Sleight of Hand

by Mark Henwick

  I laughed. I had given Werner’s contact details to Jen, but I’d completely forgotten about it. “It’s nothing, really. She just asked me about the boots when she saw me wearing them.”

  “It is not nothing. It is something, when Ms. Kingslund and her friends are my clients, that is very much something.”

  I shrugged and smiled.

  “Why so busy, Amber?” said Klara.

  “Well, I have a meeting this afternoon that’s important, and you wouldn’t believe it, but I have to buy a dress this morning. A client needs me to attend the charity ball this week.” I laughed. “I know it’s a cliché but I really don’t have anything.”

  “The big charity ball? The McIntire-Harriman ball?” asked Werner.

  I nodded. “Far too expensive for me, but the client has paid for the ticket.”

  Werner and Klara exchanged a look, but before I could figure out what that was all about, I heard Emily’s footsteps above. I stood up and Klara reached out and squeezed my hand quickly, turning away so I couldn’t see the tears that came into her eyes. Exactly a year ago today, they would have been sitting here getting the news that Emily had been abducted.

  I went up the stairs to the living room and met Emily coming down.

  “Amber,” she squealed as she leaped on me. “I thought it was you I heard. Awesome.”

  I chuckled and carried her a while.

  “You’ve grown, Em,” I said, putting her down, but not letting go. “I won’t be able to carry you soon.”

  “Yeah, you will. You could carry Dad.” She giggled at the image and burrowed her face against me, which muffled her voice. “Thanks for coming.”

  “No problem at all, sugar.”

  We stood there with our arms around each other and if she got comfort from it, I was happy, because so did I. It felt to me as if a strength flowed from her to me, not the other way around. In all the difficult, ambiguous things I’d done over the last few years, saving Emily was a beacon I felt I could point to and say, that was simply right. If there were Emilys to save, then there was a point and a purpose for me.

  “How’s it going?” I asked.

  “Mostly I’m good. Sometimes I have nightmares or I start thinking about it and it’s not good.” She sighed into my shirt. “I’m not strong like you.”

  I snorted. “I don’t feel strong sometimes, Em. No one feels strong all the time.”

  “You always seem like it though,” she said. “How did you get like that?”

  “Well, let me see. When I was a little girl, I always ate the right food, I always kept my room tidy, I always did my homework neatly and I never answered back to a grown-up.”

  I could feel her smiling. “What’s that smell?” she asked. “Dad must have bought a bull and put it in the backyard.”

  I laughed. “That was a bad word you thought there, Emily Schumacher.”

  “But I didn’t say it.” She looked up at me. “If I only think it and don’t actually say the word, it’s not so bad, is it?”

  “Oh my God, that’s too difficult for me. You need to ask someone really smart that question. Ask me a simpler one.”

  She didn’t say anything immediately, and we just enjoyed the hug. I bent my head over her and closed my eyes. There was a warm, citrus shampoo smell from her. I sighed; I needed to savor this while I could. There was no guarantee I would feel able to do this again if I became fully Athanate. Even if I felt able to do it, I didn’t know whether it was something that I would enjoy. I might need this memory for comfort later. Diana had said that Athanate do not give birth, and the way things were going, I knew I would never be able to hold a daughter of my own like this.

  She leaned back and looked up at me with her wise child eyes. “Something bad has happened to you, Amber.”

  My heart lurched. “No, I’m fine.”

  “I hate it when grown-ups say that to me because they don’t want to tell me something.”

  I sat us down on the sofa so that we were more on a level. “I’m sorry, Em. Bad things happen to everyone and that includes me.” I bit my lip. “Yes, some bad stuff has happened and I’m sure it’ll happen again in the future. Maybe, sometime, I won’t be able to be here. But I’ve just got to go on trying to do the right things while I can and trying not to worry about the things I can’t fix.”

  Emily nodded and we hugged again.

  “I think I would like to stop worrying about things I can’t fix and go in to school now,” she whispered into my shirt, and I ached inside.

  I carried her downstairs on my back and Klara said she would take her in, but that she had to have something to eat first. She hurriedly made something healthy while Emily pulled faces behind her back.

  I put the holster and jacket back on, feeling numb. Time to go.

  But Werner took my arm. “Come. Come with me,” he said, grinning. “It may be you do not need to go shopping in the expensive places.”

  Puzzled, I hugged Klara and Emily one last time and followed him out the door and down the street.

  He guided me into a dressmaker’s shop and greeted the neat little lady who came out from behind the counter.

  “Lisa, this is the lady I told you about on the phone. Amber, Lisa Macy.”

  I shook her hand. Okay, this was a kind of a dress shop and I might as well start here as somewhere more expensive downtown, but I couldn’t wait for a dress to be made and off the rack had to be cheaper.

  Lisa was small and quick in her movements. Having double checked what the dress was for, she walked around me a couple of times before disappearing into the back. I looked at Werner for an explanation, but he simply made a ‘be patient’ gesture with his beefy hand. I was starting to worry that he wanted to pay for a dress, which I was not about to allow.

  Lisa came back with a bolt of material and some sketches. The material was a dark green silk and it looked beautiful. Lisa flipped through the sketches before handing me the pad.

  “The best dress for you will be this style in the green silk. With a stole and gloves.”

  She was a good artist, if she had drawn them, and if she could make me look like the woman in the picture, then she was a great seamstress. Or a magician.

  “Oh, I love it,” I sighed. “I know I can’t afford it.”

  They smiled. Werner stroked his beard and Lisa put her head in her hands in mock despair. “Amber, you’re striking, you’re tall and slim and you’re going to be at the McIntire-Harriman ball. Do you know how many designers would pay you to wear their dresses to that event?” Then she looked nervously at me from the side of her eyes. “I can’t pay you,” she said quietly.

  She might have been speaking German for all the understanding I had of those statements.

  “Look, Amber, I’ll make the dress for you by tomorrow night, no charge,” she said, misinterpreting my silence. “Please, just wear it at the ball and if anyone asks about the dress, give them my card. Then I put the dress in my shop window and hire a couple of extra workers to handle all the new business.”

  After my mouth had practiced opening and closing I few times, I managed to say “Okay” and that was it. Lisa whirled around me taking measurements and Werner stood in the corner with his arms folded and grinned as if it was all a huge joke.

  “And I,” he said, waving a finger as Lisa scribbled, “I will have some shoes for you. You must come here before the ball to try out.”

  Lisa started pinning together rough cut test fabric and draping me with it. In less time than it would have taken to trawl the shops for something I probably couldn’t afford anyway, the most wonderful evening dress was starting to take shape. Presently, she hurried me into a changing room and had me strip so she could hang the tests on me.

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. Was I dreaming? “It’s all going to fall apart as the clock strikes midnight, isn’t it?”

  They laughed. From the sound, I knew Werner was laughing with his head thrown back. Lisa was laughing carefully, with a mouthful of pin
s, never stopping as she worked around me.

  Chapter 32

  The cell bleeping caught me as I was about to fall asleep. My afternoon meeting at the coffee shop with Geoff Hansen, formerly of the Kingslund Group’s Central Finance department, had been good and I had gotten what I needed, but ending it was proving difficult, even after I’d paid the check.

  It was Tullah. “Amber, it’s me, I’m sorry, I need help,” she said. Her voice sounded strained and panicky.

  “Hold a moment,” I replied.

  “Geoff, thanks very much for your time,” I said, standing up. “I have an emergency here.” We shook and I grabbed my bag and walked. At that point, I was thinking of debt collectors or a leaking pipe.

  “Okay, Tullah,” I said as soon as I was outside. “What’s up?”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve messed up. I’m at Mykayla’s house.”

  I plugged in my ear piece and started running for the car. “I’m on my way. Keep talking to me.”

  “I couldn’t get an answer and then the phone was disconnected. It’s just down the road.” She stopped and I could feel her steeling herself. “They beat her up, Amber. She’s hurt, she’s really hurt.”

  “Who did?”

  “I think it’s that gang you’ve been looking into, ZK. Amber, I think they’re coming back.”

  I slid into the seat and started the car. It was lucky I had agreed to meet Geoff at the Café Vienne near the Cherry Creek shopping center and I was only about ten minutes away from Tullah. I could shave minutes off that.

  “Keep talking, Tullah. Have you called the police?”

  “No. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to get them involved. I’m sorry.” She was so good at her job, I kept forgetting she was just a college kid and she felt totally out of her depth now.

  “Stop saying sorry, Tullah. It’s going to be fine. I’ll be there in less than ten. Have you got your car?”

  “No, I walked along the Canal Trail. It’s so close.”

  “Okay. How badly hurt are we talking? Do you think Mykayla can be moved?”

  “Uh, I think so. I don’t think they damaged her spine or anything, but she’s got wounds everywhere. She’s passed out now.”

  I clenched my teeth and felt anger take over from the worry. Colorado Boulevard was moving quickly, but not quickly enough. I downshifted and passed a couple of cars on the inside before switching back to the outside. What if the traffic got worse?

  “Have you phoned your mother?”

  “Yes. She didn’t answer. I left her a message.”

  I took the slip road for I-25.

  “Okay, I’m there in five, Tullah. Keep a lookout while you tell me why you think they’re coming back.”

  “Mykayla was all tied up and she was still awake when I got here. She says they just went out to get some more of them to come back and rape her.”

  “Okay, Tullah, it’s okay. It’s not going to happen. You’ve got the door locked?”

  “The outside door is broken. I locked the door to the apartment and I’ve moved the bed against it. It’s on the second floor, so they’ve got to come up the stairs. The stairs are around the back.”

  “Did Mykayla say anything else?”

  “It wasn’t very clear. She said something about wanting to be like you and someone called Bian, and that she wanted to be with Bian.”

  And Mykayla had started asking around, and this happened. I could see how it had gone.

  “Couple of minutes, now.” I said.

  “Amber, I can see them,” Tullah yelled. “There are a dozen motorcycles just coming off the road.”

  I floored the pedal and the old car responded as well as it could.

  “They’re in the back. Oh God, Amber, I’m so scared.”

  “Just keep them out for two minutes, Tullah. Keep the line open,” I shouted as I headed onto the slip road. At the end of it, I ran the red light, crossing the traffic in a squeal of tires. Horns blared out after me and I had to repeat it moments later, threading through a gap in the cars to come off onto the side road.

  Mykayla’s apartment was in a dusty, two-story building of red brick with a concrete area out front and a paved track leading around the back. I shot down the side road and emerged behind the building into a dirt rectangle with a couple of old pickups parked to one side and a dozen street cruiser bikes in the middle. A ball of shouting bikers was gathered by an open doorway.

  I steered at the motorcycles, then pulled the wheel around and hauled on the emergency brake. The back end slid around and swatted motorcycles in all directions. About halfway, I slammed the stick shift into first gear and floored the pedal again. With red dirt spraying out from the rear wheels like rooster tails, the car started to slither towards the building, quickly picking up speed.

  The screaming, swearing mass of bikers came apart as they dived or ran to get out of my way. I repeated the handbrake turn, spinning around in a cloud of dirt and dust. I left the engine running and leaped out, drawing the HK. I picked one of the remaining standing motorcycles and put a round through the tank so that everyone knew I had a gun.

  That cleared the parking lot.

  I swung the HK around and into the doorway which led immediately to a set of stairs. Coming down those stairs was the first big problem, a biker with ZK tattoos and a pistol. I didn’t have time for this. Despite what I had said to Onebrow, I shot him in the leg and his momentum pitched him out into the yard. I snatched his gun, another Glock, and went back into the doorway with both guns aiming up the stairs.

  “Tullah,” I shouted at my headset, hoping she was still listening to the cell, or could hear me through the door. “Come out now, quick as you can.”

  The remaining two bikers who’d been trying to break the inner door came down without needing to be told, their hands raised.

  The bracelet had been tingling since I arrived, almost subconsciously. Now it became urgent. One of the guys who’d taken refuge behind a pickup stood up and fired at me. The training took over and the HK came around. Tap, tap. Tap. I saw him jerk twice and then his head flicked back and he fell. I slammed an elbow into the face of the guy who’d just come out the door and thought he could take advantage of the distraction. His friend dragged him to cover while I managed to stop my finger from squeezing the trigger again.

  Tullah staggered out behind me, carrying Mykayla’s unconscious body to the car. At the sight of her bloodied form, the anger came back. If the bikers had been slower to get out of the yard, I might have re-thought the decision not to kill anyone unless I had to, and damn my rules.

  While Tullah got in, I walked back to the car, putting a hole in every motorcycle’s rear wheel with the Glock. It had the single stack magazine of ten rounds, which left two bikes, one of which had a hole in the tank. Thanks to using three on the guy who’d fired at me, I had 9 rounds left in the HK and I wanted to keep those. If they wanted to chase me on a couple of motorcycles, the more fool them.

  I thought we had a few minutes before they tried to hotwire the pickups and come after us, but any one of them could have been calling his friends right now.

  “Down on the floor,” I said as I got in. I spun the wheels as we fishtailed down the side of the building and away.

  “Are you okay?” I asked as we left the side road and merged with the traffic.

  “I’m fine. I’m worried about Mykayla, though, she’s still unconscious. I’m so sorry, Amber, I screwed up,” she said, trying not to cry.

  “You’re sorry that Mykayla is alive because you took the initiative? Don’t be. Even ignoring what they intended to do first, they wouldn’t have let her live, Tullah. Forget sorry.”

  My pulse began to slow and I tried to figure out the best thing to do. I dialed Bian. We wouldn’t know exactly what had happened to precipitate this until Mykayla could answer questions, but Bian was the one who got this started by picking her up for a disguise while they were stalking me.

  “Twice in one day, Round-eye. People will start to
talk.”

  “No time for that, Bian. I’ve got Mykayla in my car. She’s been badly injured.”

  The banter went off like a switch had been thrown. “Where are you?”

  “Heading north on Interstate 25, just coming past Veteran’s Park.” I knew where House Altau was, but I wanted to keep that ace in the hole. Besides, the quicker they met me, the quicker someone could see to Mykayla, so meeting halfway was better.

  Bian spoke urgently to someone else in the language I couldn’t recognize and then she came back on. “We’ll be waiting in the parking lot of the Lakeside Golf Course on I-70.”

  “You’ll have a doctor?”

  I could hear movements in the background, doors slamming. “Someone with healing skills, yes.” There was a pause while someone else spoke. “I’m on my way. Amber, thank you,” she said, and the line went dead.

  “Amber,” said Tullah in a small voice, “I can’t meet them.”

  “How the hell do you know who I’m talking to?”

  “The speaker on your cell is on. I feel awful. I can’t say anything—Ma will have to explain.”

  “You know Bian?”

  “No. I just recognize the language in the background.”

  “Shit. This is going to be one interesting conversation tomorrow. What am I supposed to do with you?”

  “Just take this next slip road and drop me on Ohio Avenue. I’ll head for the shopping center and get Ma to come out, or I’ll take a taxi.”

  I took the turnoff. It actually made a lot of sense. Tullah would be much safer in a shopping center or a taxi than driving around with me in this car.

  “Okay. Make Mykayla as comfortable as you can and get out quickly when I turn.”

  In a couple of minutes, I was back on the interstate, with no one to talk to but myself and nothing to listen to but my thoughts and the worrying, grinding noise from the engine.

  The smell of blood from Mykayla was unsettling me, and I drove quickly.