by Various
“Like me?” she asks, handing back the tablet.
He takes it. Looks at the pictures.
“Yeah, like you. Your love life, anyway,” he says, gently. He raises the tablet. He lifts his arms out, fingers reaching for the walls. He looks like a mocking image of Christ, crucified on the air.
“I’m done saving the world. I tried. It didn’t work. Now I want to live a small, petty life doing things I’m good at where if it goes south, no one dies.”
She crosses her arms. She isn’t sure whether the thickness in her throat is contempt or grief.
“No one’s going to stop you,” she says.
“It was nice, watching you. I mean not in a stalkery creepy number-one-fan kind of way. Just you and your boy out together. It was nice. It was…”
“It was?”
“It’s what’s supposed to balance out the shit, right? I don’t mean to get all ooey-gooey, but it’s the beginning of love. Or it could be, if you don’t screw it up. That’s the kind of thing that’s supposed to make all the sacrifices worthwhile. Make the world worth living in.”
He chuckles, and there’s amusement in the sound, but also disappointment. Bugsy had wanted something from her—forgiveness, maybe, or courage—and she doesn’t have it to give. He considers the tablet and taps at the picture.
“It probably doesn’t matter to you,” he says, “but I had them run the one where you can’t see his face.”
* * *
The worst of the storm passed while they were in the bar, but there was still enough rain to justify standing close to each other under the umbrella. Kate felt warm and a little freer than usual, but not tipsy. Tyler’s cheeks looked redder than when they’d started. Behind them, a small park sat, not even a half block deep, with skyscrapers on all sides, rising up into the clouds. The rain that still fell was cold, but soft. Across the street, the hotel rose up like a wonder of the world, the golden light from the lobby spilling out onto the wet, black street. Taxis whizzed by, throwing off spray. Men and women hurried by in black raincoats. Kate looked at the little green niche and thought how incredibly improbable it was to have a small bit of grass and ivy in all this concrete and asphalt.
When she turned, Tyler was looking at her. He had the look in his eyes—regret and hope and the small, unmistakable glimmer of a masculine animal. It was the end of the night. Neither of them wanted it to be, but the evening had a shape, and this was where that curve met the earth.
“I know you told me not to,” he said, “but really, thank you for not letting me go back to the apartment with my tail between my legs.”
“It wasn’t charity,” she said, laughing. “I had a good time. I don’t actually meet new people very much.”
“I’d never really considered the problem, but I can see how it would be difficult separating the Kate from the Curveball. I guess that’s why some aces have secret identities. Just so they can go get some groceries or hang out at the bar.”
“That’s part of it,” she said, pushing her hair back from her face. “Or to have room to be who they are. Not spend their whole lives filling the roles that people expect of them.”
“That’s not just aces, though. That’s the whole world.”
They were talking without saying anything, each syllable another tacit, doomed wish that the moment not end. Another taxi sped by, the black sludge spattering against the curb. A squirrel loped across the grass and took up a perch on the back of a green metal park bench. Everything smelled of fresh rain and car exhaust.
“So I should probably go,” he said. “I’m supposed to go into the office tomorrow, and they like me to show up on time.”
“Yeah,” she said. “And I’ve got the exhibition show. Be better if I went in rested.”
“Yeah.”
The rain tapped the sidewalk by their feet.
“It was really great meeting you, Kate. I’m glad I totally didn’t recognize you.”
“I’m glad you totally didn’t recognize me too,” she said.
“Do you want to keep the umbrella?”
“I’m just going across the street.”
“Right. Right.”
He squared his shoulders, steeled himself.
“If you’re going to be in town for a while,” he said, “I’d … Boy this is harder than it should be. I’d like to do this again.”
“You’re asking me out,” she said.
“I am. On a date. Because that’s just the kind of mad, reckless, carefree guy I am.”
“I’d love to,” she said.
“Oh, thank God,” he said. “I feel much better now.”
The squirrel jumped away into the darkness. They didn’t speak. They didn’t move.
“If this were a normal evening,” he said, “out with a normal girl, this would be the time that I kissed her.”
“It would,” she said.
He lowered the umbrella. His lips were warmer than she’d expected.
* * *
She walks over to the window, looking out at the city. Dread and embarrassment tap against her ribs like wasps against a windowpane, but not rage. The rage is gone. Manhattan is damp and shining as a river stone. The city is a symbol of the greatest powers of the world and of its darkness. The aces were born here, and the jokers. Shakespeare in the Park, and the terrible production of Marat/Sade. It is the city at the heart of the American century, and the target of all the tribes and nations that resent it. And what is it, really, but a few million private lives rubbing shoulders? For a second, the view through the glass shifts like an optical illusion, great unified city becoming a massive chaos of individuals and then flipping back as fast as a vase becoming faces.
She opens the window. A cool breeze stirs the air.
“We’re done, Bugsy,” she says. “This doesn’t happen again.”
“Of course it does,” he says. “You’re a public figure. You’re an ace. If it isn’t me, then—”
“It’s never you. And you never do it to him.”
“Tyler, you mean?”
“Tyler, I mean.”
He runs his hands through his hair. The cool air drives the free wasps back into him. She didn’t realize until now how much larger they make him. As they crawl back under his skin, he literally gets larger, but also seems to shrink.
“It was all legal. I didn’t do anything wrong,” he says petulantly. She doesn’t answer. He nods. “All right, but the boss won’t like it. If it’s not okay with you, pretty soon it won’t be okay with anyone, and then I’m out of a job.”
“You’ll find a way,” she says.
“Always do.”
Her phone buzzes again. Ana’s number. She ignores it. On her way past the couch, she puts her hand on his shoulder.
“Get some rest,” she says.
“Will. Don’t fuck it up, okay?”
In the street, she turns north, walking in the shadow of the buildings. A block down, a coffee shop presses out, white plastic tables and chairs impinging on the sidewalk. The closest they have to real brewed coffee is called a double americano, so she gets that. Her shoes are still wet from last night and this morning. She looks at the two messages from Ana, her friend. She wants to call back, but when she does, she’ll have to tell the story of what happened, and she still doesn’t know the end.
A taxi carries her back to the hotel. The exhibition is in five hours. She needs to be in prep in three. The hotel waits for her. The world does. She crosses four lanes of Manhattan traffic to get back to the little park. In the light, it looks smaller than it did at night. She sits on the green bench and takes out her phone, starts writing a text message, then deletes it and actually calls. He answers on the second ring.
“Hey,” Tyler says.
“Hey.”
“Did you know we’re on the Aces! website?”
She leans forward. She’s less than ten feet from where they kissed. She’s on a different world.
“Yeah, I just got finished kicking the reporter�
��s ass,” she says.
“I’m just glad he didn’t write it as a review,” he says. “It’s a little disconcerting to see my private life in the news.”
“It’s probably not the last time it’ll happen,” she says. If it’s too hard, I understand waits at the back of her throat, but the words won’t come out.
Somewhere in Brooklyn, Tyler groans. She’s faced armies. She’s had people with guns trying to kill her. This little sound from a distant throat scares her.
“Well,” he says, “this is going to take a little getting used to.”
“We’re still on, though?”
She’s afraid he’ll say no. She’s more afraid he’ll say Are you kidding? This is great. Across the street, the hotel staff is telling a beggar to move on. She can see into the lobby, where a television is tuned to a news channel, footage of fire and running bodies. She closes her eyes.
“I am if you are,” he says. “And … you are, right?”
“Like the world depends on it,” she says.
Copyright (C) 2012 by Daniel Abraham
Art copyright (C) 2012 by John Picacio
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
1
“No! Olga!” I whirled at the sound of my brother-in-law’s panicked shout. My name hasn’t been Olga for more than a century, but that’s how he first knew me. I smelled diesel fuel and felt a wave of pure power knock me off my feet, sending me flying backward an instant before a car bomb blew, taking out most of the café and a fair portion of the street. I hit the pavement hard, back first, knocking the breath from my lungs. My head hit next, and the world went dark.
* * *
I came to lying in the center of a circle trap. The silver circle with its golden pentagram was fastened—by magic and mechanics—to the stone floor of a dungeon. I’d never been in “the deeps” before, but I was betting that’s where I was—one of the maximum-security prison floors maintained by the Guard. The magical version of the police, the Guard works hard to keep regular humans from catching on to our existence.
I tried to sit up. It was a mistake. My vision swam in streamers, my stomach clenching and heaving. Luckily I hadn’t eaten recently, so I only vomited a nasty little puddle of bile. My head felt as if it had been split with an axe. I reached for healing power without thinking about it and was rewarded for my efforts by a surge of magic like an electric current pouring through my body. I screamed and passed out.
The next time I woke, I was not alone.
“Olga Petrovic.” Valentin Chrischenko spit my original name out like a curse. For him it probably was one. Valentin and I had quite a history. Once upon a time our parents had arranged for us to wed. We managed to escape that particular horror, but only barely. How many hundred years later, he hadn’t changed much at all. He was still short and bandy-legged, with heavy features and a wild mane of coarse black hair. His dark eyes held the flecks of red that were one sure signal of a fire mage. Judging from the way he was glaring down his nose at me, he hadn’t lost one whit of his pride or arrogance. “You are here for questioning regarding terrorist acts resulting in the deaths of humans and the deaths of wizards Nadya Petrovic Hunter and Special Agent Roger Hunter.”
Nadya…Roger…dead. My head swam, and this time it wasn’t the concussion. Tears flowed down my cheeks. Nadya—sweet, beautiful Nadya, my baby sister—and oh God, Roger. Both, gone. Their poor daughter.
“What happened?”
“That is what you are going to tell us.” He gestured toward a darkened corner of the room. There were shapes there, but I couldn’t tell through the obscuring spell whether they were even human, let alone who they might be.
I stared up at him, vision blurred by tears. He really believed I’d had something to do with this? Was he insane? I would never… “I want to speak with a Defender.”
“You have not been charged. Yet you ask for a Defender?” In anger his speech was taking on the old Russian accent. I still sounded fully American, but then again, I’d been away from Mother Russia for a very long time. After a couple of hundred years even the thickest accent wears down.
“If you are the investigating officer and the one conducting this interview? Hell, yes.”
His face flushed, his hands clenching and unclenching in an unconscious gesture of pure rage. Making him angry wasn’t going to be helpful, but I was not going to give testimony in front of Valentin—and whoever was hidden in the corner—without a representative.
I lay silently in the spotlight, waiting for them to fetch a defense counselor. It wouldn’t take long, since the Investigation, Prosecution, and Defense departments are all conveniently located in the same building.
I used the brief pause to try to recover from Valentin’s devastating news. I loved Nadya, and Roger had grown nearly as dear to me over the years of their marriage. The pain of losing them was far worse than my physical injuries. And those were not insignificant.
I’ve been in worse shape–not often, mind you. My long auburn hair was matted and crusted with blood from a scalp wound. I had a concussion at least, perhaps even a skull fracture. There were deep cuts and bruises wherever skin showed, and the pain I felt every time I drew breath spoke of cracked or broken ribs. Whether or not there was internal bleeding was something I’d need my magic to read. As an earth mage, healing is my gift, but at the moment, my powers were locked away from me by the circle trap. It was clear that my captors hadn’t bothered to have me examined. That meant that they either (a) didn’t know what they were doing or (b) didn’t care whether I lived or died.
Probably (b). Roger was a cop. He’d been popular, and he’d been killed in the line of duty. If they truly thought I was responsible…well, why waste the energy healing me up just to face the executioner?
But why on Earth did they suspect me? I love Nadya and Roger both…loved. I felt a stab of pain at the correction. Loved.
I’m not a criminal. But, to be honest, out of the five hundred or so people with mage gifts, I would probably come close to topping the list of the ten most irritating. I am opinionated, vocal, and talented. Not a combination to instill love in those in authority.
But for me—or any magic-worker—to use a car bomb made no sense. Why would a practitioner of any power at all use a mundane method? It was crude. And wasteful. How many ordinary humans had that bomb taken out along with the intended magical victims? How does one even go about building a bomb? I hadn’t a clue. But if I was being set up for multiple murder, I’d wager a fair amount they’d found plans for the bomb somewhere among my belongings.
If I wanted to kill someone I’d just call a duel and be done with it. Any earth mage worth the title could cause the heart to stop in your chest or make buildings fall and crush someone. I could do more and worse with little effort.
Right now, though, I was tapped out. Two successive earthquakes in Haiti and Chile had taken the power right out of me. I’d thrown everything I had into stabilizing the underlying pressures to minimize aftershocks. In fact, I was so worn out that my older sister Ana had ordered one of her apprentices, Piotr Chrischenko, Valentin’s only child, to transport me to her apartment in New York. And oh, hadn’t that trip been awkward.
A shimmer of light parted the shadows in the corner for just a second and a man stepped through. He was gorgeous. U
nder any other conditions I would’ve just stared, admiring the view. Because he was definitely worth a long look. Tall, six four at least, with a muscular build that was enhanced by the cut of his very expensive gray suit. His hair was dark blond, worn longer than was currently fashionable, and tousled, as if he’d been running his hands through it. You’d think with that hair he’d have blue eyes, but he didn’t. They were gray, the gray of storm clouds, with the flecks of metallic silver of an air worker. He reeked of power.
“Why has she not been healed? Or at least put in a position to heal herself?” His words dripped disgust and were aimed at those who watched from the darkness. He was ignoring Valentin. It was a deliberate insult, and not a slight one. Duels have been fought for less.
Of course Valentin reacted. He couldn’t not. He did not, however, call the other mage out. “Under the circumstances…”
“I’m sorry,” my defense counsel said as he moved to stand toe to toe with Valentin, “but as with American law, our law states that Olga Petrovic is considered innocent until found guilty. As such she is entitled to immediate medical attention for any life-threatening injury.” He shook his head. “This”—he gestured around the room—“is barbaric.”
“And what makes you believe she hasn’t received treatment?”
“Even from here I can see that her left pupil is blown.”
Valentin hissed. As a fire mage he wasn’t a healer, but even he knew enough about head injuries to know how bad that was. With a gesture and a muttered curse he released the circle trap and called for an earth mage.
2
“Tell me everything.” My counselor, Alex Curtis, sat in a chair next to my bed in the small hospital that serves those mages injured too badly to be healed in one sitting. He had a netbook on his lap and was poised to take notes.