Bounty: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Solumancer Cycle Book 3)

by J. C. Staudt

  “Takkanopoulis.”

  “Yeah-huh. See here, he owes me a buttload of cash.”

  “That’s why I came. Let’s keep things nice and simple. You give me a bank account number, I deposit the money in full.”

  He eyes me. “Say… you ain’t with the feds, are you?”

  “I’m as clean as they come.”

  “Wallet.”

  “Huh?”

  “Take out your wallet. I want some ID. I can see the lump under your arm there. Looks like police standard-issue.”

  “This isn’t a police sidearm. It’s my personal piece. The NDPD uses a .40-caliber M&P. This is a 9-millimeter Glock.” I unzip my hoodie, giving Ersatz time to climb around behind me before I show Trezzo my weapon. I reach back to take out my wallet, but he waves me off.

  “Alright, then. We do the transfer here and now. Otherwise, I bring my bolt cutters to the residence of Mr. Takk—Takk—”

  “Takkanopoulis.”

  “Yeah-huh. And I cut off his fingers. You try to pull one over on me, I cut off his fingers. I find out either one of you is a fed, I—”

  “Cut off his fingers. Yeah, I got it.”

  “I was gonna say both your fingers. But yeah. So we got a deal?”

  “Sure,” I agree, pulling out my cell. “I pay you, and no one loses any fingers.”

  “Yeah-huh.”

  I log into my online banking account and initiate a new transfer. “What’s the total?”

  Trezzo consults his spiral notepad. “Two hundred forty-two thousand six-hundred dollars and thirty-two cents.”

  “That’s including interest?”

  Trezzo nods.

  I tap in the amount. $242,600.32. It’s a lot of money. I’ve got plenty, but it’s still a lot. “Where’s it going?”

  He gives me his account and routing numbers.

  I press send. It’s mildly painful, not just because all that money is bound for a seedy goblin gang, but because of how mad Quim’s going to be when he finds out, and how likely it is he’ll rack up another large gambling debt before I can blink. “All set. Want to check to make sure it’s there?”

  Trezzo uses his phone and confirms. “That’s the ticket. It’s pending. Long as it comes through tomorrow, we got no problems.”

  “It’ll go through.”

  “Then tell Mister Takkanopoulis it was a pleasure doing business with him. Tell him if he ever needs a bookie, I’m his guy.”

  I won’t, I’d like to say. Instead I give Trezzo a curt smile and leave the bowling alley.

  “Well played,” Ersatz says when we’re in the hearse again. “Handled like a true professional.”

  “A professional what? Criminal?”

  “The noblest of criminals is a servant to those in need.”

  “I’m not Robin Hood. Just a wizard with lots of money.”

  “Money you’ve used to perform a good deed and avert a substantial crisis.”

  “For now. I’ll have a whole new crisis on my hands when Quim finds out. I used to think once I had money I’d be able to snap my fingers and make my problems go away. Turns out the problems scale up with the lifestyle.”

  “I believe it was a great poet of the late twentieth century, the Notorious Big, who once made a similar claim.”

  “The Notorious Big what?”

  Ersatz thinks. “I don’t know. My point is, no amount of money will ever make your problems disappear.”

  “A quarter-million dollars just did a solid vanishing act on that problem. I’m a little shocked it went so smoothly, to be honest.”

  “Mr. Mogru didn’t appear interested in trickery. He was very organized, I thought.”

  “Right down to the order in which he was going to remove Quim’s fingers.”

  “Quim should be more careful about whom he borrows money from in the future.”

  “Preferably no one.”

  We sit in silence for a while as the hearse barrels down the highway toward home. Then I remember something I’ve been meaning to ask Ersatz since the other night. “Did my father ever introduce you to someone named Alan Magyar?”

  “The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “He’s the man who runs Misthaven House. He’s a nephilim. Apparently he and my father were close friends.”

  “I never met him. Your father kept his commitments separate wherever he could. The less connected his allies, the harder for his enemies to fell them like dominos. I never knew about the Guardians, or they about me. You and your mother never knew about the hospital, or us, or Misthaven, or the otherside.”

  “But you all knew about us, didn’t you?”

  “Glen might’ve saved us all a great deal of headache by being more transparent.”

  “The way you talk about it, it sounds like my dad knew he was going somewhere. Did he say anything before he left that might’ve—”

  “We’ve been over this, Cade.”

  “I’m not going to forget him, Ersatz. As much as you and Ryovan and Quim and everyone else wants me to.”

  “No one wants you to forget him. We want you to be realistic.”

  “Is hope unrealistic?”

  “A fool’s hope is as real as anyone’s.”

  “A fool’s hope. So that’s what I am.”

  Ersatz sighs. “If you want to be sure this Alan Magyar knows nothing about your father we don’t know already, you should go talk to him.”

  “Now?”

  “If you like.”

  I check the time. “It’s getting late. You don’t mind coming?”

  “I’ll sleep along the way.”

  I dial Ryovan’s cell.

  “Your highness,” he answers.

  “Ryovan. Where’s Misthaven House?”

  A pause. “It’s happened again. Another attack.”

  “God dammit. When?”

  “Just now, at the crossing. We were in the basin of an old stone quarry outside town. We had to go with a lighter crew this time since Baz and Urdal are still out of commission. Irys brought twice as many dhampirs as last night. There was—” his voice breaks, “—there was nothing we could do. She slaughtered them all right in front of us.”

  “Slaughtered who?”

  No answer.

  “Ryovan. Who? Who did Irys kill?”

  “Children,” he sniffs. “Human. Nine or ten of them. Fremantle had to airlift us out of there to keep the dhampirs from overrunning us.”

  “Jesus. I’m sorry. I wish I’d been there.” Although I probably would’ve found a way to make it worse.

  “Why do you want to go to Misthaven?” he asks.

  “To talk to Alan Magyar about my father.”

  Another pause, longer this time. “If you’re willing to wait for a better day, we could all go together.”

  “Ryovan. If I wait for the right moment, it’ll never come.”

  He sighs. “I was hoping I would be there with you, but I understand your eagerness.”

  “I’m not going to let you talk me out of it again.”

  “I won’t try. Just know that you may not like what you find there.”

  “Where is it?”

  “There are no roads to Misthaven. Only pathways.”

  “It’s Between.”

  “Across the Canadian border to the southeast lies the Ojibway Nature Reserve. Park along the road where the train tracks turn west and follow them through the woods on foot. They’ll lead you to an old steelyard beside the river. Circle the steelyard to the north and follow the footpath from the fenceline. You’ll find the Waywatcher Tree in a copse of evergreens within the forest there.”

  “How will I know which tree is the Waywatcher?”

  “You’ll know. And you’ll know what to do when you get there. Remember that everything you learn while you’re in Misthaven has always been, and will always be. There’s nothing you can do to change it.”

  “Why does that scare me so much?”

  “I don’t mean to frighten you. Only to prepare you for
what lies ahead.”

  “If you’d rather be there, I guess I can wait.”

  “Go, Prince Cadigan. It’s time. Before I let you go, there’s something I wanted to ask you. Have you tried scrying on Irys Montrovia, by any chance?”

  “The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. After the trouble I got into last time I used scrying magic, I’ve stayed away from it. Why?”

  “Mazriel has been training her far sight on Irys in an attempt to gain information, but she’s encountered a spiritual obstruction.”

  “I’m not surprised Irys is strong-willed, from what you’ve told me about her.”

  “It’s not Irys’s will Mazriel is encountering. It’s someone else’s.”

  “Irys is being protected.”

  “By whom, we don’t know. So we’re going to get tactical on this one. Come by tomorrow afternoon and I’ll explain further. Good luck and godspeed toward Misthaven House.”

  “Thank you. Tell everyone my thoughts are with them.” I hang up.

  “What was that all about?” Ersatz wants to know.

  “Apparently Irys Montrovia is being mentally shielded from scrying magic.”

  “By whom?”

  “Ryovan wants me to come by tomorrow so he can tell me his plan for finding out.”

  “Fitting, given his habit of keeping you in the dark until the last moment.”

  I can’t help but think Ersatz has a point.

  We cross the bridge into Canada, where I’m forced to illusion myself into Arden Savage so I can get past the border patrol checkpoint. From there we head toward the nature reserve. When the train tracks come into view, I pull the hearse into a parking lot behind a low warehouse. Better to leave it out of sight here than on the side of the road.

  After searching the glove box and finding exactly zero flashlights, I work up a mouthful of saliva and swallow one of the fat residue pills Ersatz made me bring in lieu of a blood injection. I zip up my hoodie before we get out and follow the train tracks into the dark woods, where thick low-lying clouds blot out the moonlight. Snapping my fingers produces a tiny glowing ball in my hand, enough light to illuminate my path but not so much as to alert anyone who might be prowling these woods at a distance.

  The yipping howls of coyotes pierce the trees. They’ve been emboldened to encroach on suburbia in recent years, and a patch of woods near a nature reserve is an apt place to find them hanging out. Nothing to be afraid of, though. Not with my dragon on my shoulder and a bit of magic in my belly. As visions of Misthaven dance in my head, I keep thinking back to the sinister note in Ryovan’s warning. A chill runs through me, and a dig my hands into the pockets of my hoodie.

  Where the train track splits beneath a thick overhang of tree limbs, I follow the right-hand fork to where it dead-ends at a heavy buffer stop. The trees clear out to reveal a wide lot strewn with rusted steel girders arranged in neat piles over a bed of hard-packed gravel. The fog leaking from the distant trees makes it hard to tell what lies beyond the first few piles.

  A chain link fence cordons off the steelyard from the surrounding forest. It’s a long way around, and I could knock a significant distance off my trek by cutting through the yard. I don’t know how they do things up here in Canada, but I’m an American, and in America we take shortcuts.

  Gravel crunches beneath my feet as I hurry across the lot, following the tire tracks toward the opposite fenceline. Shadows move against the glow of my ball light, feet scampering through darkness. I pull from my dwindling supply to brighten the light as I run, reluctant to find out what’s lurking deeper in the steelyard. Though my instinct is to reach for my gun, there’s no reason to do so yet. I clamber over the fence and start into the forest at the head of the footpath Ryovan described.

  Late-spring leaves dampen sight and sound through the thickening fog. More howls reach me, only now I’m not so sure they’re coyotes anymore. Something about them isn’t quite right, though I can’t pick it out. Howls turn to barks and guttural growls, growing nearer and more urgent and less convincing, somehow, than before. The footpath veers left. Branches twist and close in behind me.

  I start to wonder how I’m ever going to find this Waywatcher Tree. Is it taller than the others? Bigger around? So far every tree looks the same, and the deeper into the woods I go the more I lose my bearings. By all reckoning, the Detroit River should be just on the other side of this plot, but no sound of water ripples against the singing insects and hooting night birds. The only sound beyond the forest is an unnerving silence.

  Ersatz’s voice, though a whisper, startles me. “There it is.”

  He’s clinging to my chest, head sticking out above the zipper on my hoodie. Through a thicket of undergrowth stands a lone dead tree within a cluster of live ones. A soft halo of moonlight wreathes the clearing in which it stands, a white beacon in a sea of darkness. I leave the footpath, parting branches into thick foliage.

  The Waywatcher Tree looms before me. Curved slabs of bark lay scattered around a trunk of bare blanched wood shot through with twisting termite trails. Intermittent wisps of purple steam rise from the grooves, which take on an organized appearance as I come close, like tribal tattoos or crop circles. I extinguish my ball light and swallow a second pill. Under my detection spell the tree emanates an intense magical aura, blue flames swaying on the night breeze.

  That’s when I understand. Like Ryovan said, I’d know what to do when I got here. The tree is drawing me to itself. It’s Misthaven’s gatekeeper, and it wants to feel me. To know who I am. This is a Sword-in-the-Stone situation, where only the worthiest and purest of heart may pass. Only the Waywatcher Tree isn’t looking for worthiness or purity of heart. It’s looking for sanity.

  I raise my hand to touch it. Ersatz, fun-ruiner and worry-wart extraordinaire, says nothing to dissuade me. When my palm touches the wood, the purple steam swirls down my arm like smoke through a vacuum cleaner.

  My eyes go thick with purple cataracts. The tree yanks hard on my mind, folding it open and unraveling its secrets. I grit my teeth and let it take what it wants. Are you steady? it asks. Are you stalwart? Do you possess the fortitude to endure what awaits you here, or will you crumble beneath its gravity?

  The questions are peculiar. They hit me like punches to the gut, and the tree snatches the answers without asking for them. When it retracts its will from me, the cataracts clear.

  I’m somewhere else. The Waywatcher Tree is the same, but the forest is different. The trees are burdened, their branches heavy. The clouds have cleared away, and every object in sight emits a soft halo of dust which glimmers silver in the moonlight.

  A path opens through the wood. I follow it.

  Where the trees clear, banks of fog slide away to reveal the slanted shape of a tall saltbox structure with a cross-gabled roof and round tower bays jutting from its corners. The house manages to be inviting and creepy at the same time. I start up the gravel path toward the black wrought-iron gate enclosing the compound behind a high stone wall.

  There’s a change in the air. A stifling, humid density. The coyote howls grow faint behind me. Then a different sound takes their place.

  Screams.

  Chapter 11

  Misthaven is more reminiscent of an asylum than a halfway house. Come to think of it, I’m not sure how a halfway house is supposed to look, but the picture I’d painted of it in my head was nothing like this. The front porch sags. The window shutters hang loose and creak in the breeze. A stark door stands flat along the front wall as if painted there. Tormented cries issue from somewhere around back, and a sudden damp chill makes me shiver.

  “Who the hell thought this was a good place to put a convalescence home, anyway?” I whisper.

  “Not a good place,” says Ersatz, half-stunned. “A secluded place. A hidden place.”

  “Have you been here before?”

  Ersatz shakes his head. “Your father and I spent our first few weeks in this world homeless and living under a bridge. There were no Gu
ardians of the Veil in those days. He came to Misthaven only after he realized he needed help. I did not accompany him. He’d buried his chest of gold in a field upon finding no one would accept his coin as payment. Everyone thought it was play money.”

  “Joke’s on them.”

  “Indeed. Those coins were minted in solid gold.”

  “If it was that hard for a guy with tons of money to adjust to life in this world, it must be hell on everyone else.”

  “The money wasn’t the problem. It was his… psychological issues.”

  “My dad wasn’t crazy.”

  “He’d improved by the time you came along. He’d found peace here in Misthaven, years before. The crossing changes us. I endured my own traumas, though I chose other methods by which to overcome them. When your father returned from Misthaven, he wasn’t the same. I didn’t press him on the particulars. Perhaps I should’ve, only I was hesitant to trigger a relapse. He’d obviously made progress. He was functioning normally. He bought the hospital; met your mother; sired you. In those days I found him to be not only a good king and a wise fellow, but an inherently kind soul as well. He was the sort of man who inspired loyalty.”

  “Forget filling his shoes. I couldn’t fill a thimble after all my screw-ups with the Guardians.”

  “Trust is a house of cards. It must be rebuilt time and again until it learns to stand on its own. The Guardians have as much work to do gaining your trust as you do theirs.”

  “Shenn wouldn’t trust me to order a pizza.”

  “Shenn is suffering from cognitive dissonance because you don’t match up with her preconceived definition. There’s nothing to be done except to wait until she’s worked things out for herself.”

  We arrive at the wrought-iron gate and find it locked. I press the button on the callbox beside it. No one answers for several seconds.

  “Who’s there?” asks a male voice, husky with age.

  “My name’s Cade. I’m a friend of Ryovan’s.”

  “Who’s that with you?”

  “Ersatz. My minikin dragon.”

  “Newcomer?”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Does he need a place to stay? We’re full up, but for someone of his size—”