It turned out to be a pale, thin, elderly-looking man, wearing a pinstriped three-piece suit, who was dragging my uncle Algernon behind him like an unwilling rag doll in one hand and holding a gun in the other. The odd mirroring of two well-dressed older men was almost comical. The man with the gun looked like a faded version of my great-uncle, boasting less hair, less melanin, and less style.
I sighed.
“I fucking hate guns.”
I hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but it appeared the blow to my head had turned off my filters.
“Wretched things, aren’t they?” said the man holding the object in question. He raised it and pressed it to Algernon’s temple, looking for all the world as if it disgusted him to do so.
“Nonetheless, they make effective tools.”
I couldn’t argue with that, so I said nothing.
“I can tell from your silence that you’re inclined to agree with me. It’s a shame, really. I miss the days when all these things could be settled amicably simply by knowing who held the stronger magic.”
“Were you alive for those days?” I asked.
The guy didn’t look more than sixty or seventy, but I imagine that the days when guns weren’t great equalizers between magic and non-magic folks had been a good long time ago.
“Sadly, no. Still, one can dream…”
“I suppose.” I tried to shift a bit more onto my side, in order to relieve some of the strain in my neck, but the man turned the gun on me with surprising agility.
“Just trying to get comfortable,” I said quickly, hoping to keep us from getting shot.
“Well, don’t,” he replied testily.
I nodded. Slowly.
“Now then, tell me where your brother is, Ms. Marmot, lest I be forced to shoot your uncle here.”
He pointed the gun at Algernon again, and I tried to swallow, but there was suddenly no saliva left in my mouth.
“I don’t know where he is right at the moment,” I replied. The man thumbed off the safety on the gun. I would have raised my hands if I could, but since they were still tied behind me, I just kept talking. “But the last place I saw him was in my house, just before Algernon here held me at gunpoint on my own front step.”
The man glared at me as though I were a level of stupid he had not yet encountered.
“I don’t believe that you would be imbecilic enough to bring a known MOME fugitive to hide in your home. Surely you realize it would be the first place we would look.”
That had me returning the look he’d just given me.
“Except that, if I’m correct in surmising that your whole goal in holding me here is to find out where Trevor is, then you clearly didn’t look there. Or maybe you just weren’t able to. I think my brother is easily a few steps ahead of… whatever it is you guys use for spying and eavesdropping these days.”
He didn’t lower the gun on Algernon and continued staring at me.
“Fine,” he said, after a lengthy pause, “If you’re going to play hardball, we can do that. I didn’t want to have to draw this out, but you leave me no choice.”
He pushed the gun into his belt, just in front of the pinstriped vest, a move that made me cringe. But my wincing at poor gun safety was cut short as he pulled a six-inch dagger from somewhere inside his vest.
Without pausing to repeat any of his questions, or even explain what he intended to do, he brought up the wrist by which he had been restraining Algernon and rammed the knife into it, all the way to the hilt. Algernon and I screamed at the same time.
“What the FUCK, dude?! I told you, my bother is in my fucking house. It’s not my fault if your people are too incompetent to find him there. And it certainly isn’t Algernon’s fault.”
I could feel tears run down my cheeks. Algernon and I had never been particularly close, but after my parents died, or disappeared, or whatever the fuck they did, he was all that I had left until I found Trevor again. We had enjoyed a few companionably silent teas, and shared enough teary hugs that I really didn’t want anything bad to happen to him, not to mention that he was just a decent human being who didn’t deserve to be stabbed in the wrist by a psychopath.
Mr. Pinstripe looked up at me then, even as Algernon crumpled to the floor, his arm still hanging awkwardly from the other man’s grip. He glared at me, but said nothing.
“Use a fucking truth spell if you have one, or whatever you want. But that’s all I know about where my brother is. He was at my fucking house when you assholes took me. If you’d done your jobs properly, he would be here right now. So STOP. TORTURING. MY. UNCLE.”
“Interesting,” said Mr. Pinstripe. “I hadn’t expected that you had inherited any of your grandfather’s gifts.”
I had less than no idea what he was talking about, but as he wasn’t driving any more knives into Algernon, I was going to count it as a win.
“What do you mean?”
“You just put power behind your words. I can tell because I feel inclined to stop stabbing your uncle here, which, I can guarantee you, is not my usual mode of operations.”
“So, you enjoy stabbing people?” I asked, my voice carefully neutral. “Tell me more about that.”
Ok, yeah, so maybe it was a cheap attempt to keep the man talking, but hell, I would play shrink all day if it meant giving my rescuers more time to find me. And yes, I assumed I had rescuers, because, well, damn it all, we had just spent the morning bro-ing it up over how we all saved each other’s asses and would do it again. So, yeah, I expected my posse to be coming after me. Assuming they could find me.
It would be easy enough to tell them where I was if I had any earthly idea myself.
I had considered, very briefly, when the man was first pointing the gun at Algernon, just shifting myself away from here. But that would leave Algernon alone, with a man who was very pissed off holding a gun to his temple, and I didn’t think that would end well for Algernon. So I had stayed, but if I could somehow convince Mr. Pinstripe to let me touch Algernon… maybe I wouldn’t even need a rescue.
Pinstripes just sneered at me.
“I’m not a serial killer in search of validation, or a Bond villain looking for an audience, so I’m afraid your questions about my motivations will go unanswered. The organization I work for has a vested interest in your brother. That is all you need to know, I’m afraid.”
He turned toward Algernon and pulled the knife rather slowly from his forearm. Algernon screamed again, and I shuddered.
Pinstripe was just raising the knife to plunge back into Algernon’s arm, while I flailed futilely against the bonds holding my wrists, when the door flew open with a bang and Sol sauntered in.
“WHAT THE FUCK are you doing with my assignment, Vince?” Sol asked.
I kept my mouth shut. My body had flooded with relief at the first sight of Sol, but her words made me realize that she might not be here to rescue me. After all, she had a rep to keep with her MOME superiors. She would be risking a lot to break that cover. She was probably just here to assess the situation.
I doubted she would let Mr. Pinstripe, aka Vince, kill me if it came down to it, though. So that was somewhat reassuring.
“Just getting some useful information out of her before she’s put down. Seeing as you managed to end her usefulness before it even began.”
“You’re not going to touch her, and neither is anyone else. I spent MONTHS tracking this bitch, and I didn’t do all of that to have you ruin her before we even find out if she’s useful.”
Well, that was a different story than the one that Sol had been selling us earlier. I wondered how much of the change in tune was for Vince’s benefit, or how much Sol had simply glossed over the truth in order to get on our good side.
“She already lost whatever usefulness she might have had when you let her thrice-cursed brother escape. She was only ever good as collateral.”
“That’s not what my department thinks.”
Sol said that last bit with the kind of authorit
y that implied her department was not to be fucked with.
Vince just eyed her for a moment, but before he could do anything else, she turned to Algernon.
“Who’s the old man?” she asked, sneering.
“The freaks’ great-uncle. He’s helping us in return for a favor.”
“Oh?” said Sol, sounding barely interested. “What favor?”
“Not killing his grandchildren.”
“Hmm… they at HQ?” she asked, looking around the room, as though she were more interested in the decor than the question itself.
Vince didn’t reply, and Sol just shrugged.
“Well, I have good news, Vince. I have the brother. So you can go ahead and move on with your day.”
That made Vince narrow his eyes.
“Why are you telling me that instead of HQ?”
“Because HQ sent me over here to find out what the hell kind of shady shit you were up to, and I’m the one who found him.”
“Where was he?”
Vince was toying with the knife in a way that was not at all reassuring. He looked like he was just itching to stick it back into some human flesh. Creepy. Vince was officially a creepy fuck.
“In her house,” Sol said, turning back to Vince and looking smug. “Dumbest place to hide him they could have thought of. Of course, they didn’t even try to hide him from me.”
Apparently Vince didn’t like Sol’s tone, or else he decided that Sol’s revelation meant that Algernon’s existence was no longer useful to anyone. Whatever his motivations, he lunged forward with his knife hand. I shouted a warning, but could only watch in horror from my prone position on the floor.
Just as the knife was about to reach Algernon’s throat, a giant, black ball of fury and teeth slammed Vince into the wall behind them both. Algernon whimpered and looked like he might faint, but otherwise seemed unharmed.
When Sol-as-panther stepped back from Vince, the man’s head flopped vacantly to one side, a large gash having taken the place of where his Adam’s apple used to reside.
“Ew,” I said, feeling my gorge rise. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, he deserved it, but… yuck. I never realized how gross the human trachea looks.”
Algernon held a hand to his mouth and moved to the corner of the room, but he didn’t quite make it before his most recent meal came up to visit.
“And, that’s even more gross,” I mentioned, trying to turn away, but only managing to close my eyes against the image, desperately trying not to think of the smell.
Suddenly, Sol in human form was kneeling over me, doing something with the bonds that held me.
I was surprised by how quickly my nausea fled and was replaced by a very different kind of warmth in my stomach.
“Remind me to stay on your good side,” I mumbled to Sol, as she loosened the bonds on my wrists.
She just smirked and continued untying me.
“Is this going to be problematic for you… work-wise? And how did you find me?”
“I’ll explain once we’re safely out of here,” Sol said, as she finally undid the binding around my ankles.
“Should I shift us?” I asked.
Sol shook her head, but didn’t say anything, looking pointedly at Algernon, who was still being quietly sick in the corner of the room.
Interesting, and mildly suspicious, that Sol didn’t want to discuss things in front of him, but I supposed one couldn’t be too careful.
“Ok. What’s our exit strategy, then?”
Sol strode to a window that I hadn’t been able to see this whole time because of the way I’d been positioned on the floor, and flung open the blinds, then the window itself.
She whistled loudly, and there was a return howl from outside. I had already gone to kneel beside Algernon.
“Come on, Algie. We have to get out of here quickly. We need time to find your family before they have a chance to hurt them.”
Algernon stared at me through glassy eyes.
“I can’t leave here. They’ll kill my granddaughters. I can’t risk it. If you can find them, please, help them. Get them away from MOME, but I can’t risk doing anything that might seem like not cooperating.”
I stared at him in consternation, while gesturing vaguely in the direction of the newly deceased. “Vince over there was ready to kill you because he'd decided that you’d outlived your usefulness. What makes you think whoever else is here won’t do the same?”
Algernon simply shook his head.
“That doesn’t matter. I have to know that my granddaughters are safe. They can do whatever they like with me, but those girls…”
Algernon’s eyes filled, and I did my best to keep from imitating him, not because I didn’t think it was an appropriate time to cry, it certainly was, but because I needed clear vision to get out of here fast enough to save Algernon’s grandkids.
I took a deep breath.
“Damn it, Algie, if I’d just wanted to leave you to the sharks, I would have abandoned you the second I woke up.”
Sol growled softly from behind me, but I didn’t bother to turn around to see if it was directed at me or not. I didn’t think Algernon was with it enough to put together that I meant I could shift people through space and time, but how did MOME not already know that anyway? I had shifted the four of us out of their clutches not twenty four hours ago.
“Come with us, please. I’ll make sure they can’t get to the girls.”
He shook his head, and Sol muttered “We have to go,” so softly that I doubted anyone without enhanced hearing would be able to even tell that she’d spoken.
I sighed.
“Please be careful, Tio. I’ll do my best to get Lucy and Mia away from these assholes. Your part of the deal is to make sure you’re around to see them again. Ok?”
Algernon nodded, but still didn’t speak. I decided I didn’t have time to do anything other than run to the window and follow Sol’s lead, reaching for my snow leopard and jumping out of the open frame as close to her furry tail as I could manage without landing us in a tangled heap of cat.
As we hit the ground running, I felt the getting-more-familiar-than-I-would-like flash of heat caused by a spell whizzing past my shoulder, and I began zigging and zagging my way to Seamus, whose wolf form I could just see in the distance. My hope was that the quick directional changes would help prevent spells from turning me into a gooey Picasso or… whatever they were intended to do.
I heard a screech from the sky above us that told me Trevor was close by, and I wondered how long they’d been out here fighting off mages.
Long enough that we’re getting tired, Numo.
More spells burst onto the landscape nearby, and I heard Seamus howl once behind me, just as we neared the woods bordering the grounds of the estate we appeared to be on. I hadn’t been able to tell much about the house we’d been inside of from my limited perspective tied up on the floor, so this was the first time I was getting any sense of the size and shape of the place.
We had jumped from a second story window and landed in a heavily landscaped garden, complete with artfully manicured lawn and oddly sculpted decorative shrubs.
Like, seriously, why had I just run past a hedge shaped like a herring? And why did I know what a herring looked like, come to that?
Within a hundred yards, however, stood the edge of a forest that I was willing to bet backed onto the nearest mountain, and might, therefore, provide us not only with cover from spells, but also an avenue of escape.
I risked a look back over my shoulder and saw that Seamus was lagging behind. Just to add to the fun, his slow pace seemed to be leaving him in serious danger of getting hit by more spells.
I turned on my haunches and sprinted back in his direction, before I could think better of it. A plaintive screech from behind me told me that Trevor had seen the move and was not impressed. Oh well. I had too few friends to risk losing any to MOME asshats. Surely, Trev of all people could understand that.
Seamus seemed sim
ilarly nonplussed when I arrived at his side, but I ignored his growl of protest, flattening him to the ground just as another spell shot towards where his head had just been.
It seemed as though the mages were catching up.
In fact, for the first time since the encounter where Trev had immolated a MOME agent in Bolivia, I could actually see who was attacking us. The spells on the cliff side had seemed like disembodied magic floating at us without an origin, since all of the mages who had been coming after us had still been on top of the cliff. And, until a few moments ago, the mages coming after us here had been behind the cover of the various decorative shrubs. Now, finally, they were forced to leave the limited protection of the oddly shaped bushes in order to cross the open ground of the estate and reach the forest beyond before we did.
I could smell the coppery tang of blood coming from Seamus, beneath me, and knew that if I hadn’t just pounced on him, yet another spell would have hit him, doing who knew what kind of damage.
No time, Trevor sent, from wherever he was, flapping away behind me.
He and Sol had likely turned back to try to cover my tail as I had run for Seamus, but I wasn’t sure and it wasn’t like I had time to check. I needed to get Seamus out of here. Now. Injured, he wasn’t fast enough for this. He needed help.
Without waiting to confirm the plan with anyone else, I thought about the clearing where the Tree of Life resided and reached for that space with my consciousness.
Between one heartbeat and the next we were there.
Seamus lay panting beneath me, but I didn’t wait to see how he was doing. The Tree of Life was supposed to take care of him, and I couldn’t leave Sol and Trevor in the hands of those mages, no matter how badass each of them might be normally. They were grossly outnumbered.
I shifted back to the exact place I had just left.
Victoria Marmot- The Complete Series Page 15