Got To Be A Hero

by Paul Duffau

“When does the exchange take place?”

  “When Kenzie finds the thing, she’s supposed to contact him. Lassiter, I mean.”

  Mercury shifted his attention up to the right and a thoughtful expression settled on his features.

  “Yes, we’ll have to work on the time, but I can help you.” He gave Mitch a hard stare. “Do you have a plan for keeping yourself safe?”

  “I’m working on it,” said Mitch. He bore Mercury’s scrutiny by avoiding the wizard and gazing at the tropical scene out the window. He saw an unfamiliar bird land on a branch of a large-leafed tree. The branch sagged under the weight of the bird, which looked about a foot tall. Resplendent with a rosy chest, blue-purple feathers on the nape, and emerald green wings, it stared back at him over a beak that curved downward as if in disapproval.

  “It’s a red-and-blue lory,” said Mercury. “Quite endangered.”

  “Do you collect them?”

  A sad silence filled the room. Finally, Mercury answered him.

  “No,” he said in soft tones, “I give them some space and time to find their destiny. There are fewer than five thousand left now. Saving them is more than I can do, any more than I can reanimate a dead person.”

  The bird cocked its head to the side and Mitch imitated it. “No zombies to worry about, then?”

  “We have enough to concern ourselves with as it is.”

  Mitch’s phone vibrated against his thigh He slipped it from his pocket in an automatic response. He checked the screen, saw an incoming message from the house, and killed the call. He glanced up to see the wizard considering his next words.

  “If I am to help you, I need the details, Mitch. All of them, anything that may affect McKenzie.”

  “Yeah, I’ve pretty much covered it.”

  Mitch watched a fleeting expression of weariness come and vanish from the wizard’s craggy visage.

  “What I don’t know can get you killed.”

  Mitch laughed without even a trace of humor. “Take a number. Lassiter seems pretty intent on wiping out anybody around Kenzie.”

  “True, and we will find ways to handle Mr. Lassiter. He is not the first mortal to try to harness us. Most should count themselves lucky to live to regret it. The Families,” he said, his green eyes turning to sea ice, “have suffered persecution, seen their members burned and drowned. Some think the time has come to remove the threat the mass of humanity, blind as it is, represents. As cold as you may consider me or Raymond Graham, we are the least dangerous to you. There are those that would extinguish your life in a moment if they were aware that you suspected that they existed.”

  The words hung in the air like ice crystals, glittering and dangerous.

  The chill reached into Mitch’s stomach. The old codger knew something.

  Hunter?

  Should he tell him?

  No, he decided. Not yet.

  “So is that a threat?” he asked, brows pinched.

  “A warning, to the wise.”

  Mitch’s phone went off again, but he ignored it this time. He needed to meet up with Kenzie somehow, and then bust his butt to get over to the school.

  “I got to go. You can handle Jackson? When we’re ready?”

  Mercury looked suddenly ancient. “I can,” he assured Mitch. A sigh slipped out after the words, though.

  Mitch managed an embarrassed shrug. “Thanks.”

  He headed for the door, aware of the pressure of the wizard’s gaze pushing between his shoulder blades.

  “Mitch,” the man called out.

  Mitch turned at the doorway.

  Mercury was standing. He lifted a forefinger, pointing at Mitch.

  “Look at your hand.”

  Mitch glanced down. The knuckles had fine white scars, and the swelling was gone. He met Mercury’s glare.

  “I can’t heal dead. Be careful.”

  Mitch nodded and left. He flexed his fingers and closed them into a tight fist.

  Knowing wizards had some advantages, he thought.

  Except for the part where he might end up “unhealable.”

  Chapter 33

  Kenzie woke clutching at the top of the pillow while her legs entwined themselves around the bottom. She looked past the open curtains to the rays of the sun walking up the trunks of the trees behind the house, a pure, rich light that lied about the birth of a beautiful day.

  Dismaying thoughts reemerged with her from the abyss of sleep, a fitful rest that had finally come when she hit mental exhaustion. She left her head on the pillow for a minute longer, considering and discarding a slew of ideas in rapid succession.

  Find the device, Lassiter had said, and deliver it. All will be well.

  Big fat liar.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure it out, especially for a girl whose father worked as a detective during the business day and led the security council for the Family the rest of the time. Jackson might be safe since he didn’t know anything, but Lassiter had stamped an expiration date onto Mitch as surely as if he’d tattooed it into his skin.

  The dummy would ignore it—he was too bright not to realize the smooth criminal’s intent, too—to help her.

  Guilt finally motivated her to get off the floor.

  Kenzie’s right shoulder and hip ached from sleeping on the floor, and her back felt bruised from the bed rail. She staggered over to the door, put a hand on it, and paused.

  She still wore her clothes from last night.

  Working fast, she stripped down, slipped on a pair of pajamas. Though the room was comfortably warm, she put on her bathrobe to hide the lack of wrinkles on the pjs. She pulled the hairband off her ponytail and gave her head a gentle shake. She faced the mirror over her dresser. The unconstrained mass of hair lent a wild look that matched the hunted stare that reflected back.

  She tried to smile, but her visage in the glass grimaced like a woman who had eaten one prune too many.

  She practiced, making sure to relax the rest of her face. The face in the mirror fell short of sincere.

  Got to avoid Father, she thought. Mother’s pretty oblivious, but not him.

  The lower half of the house was silent as Kenzie padded down barefoot to the bottom landing. A stray beam of morning sun blazed a path across the floor and made the rest seem darker.

  Crud. She was the first one up. Now what?

  She dithered for a second at the foot of the stairs, torn between the urge to retreat to her room and the pressure to do something useful.

  With a sigh, she went to the kitchen.

  In the early morning, with the recessed lights off, the wood and marble took on a sterile aspect, highlighted by the stainless steel appliances. The floor radiated cold through the soles of her feet. She should have put on her slippers. Kenzie curled her toes under as she made a pot of coffee.

  While it brewed, she pulled her mug from the artsy stand next to the coffeemaker. She fetched cream from the fridge and organic cane sugar from the cabinet. She spooned one overflowing heap of the golden granules into her mug and added a large dollop of the thick liquid. The aroma of brewing coffee surrounded her, and she inhaled, savoring the sensation.

  Impending doom took a step backward, and she realized that simple actions, like making coffee, created space for her mind to process. The drip of the coffee ended with a gurgle, the loudest sound in the house. She poured, making sure not to spill.

  She pulled a spoon from the drawer to stir and left it in the mug when she turned to go to the breakfast nook. She put her coffee on the table so she could open the blinds. The sunlight would have been better in the front of the home, almost blinding at this time of the morning. Instead, she saw the backyard, the same trees she could see from her bedroom window. The whole hillside glowed as the day came alive. She slid the window open to smell the fresh air, perfumed by the shrubs and flowers of the neighborhood.

  Without looking, Kenzie picked up the mug and held it tight with both hands. She sipped, the sweetness of the sugar spreading from the t
ip of her tongue to fill her mouth. The flavor of the coffee emerged at the back of her mouth.

  A depressing thought emerged from the mélange of ideas that presented themselves for inspection. Without Jackson or her parents, she couldn’t leave the house. Jackson didn’t work weekends, and she wanted him as far from her, and Lassiter, as possible, anyway.

  The house seemed much smaller than normal.

  Circling high above the trees, a red-tailed hawk screeched. It scrolled through the heavens, already searching for prey. A turn on the currents brought it closer.

  She brought her eyelids down and pictured herself in the place of the hawk, imagined the freedom to fly away on the wind. She took a tremulous breath and let the feeling go.

  A spark of red and blue dancing across the rhodies in the yard caught her eye. A bird, much too large and tropical to be native, fluttered and settled on a shrub bespeckled with pink blossoms, seeking nourishment. It flashed into full sun, the colors popping, the red vivid, the blue taking on an iridescent sheen, the green wings.

  A raspy scream from the raptor above made Kenzie look up. She sensed the predatory change in the hawk as it shifted a wing to alter its trajectory toward her. The glide took on an eager purpose, the intensity of the hunt.

  A wave of sadness gripped Kenzie, and she put the coffee mug on the sill. Lifting her hand, she repeated the motions that Harold taught the class, and said, “Anemosa.”

  She imbued the air spell with sufficient power to build an upswell of air that captured the hawk and lifted it away. Kenzie held it until the bird of prey had risen hundreds of feet vertically and drifted away to vanish behind the trees.

  She released the spell and looked for the bright plumage, but the tropical beauty had left. Kenzie hoped it had sense enough to avoid the hawk. In the meantime, Kenzie knew what she had to do.

  Kenzie was still standing at the window when her mother came downstairs. She could tell it was her mother by the weight of the footfalls and the air of frostiness that entered the kitchen with her.

  “Mother,” she lied without turning, “I owe you an apology. And Aric, too. I should not have lost control like that.”

  “Indeed.”

  Kenzie pressed her lips together but kept her annoyance hidden. Her mother never compromised, not in the office, not at the Glade, not at home.

  “Aric is not the one.”

  She heard the sound of coffee being poured. A stalling tactic.

  “All right, then we will find you another suitor.”

  Like hell you will!

  She maintained her composure despite her shock at the blatant disrespect from her mother and the immediacy of the defiance it triggered.

  Stick to the plan.

  “I would like to get in some time at the studio this morning, please. It’s Jackson’s day off, so either you or Father would need to drive me. Jules can act as bodyguard while I’m there, and I won’t leave until one of you arrive to take me home.”

  She heard her mother sip at the coffee. “Hmm, good,” her mother said.

  Kenzie stood stoically watching bees flitting through the irises. She could feel the burn of her mother’s gaze on the back of her head.

  Her mother sighed. “What time is the class and how long do you think you’ll be?”

  “It starts at nine and lasts a couple of hours.”

  “We’ll make the arrangements.” Another sip. “To be clear, there will never be a repeat of your behavior last night, McKenzie.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Kenzie. The lie rolled off her tongue easily. “Last night will not happen again.”

  I’ll make sure of it.

  Chapter 34

  Mitch’s stomach turned queasy, and he could taste acid at the back of his throat. Mitch didn’t believe it was possible, but the Rubiera clan had no internet footprint at all. He tried to think of another series of searches and came up blank.

  Mitch had left Mercury’s place and driven around, finally settling in at the coffee and yogurt shop next to Kenzie’s studio, more because it was familiar than for anything else. He got a cup of strong dark-roast coffee to wash out the taste of Mercury’s swill. Hunter still hadn’t called back, so Mitch decided he would force the issue by pounding on the Rubieras’ door until the jerk answered. Which would work, except he had no clue where Hunter lived.

  Now, staring at the screen on his phone, he wondered how he managed to know nothing real about Hunter. The Rubiera name didn’t come up in any searches. No phone numbers, no addresses, no social media. Mitch resorted to the results from the basketball season to prove that Hunter existed.

  Hunter’s name was missing from the box scores.

  Online was forever, except for Hunter. He found a Rubiera commune in Italy on Wikipedia, records of a Spanish family that emigrated at a genealogy site, and a former Tour de France cyclist, but nothing in Seattle.

  It took some mad webfu skills to disappear someone digitally.

  Mitch took a sip from his cup while his stomach grumbled, and tried to fit the new information into the pattern. Something niggled, but he knew enough not to force it.

  Out in the parking lot, a stream of cars dropped off youngsters dressed in white karate outfits. Maybe ten or eleven years old, a mix of girls and boys, most walking like they’d rather be any place but practice on a Saturday morning. A gleaming black Mercedes pulled up.

  Crud!

  Cursing his ever-present rotten luck, he slipped down low in the bench seat. The features of the man speaking through the open passenger door to Kenzie were indistinct, but he had no trouble making out the dour face of Lieutenant Graham of the SPD. Kenzie nodded once and swung the door shut. She crossed behind the automobile. Only when she was inside did the sedan pull away and Mitch start breathing again.

  Mitch stood, coffee forgotten.

  Across the parking lot, an Audi pulled in and parked. Jackson, dressed in the red polo and khakis that he wore almost like a uniform, got out. The bodyguard talked animatedly on a phone, checked both ways before crossing the main drag in front of the shops, but resembled the kids, as though he’d rather be someplace else this morning.

  Mitch flopped back onto the plastic seat. The worry buffeting the inner recesses of his mind grabbed hold of the image of the phone in Jackson’s hand. His mind strayed to his phone, the implications of Faraday bags stashed at his house, and the synapses closed. His shoulders slumped at his stupidity.

  He knew how Lassiter had found them.

  Their phones, more likely Kenzie’s phone. Lassiter and his organization traced the phones and knew when she strayed from the house. They’d been waiting for the opportunity, and he had led Kenzie right to them by encouraging her to leave the safety of her house. It was a wonder that her father hadn’t done the same thing.

  Their cell phones were a humongous liability.

  How much info can they hack from them? he wondered. A wave of light-headedness engulfed him.

  Do they know about Mercury? Hunter?

  Mercury was a cagey old guy and had already proven smart enough to avoid Graham. No way to check on Hunter now. He picked up his phone, pried the cover off, and was about to remove the battery when another idea hit him. Fingertips on the edge of the battery and his head down, he delved deep in his own thoughts.

  No, leave it. If he pulled the battery, killed the phone, they might figure out they had lost an advantage. Take it away later, when it would matter. Carefully, he snapped the components back into place.

  He pressed his fingertips to his forehead and rubbed. What now?

  He needed to be able to talk to Kenzie, and the phones weren’t safe. If they weren’t, neither was the internet, or landlines, probably. He might be able to hide in the dark web, the hidden places where hackers, drug dealers, and investigative reporters lived. In the hidden bowels of the internet, people worked at nefarious and noble endeavors, protected from exposure.

  No bueno. Kenzie probably didn’t know how to get there.

  Frustratio
n grew as he recognized that every avenue of communications could be corrupted.

  He snorted in disgust.

  Might as well try radio messages in code, or smoke signals, that’s what they did in ancient times.

  Only one other possibility seemed likely to be safe.

  Talking face-to-face.

  Which was fine with him. He liked Kenzie’s face, and it lived behind his eyeballs all the time.

  Mitch was pretty near certain it wouldn’t be fine with Jackson. Or Kenzie’s dad.

  He huffed on the coffee to cool it, which it didn’t need, while he thought. He slugged down a couple of gulps, tried to find another answer, and gave up.

  He stood, leaving the half-finished coffee on the table, and left.

  Kenzie had her back turned when he walked in. She stood hunched over, explaining how to tie the belt properly to a pair of nervous young white belts.

  Jackson spotted him immediately, as did Jules. The bodyguard gave him a fast once-over, checking hands, pockets, waistband in a practiced examination to determine threat level. Jules gave him a noncommittal smile, though she flicked a look in Kenzie’s direction. He sensed more than saw her shift her alert level.

  Mitch strode with more confidence than he felt to the seating area. Butterflies multiplied in his stomach as he approached Jackson. He kept his hands open but avoided eye contact. He selected a seat one row in front of Jackson and to the man’s left so that the bodyguard could maintain an uninterrupted view of Kenzie. The pressure of the man’s gaze on his back made him itch between the shoulder blades. He shifted his attention to the padded floor in front and the mirror that lined the front wall. He glanced in the mirror, saw Jackson squinting at him in overt suspicion. Mitch switched his focus to the kids on the floor, most not even coming up to his waist.

  At Jules’s direction, the class came to order. Kenzie spotted him. He gave her a minuscule shake of his head at the questions expressed in her raised brows. She broke eye contact, lining up in the senior position in the rows of students. As Jules led the class into their warm-ups and the high-pitched shouts of the children counted the reps, Mitch shifted in his seat to speak past his right shoulder to Jackson.