by RJ Blain
Grimacing at the reminder many in the tribe had no use for written language, I jerked my head in a nod. “I’m a courier.”
Before Starfall, many people had learned to read and write, but nowadays, literacy often went by the wayside in favor of practical skills. Some couriers filled the roll of secretaries for hire, writing out letters, filling out forms, and covering for those who had chosen other fields. Woodworkers, bricklayers, grooms, and many other trades didn’t require literacy to thrive.
Of the careers requiring literacy, doctors, nurses, and others in medical professions, mystic or mundane, received the greatest respect. Couriers came in a close second, something I often took advantage of. Many mercenaries learned the basics to protect themselves but favored numbers far more than words.
They didn’t give a shit as long as they could do their jobs and get paid.
The woman busied herself filling out a form while I watched with interest; few businesses could afford computers or the electricity to run them, and the hotel had four. I’d never used one myself, but I found the devices fascinating—magic yet mundane.
“These forms state you were notified by Dawnfire they would pay for your stay. Please sign all three copies; one is for your records, one will be sent to Dawnfire, and the other is for our records.” The woman slid the papers to me along with a quill and inkwell.
I stared at the antiquated writing utensils. Calligraphy fell outside of the normal skills of a courier, something I, in the past, had enjoyed. I skimmed the documents to confirm they were what they claimed, grabbed the feather, and regarded the inkwell with open distrust and uncertainty. The corners of the woman’s mouth twitched.
“Go ahead and laugh.” I dipped the quill into the ink and stared at the blob of ink poised to drip back into the jar. Habit demanded I give the quill several efficient taps to remove the excess ink. Prudence—and faking ignorance of the skill—led me to a single scrape to remove the obvious excess.
My efforts resulted in a blobbed, mangled version of my tribe name, barely legible.
The woman leaned over the counter, took a single glance at the resulting mess, and giggled. “I told the boss it was a terrible idea to use feather quills for signing. I told him we needed to use standard pens to make things easier. Who uses quills anymore?”
“Good question.” I repeated the process on the other two sheets. “At least I know it takes several minutes to dry.”
The woman smiled, turned, and looked over a board full of pegs with keys dangling from them. Selecting a pair, she plunked them onto the counter and slid them to me. “Room 1537. Take the elevator to the top floor, turn right into the hallway, and go to the end.”
The elevator actually worked? When the woman laughed, I realized I’d blurted the question out loud.
“We hire mystics to charge the generators to operate the elevator, as it is a very long climb to the upper floors. While some of our guests enjoy such a challenge, most don’t.”
“I appreciate it,” I informed her, meaning it.
“As you’re being hosted by Dawnfire, meals are included in the tab with a fifty dollar maximum per day. You’ll be notified the night before the end of your paid stay so you can check out the following morning. Please enjoy your stay.”
The novelty of riding in an elevator entertained me all the way to the top floor. White marble tiles veined in black gleamed in the glow of mystic lights. What was it with Charlotte and its obsession with marble? Wyoming used wood or granite stone with the cracks filled with a substance prone to flaking and making a mess everywhere. I preferred the wood; the sun warmed it nicely underfoot, making it a pleasure to walk on.
I found the appropriate room and unlocked the door. While I meant to step inside, I froze in the doorway, my eyes widening as I took in the oranges, reds, and yellows of a leaf-themed rug and cherry furniture.
It reminded me of the past, of Todd’s suites in the mayoral palace, and the night I had fled Charlotte to secure my freedom. Swallowing, I forced myself inside, closing and locking the door behind me. Beyond the entry, a sofa, coffee table, and two oversized armchairs waited, their warm colors drawing my eye. A wall to wall window overlooked the city and provided an unobstructed view of the Starfall crater and the palace rising from the center of its depths.
I dropped my things on one of the chairs and strode to the window, pressing a hand to the glass. I remembered the previous mayor’s death, my return years later, the chill of the pool’s water as I had fled capture by Dawnfire mercenaries, and the worried voices of people who shouldn’t have cared about me but had.
Memories I didn’t want stirred, undeterred by the passage of time. Wearing a man’s clothes didn’t erase who I was, who I had chosen to become, or the mistakes I’d made. At twenty-five, I should have already shifted and discovered my inner beast. I wondered about the beast under my skin, the one I hadn’t met and hoped to one day. Why was she waiting?
Every mystic and elder I’d ever seen said the same thing; I stood on a thread threatening to snap beneath my weight. None of them knew when I’d make my first shift. All of them agreed only a feline could have such a stubborn nature.
A bitter laugh spilled out of me.
I didn’t feel much like a feline of any sort, not even the tiniest of house cats. Runs Against Wind didn’t suit me at all, and I wondered why the tribe hadn’t given me a more fitting name. Hides Under Bush would have worked, except I’d run out of places to hide.
For a long time, I stared out the window and wondered what to do.
Chapter Twenty-Two
When all else failed, the obvious solution was to leave the hotel, find the nearest bar, and have a beer. What could go wrong? Beer and I were good friends; beer took off the edge, didn’t make me too tipsy, and Charlotte understood the concept of chilling the precious brew so it slid down my throat and offered relief from the hot air.
It’d been far too long since I’d gone to a bar for the simple pleasure of popping a cold one and drinking it without anyone bothering me. I almost went unarmed but decided to wear my katana, decorated in the tribe way although it was, by no means, a weapon anyone born in the tribe would wear.
“That’s the expression of someone who hasn’t had a good brew in a long time,” the bartender commented, reaching down and pulling out a glass bottle for one of the other customers, sliding it down the polished bar surface. The bottle tipped, and in mid fall, its owner snatched it up, popped off the cap with his thumb, and lifted it in a salute.
“I don’t drink on the job,” I replied, mimicking the salute of the man seated a few stools away. Smoke hung in the air, adding to the graveled hoarseness of my voice.
“Smart.” The bartender’s gaze focused on the feathers clipped to my braid. “If my old eyes aren’t deceiving me, those are golden eagle feathers.”
Great. I’d picked a bar with a bartender who knew something about Native American tribes—or exotic birds of prey under Federal restriction. I looked the bartender over; he didn’t look very old, no more than thirty, which meant he was likely a shifter. “You’re hardly old, although the keenness of your eyes speaks of wisdom beyond your years.”
Sometimes when people told me things, I paid attention. The elders would have been so proud of me. I even managed to keep my delivery as even as my cold-ravaged voice allowed.
“The katana is different, but I’d recognize the beadwork of a tribe anywhere, although the patterns puzzle me. I’ve never seen a tribe use those patterns before.”
“I am of Cheyenne.”
Straightening, the bartender stared at me, a faint, blue light illuminating his eyes. “Cheyenne.”
“The tribe’s range is within Wyoming.”
“You’re a far way from home.”
I took a long swallow of my beer and mourned the loss of my hoped for quiet and solitude. “So I am.”
Reaching beneath the bar, the shifter pulled out another brown bottle, sliding it to me. “On the house to help get some of the road grit out of
your throat. We brew it ourselves.”
I downed my first beer in record time, thunked the empty bottle to the bar, and grabbed the replacement. The man a few stools down wasn’t the only one who could show off, and when I popped the top, I sent my cap on a smooth arc in his direction. The metal disc hit his bottle with a clatter, dropped to the bar top, and spun.
My target straightened on his stool. “Nice aim.”
After saluting him with my bottle, I took a tentative sip to have my taste buds assaulted by the strongest, bitterest brew I’d ever had the fortune—and misfortune—of putting in my mouth. I swallowed so I wouldn’t choke, and it packed enough of a punch my eyes widened. I held the bottle far enough away to check for a label. There wasn’t one. “Strong stuff.”
“It’ll put hair on your back and a beard on your chin.”
I offered the bartender another salute and accepted the challenge of his gut-rot ale. The first few swallows burned all the way down, but then my tastebuds died terrible deaths, allowing me to enjoy the concoction. Would a mystic be able to repair the damage done by the brew?
Minutes slipped by while I drank and eyed the steadily approaching bottom of my bottle.
Several startled yelps and the thunk of something hard on the bar tore my attention from my drink, and I leaned back on my stool. A man in a black suit crashed down where my beer had been moments before. Pale blue eyes, like sun on snow, met mine, dazed and unfocused.
I sighed, drained the rest of my bottle, and slid off the stool. A figure lunged in my direction, and my empty bottle left my hand. Glass met flesh and bone with a thunk. I took a moment to evaluate the man’s pursuer.
A woman, taller than me, staggered back a step, her hands clapped to her forehead. The bottle hadn’t broken, but it had managed to cut open her brow. Two men shoved her aside and lunged for me.
I grabbed my stool, spun around, and smashed it into the first of my opponents. Wood cracked, metal shrieked, and my victim groaned and dropped to the floor. Sliding my katana out of its sheath, I stepped into the fray, ready to dish out violence, misery, and humiliation to anyone who dared interrupt my quiet time with my beer.
In the grand scheme of things, the brawl ended on a good note. I cut some people, killed no one, and left a nice pile of groaning bodies at my feet. Stools made such delightful weapons, and I’d broken more than a few of them. Even the bartender had gotten in on the action, and his throaty chuckles complimented the symphony of misery rising from the floor.
“That doesn’t happen often.”
I turned a slow circle, counting bodies. “Twelve. Regulars?”
“Never seen any of them before, not even the suit.”
The suit had passed out on the bar, and his chest fell and rose with his breaths. I frowned, reached out, and pressed my fingers to his throat, counted his pulse, and then checked his eyes.
My eyes widened. “I think he’s been drugged.”
The bartender cursed. “A kidnapping attempt? In my bar?”
I took a good, long look at the people lying on the floor, wearing clothes so average I wasn’t sure if I could describe them to the police even if I wanted to. “Got rope?”
“I got something better than rope.” The man hopped over the bar, leaned down, and pulled out a box full of zip ties.
Chuckling, I grabbed a handful and went to work binding hands behind backs. “Haven’t seen these in a while. What’d you do, rob a museum to get them?”
“Nah, know some folks in the tech ward who work with plastics. Traded some brew for the ties and some other supplies.”
There hadn’t been a tech ward when I’d last lived in Charlotte. “Tech ward?”
“It’s by the train station. Few years back, someone got the great idea to try a small-scale factory, mix it up with electrics and mystics, and see if they could rig a high-heat furnace. Worked. Doesn’t use combustion, but they somehow generate enough heat to power half the city without much work. It’s got its risks, but the mystics deal with it.”
I thought about it, thinking through my limited amount of pre-Starfall lure. “Okay, you’ve got me. What are they doing if it isn’t combustion?”
“Some metal that gets hot when it breaks down or something like that. Mystics speed the process up, makes for lots of energy. Best of all, it can be used by mystics or machines. Mayor’s been wiring the whole city up for electricity, and within two years, everyone from the station to the crater should be hooked into the system. They’re prepping to expand the palace, too. Rumor has it the whole government’s going to be moving in. We already got the fancy library, so why not the rest of it, too?”
“Fancy.” I tied my new friends together with zip ties to make it a little more challenging if any of them woke up. “I’m going to have a look in our friend’s pockets to figure out who he is—or why someone might want to drug him in a bar.”
I knew why I would drug someone in a bar, and it didn’t involve having a bunch of witnesses—not that the other witnesses had stuck around to be questioned. Patting the man down, I located his wallet. I opened it, going through the thick paper cards. One of them was coated in plastic. I pulled it out, discovering a government-issued identification card. “Uh oh.”
“What?” the bartender demanded.
I read over the card, which gave his name, one Lucas Jennings, aged thirty-seven, his gender, home address—Richmond, Virginia. Flipping the card, I checked for anything indicating his status. I found it in the lower right corner.
Secret Service.
I swallowed, a chill stabbing me to the bone. Unable to think of a single thing to say, I held the card out to the bartender. The man read the card and groaned, slumping over his bar and banging his head into the wood. “Great. Just great. We’re going to be answering questions all night. I need a beer. You?”
“Please.”
“Got a name?”
“Runs Against Wind. You?”
“Matt.” He fetched two of the unlabeled bottles of beer from beneath the bar and offered me one. “Cheers.”
Tapping my bottle against his, I took a long swig, hopped up to sit on the bar, and sighed.
The instant a mystic confirmed the Secret Service agent had been sedated, the bar went to hell. The police and Secret Service swarmed the place, descending on me and Matt, itching for a fight. Arresting the twelve men and women on the floor happened fast enough I arched a brow, impressed with their efficiency.
Then their attention turned to me, the weirdo in tribe attire.
“What’s your part in this?” I had no idea who the gray-haired man was, but he’d been issuing orders from the beginning, and he had enough scars on his face to warn me he knew his way around a fight.
“Off-duty courier,” I replied. “Runs Against Wind of Cheyenne. My documentation is in the Starfall Hotel, Room 1537, top floor, a guest of Dawnfire.”
The agent turned, snapped his fingers at the nearest agent, and barked, “Verify it.”
The woman left in a hurry, and I envied her.
“You witnessed the fight?” the man asked, his tone demanding honesty and no bullshit.
I slowly unbuckled my sword belt and set it on the bar. “I educated them about why it isn’t nice to throw gentlemen in suits on the bar while I’m trying to drink my beer.”
Every law enforcement officer in the place stared at me.
Matt laughed, reached under the bar, and offered me another bottle. “Runs Against Wind took down most of them and tied them up. I only hit one with a stool. It’s not often I get to enjoy such a show. Well fought, by the way.”
I sent the bottle cap on an arcing flight across the bar. “Cheers.”
“You took them out. By yourself.”
“Is it my clothes? It’s my clothes, isn’t it, Matt? Do tribe leathers infer I’m incapable of handling myself in a fight?” Despite not having shifted, my words came out as a snarl. My sore throat kept my voice hoarse and ugly.
“The katana might have something to do
with it, as well as the lack of blood on your clothing.”
I glanced at my attire and grimaced; the feathers must have activated during the fight. They did that sometimes. Magic had a mind of its own, and the golden eagle feathers did not appreciate when blood got on them.
“An elder’s blessing,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster.
“Your gender confuses them, and Secret Service agents don’t appreciate confusion when someone attempts to kidnap one of their own.” Matt grinned at me and took a swig of his beer. “That blessing kills your scent, so they can’t tell what you are.”
I shrugged. “Story’s simple, gentlemen. I was sitting here having a beer when one of those louts tossed your friend on the bar in front of me. I dislike someone ruining my enjoyment of a beer, so I finished my drink and decided to teach them a lesson. Smacked the girl in the face with the bottle, busted up one of her boyfriends with a stool, and roughed the others up. Never seen any of them before in my life. I just came here to have a drink.”
“Can you verify that, Matt?” the Secret Service agent asked, his tone neutral.
Great. The government employees knew the bartender by name. Just what I needed to cap off a horrible day.
“Sure can. Don’t mind Charlie, Runs Against Wind. A lot of his colleagues like coming here for drinks. We’ve never had any real trouble before now.” Pausing, Matt looked me over, then his gaze dropped to my katana. “He’s a new one, though.”
“Part of the President’s detail. Day off.”
I choked on my beer, stared at the agent down the bar, the mystic still attending to him, likely preparing to rouse him without having to take him to Charlotte’s hospital. “Say what?”
Matt and Secret Service Agent Charlie stared at me.
“I was under the impression the President lived in Richmond, Virginia.”
Charlie looked me over, made a thoughtful noise, and pulled up a stool. “The President now lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. Guess you don’t hear much in Cheyenne. Wyoming?”
“Wyoming,” I confirmed. “I was riding a delivery and got tangled in some Dawnfire business.”