Power Mage 3

by Hondo Jinx

It was stupid, blowing all that dough on stuff they didn’t need. Junk cereal—the real brands, not generic—a book for each kid, and a frigging ice cream cake, like it was someone’s birthday or something.

  But damn if it didn’t feel good to see those kids’ huge smiles.

  That’s what had done it. Tammy knew she should save the money, stretch it, but she couldn’t resist the temptation of making Ty and Hannah happy.

  They had the rest of their lives to eat spaghetti and potatoes and whatever meat was on sale stretched with rice or beans or cabbage.

  So much of the time, Tammy felt like a failure. So it had been awesome surprising them like that, making them light up with excitement.

  Regardless of where they lived or how many other kids had worn their hand-me-down clothes or whether their junk cereal was brand or generic, her kids were mostly happy.

  But it broke her heart sometimes when she realized that maybe Ty wasn’t quite as happy as he acted. That maybe, just maybe, he was pretending to be happier than he really was because even at seven, he had learned that he needed to protect his mother.

  That broke her heart.

  So fuck it. She’d blown some cash.

  For a few hours there, the splurge had made her kids 100% legit happy and allowed her to relax and feel good about herself.

  But now, with the kids sleeping, the dog barking outside, and the kitchen clock ticking loudly away, marking the passing seconds that carried her inexorably forward through time toward her next rent payment, she knew she’d been foolish, splurging as she had.

  Oh well. She still had close to three grand, and that was three grand more than she had had before Nina showed up, wanting the shield.

  She hoped her friend was okay. Hoped all of them were okay. Even Brawley.

  He was a good man. She had sensed that loud and clear. And she didn’t believe what the news was saying. Or rather suggesting, the Order way too slick to flat-out accuse Brawley and the girls of killing all those people.

  Luna stopped barking.

  And then Tammy heard a sound that chilled her blood. Two car doors shutting in her driveway.

  Had they come back? Were Nina and Brawley and the blonde standing on her doorstep, riddled with bullet holes, looking for a place to hole up?

  She hoped to hell not. Because she loved Nina and wished the others well, but she would not endanger her kids by harboring three blood-soaked fugitives.

  Someone rapped softly on the door. No matter who it was out there, if they woke the kids, she’d skin them alive.

  She started for the door but paused halfway across the kitchen and focused her mind, reaching out, scanning for thoughts.

  Wish she’d open the damn door, an unfamiliar consciousness thought, I’m stiff as a stone broomstick after that ride.

  Tammy tiptoed to the door, peered out the peephole, and saw two people standing outside. One, an elderly, bespectacled woman in a bright dress, she instantly recognized as the source of the overheard thoughts. She had never seen the woman before in her life and had no clue what she could be doing, standing on Tammy’s doorstep at this hour.

  She’d also never seen the man, but one look made her stomach churn like it was filled with greased eels.

  Sixtyish, haggard, and grim, the man was dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt. His tan blazer hung open, giving Tammy a glimpse of the pistol shoulder-rigged inside.

  A cop. And considering his thoughts were shielded from her probing, not just a cop but an agent from the Order.

  Shit.

  Brawley, you son of bitch, what have you gotten me into?

  The cop rapped again, louder. His face revealed no impatience. Mostly, he seemed to be staring across the lane at the nightly firepit thug convention. But she knew he would just keep knocking until she answered.

  Oh hell.

  She reached back, swept her smokes off the counter, lit one, and opened the damned door, doing her best to look pissed rather than afraid.

  “What the hell do you want? My kids are sleeping.” She blocked Luna from coming inside, not wanting the little dog to trip the old woman.

  The man offered a smile. He didn’t put much into it. “My apologies, ma’am.” He flipped open some credentials she didn’t even try to read. The seven-pointed star she’d glimpsed verified her suspicions.

  The Order. Shit.

  “Ms. Schultz?” the man said. “My name is Detective Whittaker, and this is my… colleague, Hazel. We’re sorry to bother you at this hour, but—”

  “Oh, spare the procedural hooey, Jamaal,” the old woman said. “She understands. Can we come in, Tammy? I’m stiff as a—”

  “Stone broomstick,” Tammy finished for her, bringing a smile onto the old woman’s face. “Sure, come in, but keep it down, okay? If you wake the kids, I’ll have a hell of a time getting them back to sleep, and my three-year-old will give Mom hell while I’m at work tomorrow.”

  They came in and stood around the kitchen, talking in whispers.

  Jamaal was hunting the power mage, whom he referred to by name.

  That was surprising. It meant Brawley had fucked up somehow. And Brawley didn’t seem like a man who fucked up often.

  “We’re also looking for a friend of yours,” Jamaal said. “Nina Mack.”

  Tammy said nothing, took a drag, and tried to look like she wasn’t screaming inside. What the hell had she gotten herself into, helping those three?

  “We’re also hunting for my mentee, a pretty Seeker with hair like melted gold.”

  Tammy folded one arm beneath her breasts and exhaled a stream of smoke. “I don’t know where they are.”

  Hazel nodded. “She’s telling the truth.”

  Jamaal smirked. “I know.”

  “My apologies, sonny. I’m not used to hanging out with other Seekers.”

  “Apology accepted,” Jamaal said. “Now, Ms. Schultz—”

  “Tammy,” Tammy said. She wasn’t buying Jamaal’s friendly banter, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t play along.

  “Tammy, then. It’s late, so let me cut to the chase. We know they were here, and we know you helped them. Now we want you to help us.”

  Tammy squinted at him over her cigarette, trying to act tougher than she felt. “Or else?”

  “There is no ‘or else,’” Jamaal said. “At least not the way you mean it. I’m not here to threaten you.”

  “Mhmm,” Tammy said, voicing her skepticism. “I’m waiting for whatever comes after you say, ‘but unfortunately.’”

  “Oh, I like this girl,” Hazel said with a grin.

  Tammy sideswiped the old broad with a quick peek and found Hazel’s thoughts were in line with the smile and words.

  Hazel chuckled, patting her white hair. “I’d forgotten how it tickles when a Bender reads your mind. You get to be my age nobody cares what you think.”

  “Tammy, I meant it,” Jamaal said. “I am not here to threaten you. We’re just hoping you’ll help us find Nina and her friends.”

  Tammy took a drag and let it go almost immediately, shaking her head. “You’re barking up the wrong tree. I have no idea where they are.”

  “And wouldn’t tell us if you did,” Hazel said, still smiling. “I do like you, Tammy.”

  Keeping her eyes locked on Jamaal, Tammy spread her hands. “Wrong tree, boss.”

  “You shielded Nina from her father,” Jamaal said. It wasn’t a question, and Tammy didn’t bother denying it.

  “No harm in that,” Tammy said.

  “Not unless you’re Xander Mack,” Jamaal said. “The man’s scared shitless.”

  “The man is a manipulative piece of shit.”

  Jamaal shrugged. “Perhaps. But he loves his daughter.”

  “So do I,” Tammy said. Her fear had evaporated beneath the heat of anger. “Which is why I’d rather be in hell with a broken back than help you toss Nina in jail.”

  “We’re not looking to lock her up,” Jamaal said. “We’re looking to save her.”
/>   “Yeah, right. That’s some Seeker bullshit. Why not just pull a Jedi mind trick on me? Or quit half-stepping and ransack my brain?”

  Jamaal sighed. “Tammy—”

  “Wrong tree,” Tammy said again and gestured to the door. “Look, I hate to be rude, but it’s late, and I have to work tomorrow. Back-to-back shifts, if you want to know the truth, and every second I spend standing here not telling you anything is a second I could be sleeping.”

  “I wouldn’t hurt Sage for all the world,” Hazel said. “I’m her mentor. And I plunged the depths of Brawley’s truth. He’s a good man. An important man. In fact, I believe that he and his women might very well be humanity’s last hope.”

  Tammy looked at her, blinked, and shifted her gaze to Jamaal, who nodded. “Hazel showed me everything. We need you to help us find them. Not so we can stop them. So we can help them.”

  Tammy went to take another drag but realized that her Newport had burned to ash. She pitched it into the sink and blasted it with water.

  They were telling the truth. She was almost certain they were. Of course, it could be some Seeker trick. But if so, why go to all the trouble? Why not just ransack her and be done with it?

  “I meant what I said,” Tammy told them. “I really don’t know where they are.”

  “But you connected with Brawley’s mind,” Hazel said, “and his energy is bright. You could contact him again.”

  13

  Brawley sat on the sand beside his women and Callie.

  The bonfire burned brightly, lighting up the beach. On all sides, Carnals gathered in tangled groups, fighting and fucking.

  The Scars were loud and violent and oversexed, but their orgies and brawls lacked the wired meanness Brawley had witnessed in Heaven and Hell.

  Not that the Scars were misunderstood angels. They ran drugs and guns and extorted people across thousands of miles of highway. But they weren’t narcissistic psychopaths like the Miami Carnals.

  Instead, they were heavily tattooed hedonists, pushing their supernatural bodies to the limits.

  Remi and her mother sat arm in arm talking nonstop. With madness raging on all sides, Remi seemed calmer and happier than ever.

  Brawley reckoned polite society’s bullshit probably ran Remi ragged most of the time. He could relate. At home he was easygoing, but outside of Texas, so-called civilized folk were a near-constant burr in his saddle.

  Riding at big venues like Vegas and Madison Square Garden, he had learned to stop going out on the town. Because whenever he did, some group of city boys with gym muscles and bright white smiles would start jacking with him. They’d come over and start playacting, overdoing a drawl as they complimented his hat and boots and called him “pardner” and laughed behind their soft hands like a bunch of little girls, cocky but weak, not a crooked nose in the bunch.

  Trouble was, you started handing out life lessons in big towns like that and un-straightened a few of those perfect noses, you spent the night in jail. Even if the sons of bitches deserved the licking.

  Which all boiled down to polite society again. When people start relying on cops to sort their problems, all sorts of abominations become possible.

  So yeah, Brawley reckoned he understood why his gorgeous Carnal wife seemed so relaxed amidst the insanity of the wild-ass savages who’d raised her.

  Then Sage and Nina got up and headed for the cabin to hit the bathroom, and Brawley was left alone with Callie.

  For a while, they sat and drank in awkward silence while all around them Scars partied hard, filling the air with the smacking of flesh on flesh.

  “So you aren’t gonna kick me out?” Callie asked out of the blue.

  “You keep asking, I might.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Maybe I should. You’re just a girl.”

  “I’m not that young. You’re only twenty-three.”

  “It’s not just your age. You aren’t ready for this.” He wasn’t sure if he believed that or not. But they had to hash shit out, and now was the time to do it. They would both think clearer without her mouth in his lap.

  Callie spoke without looking at him. “You think I’ve had an easy life?”

  “I reckon probably not.”

  “Well, you reckon right.”

  Brawley took another drink. As a Carnal, he could now drink however much he wanted without getting drunk. Luckily, he could also allow the buzz to build. All day, he’d been tending a pleasant haze. “We’re heading for trouble.”

  “You think I can’t handle trouble? I killed Dutchman’s people. I killed Dos. He was a hitman. Have you ever killed a hitman?”

  Brawley leaned back. “A few, I reckon.”

  “Yeah, well.” Callie’s voice trailed off. She chewed her lip and stared into the campfire, her many-colored hair dancing in the firelight. “That doesn’t mean I can’t take care of myself.”

  She was a pretty little thing. That was for sure. But the world was full of pretty girls. That didn’t mean it was full of women you could spend your life with.

  “What do you want out of life?” Brawley said. “I mean really.”

  Callie shrugged her skinny shoulders. “This. Sitting here. With you, I mean. The whole thing, you know? Coming here and being with you and having someplace to go. But mostly, just being with everybody, and feeling…”

  She trailed off, embarrassed again.

  Brawley reached out and touched her chin and turned it gently in his direction.

  Her big amber eyes shined in the campfire light, aglow with fresh hope. She licked her lips.

  And Brawley knew what she was hoping for. It was such a small hope, a girl wanting her first kiss. So small it was almost pitiful.

  If he leaned over and gave her what she wanted, that would seal the deal. She’d be smitten. Forever and ever, amen. But he figured he needed to at least give the girl a chance. Needed to help her see what she was getting into.

  “Darlin,” he said, “you might not have lived an easy life, but you’ve lived a different life. Traveling with your uncle, doing shows, living out of motels. I know that life a little from being on the bull riding circuit.”

  She nodded. “It was okay.”

  “How do you even know?”

  “I lived it, didn’t I?” She was getting a little feisty now, irritated.

  Good. He needed to break her out of her shell and see what was underneath. “So you think. But maybe it’s not so easy to know whether your life is different.”

  “I knew,” she said. “I mean, I thought about it. A lot.”

  “Did you go to school?”

  She frowned. “Not much.”

  “How much is not much?”

  “When I was little, before my parents died, I went to school like most kids. Then everything happened, and my uncle started taking care of me. That was third grade. Halfway though the year.”

  “And after that?”

  She shook her head. But then a fiercely defensive look came onto her face. “But I’m not stupid.”

  “I didn’t say you were stupid.”

  “Would you say if you thought I was?”

  “If you asked me.”

  “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “No,” he said. “But I don’t think you’re ready for this. And more to the point, I don’t think you know what you want.”

  “That’s a lie. I do know what I want.” She took a drink. “I want you to let me stay with you.”

  “I won’t throw you out on your ass. Not yet.”

  “When, then?”

  “I’m just trying to help you sort yourself out. There’s a big world out there.”

  “And I’ve seen most of it,” she snapped. “More than you’ve seen, probably. How many states have you visited?”

  “I have no idea, darlin.”

  A tight, little smile came onto her face. Damn if the girl didn’t look smug. “I’ve seen all the states. Most of them more than once.”

  “Alaska and Hawaii?”


  Callie shrugged one shoulder. “Alaska. We drove up through Canada a couple years back.”

  “How was Alaska?”

  “Cold.”

  Brawley grinned. “Cold. I reckon so.”

  “My uncle was an optimist. He always thought there was something big waiting just around the bend. Always searching, always a week from finding the right spot. Every now and then we’d find a good gig and hang around someplace for a month or three.”

  Callie stared into the fire, a wistful smile coming onto her face. “Like this one place in Mississippi. It was loaded with casinos, and a hotel hired us to put on our show for a whole summer. The next hotel over had this high diver act, and I’d watch that two or three times a day from our window. And the chef there used to put extra whipped cream on my pancakes, no charge. That was a nice place.”

  Her smile faded. “But if we waited around long enough, bad luck would find us. That’s the way it felt, like bad luck was always hunting us.” She blinked into the fire for a second, but Brawley could tell she wasn’t done talking yet. “Maybe it was just my uncle. He never did have much luck. Maybe I’m going to be all right now.”

  “Maybe. And maybe you got a say in that. I won’t say there’s no such thing as luck, but I reckon we mostly make our own. Otherwise, what’s the point of life?”

  Callie blinked at him, and a cute grin came onto her face. “You’re a character.”

  He arched one eyebrow.

  “The way you look at everything and all. I like to listen to you talk.”

  “Yeah well, that might wear thin quicker than you think.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. Not ever. You want to know the truth?” Callie said, and paused to take a long drink before staring into the flames again. “I do believe in luck. Not just bad luck. Good, too. I think maybe you’re the first good luck I’ve ever had.”

  Brawley laughed bitterly, shaking his head and polished off his beer. “Darlin, if I look like good luck to you, you’d better get yourself some glasses. Strong ones, lenses an inch or two thick. Because if there’s one thing I ain’t, it’s good luck.”

  “You’re just saying that because you want me to go away,” she said. “You want to get rid of me but you feel bad about it.”