by Paul Duffau
Mitch had expected the cut, and nearly laughed in the coach’s face when the older man stuck out his hand and said, “Good luck.”
Mitch worked on the car as he reminisced. Rousing himself, he offered instructions to Hunter with a head bob to the stun gun.
“The slider turns it on; the trigger is the red toggle.”
Hunter located the switches and turned it on. He stared like he expected the stun gun to do something, but it sat in his hand, quiescent.
“You want to be standing or sitting?”
Mitch thought about it. “Standing, I guess. How much can it hurt?”
He said the last with an ironic grin on his face. A knot in his stomach was asking Mitch the same thing, but he was committed. He walked back to the couch. If he fell, the couch was softer than the concrete. He took a deep breath.
Hunter’s face scrunched into an anticipatory grimace, and his hand slowly brought the device near Mitch’s bare right arm.
The cone-shaped probes dominated Mitch’s vision as Hunter snapped the slider on. He tried to relax his muscles, but his whole body felt ready to launch into runaway mode any instant. Mitch took another deep breath. Nope, didn’t help. The skin on his arm was hypersensitively waiting.
The silver tips wavered as Hunter seemed to get distracted rethinking the whole “You shock me, I’ll shock you” deal.
“Scared?” Mitch asked him, and smiled, daring him.
Hunter jabbed the stun gun forward.
There was a crackle and Mitch flinched away from the burst of pain.
“You okay?”
Not as bad as I expected, he thought, rubbing his arm.
“Yeah.”
They both looked at his arm, but there was no indication on the skin to show the shock.
Hunter gaped at him. His face was pale, and his eyes were wide. He licked his lips.
“Wonder how it works through clothes?” Mitch thought out loud. “Shoot me in the leg this time.”
“You want to do it again?”
“Honest, it wasn’t so tough.” Mitch paused. “It’s like a hard sting, like maybe from a wasp. Enough to make you pay attention, that’s all.”
“Right,” said Hunter, unconvinced.
Hunter put the gun against Mitch’s thigh, pressing it into the meaty part of the quadriceps. He didn’t need to be urged on this time. Mitch heard him hit the button, but instead of an instantaneous zap! there was a perceptible pause.
Uh-Mitch had time for the physics of electrical resistance to whiz through his head before the snap of the charge sounded-oh.
Pain, like a burn, accompanied the shock this time. Mitch didn’t twitch, but he did blink rapidly and draw a deep breath.
A hint of an ironic smile crossed Hunter’s face. “The clothing increases the resistance, so it takes a greater voltage differential to cross the spark gap,” he said. “Plus it was tighter against you, improving contact.”
“That thought occurred to me about the time you hit the trigger.”
Mitch started to chuckle, twisting his shoulders back and forth in countermotion to his shaking head.
“. . . increases the resistance . . . ,” Mitch said between breaths. “Why didn’t you just call me a dumbass?”
Hunter laughed with him. “Why say it when you can prove it?”
“Gimme the thing. Your turn.” His leg still hurt at the point where the electricity had been released, but he didn’t want to act like a baby and check it until Hunter was gone.
“No way, man,” said Hunter, raising his hands and backing up a step. He flashed the smile he used on the ladies—lots of white teeth and charm.
“Yeah, right. Gimme.” Mitch closed the gap by taking a step forward. At the same time, he held his hand out for the stun gun.
Hunter backed up another step and bumped into the dresser.
“Here,” he said as he sailed the weapon to Mitch, “but I’m not getting shocked.”
Mitch caught it with one hand. He held a steady gaze on Hunter. “You screwing with me?”
Hunter gave his head a single shake. “Learn from others, that’s my motto.”
“Boring,” said Mitch, and thought, Kind of gutless. “You sure?” he asked, offering Hunter a chance to redeem himself.
“Not happening.”
They both stood there, uncertain. Mitch operated on unspoken rules, and Hunter had broken two of the biggest. Finally, he sighed.
“Let’s go get something to eat then,” he said to Hunter. He wasn’t too sure how well he covered his disappointment.
Relief showed in the relaxation of Hunter’s shoulders, and he stepped toward Mitch. “Sounds good.”
Mitch waited another beat, and as Hunter came within range, he thrust the stun gun, turned off and dormant, at his friend’s midsection.
Shock and surprise, along with a sense of betrayal, appeared on Hunter’s face, and Mitch almost laughed.
Then, he felt a buildup of tension flowing along his arm, forcing the limb out. He tried to withdraw the hand, but the resistance was too great. Mitch tried to let go of the stun gun, and his hand opened, the weight of the plastic case falling away. A roar of sound disappeared with a soundless flash between his hand and Hunter, hitting his friend in the chest.
Hunter howled and wrapped his arms around himself. He fell forward, eyes rolled back in his head.
Mitch reached to catch him, missed him.
Hunter melted down to the floor, and his dark complexion turned waxen.
Mitch hesitated, stunned at his friend’s collapse. Help Hunter himself or get help? He turned to go for his phone in the car when a heavy weight crashed into him. The weight smashed him into the garage floor next to Hunter, and a fist pummeled his kidney.
Gasping, Mitch twisted his head and recognized his uncle.
Face-to-face, his uncle spoke, low and vicious. “Just like your goddanged father.”
Chapter 10
Kenzie had nowhere to hide the necklace.
The transition from the Glade had reverted her clothing from the voluminous robe back to her jeans and blouse, with a pair of low heels, the stylish casual she wore for “church.”
She fumbled the choker into a small ball and followed her parents into the dusty rose light of the sunset. The shift from the Glade to the real world—which was real?—came abruptly each time. The outside world was noisy, with traffic and a streetcar, green with orange stripes, like an old-fashioned bus, crawling down the boulevard. Dusty too—Kenzie suppressed a sneeze on the walk to the car.
Seizing on a moment of inspiration, she fake-sneezed, bending in half to sell it. Kenzie took advantage of her doubled-up position to shove the necklace between the folds of cloth that opened at the lower buttons of her blouse. When she stood, she sucked in her abdomen to keep the bulge from showing.
She need have not worried. Her parents were oblivious, engrossed in their own conversation.
Her dad was talking as he unlocked the car, but she could see her mother already preparing a reply.
“The Protectors are in agreement that the threat to McKenzie is almost certainly an outside, non-magical operator. No indications that magic was used in the attack. An interview with the Meat that interfered with the attack and helped McKenzie suggests a few unusual elements, primarily the use of a high-end electric car. Certainly not very nondescript, and I have the staff pursuing it as a lead.”
Her mother was talking almost before he finished. “I don’t really care if it was a threat to the Family,” she said.
She paused to buckle into her seatbelt. Kenzie did the same without thinking, and relaxed her stomach muscles.
“The attack was on McKenzie, presumably either because she is a young female and thus vulnerable, or as leverage against you and I.”
“If it weren’t for your project, it would have all the makings of a stranger abduction. Though,” her father added, “the use of two assailants indicates a nonsexual intent.”
“What project?” Kenzie as
ked. The car started in motion.
“Don’t blame the project. It could as easily be someone trying to get even with you for sending them to jail.”
“Creeps that get sent to the slammer do not conduct high-profile kidnappings in broad daylight using cars that cost a hundred grand.” Her father sounded exasperated. Kenzie knew that he often sounded like that when talking, arguing, with her mother. “A device that threatens to upend the balance between the Families, on the other hand, and make Meat obsolete, attracts exactly this type of criminal.”
“What device?” Kenzie piped up again. Curiosity piqued, she momentarily forgot that they were talking about her.
“MAGE does nothing of the sort. It’s the natural merging of technology and our own . . . special abilities, like a gear that amplifies the output of a motor,” Sasha Graham said, in an obviously practiced tone. Even the hesitation sounded practiced.
Kenzie struggled with the idea, contemplating a distant mountain as she tried to understand a . . . an amplifier? . . . for magic. She cocked her head to the left as she thought.
“The idea of such a device threatens the other Families. We’ve already seen a reaction. One of the Families is recruiting heavily. Every time we get a report of a possible Wilder, we discover that someone else has already gotten to them first, and they’re gone. Worse, I can’t find out which Family is involved, or their intentions.”
He let that sink in.
Kenzie filled the silence with a tentative question.
“Why would the other Families be threatened?”
She understood that ordinary people would be threatened by them. History was replete with examples of mortals discovering wizards and denouncing them as evil. Horrific stories from the medieval period of the early Families being hunted and drowned—or worse, set afire—were retold as examples of why magic should work from the shadows and never in direct sight.
Her mother answered her question. “There isn’t a reason for them to worry.”
Her father snorted at this but kept his eyes on the road as they traveled next to Lake Washington.
“Tell her of the fracture,” he dared his wife.
Kenzie’s attention sharpened. The Splintering happened before she was born. The whole subject was taboo, but rumors slithered from mouth to ear.
A tingle of a thrill went up her. She waited.
Her mother shook her head in disagreement, slow and sad, and the thrill was replaced with disappointment.
“No need to revisit troubled times, and certainly not for someone as young as you.”
Her father’s phone, the one he kept for work, buzzed. Her mother turned to him as the car pulled into the driveway.
“Find whoever tried to kidnap McKenzie. If the attack is of magical origin, we,” she said, meaning the women who were the leaders of the Family, “will deal with it.” Her posture showed how unlikely she thought that was.
Her father parked the car, and they exited. Kenzie started to stretch, sensed the fabric of her blouse pulling tight on the necklace, and resumed her slightly slouched stance to hide its presence.
Her dad checked his phone and said, “I have to go.”
He gave Kenzie a puzzled glance, and she could see his brain working on some problem, turning it over, seeking the keys that would unlock it.
And that expression meant that whatever problem the text message signaled, it somehow involved her.
Chapter 11
Hunter whimpered and leaned against the yellowed drywall in a semi-curled ball.
Mitch elbowed his uncle and twisted out from under the overweight man to help Hunter.
Panicked, he scanned the visible parts of Hunter, but other than fresh dirt stains on the pressed chinos, he couldn’t find any damage to explain Hunter’s reaction. He triple-checked the stun gun, and each time, it was off. There was no way that he had hurt him by shocking him.
“Dude, where’s your phone? I’ll call your folks.”
Hunter shook his head. His voice was weak, and Mitch strained to hear him. “You’re . . . meat.” Hunter made it sound more like a question than a statement.
“Yeah, right, I’m dead meat, but later. Where’s your phone?”
Uncle Henry had shouted incoherently at them, probably because Mitch’s elbow had caught him in the throat, and fled. He was nowhere around to help. Big fat surprise.
Mitch reached to search Hunter’s pockets, but his friend skittered away on the seat of his pants, craning his neck back and staring.
“Dude, I’m sorry, man,” Mitch said. “I thought it was turned off.”
He had his hands out in front of him, demonstrating they were empty, and willed Hunter to listen.
Behind him, the door to the house swung open. Anger welled up. He kept his gaze on Hunter. Without looking, Mitch spoke over his shoulder to his uncle. “Go away, you worthless turd.”
The air movement told him he was being rushed, and he started to stand up straight and turn to face Uncle Henry.
A hard, muscular arm grabbed him, and Mitch found himself airborne, slamming into the trunk of the Camaro, bent backward and staring at a very pissed-off Seattle cop.
“Hey, whoa—”
The cop flipped him onto his belly, and an elbow pinned his neck to the scratchy, peeling paint.
Shit.
“I thought you were Uncle Henry!”
“Shut up.”
The pressure let up for a fraction of a second, and Mitch tried to turn to face the cop, to explain. His right arm twisted up behind him, and he lifted onto his toes to relieve the sudden pain in his shoulder. The cold, cutting plastic of a cuff restraint bit into his wrist as the officer ratcheted the strap tight.
“But—”
“Shut up.”
The voice carried no inflection, just the expectation of instant and complete obedience.
Two seconds later, Mitch’s other hand was cuffed.
“Leave him alone.”
Mitch turned his head to see Hunter standing, dusting himself off.
“Sit down.”
Hunter stepped closer, talking with his hands again, but slowly and agreeably. “Mitch didn’t do anything,” he lied. “Took me by surprise, that’s all.”
Then what was the flash?
The pressure on Mitch lightened.
“Please sit down, sir,” the cop responded. “The report came in that someone had been shot. I want everybody nice and calm while we get this straightened out.”
Hunter moved to the couch, keeping his palms open to the officer, about waist high.
“Okay.” He disappeared from Mitch’s limited view.
“Can you get off my friend’s neck in the meantime?”
The pressure went away, and Mitch lifted his shoulder and head. He twisted his head side to side and saw his uncle in the doorway, watching expectantly. Mitch shot a contemptuous glare at him.
Frickin’ idiot.
Anger and resentment blackened his uncle’s face, as though he could read Mitch’s mind.
That’s right, get all pissed off, Uncle Henry, Mitch thought. That’s the last time you swing at me.
“I’m going to leave those cuffs on you,” the cop said, trying to sound reasonable, “but you can turn around. I’d like you to stay here by the car, ’kay?”
Mitch nodded his acceptance. He stood, turned, and stretched. With his hands hidden, he started probing for a way to get the nylon straps off his wrists. The cop saw the movement from the corner of his eye and stared hard at Mitch. Mitch met his glare, face tight from trying to keep the swirling mix of resentment and anger, confusion and fear, off his face. He stopped testing the bonds.
The cop was young, blond, and trim. The name patch on his right chest pocket had “D. Blaine” in gold letters on the royal blue short-sleeved shirt. On the opposite side were his badge and radio. He stood where he could see both of them.
“You,” said the cop, pointing to Hunter, and removing a small pad of paper and ballpoint pen. “Name?”
“Hunter Rubiera.”
“Where do you live?”
Hunter told him. The officer wrote it down. After each entry on the pad, Blaine glanced at Mitch before refocusing on Hunter.
“Occupation.”
“Uh, student?” replied Hunter, voice rising at the end.
The cop appeared startled and gave Hunter a wry grin.
“Gotta ask, right?”
“No worries.”
Hunter had a way with people, for sure. Blaine was darn near smiling.
“What are you doing here?”
“We were checking out the work Mitch has done to his car, and then we played around with a stun gun that he had.”
Blaine’s gaze flicked to the rectangular plastic case on the floor. “That’s pretty dumb.”
Hunter grinned and shrugged, but didn’t answer.
“Where did you get the stun gun?”
“It’s Mitch’s.”
Blaine faced Mitch. “True?” His voice lost any warmth.
“Yeah,” Mitch replied. He didn’t add any more, but he started sifting excuses and reasons for having a stun gun, where he got it. He sure didn’t want to admit to withholding evidence of a crime.
Blaine sighed. “Describe for me what happened,” he said to Hunter.
Hunter shifted on the couch. A hint of the calculations going on in his friend’s agile brain showed briefly, and after the barest hesitation, he spoke.
“We got done firing up the car, and it was running great. That’s when we opened the window,” Hunter said, tipping his head toward the open pane. “I already knew that Mitch had the stun gun from school—”
Blaine jumped in. “He had it at school?”
“I’m not stupid,” Mitch said, cutting off Hunter’s reply. “I researched up the law. It’s legal, no registration required, but not allowed on school grounds.”
Blaine considered this, then replied with incredulity. “So you’re smart enough to look up the relevant law but dumb enough to nearly kill your friend?”
This is why I should let Hunter do all the talking, thought Mitch.