No Sanctuary

by Z. J. Cannon

  The phone rang.

  All three of us jumped, although we tried not to show it. The man against the wall had the least luck. He cleared his throat, straightened his shirt, and tried too obviously to settle back into his threatening posture. Meanwhile, I picked up the phone. Delaney’s number.

  I didn’t bother with a hello. “Is it done?”

  “Abner says he’s done what he can,” came Delaney’s voice. I could hear all the questions she wasn’t asking.

  “Thank you.” I had to be sure not to say too much, with JD’s security listening in. “How long?”

  “An hour at most, he said. If he’s able to push it through. Customs isn’t really his area of expertise.” A long pause. “Are you going to tell me what this is about?”

  So she was going to ask those questions after all. “It’s my best way to get to the man I need to see.” I hadn’t mentioned Ellison’s name to her—although I was sure she had figured something out about his involvement, given that I had been arrested in his penthouse. She had seen it on the news along with everyone else. “And he’s my way to our mutual enemy.” The name Arkanica was one of the things I didn’t dare say in front of JD’s lackeys. Not that I thought there was a high likelihood they had corporate connections. But just in case.

  “And I assume you’re going to explain that connection to me, as well. Eventually.” She gave the last word an unmistakable bite.

  “As soon as I can.”

  “No doubt.” Her voice was as close to sarcastic as Delaney ever got. Then it turned quieter. More doubtful. “If anyone finds out Abner pushed to get that shipment through, people will start asking questions. Questions that could impact his reputation—which, I don’t need to remind you, is our best asset right now. And besides that, favors aren’t free.”

  “I wouldn’t have asked if I had another choice.” I glanced up at JD’s lackeys, and closed my mouth before I could be tempted to give her more of an explanation. I didn’t want to give his people anything that could give a clue as to who I was working with. If only because there were people out there who would pay handsomely for that information, and I didn’t know how far JD’s loyalties to his friends went.

  “What about Skye?”

  “On the move. I’ll explain—”

  “Later. Of course.” A long pause. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Me too, I thought. “Thank you again. I’ll keep you updated.”

  She muttered something that sounded like, “Sure you will.” Then the line went dead.

  I set the phone down. I didn’t bother picking the beer back up; I had never been a beer fan to begin with, and this one tasted like licking the wall of a latrine. “One hour,” I told JD’s lackeys.

  One hour until I found out just how well I could play the role of Kieran Thorne, international criminal mastermind. One hour until I either earned my meeting with Ellison, or found out what happened when JD’s friends didn’t hold up their end of the relationship.

  I didn’t let myself tense up. I leaned back like I was getting ready to watch a movie marathon. Total relaxation; total confidence. That was part of the game. If JD thought I didn’t trust my own plans, he would know he couldn’t trust me.

  One of the lackeys took out his phone to pass the information to JD. The other kept on watching me silently. And with that, we all settled in to wait again.

  An hour went by. Then two. Maybe more. It felt like more. I resisted the urge to keep checking the time on my phone; that would only make me look nervous. I couldn’t afford to look nervous. So all I had to go on were the occasional looks I allowed myself, and the visible signs of my watchers growing more and more impatient. Checking their watches; tapping their feet. Murmuring to one another in voices too low for me to hear.

  JD must have sent his people to retrieve the cargo by now. They were probably preoccupied with unloading the shipment, and hadn’t stopped to update JD. If something had gone wrong, they would have gotten in touch sooner; it didn’t take a full extra hour to hear someone say no. But even as I had the thought, half a dozen other explanations for the delay occurred to me, none of them favorable to me. A drawn-out argument. A last-minute complaint from a supervisor. A—

  No. I clamped my mind down on the thoughts. If I let my confidence drop, JD’s lackeys would notice. If I believed this wouldn’t work, my magic would forcefully remind me of my only other option. I breathed in, breathed out. This would work.

  A phone buzzed. My hands tightened on my thighs, but I kept myself from flinching. I reached for the phone on the table, but it wasn’t the one that had gone off. The lackey by the door was already bringing his own phone to his ear.

  He listened silently for a moment, eyes defocused. Then his gaze came back to me. He didn’t look bored now. His eyes had gone flat, like a shark’s.

  “Whatever you did, it didn’t work,” he told me in a voice as flat as his eyes, without ending the call. “JD says his man got turned away. No record of anyone making a pickup tonight.”

  “Try again in the morning,” I suggested. My voice was tense, despite my best efforts to keep it under control. “Not everyone appreciates being asked to work in the middle of the night. I’d rather I was home in bed, myself.”

  He listened to the voice on the other end of the phone for a few seconds, then shook his head. “You said an hour. And they looked up the shipment. No change in status.” He paused to listen again, then gave me an unpleasant smile. “And JD says to tell you the only bed waiting for you is in federal prison. You have no home, and apparently no more influence either. All you have is his hospitality—and as of now, you’ve worn out your welcome.”

  The man leaning against the wall reached for a weapon.

  Breathe in. Breathe out. Total confidence. “Not a problem. I can still get this done.”

  Another few seconds of listening. “You had your chance,” he said, in a cadence that told me the words weren’t his own.

  “You can tell JD,” I said, raising my voice so JD would be able to hear me just fine without any help, “that I don’t know how they do things in Boston, but where I come from, we don’t give up after just one try. And he should ask himself this—how badly does he want that shipment? Badly enough to put a bullet in my brain now, instead of an hour from now if it doesn’t work out? Apparently no one ever taught him that patience was a virtue.”

  The man holding the phone winced. Apparently he had never dared to talk to his employer like that. But then his face went blank as the voice on the other end started talking. After a moment, he nodded. “One more chance. That’s it. He wants that shipment in his hands by morning.”

  “He’ll get it.” As if on cue, a burst of invisible flame flared to life under my skin. My magic wanted me to call Skye. I gritted my teeth against the pain and rose to my feet. “Take me there.”

  He frowned. “What?”

  I might have asked myself the same question, if I had dared to stop and think. But all I knew was that I had to convince my magic there was another solution besides calling Skye—which meant convincing myself. I wasn’t going to ask her to do anything that would slow her down before she had gotten to her new location, especially since the appearance of Engstrom’s representative had made it clear that Arkanica had kept close tabs on my arrest. Arkanica probably already had the recording of my call to Skye, and was working on tracing it back to its origin. But I also wasn’t going to let my magic chew through my veins for breaking my promise to her. So my only choice was to find another viable alternative.

  “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” I imbued my voice with certainty—I know what I’m doing—as much to convince myself as JD and his men. The burning under my skin faded, but didn’t disappear. “Take me there. I’ll get you your shipment.”

  The man with the phone listened, then frowned. “No violence. Nothing splashy.”

  “Already in the plan.” I didn’t offer anything else.

  He took long
er to listen this time. Then he slid the phone back into his pocket. He nodded to me. “I’ll get you there,” he said, not sounding happy about it. Maybe he didn’t entirely trust his employer’s judgment, or maybe he just didn’t relish the thought of taking a drive with me. “But don’t try anything.”

  I held up my cuffed hands. “Forgetting something?”

  His frown deepened. I nodded toward the phone in his pocket, and smiled. The heat under my skin simmered. I took another deep breath. Total confidence.

  Less than half an hour later, I was standing in the Boston night, breathing in the briny air and staring through a chain-link fence at the pines of brightly-colored shipping containers on the other side. One of JD’s lackeys stood to either side, and the truck they had brought was behind us, quietly idling.

  One of the lackeys gave me a doubtful look. “Why did you want us to stop here? I thought the plan was to talk your way past security.” I wasn’t sure which one he was. They were both cut from the same overbuilt Arnold-wannabe cloth. I wished they had bothered to put on name tags before bringing me out here.

  “Not exactly.” I held out my wrists to them. “I’d be happy to demonstrate the plan to you, but I can’t do anything like this.”

  The lackey frowned. He made no move to remove the cuffs. “I thought our boss made it clear he wanted to be subtle about this.”

  “It will be. As subtle as a theft can be, anyway. There won’t be anything to tie it back to him, which is what he cares about, isn’t it? If you’re worried someone might see your faces, the two of you could always go back and wait for me.”

  His scowl grew, like I had known it would. “If it was as simple as breaking in, he would have had someone do it by now. The port has stepped up its security, these past few months. They’ve got guards everywhere, and where they don’t have guards, they have cameras.”

  “Which is why I picked this—”

  The lackey spoke over me. “And where they don’t have cameras, they’ve got alarms.” He jerked his chin up at the slim black rectangle fitted to the top of the fence. I clenched my jaw at the sight of the Nexegence logo printed in silver in the corner. “I hope you don’t think you’re getting in this way. Lay one finger on that fence, and that alarm brings every security guard in there down on us.”

  Heat flared to life under my skin again. I hastily rearranged the pieces of the plan in my mind. I could still do this. “I’m not getting in here. I’m getting in down there.” I motioned into the distance.

  The lackey followed my gaze to the other end of the fence, and the two guards that were pacing there. “I’m starting to think we should have put a bullet in your head back in the club. It would have saved us the gas.”

  “You know my reputation. Do you think I got it by being stupid?” I didn’t wait for a response. I jingled the cuffs at them again. “Let me do what I came here for, or explain to JD why you cost him however much that cargo is worth because you thought your judgment was better than his.” I shrugged. “Your choice.”

  The two lackeys looked at each other. It was the second one who made the first move. He dug around in his pocket and magicked up a slim key. He unlocked the cuffs and started to tuck them away.

  I grabbed for them. “I’ll keep those.”

  He frowned at me. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Call it a souvenir.” I tightened my grip. He gave me a perplexed look, but after a couple of seconds, seemed to decide a pair of handcuffs wasn’t worth playing tug-of-war this close to port security. He let me have them.

  I kept a death grip on the handcuffs. As long as the steel stayed in contact with my skin, my magic couldn’t break free. I stared at the fence, and the Nexegence alarm. This was going to be the tricky part. I took a deep breath, to hold off both my magic’s insistence that it was time to call in Skye, and the familiar panic at what I was about to do. As far as my magic went, it worked—the burning under my skin didn’t come back. With the panic, it was less effective. I could already feel the adrenaline kicking in, speeding up my heartbeat and narrowing my vision, as I reached into my pocket with my free hand. I could already see images of Hawthorne replaying behind my eyes.

  Both lackeys tensed. Their hands went to their weapons.

  “Relax,” I said, distantly amazed that I could keep my voice steady even as my heart doubled its speed. “The Boston PD was thorough enough to take my wristwatch. You really think they’d let a weapon slip by?” I gave them a calculated smile. “Of course, there are some things they don’t know how to spot.”

  I grasped a piece of pocket lint between my fingers and drew it out. I held it out to them, as reverently as if I were revealing the crown jewels. “Do you know what this is?”

  They exchanged another glance. “Lint,” one of them offered flatly.

  “Powdered explosive,” I said, curling my fist around it. “Reacts with water. So new it doesn’t even have a name yet. I’m on a very short list of testers. And I have to say, so far it’s exceeded expectations. A handful of this stuff could blow a hole through this fence big enough to drive a whole fleet of trucks through. With what I’ve got… well, we’ll have to be more subtle. But it will give us a nice distraction.” I nodded up at the alarm.

  They looked at each other a third time. My stomach sank into my shoes. My heartbeat, impossibly, sped up even faster. They couldn’t possibly be buying this.

  But one of the lackeys took a nervous step back. The other, watching him, quickly followed suit. “That doesn’t sound very subtle to me,” said one of the two identical men—I had lost track of which was which again. “Our boss wants subtle.”

  “And here I thought your boss wanted his cargo not to rot. They’re in one of those containers out there, right?” With the hand that was still clutching the handcuffs, I gestured through the fence. The cuffs rattled. “It’s been hot, these past few days. How well do you think they’re holding up?” I lowered my hand. “Of course, you could always call him and ask. Let him know you can’t be trusted to handle a simple problem.”

  I could read the conflict on both their faces. They had to know something wasn’t right about this. It wasn’t as if I was being subtle about trying to get them off-balance by playing on their insecurities—and no one did that if they were being completely aboveboard.

  But then, if they had wanted aboveboard, they had chosen the wrong business. They had to be used to these games by now. Maybe that was why, almost in unison, they nodded. “At the first sign of trouble,” one of them said, “we’re out of here. And if we have to leave you behind, we’ll make sure you won’t be able to tell any stories to the Boston PD.” He patted his gun.

  “I don’t think the police would be too interested in anything I had to say. But I don’t plan on seeing them again any time soon. Once was enough.” I swept my arm out toward them. “Stand back. Better yet, get in the truck. We’ll want to be ready to move.”

  They retreated to the truck, but didn’t climb in. They kept their hands near their weapons and their wary eyes on me.

  That would have to be good enough. I spat on the lint, making sure they could see what I was doing. Then, with a flourish, I opened my fingers and let it drift to the ground.

  With my other hand, I shoved the handcuffs into my pocket.

  Chapter 17

  I wasn’t at all sure this was going to work. In theory, my clothes would be enough to insulate me from the steel cuffs. I could carry a phone in my pocket without it interfering with my magic, after all. But the average cell phone didn’t have nearly as much steel in its construction as those handcuffs. I didn’t know whether that thin layer of fabric between the steel and my skin would be enough to free my magic.

  But I had to try. Because if I had to drop the cuffs on the ground, it would mean cutting the magic short as soon as I picked them back up again, or abandoning them here and leaving me—and more importantly, everyone and everything around me—unprotected.

  My magic stuttered in my veins. It cr
ept out cautiously from my core, flickering like a staticky picture on an old television screen. But as it spread out through my limbs, it picked up speed. A liquid heat filled me, making my limbs feel both relaxed and alight with energy. The flickers grew fainter, then stopped entirely.

  “Do you see anything happening?” one of the lackeys asked from behind me.

  “Nothing,” said the other. “I think he’s planning something. Be ready to—”

  I never got to find out what they would be ready to do. Because just then, the power rolled out of me like a wave.

  Although maybe a wave wasn’t the best comparison, because as always these days, the only element my magic borrowed from was air. The summer breeze turned to a gale. The fence shook, then stilled as the power abruptly retreated from the metal. But all around the fence, the wind continued unabated. Grit flew up from the ground, stinging my eyes. The plastic casing of the alarm box cracked and burst; black splinters rained down around me. One of them lodged itself in my upper arm, drawing blood.

  A shrill whine filled the air. In the distance, I caught movement to either side as guards raced to our position.

  Just a little more. I needed this to look like a serious threat, not a drunk teenager shooting at the alarm box. I stayed where I was, and let my power roam free. It spread over the top of the fence, shaking the top as the wind passed. It picked up speed as it moved. A lightbulb popped. My magic couldn’t touch the shipping containers on the other side of the fence—too much steel in them for that—but the pavement cracked, then splintered. A crater opened up between two containers. Chunks of concrete ricocheted off the fence.