Chariots of Wrath

by R. L. King

  Nick lets his breath out in a loud whoosh. The magazine plummets to the surface. His face is red, he’s puffing like he just did a full workout, and there’s sweat on his forehead, but he pumps his fist like he just scored the winning touchdown at the Super Bowl. “Yes!”

  I stare at him, shocked. “Nick—Happenstance taught you to control your power?”

  He’s still puffing. He leans on the table, bent over with exertion. “Well…yeah, sort of. That little bit took everything I have, so I won’t be doing anything big any time soon. But it’s a tiny little start—and best of all, it proves to me that someday I will be able to control it.” He looks up at me, and his eyes are full of hope. “He says I might even be able to learn other magic. He’s not sure yet, but he says it’s possible.”

  “Uh—wow. That’s great!” I clap him on the arm. “Even if it turns out you only have the glitch thing, if you learn to control that, it’s…huge.”

  “It is,” Twyla agrees. She’s scanning the magazine with the fuzzed-out look of magical sight. “If you can, it means you’ll be safe from magic, and that’s a big deal.”

  “That’s what he said.” Nick flops into a chair. “This is just the beginning, but he did a couple of tests on me. He thinks the scope of my power is really impressive, but it’s directly related to the power level of whatever it’s going up against.”

  “Let’s have that in English,” I say, taking the seat across from him.

  “He thinks the stronger the magic I get near, the stronger my reaction to it is likely to be. So a little nothing spell like the levitation one Twyla did will probably just fizzle, but some kind of big ritual or powerful offensive spell is more likely to blow up in the caster’s face. And possibly everybody else’s face in the area. That fits with what’s happened before—that Glamour stuff was strong magic, and some of the spells those guys were throwing around last month—” he shudders and looks away. “And…other stuff I know about my past.”

  I don’t ask him to elaborate. I haven’t gotten into the habit of using magical sight again yet—you know how when you get used to thinking about yourself a certain way, it’s hard to break out of that mold?—but even as a card-carrying mundane, I can see whatever he’s thinking about now is upsetting him.

  Twyla senses it too, and changes the subject. “Anyway, that’s great news, Nick. Are you going to keep studying with him?”

  “I think so—either him or one of the other mages in the organization.” He looks at me. “Apparently, I’ve got quite a few family members I haven’t met yet. He didn’t want to introduce us until he had a little better handle on what makes my glitch thing tick.”

  I’m happy for him. Maybe at least one of us will get the happy family reunion—although that’s another area where I’ve got a mental image of the way things are that’s not completely right anymore.

  There’s no reason I can’t go home now.

  And even if I decide to stay here, there’s no reason I can’t visit.

  I glance at my watch. It’s three-thirty; the day’s gone by fast, just as I’d hoped it would. Nana hasn’t called back, but that probably just means she’s waiting until after whatever meeting she had in the afternoon. Or maybe she needed a nap afterward—she might be a big-deal mage, but sometimes I forget how old she really is. “Hey, you guys want to finish up here and go get some dinner in a couple of hours? We can—”

  Twyla’s phone rings.

  “That’s probably Nana,” she says, scrambling to pull it out, but then her expression clouds when she sees the number. “I don’t recognize it.” She taps the button. “Hello, this is Twyla.”

  She listens a moment and frowns. “Nana? You’re not calling from your usual number. Is something—”

  I flash her a questioning look, but she holds up her hand.

  Her frown deepens. “You did? When? Oh, God, Nana, that’s good news. What do you—yeah, of course. My ticket’s adjustable, so I should be able to get a flight out today.”

  “What?” I whisper loudly, leaning closer. “Put it on speaker!”

  She waves me off again. “Okay, Nana. Yeah. Please—be careful. I’ll be there as soon as I can, and I’m sure Bron will want to come soon. Yeah. Thanks. Bye.”

  She breaks the connection and stares at me with the expression of somebody who’s just been clocked between the eyes with a shoe.

  “What is it?” I yell.

  “That was Nana.”

  “I know! What did she say?”

  “They’ve found Selene. They’ve got her.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I sag back. “Holy shit.” I can hardly believe her words: I was convinced if Selene returned to the States at all, she’d come after us, not try to return home. “Got her where?”

  “In a magically-secured location, was all she said. Somewhere in town, not far from the house. That was where she was calling from.”

  My mind spins. “I heard you mention tickets. Are you going back?”

  “Yeah. My ticket out here can be changed, so I should be able to get a seat on a plane tonight. You should come too, Bron. We both need to talk to her.” Her cold expression suggests she’s got a lot more than talking on her mind.

  “Yeah. Damn straight we do. I do need to come. But I can’t just leave—I’ve got to make sure Rory’s taken care of, and the shop, and—”

  “Hey, remember me?” Nick raises his hand from the other side of the table. “You go, Bron. See if you can get a flight. I’ll look after the furball for you.”

  Relief floods me. Now that I know Selene’s under wraps, I can’t imagine waiting a minute longer than necessary. “Thanks, Nick. I’ll owe you big for this.”

  “Just promise to tell me what you find out. And take me out for some more platonic crab legs.”

  “You got a deal.”

  Twyla’s already on the phone, calling the airline. “They can change my ticket,” she says after a twenty-minute call punctuated by many runarounds and stretches of hold music. “There’s a flight out in three hours, but it doesn’t have any other available seats.”

  “That’s okay. You take that one, and I’ll call around to find another one. I’ll get there as fast as I can.” I look at my watch again. “Damn, three hours. That’s cutting it close with traffic. You’d better leave now. Want us to drive you?”

  “No, I’ll stop by your place and grab my stuff. I need to drop off the rental car at the airport anyway.” She’s pacing, stressed and puffing. “Bron, this is it. They’ve got her. That means all this mess might be over soon. Nana promised not to do anything definitive until we get back there to talk to her, but I can tell she’s not happy. I wouldn’t want to be in Selene’s Jimmy Choos right now.”

  “Go. Come on.” I fling myself out of my chair and shoo her toward the door. “Let’s get you back home so you can get your stuff, and then once you’re gone I’ll line up another flight. There’s got to be some airline with a seat, even if I have to get stuffed in between two football players for the whole flight.”

  I still can’t believe it. Selene’s caught.

  It’s an anticlimactic end to the whole thing, but I’m not going to argue. Sometimes real life doesn’t work out like it does in the movies, with suspense and climaxes and big boffo endings.

  Sometimes things go the way you hope they do.

  Twenty minutes later, Nick and I are waving at Twyla’s taillights as she drives off toward the airport. I let my breath out, trying to drain off some of the stress from scrambling around gathering up all her things and stuffing them into her red bags. Rory, thoroughly confused, made herself scarce sometime during the process; Twyla was disappointed that she couldn’t find her to say goodbye, but I urged her to get going. “Traffic’s gonna be bad, so you’ll need all the time you can get if you want to make it.”

  She flung her arms around me and hugged tight before she got in the car. “Thanks for everything, Bron. I’ll see you later tonight or tomorrow. I can’t wait to look that bitch ri
ght in the eye.”

  You and me both, Twy. You and me both.

  “So,” Nick says as we head back inside. “You should probably start looking for flights. I’ll give you a ride if you want, so you don’t have to worry about parking.”

  “We’ll see—let’s see if I can even get a flight tonight. Go ahead and grab a drink from the fridge if you want one—this might take a while.”

  At least I don’t have to call anybody—that’s one thing in my favor. I pull out my laptop and settle back to hunt, trying to find the earliest flight I’ve got a chance of getting to the airport in time for. Bonus if it doesn’t make my credit card whimper too much.

  There’s not much left. When I travel, it’s usually for something I knew about well in advance so I can get my ticket early. I’ve certainly never tried to book a flight on the same day. As I tap the keys and switch between different booking sites, getting more and more agitated as I go, Rory emerges from wherever she was hiding, leaps onto the table, and tries to sit on my keyboard.

  “Hey now,” Nick says, hurrying over to pluck her up. “I don’t think you want to do that, Rory. Not unless you want to join the Feline Airborne Division.”

  I have to chuckle at that because I’m sure both he and Rory know I’d never do that, even if it might be tempting sometimes.

  One of my searches comes back. “Here we go! Here’s one leaving at ten-thirty tonight. It’s a middle seat and more than I wanted to spend, but it’ll get me there first thing in the morning.” I click to snag it, and my fingers shake as I enter my information. I don’t relax until the “Congratulations! You’ve booked a flight!” confirmation screen flashes, followed by another one trying to sell me a hotel room, a rental car, and a restaurant package. I ignore them all.

  “Okay. Ten-thirty, so that means I don’t need to be at the airport until nine. You want to go get something to eat before I pack?”

  “Yeah, sure.” He strokes Rory. “Looks like you and I are gonna have some time to get to know each other.”

  I’m nervous the whole time we’re eating. I didn’t want to go too far from the house, so we’re at a Chinese place a couple miles away, but as we sit across from each other slurping noodles I can’t get my mind off how fast everything’s suddenly moving. I idly watch the other customers, wondering how they can be so calm.

  “How do you think they got her?” Nick asks, dishing up another plateful of kung pao chicken. As thin as he is, he eats like he’s porting the food into some other storage dimension.

  I shrug. “I’m not that surprised, actually. Nana’s got connections everywhere. She probably put out the call to all her people, and it was only a matter of time before somebody spotted Selene.”

  “Probably put out a big reward too, I’d imagine.”

  “You’d be surprised. Nana’s not like your grandfather. I told you, our family is huge, and some of it is spread out all over the place. Everybody loves her, and they do things for her because she asks. They want to make her happy.”

  “And they don’t want to piss her off.”

  “Well, yeah, there’s that too,” I admit. I’d only seen Nana angry a couple of times, and I never want to again. Even then, it wasn’t anything explosive or dramatic. She doesn’t need to be dramatic. Not when she can scare the crap out of you with nothing but the flash from her eyes.

  “So you guys have magic jail at your place? That does sound like something my grandfather would be more likely to do.”

  “It’s not at our house, apparently. And I have no idea. I’ve certainly never heard of it—but then again, I was only an apprentice when I left. They don’t share all the juicy secrets until you’ve passed your training.” I shrug. “Doesn’t surprise me, though. There are ways to neutralize magic if you’re prepared.”

  “Ways other than me, you mean.”

  “Considering you’re unique as far as anybody I know is aware, yeah.” I sigh, pushing my plate away with my food only half-eaten. I can’t think about eating right now when all I can picture is Selene’s face, and my mind is churning with all the things I want to ask her.

  Not to mention all the things I want to do to her, but I’m not sure I’ll be allowed. Odds are good I’ll have to leave that part to Nana.

  Given the way Selene has betrayed the family multiple times, I think she might be better off facing my wrath than Nana’s.

  “You okay?” Nick asks.

  “Yeah. Just…thinking. I wish I didn’t have to wait so long to get this whole thing started.”

  “Bet you wish there was one of those portals here, huh? So what’s the deal with those, anyway? Were you guys serious that there are actually magical teleportation portals? You weren’t just messing with me?”

  “Oh, no. Not at all. They’re definitely a thing. They’re all over the world, and if you know what you’re doing, you can travel from one to the other just by walking through for a few minutes.”

  “Holy shit.” His eyes get wide. “That’s amazing. So you mean you can go from New York City to, say, London in five minutes?”

  “Yep. Both those cities have them, so that would be easy.”

  I wonder if I’ll ever get to see one. Why aren’t there any here in the area?”

  “No idea. The closest one is up in the Bay Area—at least the closest public one.”

  “Public one? So there’s, like, mage public transportation?”

  I chuckle. “Yeah, sort of. Except they’re almost always empty, so you don’t have to walk next to a smelly guy and a Hare Krishna trying to sell you a flower.”

  “Got it. And I’m guessing the existence of public ones mean there are private ones too?”

  “Yeah, some. But only really rich or powerful mages have them, and they keep them pretty secret. So nobody knows how many there are.”

  “Does your family have one?”

  I consider whether I want to reveal that, but figure he can’t really do much with the information. “Yeah.”

  His eyes go wider. “Have you ever used it?”

  “Only once, with Mara. They don’t let apprentices travel on their own, because they can be dangerous. Part of the reason I picked Los Angeles to run away to is because there aren’t any portals here. Makes it harder for anybody to pop in on me.”

  “So you don’t know how to use it yourself.”

  “I do, I’ve just never done it on my own.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Are you getting at something?”

  “I dunno. Maybe. I was just thinking that Grandfather’s pretty rich and powerful. Maybe he’s got one of those private portals. If you know how to use it, and I can get him to admit it exists, maybe…”

  I perk up, but then deflate again. “No. I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I glance out the window, watching the headlights go by on the street. It’s already dark.

  “Why not?”

  “Couple of reasons. First, you barely know your grandfather—I doubt he’s going to reveal the existence of his private portal to you, let alone me. If he even has one, that is. And second, just because I know the theory of how to use the portals, doesn’t mean I’ve ever done it on my own.”

  “So? You said you know how. You said before it can be dangerous, right? How so? Can you pop out in the wrong place if you do it wrong?”

  “No, you can’t do that. But it can be dangerous in other ways.” I wave him off. I absolutely do not want to get drawn into a big discussion about the portals and their care and feeding, not even to satisfy Nick’s curiosity. I’m way too wound up for that right now. “Listen,” I say, “I promise when this whole thing is all over, I’ll tell you everything I know about portals, and you can decide whether you want to ask Grandpa. But for now, I just want to—”

  My phone rings.

  Holding up a hand, I pull it from my pocket. I immediately recognize Nana’s number, and ice water crawls up my spine. Why is she calling again? Did Selene get away from her?

  “Hi, Nana.”

  “Hello, dear. I’m so sorry I d
idn’t get back to you earlier. Belinda gave me the message, but my meeting went long, and—”

  What the hell? I shoot Nick a confused look. It’s hard to hear with all the noise in the restaurant, so I poke my finger in my other ear and press the phone close. “What are you talking about, Nana? You just called an hour or so ago. Twyla’s probably at the airport by now.”

  “Airport?” She sounds as confused as I feel. “Why on earth would she be there? Did you two have a falling-out? Is she coming home early?”

  The ice water creeps out of my spine and starts chilling the rest of my body. “Nana…what’s going on? You called Twyla. I was there. You told her you had Selene.”

  A long silence stretches out—long enough for my sense of horrified dread to engulf my whole body.

  You never heard the other side of the conversation.

  “Oh, gods,” I whisper.

  “Bron…did you say I called you?”

  “You called Twyla. But…” I swallow. “That wasn’t you, was it?”

  “No.” Once again, Kindly Grandma vanishes in favor of Steely Family Matriarch. “All right, dear, let’s keep our wits about us. You say she’s at the airport?”

  “That’s where she’s supposed to be. But there’s no way I’ll get there in time to catch her before she leaves.”

  “All right. Let’s get off the phone now. You try to call her. If you can’t reach her, call the airport and see if they can get a message to her before the plane takes off. If…” She pauses.

  “If what, Nana?” But I’m sure I already know what she’s going to say.

  “If she ever made it to the airport at all.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Thank goodness for Nick. Usually, I’m the one keeping my head while those around me are losing theirs, but in this case, the pinballs and static are overwhelming any rational thoughts trying to take root in my head. All I can think of is all the horrible things that might be happening to Twyla while I sit here twiddling my thumbs and staring into a plate of congealing chow mein.