If he stayed, it wouldn't be easy. His team was in last place, way behind now because of his injury.
While Zayn was ruminating, Uncle Larice returned from his treatments at the clinic.
"How was business today?" he asked, kicking the snow from his boots as he stood in the open door.
Zayn had been planning to tell him about the robber, but something in the way Uncle Larice unzipped his coat with trembling hands made him change his mind.
"Excellent," said Zayn. "Best day in weeks. I sold nearly half a case of Appleton rum today."
"Good, man. Lord knows I need it," he said, pulling his graying dreadlocks from beneath his hoodie. "So what was it you wanted to tell me before I left?"
"That you should pick up some merlot," said Zayn. "Mrs. Kettle doesn't drink rum."
Uncle Larice gave him the side eye. "That's what you were going to tell me? I thought it was going to be something of some import."
"It is important," said Zayn, holding out a fist, his mind made up about whether or not he was going to stay in the Academy. "I've got to look out for my Uncle Larice."
Chapter Seventeen
The Hold, January 2014
At least he maintained trigger discipline
Still hot from his battle at the bodega, Zayn marched into Allgood's room with the pistol in his fist. He'd made his decision and hadn't wanted to wait until his next class. The instructor's hand flinched towards his staff as Zayn slammed the gun on the table.
"Because of this," he said, staring at Instructor Allgood defiantly.
Amusement passed across his face, but not necessarily in a good way. Zayn sensed the instructor was about half a breath away from grabbing the staff and beating the life out of him.
"You asked me why I'm here," said Zayn. "That's my answer. A guy came in the store to rob me. I took the gun from him."
"Why didn't you kill him?" asked Instructor Allgood.
"Because it would have invited questions from the police. I didn't even tell Uncle Larice about it. The robber hit the store during a lull in business," said Zayn.
Instructor Allgood scooped up the pistol and checked the safety before examining it.
"At least you had the good sense to remove the bullets before slamming it on my table," said Instructor Allgood with a hint of menace in his voice. "But this still doesn't answer my question. If you want to play cop, go join the Protectors."
Zayn's blood was hot, and it was hard to keep the derision he felt from his voice. "For one, I wasn't given an option on which halls I could choose." Instructor Allgood's forehead knotted dangerously, so Zayn quickly added, "And even if I had been given the choice, I wouldn't have picked the Protectors."
Zayn fished through the right pocket in his jeans, pulling out the handful of bullets and the baggie with the Y-pattern.
"The guy was robbing the bodega to pay for this. I think it's the same drug as from before. I don't know what it is, but I think it has to do with the weird deaths going on in the ward. The crystalline man, the one eaten by fire creatures, the lady who melted into green goo," said Zayn.
When he handed the baggie to Instructor Allgood, he detected a twinge of recognition at the symbol, but it quickly disappeared behind his mask of disinterest.
"What does this matter if you're running back to Varna?" asked Instructor Allgood.
"Because I'm not, I'm staying."
"Why?" challenged Instructor Allgood.
"Instructor Pennywhistle told me that the Academy does important work, necessary work. I think I understand that now. I want to be a part of that."
"What you did in the bodega is Protector work," he said. "That's not what we do. We're not undercover cops, we don't deal in petty shit like robbery."
"That drug isn't petty. I think it gives them magic, but it's not working right and it's killing them. If someone has figured out a way to give anyone magic, think how much that would change things, for the Halls, for the world. So it's not just about the bodega, or the ward, but everything," said Zayn.
"You trying to make a mountain out of a molehill?" asked Instructor Allgood.
"Probably," said Zayn. "But I've gotta start somewhere."
"Well, if it is, it's nothing you should be worrying about. This is above your pay grade."
Zayn was confused. "I thought this would be important."
Instructor Allgood crumpled the baggie in his massive fist and threw it in the wastebasket.
"It might be, or it might not. But you should stay out of it. If that drug does what you say it does, then a first-year Hall student in the bottom group would likely only get himself killed. If it's not what you say it is, then it's Protector work, and you shouldn't worry about it either. So in either case I want you to stay away from that drug," said Instructor Allgood. "Anything else?"
Zayn pulled his sleeve back, revealing the runed bandages.
"If I'm staying, I need my magic back," said Zayn.
Instructor Allgood's nostrils flared. "Then remove it."
Zayn realized that Instructor Pennywhistle had tricked him about his imbuement. He tugged the bandage off his arm and threw it in the wastebasket. He gave Instructor Allgood a long look.
"Are you about to ask me to prom? Get the hell out of my office."
Outside in the dojo, Zayn had to shake his hands out.
"You okay, cuz?" asked Keelan, coming from the hallway that led to his room. "You have some heavy thoughts going."
"I do. I'm staying at the Academy."
"You are?" asked Keelan. "I thought they'd given you a free pass back home. No questions asked. I figured you'd jump at the chance to return home."
"They did, but I'm staying, but I need to ask you something," said Zayn, thinking about the reasons that the instructors would lie to him. "And you have to give me the hard truth. No holding back."
"Sure thing," said Keelan. "But you don't need to force a promise from me. I always tell you the truth."
"I need to know what I'm doing wrong," said Zayn. "If I'm staying, I have to get our team out of last place, but it seems like everything I've done has gone ass-end up."
His cousin gave him a funny look. "The cousin I knew from Varna didn't try to save the world all by himself. He always figured out how to get other people to do it for him." Then Keelan looked away towards the instructor's closed door and his face brightened. "Did you hear about Charla?"
The change of subject was obvious, but Zayn let it slide. "No?"
"She got her named coin. First for the class, and one of the earliest ever," said Keelan.
For some reason this didn't bother him as much as he thought it would. Mostly because he'd remembered that he had other reasons to get out of the bottom in the Academy.
"What's that look for?" asked Keelan.
Zayn smiled. "I remembered that in a couple of weeks, there's a band I really want to see."
Chapter Eighteen
Varna, June 2009
A lesson in reverse charm school
The Goon's bluetick coonhounds, Jordan and Barkley, had passed out beneath the row of basketball arcade games as Zayn packed boxes for shipment. Jordan, the bigger one, was snoring, which competed with the occasional beeping from the arcade games and the constant ripping of packing tape.
The Goon had an obsession with arcade basketball games. There were six lined up in the room Zayn was working in, and he'd seen another twenty in the basement. He'd only been working for the Goon for a couple of months, doing odd jobs around the compound, mostly feeding Jordan and Barkley and making the occasional delivery.
Zayn had no idea what was in the boxes he was packing. There were smaller boxes that went into the bigger ones, which he filled with packing peanuts, closed and taped, and then he wrote out a P.O. Box address with no name. No two boxes went to the same state, which Zayn tried hard not to notice.
A gunshot startled Zayn, who nearly cut himself on the tape ripper. He held his breath until he saw the Goon appear in the workroom, a revolver in his
hand.
"Bet that scared your hair straight," said Goon, grinning in that way that always made Zayn feel like he was going to take up the banjo.
"No, sir," said Zayn. "I've come to expect it."
The Goon considered Zayn flatly as if he was disappointed that his little joke had gone unappreciated. Zayn hadn't been lying, even if he'd been startled. The Goon liked to pack his own shells in the next room, and had a small firing range for testing.
"You're getting pretty tall now, aren't you?" asked the Goon, still fingering his revolver.
"I suppose," replied Zayn.
He sensed the Goon had something in mind, but kept his head down and dumped more peanuts into the open box.
"What are you now, fifteen?"
Zayn looked up. "Fourteen."
"That would make Imani three now?" asked the Goon in a forced casual way.
"Yes, sir," said Zayn. "Just had her birthday last month."
"And the twins would be eight then. That's a lot of mouths to feed. Your parents have any luck finding new work?" asked the Goon.
"No, sir. Not for long anyway. My mom can find freelance jobs on occasion, but they don't last. Seems like whenever she works with an architectural company for more than a few months, they suddenly stop calling her," said Zayn.
The Goon shoved the revolver into a hip holster. Everyone in the south owned guns, but Zayn had never heard of anyone who owned more than the Goon, and half of them were enchanted with mage-killing bullets due to his paranoia. Last week, Zayn'd found a snub-nosed pistol in Jordan's healthy heart dog food bag. It'd probably fallen out of the Goon's pocket when he was pouring it.
"I heard your father's interviewing at the high school," said the Goon. "I bet that'd be real nice if he got the job. I heard there's an abnormally large number of candidates, what with the recession and all. A good word might go a long way, if he knew the right people."
Zayn wasn't oblivious to what the Goon was insinuating. "A good word would be helpful."
"You have been quite industrious around here," said the Goon. "Jordan and Barkley do seem to enjoy the attention."
Jordan, the larger of the two, raised his head and his ear flopped over. Barkley was still asleep, snoring and twitching his paws.
The Goon smiled big and wide, and Zayn felt like he could drive a train through that grin. "I have a few errands I need to run. Would you like to help out?"
Zayn had been expecting this question for a week, so he didn't hesitate to answer. "Yes, sir."
"Good choice," said the Goon.
The Goon had been wearing Adidas workout clothes, but switched to jeans and a tan jacket, even though Zayn thought that with a name like the Goon he should be wearing overalls. They hopped into the Goon's red Fireball GTX, heading across town going west.
"Do you like Varna?" asked the Goon, in his not-so-obvious way.
"It doesn't really matter whether or not I like it," said Zayn.
"But you wouldn't stay if you didn't have to," said the Goon.
"Yes, sir."
"I was like you once, desperate to get out of town," said the Goon, turning on a blinker, heading onto the old highway that went around the south side. "Prayed to all the gods that I'd have even a spark of magic so I could go to the Halls and escape for a time. You have the faez, don't you, just like your parents."
Zayn hesitated, chewing on his lower lip.
"Don't worry," said the Goon, "I knew your parents in high school. I know what they can do and I know why they keep their heads down." He tapped on the steering wheel. "But my point is that faez or not, everyone comes back to Varna. Everyone. So it's best to start thinking about how you're going to spend that time, make a living, fit into the Lady's little ecosystem."
"You want me to work for you," said Zayn.
The Goon made a sour face. "Now don't say it like it's such a bad thing."
"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean it like that. I've been saving up to go to art school. There's a place in Selma, close enough I can come back every month," said Zayn.
"That's fine, you can do that if you want. Art school's only two years. Varna's for life. I can wait if I have to. And you'll need money while you're there."
The Goon looked up and made a hard turn onto a gravel road, giving Zayn the chance to change the subject.
"What do I need to do, wherever we're going?" asked Zayn.
The Goon snorted lightly. "You're a cagey one, aren't you? Can't get a thing past you. Well, I need you to check on an investment of mine, deliver a message. You in?"
Zayn felt his heart boom against his chest. He knew he'd come to this point eventually. And while the Goon hadn't spelled out the deal—work for me and I'll help your family and you personally—it was pretty clear cut. And while he hadn't told his parents that he was doing odd jobs for the Goon, if he started doing outside work for him, eventually they would hear. But neither of his parents were working, and despite Neveah's magic in the kitchen—natural, not faez related—meals were getting thin. Eventually someone was going to have to make a sacrifice.
"I'm in," said Zayn.
"Good," said the Goon. "I'm going to drop you off up the street. You're going to knock on that blue trailer at the bottom of the hill. A William Longer will answer the door, and you will inform him that the bill is due and that you're there to collect it. He'll whine and cry a bit, but tell him that he has to pay or it ain't gonna be good. You got that?"
Though he'd only been working for the Goon a short time, Zayn noticed that when he was delivering a serious, don't-mess-with-me message, he usually fell back into a thick Alabama accent. Otherwise, he could almost sound like he'd gone to a college in Ohio.
"Yes, sir," said Zayn.
The Goon leaned in conspiratorially. "Just between you and me, I'll give him a couple of weeks to get the money. I know they just had a third kid and all. But don't let him know that. It's better that they sweat it. Reminds them of who's in charge." He clapped him on the shoulder. "Now go get my money."
The trailer sat on a scratch of land with an old rusted tricycle wheels up on the gravel driveway. The lawn hadn't been cut in weeks, but that wasn't unusual once you got out in the country. With evening coming on, the cicadas were revving up. Zayn checked down the street as he approached the trailer. If trouble happened, the Goon wouldn't know it.
Zayn felt pretty stupid knocking on the trailer door, a fourteen-year-old kid in Varna, Alabama, wearing nothing but jeans and an art school T-shirt with skin as dark as dusk. It didn't matter that he was collecting for the Goon, the guy would probably take one look at Zayn and fetch his gun. He wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans waiting for William to answer the door after he knocked.
There were sounds of a baby crying. A deep male voice yelled into the back. That was the thing about a trailer, every sound carried to the outside. There might be walls, but there was little privacy. So he heard William's approach before the door opened.
William didn't look much older than Zayn. He had freckles and dusty blond hair, grease stains on his shirt. William's voice shook when he spoke. "You're from the Goon, aren't you?"
A young woman's voice came from the back. "Baby? Who's at the door?"
"Just feed the..." He lowered his voice. "Just feed Jacob, will ya." Back to Zayn. "I'm sorry. The Goon. He wants his money, doesn't he?"
Zayn could see in the guy's eyes that he didn't have it. Looked ready to piss himself and Zayn hadn't said a word. On the way up to the trailer Zayn had imagined all the things that might have led to borrowing money from the Goon like a drinking habit, or gambling, but now that he saw William, he figured he was probably just behind on the bills and trying to cover for his new baby.
"He wants it now," said Zayn, and though he didn't intend to put any menace in it, William reacted as if he'd shouted. Fear was eroding William as he watched.
"I...I don't get a paycheck until next week," said William. "I'm doing everything I can. My hair's practically falling out from worry. Look, please
, mister, can you say something to him, make him understand?"
Zayn swallowed. He knew what he was supposed to do. But seeing the guy up close, watching the screws unravel until his limbs were practically falling off, was hard. The crying baby seemed to grow louder than the cicadas.
He looked down the street, to check that the Fireball GTX hadn't snuck up the hill. "Look. The Goon needs his money, and I'll tell him about the paycheck, so don't miss it, but he's not going to do anything to you right now. So you and the missus can rest easy. I imagine that baby is quite a handful."
For a moment, he thought William was going to hug him. "Thank you, sir. Thank you. I sorely do appreciate it. May the Lady bless you."
"Don't forget you got to pay," said Zayn. "He won't be so forgiving next time. Promise me you'll pay."
"I promise. I promise," said William, nodding enthusiastically.
"Goodbye," said Zayn, walking back across the lawn while the screen door banged shut behind him.
He slid into the Fireball next to the Goon. "Did he crap himself like I thought he would?"
"Yes, sir," said Zayn.
"And you put it to him good? No quarter?" asked the Goon with a hard stare as he held onto something he was wearing beneath his shirt, an amulet perhaps.
"Yes, sir," said Zayn. "I thought he was going to puke on my shoes."
The Goon chuckled, slapping the steering wheel a few times. Zayn had half a breath out, a tortured sigh, when the Goon spun on him hard. The revolver was pointed into his gut.
"When I ask you to do something and you say you're going to do it, you'd better do it. If you're not going to, then tell me, but I cannot abide a liar in my house."
"I..."
The Goon's eyes narrowed. "What?"
Zayn closed his eyes for a moment, composing himself. His knees were shaking.
"I screwed up."
"You're damn right you did," said the Goon, searching his face as if he were deciding whether or not to pull the trigger. Then he sat back, removed the barrel from Zayn's side, and placed it back in the holster.
The Reluctant Assassin Boxset Page 11