by Kim Harrison
She nodded, and on impulse, she stood on tiptoe and gave Pelhan a chaste kiss on his stubbly, two-days-from-a-razor cheek. “Thank you. I’m glad you found us.”
“Me too. Your advice on how to handle the vamps really helped.” His smile faded and he looked at Daniel. “Sorry about leaving you with the refugees, Doctor. But it did get the word out about how to slow this. You made a difference here, too. Thank you.”
Daniel flushed, making his pixy rash stand out. “You’re welcome.”
Nodding, Captain Pelhan ushered them to the door. “Can you by chance shoot?”
Daniel let go of the door, and it swung shut. “Ah, you mean a gun?” he said, eyes wide.
Pelhan made a pained face. “I guess that means no,” he said, his hand falling from his hip and the pistol holstered there.
“I can,” Trisk said, and Pelhan jerked, surprised. “I minored in security,” she added.
“Dark elf. Right,” the man said, the snap of his holster obvious as he handed the heavy weapon to her. “I want no magic in my streets. Understand? I’d rather you shoot someone.” He hesitated. “In the foot.”
Her face warmed as she recalled what she’d done in the break room. My God, it was as if she were a child. No restraint at all. That it had felt good was a guilty secret. “I’m sorry about the break room,” she said. “But there were no humans to see it, except for Daniel.”
“That’s what they thought in Detroit, too,” he said looming over her in threat. “Promise me, or I’ll lock you up. Right now.”
She frowned up at him. “That’s a dumb thing to say after giving me your gun.”
Pelhan’s brow furrowed right back at her, and finally Trisk heaved a quiet sigh, remembering how his office smelled like a redwood forest, the finding charm he’d made in only a few minutes, and the fact that he was in charge of the only functioning police station she’d seen this side of the Mississippi. “No obvious magic,” she said, and he nodded, satisfied. Unhappy at needing a gun at all, she felt the heft of it, checking the safety before stuffing it into her jacket pocket. It was an odd realization to walk away with: to kill with a handgun was preferred to gently holding with magic. Something was wrong with that.
“Cambri!” Ulbrine shouted from somewhere in the building, and Trisk jumped.
“Scoot.” Pelhan opened the door. “I’m glad to have met you, Dr. Cambri. It’s good to know all elves aren’t tricky, conniving bastards.”
Scoot? she thought as Daniel all but pushed her out into the night. She turned to thank him again, but Pelhan was already gone, his back visible through the glass as he strode away, his returning shout muffled.
“This way,” Daniel said, pulling her into the more certain dark. “I don’t want to chance stealing a car too close to the station, but maybe we can find one on the streets.”
“I don’t know how to steal a car,” she said, and he turned to her, his disbelief hard to see in the dim glow from the light at the corner.
“I thought you minored in security.”
Her lips pressed. “I was sick the day they covered hot-wiring cars. Here, you take it,” she said as she pushed the finding charm into his hand. “I can’t shoot and navigate at the same time.”
“Me?” Daniel almost squeaked, shifting the cool metal circle from hand to hand as if it were hot. “I can’t do mag—” His voice cut off and he stopped dead in the middle of the empty street, staring down at the ring in his hands. “Wow, it works.”
“Congratulations, you’re alive,” Orchid piped up from under his hat.
Trisk smiled as she tugged him back into motion. “Anyone with an aura can work ley line magic once it’s invoked,” she said as he stumbled up onto the curb behind her. She wasn’t sure what she’d do after finding Kal, but shooting him was now an option. “Which way?”
Daniel moved forward, stopped, turned, then turned back the other way, never taking his eyes off the ring in his hand. “That way,” he said, only now looking up.
Kal was either in the building ahead of them or somewhere behind it. Betting it was the latter, Trisk drew Daniel into the alley. The darkness was deeper here, and their pace slowed as they made their way through the dampness. Trisk could smell river over the fading stink of cars and gas. There was almost no sound, and the sky was cloudy, showing very little of the expected light pollution. No wonder the Weres were looking for an excuse to be out roaming in the night. No buses, no cars, no cabs: it was as if the world were empty.
“Daniel,” she whispered as they neared the end of the alley, the brighter darkness beckoning them. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if humans knew we existed.”
He frowned, gaze fixed on the charm. “Yeah, okay,” he said distantly.
“I mean, look at you,” she said. “You’re probably the first human in two thousand years doing a charm. You’ve met witches and Weres. You’re handling it. Maybe we misjudged you.”
Daniel halted at the top of the alley, clearly reluctant to step out even if the charm was glowing a bright red now, indicating they were close. “A person is okay,” he said, peering into the darkness and the open street. “But when you put a bunch of us together, something is switched on, something ugly.” He glanced at her apologetically. “All of us, humans and nonhumans alike, are genetically primed to attack what’s different from the collective.”
“But what if the collective is all of us?” she persisted.
“I smell Kal,” Orchid suddenly said, and Daniel reached for his hat, keeping it on his head as Orchid vaulted out from under it. “Is that him?” she said, hovering between them and staring at nothing Trisk could see. “It is!” she exclaimed, darting off.
“Son of a beaver biscuit . . .” Daniel swore. “I wish she’d stop doing that.”
“Orchid!” Trisk hissed, but it was too late. At the end of the street under a flickering light, a shadow hunched at a car straightened, then ducked. Kal’s muffled swearing rose, and the dark silhouette flailed at the bright, hot dot of angry pixy.
“Hey!” Daniel shouted when Kal swung a tire iron, and Kal spun, freezing for a moment before taking off at a run. Daniel was close behind, the sound of the sneakers he’d found somewhere odd in the still air. Trisk hesitated for half a second, then pounded after him.
“ ‘Hey’?” she said between her breaths as she caught up. “You said ‘Hey’? We could have snuck up on him.”
Kal darted into a side street, and skidding, they followed. “He was trying to hit Orchid,” Daniel said, and then louder, “Kalamack!”
They’d almost reached him, and with a shout of anger and frustration, Daniel launched himself at Kal’s fleeing feet. His outstretched hand caught his ankle, and he hung on as Kal hit the ground, his breath coming out in a whoosh. The tire iron clanged, spinning away as the two men fell to the pavement, rolling.
Tense, Trisk slid to a stop. No magic. I promised no magic.
“Why don’t you just eat a tomato and die?” Kal snarled, and Trisk’s eyes widened when she felt him tap a line. He was going to use magic. In the open streets.
“Kal, stop!” she shrieked, tapping a line as well but knowing that to use it would make things worse. “Kal! They destroyed Detroit,” she shouted, and the thump of a fist on flesh sounded ugly to her ears. “For God’s sake, don’t!”
I have a gun, she remembered, and she pointed it at the two men tussling in the street. “Stop, Kal. Or I’ll shoot your head off! I’ll do it!”
In a sudden motion, Kal shoved Daniel off him and rolled to stand. He still had a hold on the ley line, and it made the tips of his fine hair float. He stared at Trisk, his hatred and jealousy of her again firmly in place. It had been three years since she’d seen that expression, but it looked right on him the way his flattery and attention the last few weeks had not.
Daniel got to his feet, slapping the street dirt off Kal’s hat before putting it back on his head in case Orchid should return. Never taking his eyes off Kal, he scooped up the tire iron, hefting it
in evaluation. “I should drop you in the nearest holding center and let them rip you apart.”
A smirk twitched the corners of Kal’s lips as he looked at the blisters and continued to make the wrong assumption, then he ducked at the sudden clatter of pixy wings. “You are a thumb-sucking slug turd, Kalamack,” the pixy woman said as she hovered out of his reach, hands on her hips and a bright silver dust falling from her. “I’d sooner kiss a wasp than look at you. You’re lower than a troll’s bahoogies, fouler than a fairy’s dung heap, as trustworthy as last year’s yogurt—and you smell worse. If you move, I’ll jam something into your eye.”
“You’re coming with us,” Trisk demanded, arms shaking as she gripped the gun. “Now.”
Kal scoffed, his attention shifting between her and Orchid. “Like you’d shoot me,” he said, and turning on a heel, he walked away.
Trisk’s focus narrowed, her grip on the gun tightening as Orchid’s dust turned a furious red. Beside her, Daniel gathered himself to jump him again. You keep making the same dumb mistakes, she thought as she shifted her aim low and to the left. Exhaling, she pulled the trigger.
The recoil jolted her more than the sound, and she held her breath, not wanting to smell the spent gunpowder. Kal jerked to a stop, his hands suddenly away from his body as he spun. Daniel looked almost as surprised, the tire iron dangling loosely in his grip as Orchid’s dust shifted to a smug yellow. “Move. Now,” Trisk demanded. “That way.”
“Ah, Trisk?” Daniel said, his gaze going behind them to the end of the street, and Trisk’s grip on the pistol tightened. Shit. In the distance but coming closer was the sound of a truck running at full throttle. The Weres had heard them.
“Are you insane?” Kal shouted as he ducked Orchid’s swoop at him. “You shot at me!”
“And I’ll hit you next time,” Trisk said. “Start walking.” She motioned with the muzzle of the pistol back to the car he’d been trying to break into. “Orchid, can you get in there and unlock the car for us?”
“You bet,” the pixy said, but Trisk stiffened at the sound of the chortling truck getting closer, the shifting gears loud in the still night. A feeling of being trapped trickled through Trisk. What the hell good is a gun when I have an entire arsenal of magic I can’t use?
With a sudden yelp, Orchid dove for Daniel’s hat, her sparkles quickly vanishing. “Let him go,” Daniel said, one hand holding the hat down, the other gripping that tire iron. “We can’t afford to get caught, and he can.”
“No!” Trisk’s hands tightened on the pistol, fully aware that they were obvious under the streetlamp. “We may as well be tried and convicted if he gets to Ulbrine.”
Kal smirked, content to do nothing, sure everything would swing his way in a moment. The vehicle jostled around the corner, the headlights shining on them. Trisk felt a wash of despair as she saw the farm truck with its open bed. She could run, but Kal would turn her into more of a fugitive than she already was. She stood frozen by indecision as Daniel pulled at her sleeve, trying to get her to move. “I can’t. I can’t!” she shouted, then jumped when the truck blew its horn.
No one moved when it came to a squeaky-braked halt as if waiting for them to get out of the way. A shadowy head poked out the front window. “Dr. Plank! Is that you?” a woman’s voice called.
33
Daniel spun, his face white in the stark light of the headlamps.
“What the hell?” Kal said, turning to look at the truck as well.
With a smooth motion, Daniel swung the tire iron at the back of Kal’s head as if he were throwing a softball.
“Daniel!” Trisk cried out. Shooting Kal in the foot was one thing. Hitting the back of his head with a tire iron might actually kill him, and as much as she hated the man, seeing Kal dead wasn’t on her list of things to do at the end of the world.
But it hit with a soft thud, and Kal collapsed. Eyes wide, Trisk fell to kneel beside him, checking to see that his eyes dilated in the headlamps. His aura was strong and his pulse steady.
“Is he okay?” Daniel asked, and she looked up, seeing the anger still in him. She stood, embarrassed now for her outburst, and when she nodded, Daniel let the tire iron fall with a clang. “Good. I’ll hit him again when he wakes up,” he joked, but Trisk thought there might be a hint of truth to it.
A truck door slammed, and Trisk rose, facing it. The pistol was still in her hand, but whoever was in the vehicle had called Daniel by name, and she hid it behind her.
“Dr. Plank?” a man said hesitantly, and Trisk could see a woman in the truck move across the long bench seat to slip behind the wheel. A little boy was with her, keeping the woman preoccupied as he tried to reach the open window.
“Do you know these people?” Trisk said, and Daniel’s expression smoothed out.
“I know the boy,” he said, and Trisk put the gun in her pocket.
The man shifted from foot to foot in front of the truck. “You want to bring him?” he asked, and when Daniel nodded, he grabbed Kal’s feet. Daniel took his arms, and they tossed the elf unceremoniously into the back, where he slid until he hit the cab.
“Is that her?” the little boy said, finally having crawled his way over the woman, his mother, presumably. “Is that the lady scientist who is . . . going to kill . . . all the tomatoes?” he said between his mother’s attempts to pull him back.
“Ma’am?” the man said, holding out a hand to help Trisk into the truck bed. His eyes were pinched. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
Faint over the night came the sound of wolves, and she shivered. What on earth did Daniel do in the day we were apart? she wondered as she fitted her smooth hand into the man’s work-calloused one and made the step up into the truck bed.
“Benson, get in!” the woman cried out as an attention-getting bark sounded.
“Drive, woman!” the man demanded, and Daniel lurched in beside Trisk. She held her breath as the man ran awkwardly to the passenger side and dove in. The Weres were rounding the corner, shouting as the truck sputtered into motion. It bumped onto the curb, making Trisk gasp and reach for the walls of the bed until they found the road and picked up speed.
Pulse fast, Trisk tried to corral the strands of her wildly whipping hair as the Weres howled in frustration, not giving up. But then a man on foot suddenly appeared at the corner, throwing a brick at the Weres before darting into flight. The Weres went after him instead. The truck leaned as they took a corner . . . and then they were gone.
Not believing what had happened, Trisk looked at Daniel beside her, then Kal, still out cold at her feet. Daniel’s eyes were wide, one hand on his hat to keep it from blowing off. Orchid must still be under it. Seeing her questioning look, he shrugged. Kal began to move, and panicking, she grabbed his arm, subtly spelling him into a more sure unconsciousness. There was no glow, no telltale sign of magic, and she sighed in relief when Kal went still again.
The wind kept putting her hair into her face, but she didn’t dare let go of the cold wood walls of the bed again. The window at the back of the cab slid open, and the little boy’s voice grew louder, then was quickly hushed. “Is he okay?” the man said, his face at the open window. “Does he need a doctor?”
Daniel’s expression tightened into a grimace. “He’ll be fine until he wakes up and I hit him again,” he said, then added, “He’s fine. Don’t take this the wrong way, but who are you?”
The man grinned, twisting even more to stick his work-grimed hand through the window. “Benson,” he said as he and Daniel shook. “And this is my wife, May,” he said, and the woman driving called out a cheery “Hello!” “And my son, Johnny, who you already met.”
Daniel smiled as the little boy pushed his way to the window and kneeled on the seat. “Is that her?” he said excitedly. “Is that the lady scientist who is going to kill the tomatoes?”
“It sure is,” Daniel said, and Johnny bounced back to tell his mother.
Benson scooted closer to the open window. “Johnny said
you helped him get away from the collection gangs. That you were going to the police station to get a woman who knew how to stop the plague?”
There was hope in his eyes under his disbelief, and Trisk held her hair from her face and leaned closer. “It’s in the tomatoes,” she said, the relief at telling someone tremendous.
Benson’s smile widened as he glanced at Johnny and back. “That’s what he said. We came to help.” His eyes went to Daniel, then Kal. “Looks like we were just in time.”
Trisk’s throat tightened as they jostled through the empty streets, the sound of the engine echoing off the building faces. She could sense the new strength in them that her words had started. They had a way to fight. Someday this would end. They could endure it until then.
“My name is Trisk,” she said. “Thank you for stopping.”
“Benson,” he repeated. “It’s a pleasure, ma’am.” His smile widened, easy to see even in the dark. “It’s the least I could do for you saving my May and Johnny.”
“It’s not me you should thank,” she said, her attention shifting to the night at the bark of what she hoped was a dog but was probably a Were. “Can this truck go any faster?”
But Benson only smiled as May took a left down a dimly lit street, clearly headed for the outskirts of town. “We’ll be okay. We’ve got people running rabbit for us, getting caught by the collection gangs so you can get out of Chicago clean.”
“They’re getting caught on purpose?” Daniel said, aghast, and Benson nodded.
“We can get word into the containment camps that way. No one else needs to die.”
Trisk’s face warmed in embarrassment. Her own people could stop this if they weren’t such cowards. Brow furrowed, she scrunched down as the truck came out into a straightaway and picked up speed. Benson disappeared from the window for a moment, stuffing a blanket through when he came back. “I’m sorry we can’t give you more,” he said as Trisk shook it out and gestured for Daniel to join her so they could share its warmth. Kal could stay cold on the floor of the truck bed for all she cared.