She had to be careful about where she moved in this place. There was no way they could have anticipated which way she’d come in, which meant there were probably multiple traps.
Traps that apparently had death timers on them. It was clever, she had to admit, but it also made her furious.
She hadn’t done anything to the people here. They had signed on to take her down because they didn’t like the idea that someone might stand up to them when they hurt others. That, or because they didn’t care that a bunch of the people in power in LA were douches who hurt people for fun and profit.
A group of three rushed her. Kera dodged to the far left and grabbed a man’s arm, twisting it as she ducked. Once his arm was behind his back, she pulled him toward her, then pushed him away with all her magically-augmented might, plus a kick for good measure. He staggered into his two friends, howling about the pain in his arm.
While his friends were trying to deal with him, Kera was moving. She slid around the side of the group and landed a hard, precise jab on one man’s thigh and the other man’s ribs. Both hits were intended to inflict pain rather than damage, and the men yelled.
The second one shut up after she followed up the rib jab with a kick to the head. He went down in a heap, setting the middle man even further off-balance, and Kera caught him on the way down with an axe kick.
She was really getting into the Tae Kwon Do Mrs. Kim was teaching her. Punches were great, but kicks had incredible power behind them.
Kera stared at the group, panting. “Anyone want to answer now? Or do you just want me to keep kicking my way through your damned group?”
They rushed her.
“Well, I guess that’s one answer,” Kera muttered. Not wanting to introduce more weapons into the fight than necessary, she muttered a spell to heat the metal of the knife and flung it at the wall before jumping into the air to take down her first attacker with a kick.
After landing, she planted her feet and slid into a side stance, elbow shooting out to catch one of the others in the solar plexus. As that woman doubled over with the signature gasp-and-choke of someone who’d had the wind knocked out of them, Kera sank further into the stance to avoid a chokehold, then grabbed her next attacker’s arm and hinged at the hips, throwing him over her shoulder.
It wasn’t as smooth as it had been in the makeshift gym. The floor wasn’t stable, and her attacker wasn’t positioned correctly. It worked well enough, however, and the attacker—a lanky man with black hair and a loose jacket, tumbled headfirst into the winded woman. Both of them went down.
Kera straightened and went into motion again. A couple more, she figured, before she asked again.
Then came the sound of a gun cocking.
Nope. She wasn’t going to mess with guns. No matter her luck or speed, that was not a fight she wanted to get into. Kera ducked, whipped around, and streaked for the exit.
One person lay in her way: the head of this gang, still moaning in pain—and that gave her an idea. Kera skidded to her knees beside him, grabbed his coat, and gave a flick of her wrist with her free hand while muttering a spell under her breath.
A tracking spell. If she couldn’t get him to answer here with his team around him and his traps set, maybe she’d be able to get to him later when he was on his own. To follow up, she threw a confusion spell over everyone there, then pushed off the floor and kept running.
The fight had been short by her standards, and she had gotten more judicious with her use of magic, so she wasn’t as exhausted as she had been the last time she left this place. Kera sprinted out of the warehouse and made for Zee, swinging one leg over the seat and slipping the key into the ignition.
Thank goodness for luck spells. Not only had she gotten the key out of her pocket on the first try, but it also slid into place perfectly. She grinned as she revved the bike and burned rubber. She was congratulating herself on her good preparation when the sound of squealing tires came from behind her and the glare of high-beams hit her mirrors.
Bastards. They’d been waiting for her. The traps hadn’t all been in the warehouse.
Her good mood evaporated when she looked over her shoulder and thought she made out the shape of a Mustang.
That bastard would fucking be involved. Suddenly, the grudge made a lot more sense.
“Should’ve poisoned his beer when I had the chance,” Kera muttered.
She focused her attention on driving. She knew this area fairly well, and she didn’t want to bring this chase into a residential neighborhood. On the other hand, those smaller streets would give her a chance to get away.
With a grimace, she called on the powers of the universe and tried to give Zee a burst of speed. It wasn’t a perfect solution since she was pushing him faster than was safe on these streets, but it helped her pull away from the people chasing her.
She looped around, trying to lose her pursuers by heading in a large circle. Surely, they wouldn’t think she was going back to the warehouse. Between that, her distance, and her don’t-notice-me spells, she might be able to slip away.
She wove through the streets, zig-zagging but never quite losing her pursuers. They’d had the good sense to split up, which meant she could never be sure she’d turn the correct way to lose them.
Still, she was slowly but surely getting away.
Patience, she told herself and grinned behind the motorcycle helmet. Patience wasn’t her strong suit.
She was nearly back at the warehouse when things went sideways again. She came up fast on an SUV, which swerved out of the way. Kera shot past it, barely taking in the equipment on the top of the vehicle: satellite dishes.
A news vehicle.
“Of all the rotten luck.” Kera put on another burst of speed. “Zee, I promise you get to rest soon.”
She was close to getting away from her pursuers now, very close. They were falling behind, and the news vehicle would slow them down further.
What she hadn’t counted on was that the gang members weren’t going to want a news truck filming them.
“That’s him!” Mia called excitedly.
She had insisted they go to the warehouse instead of the textile factory, and Doug had called her crazy. But she had been right, she thought triumphantly. She had been absolutely right.
“Doug—”
“Yeah, I see him, but do you see what’s behind us?” He sounded worried.
Mia looked over her shoulder and swore. Motorcycle Man hadn’t been alone. He had been evading a whole set of cars. Some of them were old, rusted bangers, but some were sleek and well-maintained, easily a match for the horsepower of the loaded-down SUV.
As Mia watched, one of the cars streaked up alongside and swerved sideways.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she yelled. “What the hell, Doug?”
“We’re the people who can identify them later, and they’ve lost Motorcycle Man,” Doug said grimly. “I think we’re now the priority 1. I just need to get us out of here…” Another car swerved in front of them, and Doug braked hard. “Fuck! Should I have turned?”
“I don’t know!” Mia grabbed the oh-shit handle to stay stable as Doug swerved. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“I’m doing the best I can,” he gritted out.
“I know,” she said, heartfelt. “This is…you’re doing really well.”
Doug shot her a thankful look. “I always thought I wanted to be a war reporter. Turns out I was wrong. I hope I survive realizing that.”
Another car pulled up beside them, and the window rolled down. Someone was staring out at them. Mia took a quick look behind them.
“Doug, BRAKE!”
Doug, thankfully, complied. The SUV screeched to a halt in the middle of the road, and the other cars shot past. The gunshots that had been meant for Mia and Doug streaked past into thin air.
Mia gaped. Her heart was pounding, and she wanted to throw up. Doug, thankfully, was already moving again. He whipped the SUV into a U-turn and took off in the other direction. Lights h
it them as the other cars followed suit.
The motorcycle came out of nowhere, whipping past them the other way. Mia thought she saw the helmet nod once, then the motorcycle sped toward the oncoming cars and wove between them, lightning-quick.
With Motorcycle Man as a target, the cars broke off their chase of Doug and Mia. They whipped around again and began chasing their main target as Doug laid on the gas and sped away.
“Holy shit,” he was muttering as they came to their first stoplight. The road behind them was empty. “Holy shit, Mia. Holy shit.”
“That was Motorcycle Man,” Mia said. She had folded her hands in her lap. “It was, wasn’t it? You saw the nod, right?”
“Yeah.” He shook his head. “Am I crazy, or did he just run interference for us on purpose?”
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” Mia assured him quietly. She was cold, now that the adrenaline had left her body. Her teeth were chattering. “I think he came back for us.” She looked at Doug. “That’s…”
They stared at each other until a honk made them jump out of their skin. Someone at the cross street leaned out their window and waved at the green light.
“Right,” Doug muttered. He got the SUV into motion with a lurch and breathed out as they continued down the street. “God, I need…I don’t know. I don’t know if I need coffee or a drink.”
“Straight bourbon,” Mia said at once.
“Never took you for a bourbon person.”
“Yeah, well, you learn something new every day.” Her phone buzzed, and she pulled it out of her pocket. “Work email. Says we need to come in tomorrow for…” Her voice trailed off.
“For…” Doug prompted.
“For a meet with law enforcement,” Mia told him. “Shit. I wonder what that’s about?”
Several miles away, Kera was pulling into her little warehouse apartment, her heart still pounding.
Tonight had been equal parts good and terrifying. She had evaded the traps the gangs had set for her, but those traps indicated that they were adapting to her. They’d known human strength wasn’t enough to restrain her. They’d decided to make her square off against steel bars, and they were only going to escalate from here.
Plus, they had almost taken out a news van.
Kera couldn’t stop picturing the passenger’s face. The woman’s eyes had been wide and terrified. The man driving had looked grim. She hadn’t wanted them to see her. Frankly, she had wanted to get away from them almost as much as she’d wanted to get away from her pursuers.
But she couldn’t leave them to be picked off by the gangbangers.
She sighed as she turned Zee off and went to close the door. She was going to have to do some serious diagnostics on him tomorrow to make sure she hadn’t done permanent damage, and then she was going to need to do some more planning.
If she didn’t take those people out at the source, innocent civilians were going to get hurt.
She was just slumping onto her bed when her phone buzzed twice. Frowning, she turned it over—and groaned.
The first text was from Cevin, letting her know he’d changed the schedule to give her a shift the next day. He was apologetic about all the shifts she’d missed, and Kera knew he had gone to some trouble to move things around. This was a kindness she couldn’t refuse.
“Guess I’m taking a night off from saving the world, Zee,” she told her motorcycle. “Probably best for your health, and maybe I’ll come up with some good ideas in the meantime.”
Then she looked at her second text, only to groan again. It was Jennifer, asking her how the project for Cevin’s new wardrobe was going.
I’ll be working tomorrow night, Kera texted back. Schedule change. I’ll show you some options then.
She looked at Zee and shook her head. “And apparently, I’m getting up early to research shirts for Cevin. What a life, huh, Zee?”
Chapter Eleven
Los Angeles, it turned out, was filled with motorcycle enthusiasts. There were bars. There were districts. There were social media groups. James and LeBlanc researched them and decided to reach out the next morning.
“Motorcycle Man is out and about at night,” James explained to Mother LeBlanc. “This way, we’re less likely to wind up talking to him by accident. Or her.”
“Mmm.” She wrapped her shawl around her and waited for him to get his shoes on.
There were strict rules about staying at and leaving the safe house, so they had cleared their departure with MacDonald and Richardson. James disliked the necessity since it made him feel rather more controlled than he would like. On the other hand, he had to admit that having access to the agents’ contacts was useful.
And he could hardly ask them to bring informants to someplace that wasn’t safe.
The agents had set up a meeting with two local reporters and had asked James and LeBlanc to observe, so the two groups would meet up again in about two hours. That didn’t leave James and LeBlanc much time, but perhaps they had enough to get a solid lead.
The two of them had zeroed in on the neighborhoods of Little Tokyo and Chinatown, the sites of the recent surge in gang violence—and the epicenter of where the LA Witches tags had been seen. Someone in the area, James reasoned, might have noticed a particular motorcycle time and again.
The man at the motorcycle repair shop nearby, however, seemed to take an immediate dislike to them.
“Can I help you?” he asked as they walked in.
“Yes,” James said. He smiled. “We’re visiting professors at UCLA, and we’ve gotten interested in the sociological implications of the Motorcycle Man phenomenon.”
He didn’t expect anyone to share his interest, but he had learned long ago that people tended to think of academics as fundamentally unmoored from the realities of the world, and therefore, not very threatening. While a motorcycle enthusiast might not be keen to tell a reporter about the masked vigilante, they might be willing to tell a professor.
Also, people expected and thus ignored eccentricity from academics, which meant that the details of James and LeBlanc’s mode of dress, speech, or interest would not be as noteworthy.
The proprietor, however, did not open up easily. He raised an eyebrow at James, who tried again.
“We’ve seen positive reactions from the motorcycle community,” James said. “The idea that Motorcycle Man is showing a quality of the community that riders knew existed but other people did not see—that motorcycle riders are inherently helpful, community-minded people.”
The proprietor’s mood softened. “That’s true,” he admitted. “People are coming in, saying they want to pay some tribute to him. A lot of them are asking for their bikes to be repainted all black. I’ve run out of leather sets twice.” He opened his mouth to say more, then closed it.
“What is it?” Mother LeBlanc asked him. “Is something wrong?”
“You said you’re…college professors? Researchers?”
Both James and LeBlanc nodded.
“Not, like, cops or anything?”
“Not cops,” LeBlanc said with a smile. Behind her customary pleasantness lurked a wealth of feeling, however.
It seemed to convince the man behind the counter, who nodded. “Right. So, a lot of the people who come in here are thinking, maybe the cops aren’t going to like this guy for very long, right? Like, they want to be the ones taking down gangs and all that. They don’t want this guy showing them up.”
James nodded. The man was more correct than he knew, though his reasoning was off.
“A lot of people are trying to make themselves look like the guy, so the cops can’t figure out which one of us he is,” the proprietor explained. “And some of them are starting to do shit like he is. Stopping to help at car crashes, stuff like that.”
James felt LeBlanc’s sudden tension. This was the sort of thing they had worried about—that vigilante justice would spread, wreaking havoc and drawing more attention to Motorcycle Man.
He knew he had to be low-ke
y, however, or this man might clam up. “So, you think it’s one guy,” he clarified, “but people are imitating him? I want to make sure I have that correct. You’re not saying it was multiple people to start with.”
“I don’t think so,” the man said at once. “I thought about it. Some people have been taking pictures of guys they think are Motorcycle Man, but it’s never the same bike. Like, one’ll be a Honda, another’ll be a Kawasaki, and the riders are different. Hell, someone told me they’d seen him recently, and it was a chick I know who works at a bar near here. I think people are trying to hide him, sure, but they’re also trying to show that the whole community is like that. Helpful, you know?”
James nodded. “Thank you for your help.” His mind was racing. “You said there were a lot of pictures?”
“Oh, yeah. Lots of clear pictures of different bikes, helmets, all of that. But the really big stuff, like that hostage situation or the fire? None of those pictures are in focus. No one can see the bike or get a good bead on the guy.” The man shrugged. “Not like I’d take a good picture inside a burning building, but it’s just…weird, you know?”
The two thaumaturgists did know. They nodded.
“Well, thank you for your time.” James slid a card across the counter. “Like I said, we’re fascinated by the changed perceptions of the public toward motorcycle riders and the accompanying shifts in behavior you’ve seen within the community.” The more jargon he could throw out in a single sentence, the more the man would be bored and write him off as an eccentric genius instead of a threat.
But he might call if he thought James was going to produce work that flattered the motorcycle community.
“I’ll, uh…I’ll save this,” the man said. He held out a hand. “Mike, by the way.”
“Dr. Lovecraft,” James told him.
“Dr. LeBlanc,” his companion added with a smile.
As they walked out into the sunshine, she looked at him. “Well, this may be difficult. The community has embraced him as one of their own. There will be multiple clones on the street.”
How To Be A Badass Witch: Book Three Page 9