by Paul Duffau
Do I look like her?
The Family did not accept different. Neophytes in white, wizards in black, all adhering to the strictures of magic. Green was . . . dangerous. The collective power of the women enforced the rules, matching the strength of the Family against a single miscreant, shattering them like a glass bead under a swinging hammer.
Kenzie saw the pinched faces, heard the whispers. The green set her apart. The safety of the Family was in secrecy and its strength in unity. This was the first, earliest lesson for the children born into the Family. Wilders learned this. Wilders who could not abide, died. That was the law. Leaving was out of the question.
What happened to Belinda?
A worming sensation roiled her stomach, twisting down into her intestines. The Wilder should have been easy to find, with every member of the Graham clan on the lookout, plus her father’s cop resources. How hard could it be to find a woman who lived the life of a courtesan? She would already have her claws embedded into a man, and he’d be rich.
Belinda was beautiful, but with a cruel cast to her eyes, and she was built in a way that attracted attention. Even under the robes of the Glade, the blonde caught men’s stares in a way that most women never could. It was like she released a potion into the air that addled their brains. Men were stupid like that, and Belinda took every advantage.
An insubstantial haze fogged Kenzie’s thoughts. Her fingers twitched in her dreamlike slumber to erect a protective barrier. Aware that she was dreaming it, Kenzie examined the ward. It held an odd shape and floated like iridescent gossamer on a breeze, but she couldn’t divine its purpose. It didn’t act as a spell for alarm or capture.
One end of the fabric of the ward showed tattered edges, and Kenzie, in her dream, stared hard at it. She brushed the frayed end with magic, her fingers strumming the coverlet of her bed, but the rip remained unrepaired.
Kenzie moaned as dread replaced the worrisome discomfort in her abdomen. An apparition acquired stability, visible through the gossamer. Belinda, hands swirling and lips chanting unheard words of power. The threads of the ward teased free, leaving Kenzie more exposed. The stench of rotted meat filtered into her nostrils. Kenzie pulled her head back as her throat clenched in disgust.
Wake up! she thought, but the nightmare refused to release its hold.
This Belinda was no untrained Wilder. She bore a robe of red, and a dangerous glow infected her eyes. As though piercing the veil between them, Belinda fixed her gaze on Kenzie. The sorceress licked her lips as though savoring a delectable treat. The woman’s hands strummed in new patterns that Kenzie did not recognize. The pressure against Kenzie grew as the attack on Kenzie’s ward intensified. The strands ignited as they unraveled.
The sparks shocked her into action. Chest trembling, she strengthened her defenses and simultaneously called forth more power, fashioning the most powerful spell she knew, the Fire spell.
The bolstering of her ward made it more opaque, and Belinda’s surprised countenance faded from view. For a moment there was a lull in the assault. Kenzie used the brief respite to complete the Fire spell but, bewildered, wondered how to aim it.
Floating in the nothingness of sleep, a stillness gripped her.
If it’s just a dream, I can do anything I want.
Detached, Kenzie hurled the Fire spell at the memory of Belinda, willing it to seek her out.
An instant later, the attack on Kenzie’s ward exploded under power that was beyond comprehension. The ward folded in on itself, absorbing the malevolence. Then, abruptly, the pressure vanished. Through the remnants of the ward that still floated, Kenzie recognized the shielding spell, saw flames lick down toward Belinda. Belinda’s face, strained and enraged, burned through. Hatred poured across the space between them before Kenzie collapsed into an exhausted slumber.
Kenzie awoke, disoriented, to the yellowing of the light as the shadows cast by the evening sun reached for her window. Her brain hurt, and she briefly rested her eyes.
A dream? Nightmare?
She staggered up from the bed, voraciously hungry.
It didn’t matter. She was convinced that Belinda had been the instigator of the afternoon’s troubles. The patterns were the same. That’s why she’d had the nightmare. In her sleep, her mind had continued to work, searching for the explanations, and found them. The effort left her drained. The answers lay somewhere in the past. If Belinda was a full-fledged wizard, she had trained somewhere. Somebody in one of the Families would know her.
Kenzie shied away from the idea that she and Belinda might be similar somehow, one in green, the other in red. That part was just imagination.
On wobbly knees, Kenzie navigated the hallway and stairs to the main floor of her home. Through the doorway to the sitting room, Kenzie observed her father settled into an armchair, reviewing a docket of information. From the kitchen, she heard a knife slicing through something and striking the cutting board; aromas of cooking meat wafted in. Good, she wanted to discuss this with her father anyway. Her mother would just get in the way. Kenzie swallowed and resisted turning to the food. She went in to join her father.
“I think I know—” Kenzie’s mouth snapped shut. They weren’t alone. “Excuse me.”
Jackson sat on the opposite side of the room. He wore casual clothes, not the khakis and sport shirt that had formed his normal attire when he’d been Kenzie’s bodyguard.
He met her searching expression with an undercurrent of sympathy. “Hello, McKenzie.”
One glance from him to the stern lines on her father’s face, and her heart sank. There would be no argument.
Jackson was back, and that complicated everything.
Chapter 13
Monday morning came too soon, and Mitch careened into 3rdGen, stumbled past Leo Warnicke’s corner office, and made it to his cubicle, clutching at a coffee cup containing a triple shot of expresso. The extra caffeine added twitchy tension to his movements, but the underlying exhaustion from worrying about Kenzie all weekend persisted. For the first time, he realized how limited their communications were.
He flopped into his ergonomic chair and powered up the workstation.
While he waited, he gnawed away at the problem of how to make sure she was okay. Mercury assured him she was, but doubts, along with the sense he had let her down, stuck in his throat. He was supposed to protect her. What a joke. Yesterday, his head had pounded so bad, he could barely move. He had staggered his butt to the stairs anyway, waiting for her. She didn’t show up. He left her a message in the container and staggered home again.
The computer was taking forever to boot up. Mitch glanced down and saw the flashing light for the hard drive working overtime. He twirled a finger in a circular motion to get it to hurry up already. 3rdGen used a proprietary Linux-based software to gang the workstations into the network infrastructure. The upgrade over the weekend was clearly slowing the whole system down.
“You know that we expect results, even if you spend the whole weekend getting trashed?” Warnicke stood with arms crossed and lips compressed.
“I’m here,” said Mitch. “Just a flu bug or something.”
“Looks like the kind of bug you get from a bottle.”
Mitch made a silent note on what Leo could do to himself.
His boss uncrossed his arms and, scowling, tapped the do-everything digital watch on his left wrist. “I need the updated schematics on the appendage linkage by eleven.”
“Just as soon as the system is up,” replied Mitch. The hard drive still chattered. The holding pattern on the monitor resolved into an animated company logo, rotating. Finally. Mitch pulled the keyboard toward his torso. “Okay if I get to work?” He typed his password in.
Leo clamped his jaw tight. “Eleven o’clock.”
Mitch didn’t look up. “Got it.” He clicked open the CAD program, and Leo left him to go harass another intern. He had to type in a second password to access the file for editing. Yawning, he did so, and froze mid-yawn.
Instead of the dozen files that 3rdGen had assigned him a month ago and he had permissions to, the screen displayed file names in three columns. A page count at the lower right-hand corner indicated that this was just the first page of fifty-nine. Automatically, Mitch did the math. It came to thousands of files that had been overwritten to his hard drive. A sudden fear gripped him. He lurched forward in the seat, inserting the name of the file he needed into the search bar, praying the upgrade hadn’t wiped out his data. He breathed a deep sigh of relief as the file showed up, highlighted on the screen.
He rubbed his fingers across closed eyes and got to work. One hour and forty-seven minutes early, his finger hovered over the Enter key to submit the final draft of the articulating joint, when it occurred to him that he might end up locked out once he completed his assignment.
There were pages and pages of files.
Leo, on Mitch’s first day, had repeatedly told all of the interns that the network was secured so they could only acquire the data they needed to perform their tasks. The research and design workstations were linked to a mainframe and were isolated from outside systems to prevent industrial espionage. If they needed additional resources, they could come to him, but they’d have to wait until they left work to play on the internet.
Mitch wondered how the man kept his job. None of the other engineers acted like total tools. Irritation tipped him over the edge. If he could only get to stuff that he needed for work, then obviously all those files were okay to look at.
Yeah, sure.
He tilted his head back to see if anybody was paying any attention to him. They weren’t. Still, the company had to have tracking programs to detect file access and data downloads. He scrolled through the files, making mental notes of the file sizes and names. The massive amount of data was unorganized, but familiarity with the name protocols gave him a pretty good idea of the types of projects in the files. At least seven different development lines of robotics were included in the info dump. The others looked to be similar. One long series of projects included a “DoD” designator. Department of Defense? he guessed. Made sense. The military was already on the cutting edge of drone tech. He clicked the sidebar to bring up the next page of files.
A jolt went through him as one folder practically jumped off the screen at him. His pointer hovered over a file marked “MAGE2.3.6.” The nomenclature did not fit the 3rdGen format, making it stand out.
Can’t be, he thought. His hand shook on the mouse, but he didn’t click the file. Instead, he checked the details on the file. Same size, same creation date as the file hidden on the SD card at home, but modified more recently. The one Lassiter was willing to kill for. Sitting on the server at 3rdGen.
He blinked rapidly. The walls of the cubicle seemed to crush in on him and squeeze out the oxygen. Mitch shot to his feet, the chair rocking back. Faces peered from the other cubicles. Warnicke glared at him from the corner and stood.
Mitch bent at the waist and pounded keys to exit the files. Another quick set of commands, and his portion of the project was uploaded onto the server. A glance at his watch confirmed he’d met the time goal.
Leo approached at a waddle, and Mitch could picture him with a whip in hand to get the recalcitrant workers to bend to the task.
“I— Project done,” said Mitch, making a show of gulping like he was trying to hold back bile. “Just sent the drawings. Can you check to make sure I did them right? I’m not feeling so good, but I want to make sure . . . ” He left the rest to hang. “I’m going to the restroom.” Mitch raised his eyebrows and put a hand up toward his mouth.
“Go,” said Warnicke, between compressed lips. “Don’t puke on my carpet.”
He spun around as Mitch hustled out of the cubicle farm into the well-lit corridor. The bathroom was down the hall and to the left. Mitch reached it. It was empty, and Mitch breathed a sigh of relief and sealed himself into a stall.
Possibilities? Lassiter works for 3rdGen . . . bad. The company stole it in a bit of industrial espionage . . . bad, but better than the first option. Kenzie’s mom sold the tech to 3rdGen . . . not too danged likely.
That seemed to cover all the rational options that didn’t include unicorns or pixie dust. So, now what? He had to get the information to Kenzie so she could pass it along, but do it in a way that wouldn’t leave them totally exposed.
He ground his teeth and rubbed his forehead with a hand. The secret message system he’d set up was as robust as smoke signals, dissipating on the slightest hint of a troubled breeze. Going to Raymond Graham was a horrible idea. That left Mercury. He could tell Mercury, who would tell Graham, who would check the information and find out that Mitch worked for 3rdGen. Oh yay, because Graham’s very next question would be how Mitch came to recognize the file information.
Mitch wrestled with his options. He could pretend to be an anonymous informant, or send an unsigned letter. Sitting on the hard seat of the commode, he came to one firm conclusion.
He was well and truly screwed.
Still unsure of his next course of action, Mitch left the robotics company and headed seven blocks west to his second job, telling Leo he hoped to be back to full strength the next day. If nothing else, he could put the free time to use probing the strangeness surrounding the Rubieras. He gave the idea of researching the MAGE program a whirl. He had an inkling that that might prove to be a really bad idea.
Jackson met him at the security door. Caution surged into Mitch.
“Follow me,” was all he said before setting off at a brisk pace toward his office. Mitch dragged behind, mind postulating reasons that Jackson would have been on the lookout for him. The unauthorized access to info on Hunter was the only thing that seemed likely. He began formulating excuses. In the midst of his distraction, he almost missed the blunt words from Jackson, they were spoken so softly.
“Mitch, I got to let you go.” Jackson pointed to a cardboard box. “I had one of the others gather up your stuff.”
Mitch staggered back a step. “But . . . why?” He hated the plaintive whininess that came out, like he was nine years old again, trying to understand his dad with all the craziness that came with him, the mental instability that led him to violence. Jackson was different, solid, and, beneath a hard exterior, Mitch figured the man actually cared for something. Cared for Mitch. The security specialist saw all the crap, the crooks finding breaches in defenses, but the firm’s first mission was protection, ensuring the safety of the persons under their charge. The extra time that he spent with Mitch, training him, had blinded him to the fact that the relationship with Jackson was professional, not personal. The cardboard box held all of Mitch’s meager personal possessions.
“I can tell you that it does not have anything to do with the quality of work that you have put in here. However, business circumstances sometimes undergo an evolution that necessitates a change. That is about the only answer that I can give you.” He held out a hand. “You’ve done good work here.”
Numbly, Mitch took the hand and shook it. He let the man guide him to the credenza that held the box. Mitch picked it up, hefted it, finding it heavier than he expected. With Jackson as his escort, he retraced his steps to the entry. A powerful hand landed on his shoulder. Mitch shrugged it away as he turned to face his mentor.
“I trusted you.”
Jackson gave a double blink and Mitch read the conflict inside the man. “I know you did, Mitch.” He looked ready to say something else, then said, “I sorry. You have to go now.” He held open the fortified door.
Mitch exited into the hallway facing the elevators. The stolid sound of the lock engaging signified his abrupt termination. Screw him, thought Mitch, letting his emotions loose at last.
On the green-and-orange trolley home, he endured the idle glances at him, at his box of shame. One sharp thought came into focus.
He needed to see Kenzie. Not wanted, needed. Not a brief encounter on the run, not reading a message from her. He wanted to hold her, feel her cl
ose, more than anything else right now. The power of his emotion threatened to overwhelm him, and he tamped it down, but it wouldn’t stay. He imagined her scent, soft and feminine, her touch against his skin. The way she teased him at the park, until Lassiter showed up and ruined it all.
All I want is to be left alone, just me and her, and the rest of this mess to just go away. No worrying about her parents, or Hunter, or any of the weirdness. Just disappear and be happy together. No stolen kisses and sweaty hugs in the middle of a summer jog. He drew her in his mind, in jeans and her billowy blouse, the choker with the missing stone at the delicate notch at the base of her throat, incomplete but tantalizing. Was it too much to be left alone with Kenzie, and to be happy?
The thought was new to him. Before, he just wanted to be left alone, by himself. He leaned his forehead on the warm glass, the street scenes in front of him passing out of focus as he stared inside himself.
Soberly, sadly, he recognized that nothing could happen yet. Not until he could take care of her. His shoulders drooped as he thought of Kenzie’s house, Hunter’s. His brow furrowed and he pressed his lips together. He could take care of her in other ways. Like a princess, because she was, to him.
The trolley reached his stop, and he rose, and stepped down to the street, depressed. The box seemed unduly heavy and gained pounds the more that people stared at it.
He found the note when he got home, on top of a printout of all the surreptitious research that Mitch had done on the Rubieras. Three lines that hurt like a knife wound.
You did great work.
Be very, very careful.
Jackson
Chapter 14
Heat rose to Kenzie’s cheeks. First, Jackson, now this.
Hunter stood in the living room, wearing self-assurance as casually as he did his pressed slacks and polo shirt. His dark eyes assessed her from her bare feet to her hastily brushed hair.