by Logan Jacobs
The hostess smiled and stepped into the hallway, with the menus still in her hand. Then the door closed behind her with a barely audible click.
“How do they know you here?” I asked Larry.
“Where did it come from?” John demanded of me at the same time.
“I already explained,” I huffed.
Larry held up his hand as John started to protest.
“We can get into that once the tea arrives,” Larry warned and gave John a stern look. “As for me, this was one of the places my wife always wanted to visit when we came to the city.”
“You’re married?” both John and I asked in surprise.
“Was,” Larry sighed and dropped his eyes. “Lost her to the flu epidemic a few years back.”
John and I both glanced at each other.
“Shit, that’s terrible,” I muttered, and I felt a pang of guilt that I knew so little about this man who I’d just dragged into a shitload of trouble.
“Sorry, man,” John added in a much calmer tone. Then he gave Larry a look of regret that I knew mirrored my own.
“It happens,” Larry replied with a shrug. “At least I got to be with her at the end.”
I suddenly realized this was the most we’d ever learned about Larry. He’d joined the Reese farm the year before I arrived, yet even by the time I’d signed on, no one knew much about him. It was generally believed he once had a farm of his own, but when he’d admitted to having visited the city before, that theory had changed to Larry was a man trying to escape a mysterious past among the concrete and bricks.
“Did you two come to the city a lot?” I asked.
“A few times a year,” Larry noted.
There was a knock on the door, and a cute blonde waitress in a pink and white striped dress and white apron stepped into the room. She set the tray on the table and unloaded a large pot of tea, a plate of small sandwiches, smoked fish on crackers, and a basket of hot scones with jars of honey, cream, and jam. Then she placed a clean plate and tea cup with a saucer in front of each of us and left the room.
“It’s all good,” Larry assured us after the door shut behind the waitress.
John and I both examined the food doubtfully, but I piled my plate with several sandwiches and some of the crackers, then picked a scone I could slather in honey. I knew John was itching to ask more questions, but I didn’t have any more answers for him. I stuffed my face before he could pepper me with more demands, and found, happily, that Larry was right. The food was delicious, full of savory flavors and subtle aromas. I eyed the sandwich plate and wondered how much it would cost to order an entire one for myself.
“Alright, we’ve eaten,” John declared as he swallowed the last bite of his second scone. “Now, we talk.”
I sighed and set my tea cup back on the saucer.
“I swear, I didn’t steal it,” I said. “It just appeared.”
“Your parents were mages,” Larry mused. “Could either of them do something like that? Make things appear?”
I tried to think back to my childhood.
“My mom used to make small things appear sometimes, like coins and marbles,” I admitted after a moment, “but I’m not sure if that was real magic or just sleight of hand.”
Larry nodded thoughtfully.
“I thought your parents just grew things,” John harrumphed. “Least, that’s what Pappa Paul always talks about. ‘Healing the land’ and all that.”
“I guess,” I groaned.
The truth was I didn’t remember much about my parents. I knew they had been powerful mages, but I had few memories of them or their magic, since I lost them at a young age. What I did remember were things like my mother’s voice as she sang me to sleep or the pine scent that clung to my father.
My clearest memory of my parents was the day our small house near the edge of the Reese Farm was attacked. I remembered my mother’s command to run as she and my father tried to use their magic to protect me, and I definitely remembered the man with one blue eye and one brown eye who knocked down the door and attacked my father. I knew instinctively that man was a mage and not some highway robber, like the sheriff always claimed.
Yet another reason to hate mages in my book.
The rest of that terrible day was more blurry. I ran, just like my mother told me, all the way to the Reese Farm, where I somehow managed to tell Paul Reese about the attack. Pappa Paul, as he was known even then, rode out with as many farm hands as he could find. My parents, after all, were a large part of the reason the Reese Farm was so successful.
No one ever told me what they found, but the men were grim and covered in blood when they returned. There were many quiet conversations that night, and it was Paul’s wife Alana who finally came to tell me my parents were dead.
“Magic is usually inherited,” Larry mused as he tapped his fingers on the table. “It does seem strange you wouldn’t have some sort of ability.”
“But the mages tested me,” I protested. “For years. Pappa Paul kept insisting on it even after that fella from the Magesterium told him to give up on me. I’ve never been able to do anything magical.”
“Well, I’d say they were wrong,” Larry chuckled. “Unless you want to change your story?”
I shook my head in frustration and tapped the bulge under my jacket, just to make sure it was still there.
“It doesn’t matter where it came from,” John sighed. “If you get caught with it, they’ll arrest you and maybe even execute you. And us as well, just for being around you. You have to get rid of it.”
“But you can’t do it here in the city,” Larry added in a grave tone. “They have mages who can track forbidden items, and if they find it, they can use magic to see who handled it. You need to get it out of the city and lose it in the countryside somewhere.”
I nodded. Having a gun was one of the worst crimes imaginable, and in the early days of the mage imperium, it was a guaranteed death sentence. I hadn’t heard of an execution for possession of a gun in years, but then most people who were found with a gun usually vanished into a mage cell somewhere and were never seen again. Execution would probably be a gift.
“I can slip out with the people heading home at sundown,” I suggested. I had to figure even in a place as big as the city, plenty of the people who worked here probably lived on the other side of the river.
“That could work,” Larry agreed. “There’s always a long line of people waiting to get through the tunnel at the end of the day, and I’ve never seen them do a search on people leaving.”
“Okay,” I said as I tried to think it through. “Then I could slip back into the city tomorrow morning. It’s not like anyone will be surprised if I don’t spend the night at the bunkhouse. Heck, most of the guys won’t even be there.”
“There’s a place just on the other side of the tunnel called ‘The Witch’s Brew’,” Larry mused. “The owner’s got a few rooms upstairs he rents out to travelers who get stuck on the wrong side of the tunnel. I’ve stayed there a few times. It’s clean and comfortable, and you won’t have to worry about getting robbed.”
“Right,” I declared as I tried to sound more confident than I was at that moment. The adrenaline rush had long since worn off, and despite the cozy surroundings, I could feel the edge of panic starting to set in.
“You’ll be fine,” the older hand reassured me.
I nodded and took a calming breath. I could do this. Just follow the crowds through the tunnel, find a nice, quiet place to toss the gun, then check into a room at The Witch’s Brew.
What could be simpler?
“Damn,” John muttered. “Of all the freaking magics you could have. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” I moaned. “We’ll head out of the city in a couple of days. I’ll ride back to the farm and figure it out there. What I don’t get is how all those mages were wrong. Every single one of them said I had no magic.”
“Our local mages aren’t exactly the cream of the
crop,” Larry pointed out.
“But this is a big deal,” John argued with a frown. “Being able to make one of … those appear would surely catch someone’s attention.”
“I don’t know what else to say,” the older man mused. “I would guess there’s more involved, but I couldn’t even begin to speculate on what that would be.”
“That’s not very reassuring,” I muttered as I stared at my hand. The itch had died down, but I suspected that was only because the gun was so close by. What would I do once I tossed it? Not to mention the long ride home. Maybe I should just go with Larry’s suggestion and claim I’d encountered some poison ivy.
“Just be careful leaving the city,” Larry warned. “Maybe act like you’re going to visit a girl you know, and they won’t look at you twice.”
“Yeah,” John added with a nod. “Try to look normal. Right now you look like someone who’s smoked too much locoweed.”
“I do not,” I retorted, though I had no idea what I looked like at the moment.
“Your eyes are about to pop out of your head,” John insisted, “and you keep picking at your hand. And patting that bulge under your jacket.”
“He’s right,” Larry cut in before I could protest. “The state you’re in, you’ll draw attention.”
I flopped back into the chair and glared at the other two men.
“You should take a look at yourselves if you think I’ll draw attention,” I huffed.
“But we’re not trying to carry a you-know-what out of the city,” John pointed out.
“You can say the word gun out loud,” I sniped.
“Careful,” Larry warned as his eyes darted to the door. “Even in here you can’t be sure who’s listening.”
John and I both looked at the walls as if we expected a horde of mages to suddenly materialize. I realized I’d patted the gun again and quickly lowered my hand. Then I drew a deep breath and pictured a quiet day in the woods near the farm. After a few moments, I felt my heart rate settle closer to normal.
“So what’s the big deal about … you know anyway?” John asked quietly. “I mean, I know they killed a lot of people, but you don’t see the mages trying to round up all the old cars, and they killed a lot of people, too.”
“Because there’s only one sure way to kill a mage,” Larry replied. “A bullet to the head.”
“Really?” John asked in surprise.
“Really,” Larry assured him with a nod. “Trust me, the mages may make the Awakening sound like it was one big love fest, with everyone singing the praise of the mages, but there were plenty of people who thought the mages were a bigger threat than the ice age.”
John and I glanced at each other, surprised at the heat in Larry’s response. Despite everything that had just happened, I really wanted to hear the rest of the story, but the older man looked out the window, and then turned back to the room.
“You should get ready to leave so you can be in with the thickest crowd,” Larry suggested. “Most people prefer to be out of the tunnel before nightfall.”
I nodded and took another deep breath.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” John said as I stood up.
“The morning,” I agreed as I placed my hat back on my head and pulled the jacket tight.
I nodded to both men and then slipped into the hallway and down the short flight of stairs. I passed through the main room, where husbands and boyfriends started to fill out the tables, and waved goodbye to the hostess. I walked back toward the holding area, then followed the blocked street back to the tunnel.
“Act normal,” was my constant refrain as I moved along the sidewalk. I tried not to pat the gun or scratch my hand, but the press of people had me worried a pickpocket might spy the bulge and try to steal it. I was about to move the gun to one of my pockets, then stopped myself when I remembered I couldn’t display it in public.
The walk to the tunnel quickly turned into one long anxiety attack.
As I neared the tunnel, though, I’d nearly convinced myself I could pull it off and dispose of the gun without anyone being the wiser, but this new found bit of confidence quickly faded when I stepped around the corner and saw the crowd gathered at the entrance to the tunnel.
It was bigger than I imagined it would be, and the angry voices made it clear something was amiss. A roadblock had been set up, and two mages and six deputies inspected everyone who left the city, and it wasn’t just a casual glance and poke at the cart kind of check either. The deputies actually frisked people while the mages checked for magical items with some sort of wands.
“Shit,” I muttered as I tried to decide what to do. I stopped at the corner, next to a lamp post, and watched the deputies and mages conduct their searches.
Of course, no one in the city simply stood around. One of the deputies started to watch me, and I had to fight the urge to take off at a dead run. I tried to glance across the crowd casually as I leaned against the lamp post and prayed the deputy would give up and go back to his other duties.
I had no idea what I hoped to find in the crowd, other than something that would give me an excuse to be here and hopefully make me less interesting to the deputy who still watched me.
Then I saw what I wanted.
A group of young women strolled past the edge of the crowd, and they were well-dressed and clearly on their way to a party. I smiled and went after them, and I even waved at the group like I knew them.
“Excuse me, miss,” I said as I pulled even with the group and tipped my hat. Then I held out a handkerchief I always kept in my pocket. “I think you dropped this.”
The women all looked at me for a moment, and I gave them my friendliest smile.
“You must be mistaken,” one of the women replied as she looked at the plain fabric. “That doesn’t look like any of ours.”
The women hadn’t stopped when I first approached them, so we were nearly past the crowds gathered at the tunnel. As we waited for a cab to pass on one of the sidestreets, I risked a quick glance at the deputies. No one paid any real attention to me any more, so I followed the ladies out of sight of the search crew and tipped my hat again.
“My apologies,” I said as I smiled once more. “I’ll just let you continue on your way.”
“You could come with us, Handsome,” one of the other women suggested to a flurry of titters from her companions. “We’re just going to a magic light show at City Hall.”
“I’ve got to check in with my boss,” I said sadly, “but maybe I’ll see you ladies there in a bit.”
This earned me a round of smiles from the women, and I could see them leaning in close to whisper to each other as they continued down the street. A few risked a backward glance at me, and I waited until they were lost in the crowd before I moved again.
I needed to get rid of the gun, but now I wasn’t sure where to go. Larry warned me they had mages who would find the gun if I left it in the city, and I had to believe the longer I kept it, the better the chances were that they would find me with the gun.
As John had said, of all the freaking magics I could have. It might not be as useless as the ability to summon Peter and Preston merely by thinking about them, but it was damn close. At least summoning Peter and Preston wouldn’t get me killed.
I snorted at the thought, then stopped myself when several people gave me a quick glance. I couldn’t lose control now. I had to find another way to get rid of the gun, and I had to do it quickly.
My life depended on it.
I wandered along the streets, not quite sure where I would go. Then I found myself in a large group of people and realized they were probably all heading toward City Hall for the light show. I decided to stay with the crowd at least that far, and I hoped all those people might make it harder for the mages to find me.
And maybe my brain would be inspired along the way.
As we neared City Hall, I noticed a slight change in the air. It took a moment, since the smells of the city were so strong, but I re
alized it was the scent of a large river. I’d arrived at the other side of the island, where the second great river flowed past the main part of the city and separated it from the other islands that fell under the jurisdiction of the city government.
I ambled through the crowd and slowly made my way toward the water I could hear over the din of voices. There was a walkway on this side of the island that ran along much of the riverside. Despite the nip in the air, there were plenty of people out for a stroll, so I fell in with the crowd and let them carry me away from City Hall.
The crowds began to thin out the further we got away from tonight’s big show. The lamps all sprang to life as the sun started to set, but this far along the park, there weren’t enough of them to keep the darkness at bay. So, I found a spot in between two lamps where only the barest sliver of light shone, and then I stepped up to the railing that kept pedestrians from tumbling into the river.
I peered over the edge, but there wasn’t much I could see. I could hear the water as it lapped the shore, and I had a sense the river was moving swiftly. I took another look along the walk, and when I didn’t see anyone else, I pulled the revolver from my waistband.
How could something so wrong feel so right in my hand? I knew I should simply toss it over the side and let the river carry it away, to join all those plastic bottles at the bottom of the ocean, but it was hard to let go. There was a prickling sensation in my fingers, as if in protest of my decision to toss the gun into the water.
But it had to be done.
I sighed and wondered briefly if there was any chance I would ever create another gun ever again. Then I lifted my arm, ready to toss the gun out as far as I could, and whispered goodbye.
“Hold on there, son,” a voice called out from behind me. “Tossing things in the river is considered littering and will get you a fine.”
I whirled around and found two deputies walking up behind me. They were both lean, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a long stride that ate up the distance between us before I could even blink.
“O-Oh, uh,” I stammered as I tried to hide the gun behind my back. A little voice screamed at me to run, but a calmer part of my brain pointed out the deputies hadn’t seen the gun, just seen me prepare to toss something into the river.