Unveiled (Etudes in C# Book 2)

by Jamie Wyman

  “Bingo,” he said. “Tow truck reported stolen. Kidd’s Wrecker, off Flamingo and Howard Hughes Parkway.”

  I bared my teeth with the thrill of the hunt. I practically flew to his side and squished between him and Karma. “Security footage? If the wrecker lot has security tape, then they’ve probably turned it over to the cops as evidence.”

  Keeping his eyes focused on his work, Flynn spared me a toothy smile. “Nice! Love the way you think.”

  Orange glyphs and code flickered on his screen. Passwords were hacked and files searched. In less time than it takes to make a hot chai latte, Flynn pulled up the footage. Black-and-white surveillance video played on his monitor.

  Nate and Polly huddled behind the love seat, watching with rapt attention as we all stared into the past.

  We watched hours of activity breeze by in seconds. A day boiled down to black and white. Wreckers identical to the one Loki had piloted out of the desert left the lot with their cruciform wheel lifts empty, returning not with corpses but damaged cars.

  Flynn’s eyes glowed orange as he worked his magic. When he spoke, his voice was eerily modulated, almost electronic. “The police report says there’s something odd that happens around seven p.m.”

  I appreciated the depth of his power. It’s not often that one could access so many files and commit to so many tasks with equal attention. It took great skill and focus for Flynn to manage.

  As the time-stamp neared the seven o’clock hour, the video slowed down. A man in coveralls looped a heavy chain through the main gate of the lot and secured it with a ginormous padlock. The lot had closed for the night. Three of those behemoth tow rigs sat idle in a gravel lot. A chain link fence topped with razor wire wrapped around the lot to protect these trucks and the pile of abused cars off to the left of the frame.

  Then, soon after the guard had locked up, a figure crossed through the asphalt parking lot. Because the camera was aimed between his shoulders, we couldn’t see his face, but judging by the other objects in the video, he was tallish. Maybe six foot two at the most. Somewhat athletic with long dark hair, and he wore a plain, short-sleeved shirt and work pants.

  “Polly,” I asked, “is this what your stalker looks like?”

  She squinted at the video. “Not sure. The hair and build are similar enough, but that’s not what I’ve seen the guy wear. My stalker has some modicum of style. This guy looks…blue collar,” she sneered.

  “People change clothes, Polly,” Karma proposed.

  I rolled my eyes and went back to watching the video. The star of the film didn’t seem to care much about being seen. Our friend pressed on without so much as a glance over his shoulder. Not bothering with that ridiculously large lock, he walked right through the gate.

  Through it.

  His body passed through the tightly woven chain link as if he were made of water.

  “You all saw that, right?” I asked, awed. “He just walked through the fence.”

  “Neat trick,” Polly said, although she sounded slightly bored. Then again, if she was sired by a god, I supposed she’d be hard to impress.

  Karma shushed us. “I’m trying to watch.”

  “There’s no sound,” Polly said, voice full of snark. “You’re trying to tell us to be quiet so you can hear a silent movie?”

  “Shut up! You’re distracting me.”

  “Ladies,” Flynn said in that same robotic tone. “Please. I’m working.”

  Chastened, everyone kept mum.

  The figure on the film took a few long strides across the lot and opened the door to one of the gargantuan wreckers. Seconds later, the truck lurched forward and the thief drove out exactly the way he’d come in—through the gate.

  The lot went back to its black-and-white tranquility.

  “Play it again, babe,” Karma urged.

  Flynn blinked, and the encounter with Mr. Melty replayed itself. No new details jumped out at me, but as the truck drove away, I caught a glimpse inside the cab of the truck.

  “Can you zoom in on that?” I asked, squeezing closer to Flynn.

  He hitched a grin. “Thought you’d never ask.”

  Using his own gifts, Flynn manipulated the information to zoom in tight on the thief. The only shot of his face came as he piloted the truck out of the lot.

  “Hold it,” I said.

  Flynn paused the video.

  The driver’s face was mostly obscured by shadow and the fact that the original video quality had been pretty poor. But there, emblazoned on the breast pocket of the thief’s shirt was a name.

  “Hector?” I asked.

  Flynn’s warped voice answered, “There is a Hector Chu on the list of employees of Kidd’s Wrecker. Police report says he was questioned this morning, but they had no reason to hold him. According to the schedules provided by the wrecker lot owner, Hector works tonight.”

  Nate shot up from behind the couch and practically flew across the room, arctic-blue eyes burning like stars, and yanked a jacket off a coatrack and shrugging into it. “Let’s go,” he snapped.

  Chapter Eight

  “City of Delusion”

  Polly and Nate got out of her car, doors slamming in tandem, as Karma and I crawled out of Flynn’s Matrix. Flynn bounded to the locked door of the office the moment we pulled into Kidd’s Wrecker to confirm what we had figured out. But save for a security light in the adjacent lot, the business remained dark. The only vehicles parked on this side of the fence belonged to Flynn and Polly.

  Kidd’s was shuttered for the night.

  “Shit,” Karma murmured. “There goes our chance of finding Hector Chu.”

  “I can dig up the guy’s address,” Flynn offered. “Won’t take more than a few minutes.”

  “Assuming he went home.”

  “It’s a place to start that isn’t here.”

  While they talked, I approached the gate and stared at the scene. As in the security footage, a couple of busted-up cars and an SUV missing a bumper were huddled off in the far corner of the gated lot like wounded pets. What I hadn’t seen in the video, however, was a sliding garage door leading from the gravel lot into the wrecker shop proper. Lights over the garage illuminated a gas pump and an air machine to refill flat tires. My eyes drifted to the two tow rigs, identical to the one I’d seen with Loki.

  I looked over at the gate next, the one Hector Chu had passed through. The iron bars of the fence were perfectly intact, no bulging or bowing as if someone had tried to hack through. There were no interesting tracks in the gravel that we could follow. The cops would probably brush off the theft, saying the owner was trying to pull insurance fraud or something, and the case would gather dust on a shelf. Sure, magic leaves its mark, a stain that can’t be seen with the naked eye. But I doubted that the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department could dust for those fingerprints.

  “There might still be something here,” I said. “I want to have a look around.”

  Stepping closer to the gate, I opened my senses as I would before working my technomancy. The lock became a series of radiant filaments outlining the tumblers and mechanisms within. Links on the fence glowed with a subtle, silvery shine, but the power had faded during the day. Though I stretched out my own power to the silver radiance, I couldn’t make contact. That lingering residue disintegrated at my mental touch like flaking rust.

  “Well, there goes that idea,” Nate said sadly.

  I looked to him without shutting off my other sense and regretted it instantly. His whole being emitted a blinding, formless light. I clamped my eyes shut against the power, cursing to myself. When I finally opened my eyes again, the resulting retina burn was different than any I’d experienced. Rather than black dots ghosting across my vision, I saw ethereal shades of the innate power around me. Karma’s implants flashed violet while Flynn’s tattoos flickered with his signature orange light.

  “What’s up?” I asked Nate. Pressing the heels of my hands to my eyes, I rubbed out the images. “What idea?�
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  Nate shook the grimy padlock, rattling the length of heavy chain. “You wanted to check the place for clues. Gate’s locked, though.”

  “You’re with three technomages.” I smiled. “A padlock won’t be a problem.”

  Nate squinted, eyeing me disapprovingly. Cold and stern, he said, “It’s breaking and entering.”

  “Well, technically, I’m not breaking anything if I pop the lock by asking it nicely.”

  “We’d be trespassing.”

  I stared at Nate until my eyes went dry, blinked, and stared some more. “Are you seriously squeamish about this? We’re looking for a killer, Nate. Muriel’s killer.”

  “It’s against the law.” His jaw was set, brow serious. “I won’t go in.”

  “You don’t have to,” Polly said, stepping to his side. “I’ll stay out here with him. You guys go on in and play detective.”

  Unlike Nate, I had no such qualms about ignoring the rules. In my time with Eris, I’d had to sidestep more than a few laws to meet the goddess’s demands. Oh, I didn’t commit any cardinal sins, but under her tutelage, I gained a new point of view in regards to the fleeting laws of man. Without batting an eyelash, I set to the simple task of popping the padlock. It took about as much effort as it turning a doorknob. My will formed a key, fiber-optic bright and solid as steel in my mind. I let my consciousness melt into the pathways of the lock, and when the two were flush, I gave a mental twist. The lock popped open in my hands, and I exhaled.

  The chain rasped, metal sliding against metal, as it snaked free of the fence. I wrapped it around my fist and let the open lock dangle from my finger a moment before thrusting the bundle at Polly.

  “Be useful and hold this,” I grumbled.

  The hinges squeaked as Flynn eased open the gate. Together, he, Karma, and I crunched over the gravel and fanned out. Flynn investigated the automotive boneyard at the far back corner, while Karma and I each circled one of the massive tow trucks.

  At one point, the sound of her footsteps disappeared, and I looked up to see if she’d found something. She stood, hand outstretched and brushing featherlight against the wheel lift. Her lip quivered.

  “Karma?” I asked gently.

  “I can’t help but see my friend here,” she whispered. A gentle, humorless laugh escaped her lips. “I know you saw the real thing, Cat. What’s in my head is probably nothing compared to what you had to look at.”

  I shook my head. “No, your imagination is probably far worse than my reality. I didn’t know Muriel. I saw the real thing, and it wasn’t pretty, that’s for damn sure, but you care about this person. She was your friend. That’s going to color everything in your head.”

  “She was just here,” she choked, her voice little more than a child’s whimper. “Just yesterday. I saw her. She was right here. I hugged her. We made plans to see each other, get a cup of coffee and talk.”

  Karma bit her trembling lip and squeaked as the tears came. I pulled her into my arms and squeezed the holy hell out of her. Her shoulders shook beneath my hands as she let go of some of her grief. This fierce, colorful woman felt tiny and fragile as a bird as I held her.

  “She was right here in this world yesterday,” she moaned. “Where did she go?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered.

  Karma laughed as she pulled away from me. She knuckled her eyes. “You work with gods. I figured you might know.”

  I twitched a slight grin. “Doesn’t help nearly as much as you might think. When it comes to that cosmic stuff, I’m in the dark.”

  Nate’s words back at his house echoed in my mind. You need to stay there.

  “Karma, do you know what Nate is hiding?”

  The tension in her face, the quick jolt of fear skittering across her eyes, told me that she did. Her mouth became a thin line. “No.”

  “Please, Karma. I need to know.”

  “I can’t. If you were just a mage, I’d consider it, but I can’t. You answer to a greater power.”

  “Loki knows already. He is friends with their father. Besides, it’s not like he’s my god.”

  “But you are beholden to him, Cat. And you are human. You can be bought and sold without ever changing your brand.”

  “You don’t trust me? Is that why you won’t tell me?”

  She let out a frustrated growl. “That’s not it!”

  “Then what is it? Flynn?”

  “It’s because I promised Muriel that I wouldn’t tell anyone her secrets, all right? I made that promise to her, and it doesn’t end now that she’s dead.”

  Karma’s words silenced me as easily as a smack in the face. I stared at my shoes for a good long while before speaking. I drew in a breath. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  She waved me off. “Want to make it up to me? Find Muri’s killer and let me have first crack at him. Then we’ll be square.”

  “Deal.”

  I pulled my focus back to looking for evidence. After a few more circuits around the trucks, I shook my head. “This isn’t right.”

  “We’re in the wrong place,” we said in tandem.

  “Dammit,” I muttered. “Let’s get out of here and see if Flynn can lead us to Chu’s house. He’s still a valid lead as any we’ve got.”

  As I rounded the wheel lift of the truck, my stare fastened on the men standing about eight feet away, just on the other side of the chain link fence. The gang of five stood leering at me and Karma. All of them were young; I wouldn’t have guessed that any of them could legally drink. They were still kids, sure, but they all had that hard, street-worn look about them. They wore variations on the theme of black, studded jackets, and thin mesh shirts. One simply wore torn jeans and a thieved SWAT vest over bare buttermilk flesh.

  I sidestepped closer to Karma, and we met between the two trucks.

  Following me with his eyes, the thug in the middle of the gang gave a satisfied smile. He had long black hair and canted eyes, his skin the pale ochre associated with someone of Asian heritage. The growth of his goatee was paltry at best, leading me to peg his age as somewhat shy of kindergarten. Otherwise, his body was toned but not bulky.

  “You ladies looking for me?” he asked.

  Karma and I looked a question at one another. Once again, I realized with some regret that I am not telepathic and cannot read thoughts. So I shrugged and stared at the predator on the other side of the fence.

  “You said my name,” he continued.

  “Hector Chu?” I asked.

  He responded with a question. “What do you want with me?”

  “Heard you worked here. Might have stolen a truck.”

  His steely eyes hardened. “I’m tired of those questions. Cops were asking me about the damn truck all morning. I was nice to them, but if you keep asking, I might not be so sweet.”

  Another of the thugs stepped up. This one had glyphs and runes that I didn’t recognize tattooed on his shaved head and an addict’s glassy eyes.

  “Chewy, go easy,” he drawled. “We still need her help.”

  Chu sneered but backed down, and Baldy oozed forward. Stretching out his arms, he let his fingers dance over the fence. Cherry-red embers glowed at the links, and the air shimmered as he drew power. He inhaled deeply, the embers flaring white-hot. I skittered backward as sparks shot away from the fence and a hunk of twisted metal fell to the ground.

  The mage stepped forward through the hole he’d created, his boots grinding the broken fence into the gravel. “Boys,” he said.

  As they stalked toward us, Karma and I nudged against one another. She was a warm presence at my side. I felt her alertness like the hum of a high-tension wire. The hairs on my arms stood on end as she pooled her energy, waiting.

  “This can be quick and easy,” Baldy said. “Call your friend over here. We’ll do our job. Everyone will leave happy.”

  “Define happy,” Karma growled.

  Those cool eyes darted to her. “In your case? Alive.” The certainty and malice in t
hose words coursed down my spine in an icy wash. Sweat trickled down the small of my back, and I began to draw in my own power, reaching out around me with that other sense to see what I could use.

  “Your friend. Call her over here,” Baldy insisted. “Now.”

  Being that Karma and I were already right in front of him, there was only one “her” left—Polly. Maybe Chu was her stalker after all?

  “And if I don’t like doing things the easy way?” I asked.

  Baldy’s smile dripped with naked sadism. “Then I’ll be happy and you’ll be ashes.”

  The air around him shivered and danced like a clear flame. As I let my gaze fall over the others, I saw similar flickers of power in the ether. The kid in the SWAT vest flashed a glance up, over to the tow truck, then back to me. Beside him, Chu popped his knuckles, his stare rippling up and down Karma’s body.

  My mind raced. While one part of my brain worked on escape, the other chewed on the situation. They wanted Polly. Or did they? She was with Nate, and he refused to come in here. If we called her to us, Nate would be alone. Vulnerable.

  “Why?” I asked. “Why should we help you?”

  “She has something we need, Miss Sharp,” Baldy said. When my eyes widened with genuine surprise, he sniggered. “Yes, we know you, mage. You’re a popular girl these days.”

  “What do you want?” I ground through my teeth.

  “Why, the veil. Your friend has it.”

  I shot a look over my shoulder in Polly’s direction. She had the veil? From here, between the trucks and the fence, I couldn’t see her or Nate. Which meant their view of us was equally obscured. I had no way to signal them to get out of here.

  “Veil?” Karma asked, passing me a glance.

  “It’s certainly a popular topic,” I muttered casually to Karma. Turning my attention back to the bald guy, I asked, “What’s so special about this veil?”

  And what the hell does any of this have to do with Muriel?