressing himself into the shadows, he listened as two maids passed—no idea that the world was ending.
The moment their footsteps faded, Jack slipped out and staggered at the sight of his bloody footprints on the carpet. No time to worry, he rushed up the stairs, ducking into an alcove at the top.
His sleeve left a copper streak on the banister, but he had to keep moving.
Hide. Survive. Escape.
When he spotted his bedroom door standing ajar, he panicked. Had someone gone in there, or had he been so flustered that he forgot to shut it? Creeping forward, looking left then right, he slipped inside slowly and paused at the threshold, heart seizing at the sight of the chancellor’s leg.
The room was exactly as he’d left it. Bed linens tangled and stained. The heavy golden goose lying on the floor beside the chancellor’s massive body. Face-down in a spreading pool of blood.
Was he breathing?
He couldn’t tell.
Didn’t want to get too close.
The metallic stench filled the room the moment he shut the door, thick and poisonous, mingling with the ever-present fouler stench of the chancellor’s ordinary odors.
Jack stilled, looking over the body in horror, realizing the man had pissed himself. Possibly soiled himself as well.
“Oh, fuck,” he breathed, reality of his situation growing heavier by the second.
He pressed a fist to his mouth and looked away, struggling not to hurl. When he nearly lost the battle, he forced himself to look.
Look at him!
Jack turned and stared down at him. The great and powerful chancellor, a self-proclaimed king, a monster among monsters, lying in his own shit, piss, and blood.
He deserves worse, Jack thought as a cold calm spread over his skin.
No mercy. Just like he shows you…
Jack tore his gaze. There wasn’t time.
In the corner, he pulled back the Persian rug and lifted the loose floorboard. Reaching into the shadows, he withdrew the manuscript, its pages worn and softened from months of reading. Margins now marked with annotations about the truth.
Every warped philosophy, every method of manipulation, every cold-blooded assessment of how to dehumanize others for one’s personal gain. It was all there.
Mr. Carrow said knowledge was a weapon, and now Jack knew his enemy better than anyone, including Mr. Carrow or the chancellor himself. He knew the lengths he would go to achieve his goals, the crimes he committed to collect a long line of bullshit trophies and crowns.
A disgusting manifesto of an insane megalomaniac. The song of a twisted, narcissistic giant. And it was going to be what destroyed him in the end.
Jack grabbed another pillowcase and shoved the manuscript inside, adding clothes and—
The grandfather clock chimed again, and Jack froze.
Supper.
A low, wet gurgle rose from the corner. The Pavlovian response of a fat beast, even a bludgeoning, couldn’t break.
Jack watched in horror as the chancellor’s fat fingers twitched. Another gurgled moan.
Setting down the sack, he crept closer, sweeping the blood-smeared golden goose off the floor by its long neck.
The giant continued to stir. The solid brass slipped slowly in Jack’s hand, his grip tightening around the brass neck so the base of the gaudy statue hung lower at his side. He crept closer.
A moan.
Blood matted his skull where a gash formed a seeping, red mouth beneath his thinning hair. Jack’s knuckles popped, bleaching of color as he gripped the slick golden goose and stared unblinking as a lifetime of nightmares lay at his feet.
Do it.
He couldn’t look away.
DO IT.
The world silenced. His heart slowed.
DO IT!!!
A raw, animalistic roar tore from Jack’s chest as the goose came down with a sickening crunch, brass connecting with bone.
He drew back, flesh sticking with a revolting slurp, and the chancellor made an inhuman wheeze.
“Fuck you!” He swung again. And again. And again. Each impact sent shockwaves up his arms as blood spattered his face and chest.
When he staggered backwards, the white walls of his golden prison dripped with red.
Jack dropped the golden goose, staring in horror as he stumbled toward the door.
His jaw trembled. Jack tripped over his feet, slipping on the pillowcase of clothes. He crashed into the nightstand. The room spun. His hands wore liquid gloves of red, making everything slick.
Aurin wasn’t moving. No sign of breathing.
I killed him.
Jack snatched the pillowcase with the manuscript off the floor and shoved the golden goose inside. There wasn’t time to think. He needed to move.