by Cari Z
“I’ll be happy to help, as long as you find the right place. Take some Slim Jims for the road, boys.”
I didn’t take any, but Sören spitefully grabbed the entire container before marching out to the car.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sören didn’t talk to me at all after that, even though I kept asking if he was all right. It had to have been a terrifying thing for him, to be swallowed up by a force so much greater than he himself was. Like Jonah and the whale, only if the whale was just as smart as Jonah and they both knew it. Hell, I’d have been scared under the circumstances. I’d been scared just watching it.
Bobby was kind of a bastard, but I took his meaning. Sören wasn’t a big fish in America. I needed to find him somewhere to put down roots―literally and figuratively―that wouldn’t chew him up and spit him out. If I couldn’t do that, I wouldn’t blame Sören for not wanting to stick with me, because everyone needed a home. Just because I didn’t know exactly where mine was didn’t mean Sören had to suffer along with me. Fortunately, I knew someone in the oil business who I could talk to about that.
But first I had to take care of Sören, who was curled up in the passenger seat, still clutching a fistful of Slim Jims but not eating them. He was filthy, but he hadn’t been amenable to me touching him after the initial brush down. Which, yeah, I could understand him wanting some serious autonomy right now.
I pulled up outside of a La Quinta hotel and said, “We’ll get a room, and you can get cleaned up.”
“No.”
Well, fuck. Of course his first word in an hour would be No. “Why not?”
“I’m not getting out of the car.”
“You can’t just stay in the car like this, Sören.”
Purple eyes glared at me. “And you can’t tell me what to do.”
It was like having a toddler as my copilot. “Explain this to me, okay? Why don’t you want to get out of the car? I’m not trying to make this hard for you. I genuinely want to know.”
“Because I don’t want to step on the ground.”
So this was sort of like the camping issue. “Why not?”
“Because this ground is aggressive now. It’s reaching for me, disrupting my energy. I hate this place.”
“What do you mean, reaching for you?”
“I mean that it’s reaching for me!” he hissed. “How can you not feel it?” Suddenly he reached over to me and grasped my face in his hands. “I will show you.”
“Wait―” Reading Sören when he was like this didn’t work the same way. I didn’t see the future in his eyes, but apparently if he wanted me to, I could get a really good grasp on the present. The sensation started as an itch at the base of my spine and then began a slow crawl up and down my body, like a wave of pinpricks stabbing my flesh. It wasn’t exactly painful, but it was definitely uncomfortable. “What the hell is that?”
“Magnetism.”
“Magne―how?”
“This land is rich in lodestone. It can move and direct it, and it is following us with it and disrupting this body’s equilibrium. The lodestone pulls on the very particles in this blood. It’s trying to tug me back to it, and I hate it. I want us to leave.”
And now I could see why, but I was starving, he was filthy, and we were running low on gas. “We need a room, Sören. We don’t have to stay the night” ―although I was going to push for that if at all possible― “but we need to regroup. Look, the floor in there will be concrete and tile, and that will help to muffle things, right?”
“Barely,” he said, letting go of my face and crossing his arms. “But yes.”
“Then we’ll get cleaned up, I’ll get something to eat, we’ll figure out our next move, and things will be good. Okay?”
“Things haven’t been very good so far.” He eyed me dubiously. “What makes you think they’re about to change?”
“I’m going to talk to a guy who owes me a favor. I think he can find you the land you need.”
That perked Sören up immediately. “Empty land?”
“Probably.”
“Will it have an aquifer?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“I will need one, in order to replenish my lake.”
I didn’t even want to consider the logistical difficulties of shipping a goddamn lake across country, but hey, if Egilsson could do it… “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“And some granite outcroppings would be nice.”
“Okay.”
“And a small volcano, if possible.”
“Look, this isn’t Hawaii,” I said, because there was a limit to the things I was willing to let Sören have access to, and a freaking volcano was at the top of that list. Right above fault lines. “The continental United States doesn’t have very many active volcanoes, and wouldn’t those have their own elementals guarding them?”
“Possibly,” Sören allowed.
“There you go. I’ll see what I can do, okay? Let’s go get a room first.”
Getting a room involved me practically carrying Sören into the hotel, because he was adamant about not stepping foot on the ground. The sidewalk was a compromise, but he basically ran inside once he was out of the car. I followed with my bag, got us a room on the second floor―the more distance the better―and got Sören situated before taking my phone back downstairs and outside. I didn’t want him to listen in while I was talking to Roger, in case things ended up being a lot more hopeless than I was holding out for. Thank god for permanent ink and lazy bathing habits.
The sun was sinking toward the horizon now, and the sky looked almost like a parody of a sunset, so orange and pink and violet and gold it could hardly be real. It was gorgeous, the sort of thing that could steal a person’s heart. I could see why someone would choose to live out here, in this town of less than three thousand people, if they had that kind of view every evening. Didn’t mean I’d ever want to do that, but I could understand it.
I dialed Roger’s number, feeling a little nervous. It was one thing to tell a guy that you owed them right after they’d saved your life―it was quite another for them to call in the favor. And I was asking for a big fucking favor.
He answered on the third ring. “This Cillian?” His Texas twang was oddly relaxing.
“Yeah, Roger, it’s me.”
“Goddamn, son, finally! I’d about thought you’d fallen off the face of the earth!”
No, that would be Sören. “It’s been a busy time. How are you?”
“Not as good as I’d be with you here. The cards just ain’t fallin’ my way tonight.”
“You’re in Vegas?” That was good and bad news. Good because that meant he was relatively close, all things considered; bad because there was no way in hell I was going to Las Vegas.
“Yep. I reckon you’d clean up in a town like this.”
“That’s the whole reason I can’t go there.”
Roger Vandermoor wasn’t a multimillionaire businessman for nothing. He was quiet for a moment before saying, “Got yourself blacklisted, huh?”
“Among other things.” Apart from not being welcome in any casino on the Strip, I was also wanted by the overtly criminal side of Vegas as well. And the magical community. All of Nevada was basically a no-go zone for me if I wanted to be safe.
“And they’ll break your kneecaps if they catch you in their town again. I understand. Well, what can I do for ya, Cillian?”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath, trying to marshal my thoughts. “I need a piece of land.”
“The wife and I own over a million acres, so I reckon there’s plenty of pieces in that. What kind of land specifically?”
A million acres? I had underestimated Roger’s net worth. “Something that was used for oil or gas development and then tapped out, fairly recently. Something that’s not too remote―it has to have road access, but not be close to many people either. Something with access to water, if you could manage it. The plot doesn’t have to be big” ―after all, Sören’
s land fit within that warehouse, and while it was big, it wasn’t football field sized― “but it does have to have been used up, so to speak.”
“Huh.” I could hear him tapping his phone, looking something up. “I’m sure I could wrangle something like that. You need a place to build a house or something?”
“More like I need a place to transplant some property. It’s complicated.”
“I figure everything with you gets pretty complicated. Hmm.” He tapped some more. “Let me see what I’ve got and get back to you on it. This time sensitive?”
“Pretty time sensitive, yeah.”
“Any places you’re not willing to consider?” I heard ice clink in a glass as he took a sip of his drink.
“Nothing in Illinois.” Because even if, by some miracle, we came out ahead at the end of this, I didn’t want to tempt Fate by settling Sören in Illinois.
“Not to worry. Not much oil development in Illinois…” I let Roger mutter some more, pinching the spot right between my eyes where a headache was rapidly developing. It was probably dehydration; I hadn’t had much to drink today along with my unintentional fasting, but the pain was building so rapidly that it was more like…more like…
Oh, fuck.
Sometimes―not often, but sometimes―I got premonitions. It was different from seeing someone’s fate, or playing out what was going to happen in the future through someone else’s eyes. A premonition was the sudden, intense knowledge that I needed to be looking at someone; Fate’s way of throwing me a bone, so to speak. And the only person around right now was Roger. Which meant―
“Can you do me another favor?”
“What d’you need, son?”
“I need to see your eyes. Can we go live?”
Roger chuckled. “You gonna change my luck, Cillian?”
“I think you might be the one to change mine,” I said. “Please.” I wasn’t actually sure if this would work over a phone, but I had to try.
There was some shuffling, and then Roger’s face came up on my screen. He was wearing the same white hat as before and had a glass of what was probably whiskey in one hand. He didn’t look drunk, though, mostly amused.
“Here I am,” he said expansively. “You need me to do anything else?”
“Just hold the phone a little closer to your eyes, and be still for a bit.” He obliged, and I relaxed my mind as best I could, stared into his eyes, and let myself dig down, a little deeper, a little harder. It wasn’t easy―the pixilation blurred some things―but after a few seconds, I found what I was fearing.
“Oh, shit.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“I…” How had they found us again? How had I given us away? Santa Rosa was a fucking hole in the road, there was nothing here to distinguish it―how had they found us? And we weren’t going anywhere, obviously. We could run into the desert, but the land was angry at us, and the farther we got from civilization, the more of a problem Sören might have. Besides, that wasn’t what the future showed anyway. It was blurry, but it was all I had to go on.
“Roger, I need to ask you another favor. A big one, right now. And I need you to just go with it, okay? Because it’s gonna happen, but the sooner you get started on it, the better the odds are. And I swear to god if I survive what’s coming, I will pick the winning horse at the next Kentucky Derby for you.”
Roger blinked once and then shrugged and threw back the rest of his drink. “Eh, Vegas was getting boring anyway. What can I do for you, Cillian?”
I told him. He laughed and laughed.
It was nice that one of us was confident.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Naturally, once Sören knew about the looming confrontation, he insisted on being there. I figured it would be easier without him, but he thought, probably correctly, that since he was the one we were fighting over, he should have a say in our negotiations.
“Fine,” I said. “But keep your mouth shut for the most part, okay? Please? Because you’re not good at defusing these sorts of situations, and I think you know that.”
“Defusing such situations would be boring.” He smirked. “I much prefer when you fight over me.”
“And I much prefer to survive the negotiations, so don’t push it, okay?”
“I will think about it.” Which meant he was probably going to be a little shit. “Which of my brothers is coming?”
“Jakob.”
Sören’s expression immediately perked up. “Really? That’s a compliment to you, Cillian. Jakob is Ólafur’s best negotiator. It means he’s moved beyond just threatening you into trying to reason with you.”
I snorted. “Before he kills me regardless, you mean?”
“Obviously.”
“I’m flattered.” I was more than a little relieved, actually. I had no desire to see hide or hair of Artύr again, especially since he was probably still very put out over taking all those shots to the junk. And Rolf… “Why not the other brother?”
“Oh, Rolf is just a year older than me―he’s too young to have much influence with Ólafur. Plus, he doesn’t speak very nuanced English. Jakob has a law degree from Oxford.”
Great. I got to bargain for my life with a lawyer. I’d never considered myself stupid, but occasionally I felt the weight of my lack of a formal education. The prospect of facing down a lawyer was a uniformly distasteful one. The second he brought up, I don’t know, probate or something, I was going to kick him in the face.
No I wasn’t. But it was a nice thought to get me through the evening.
Jakob Egilsson pulled up in front of the La Quinta in a black SUV―naturally―an hour and a half later. He had two other men with him, both of them discreetly armed. Jakob himself was dressed in khakis and a nice button-down shirt, nothing that would stand out in the Southwest. He went through the rigamarole of getting a hotel room, speaking with barely a trace of an accent, and then came to meet me in the foyer not far from the front desk. If there had been an open meeting room, I would have taken it to keep things more private, but there wasn’t, and there was no way I was going to a bedroom with these people. Besides, I needed to be able to see outside.
Jakob looked between me and Sören as he sat down across from us. “Little brother,” he said conversationally. “You look like you’re doing well.”
“Passable,” Sören replied. “It certainly has been far more interesting with Cillian than it ever was with you.”
“That’s a shame. If I’d known how discontented you were becoming, I would have taken steps to alleviate it. You know we only want the best for you.”
“So I’ve been told. And yet you were not able to keep me, not even in the finery to which you’ve become accustomed. That is no way to win a battle, Jakob. Certainly no way to win a war. It is laziness, and Ólafur cannot afford to become lazy, not with regards to me.”
“As you’ve so clearly demonstrated. However―”
“Hi,” I interjected, because that little game had gone on for long enough. “I’m sitting right here. I think you should probably talk to me at this point.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” Jakob replied, but he did at least look at me. “If Sören felt free to make a bargain with you, then he is also free to bargain with me, as our father’s second. I’m merely cutting out the middleman.”
“You can’t.” That was Sören, and he sounded more than a little gleeful. “Because I am the object you both desire, and bargains have been struck that gainsay neither of the original agreements. I am free to make new choices, but not with you, unless Ólafur is indisposed. You are restricted to your father’s bargain, which means you cannot cajole me into coming with you. You must deal with Cillian.”
“You’re enjoying this way too much,” I told Sören. He smiled at me and preened.
“It isn’t every day that wizards fight over a simple landvættir. I feel I should enjoy the moment.”
Jakob looked at me, really looked, and for a moment, I felt a weird kinship with him as
we both briefly agreed on the fact that Sören was a complete and utter drama queen.
“Fine,” he said. He resettled to face me, crossed his legs, and pulled out his phone. “If you would take a look at this, please.” He handed it over to me, and I felt my breath catch in my throat as I took in the picture he had pulled up. It was a brick building on a very familiar corner in Denver, and it was completely gutted by what had to have been a very fierce fire.
“You―”
“As I understand it, three bodies have been recovered so far. They’re still being identified, but at least one was female.”
I stared for another moment at the picture, getting my initial burst of fear and outrage under control, and then took a deep breath. “Well, arson is never nice, and I can’t say I approve, but I also happen to know you haven’t accomplished what you’re implying. Nice try, but I call bullshit.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Actually, I can know that. I’m a motherfucking soothsayer,” I snapped at him. “I can know a lot of things you’ve got no clue about, and that includes the fate of the occupants in that building. I also know that if by some terrible coincidence you have actually managed to take out either of the people I care about who live there, the Irish mob is going to come after you. You’re currently living in Chicago. It’s no Boston, but there is absolutely no shortage of people I can go to with this information who wouldn’t love to have an excuse to end you. So. Try again.”
Jakob smiled, actually smiled. “Very clever, Mr. Kelly. Let me add that the fire wasn’t my idea. I greatly dislike collateral damage, but my brother couldn’t be gainsaid after your little stunt in St. Louis. He’s very, very angry at you.”
“Good thing I’m not negotiating with him then.”
“It is.” Jakob took his phone back. “You’re much better off with me, although not necessarily safer. I’m something of a scholar, Mr. Kelly. I do like my research. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to research you, but as you can see―” He waggled the picture of the fire. “I did manage to come up with a few gems. There isn’t much official information about you, but unofficially there’s a wealth of it. Not so much you individually, but―well, I had no idea your mother was such a desirable commodity.”