Pacific Fire

by Greg Van Eekhout

  He’d hung out with Moth and Punch and all his friends in a warehouse like this. He’d fallen in love with Cassandra in a warehouse like this.

  He found a disheveled office with signs of recent occupation. Cold coffee at the bottom of a carafe, an uncapped pen. On the wall hung a framed photograph. It was Daniel’s father, neat and trim in a starched white shirt and gray slacks, sitting behind a piano, his marvelous fingers stretched in a keyboard-spanning chord. Daniel’s mother leaned on the piano, her eyes closed and mouth open, singing. There was an arrangement of Victory Day candles and palm fronds. Daniel had no memory of his parents like this, singing songs in a house decorated for the holidays. But he must have experienced it, because there he was, sitting next to his father on the piano bench. From his size, he must have been around two years old.

  He lifted the photo from the wall, gently, as if it were an ancient artifact that might crumble in his hands, and he stared at it for minutes, examining every detail. Blurred in the background was an achingly familiar dining room table, laden with more Victory Day candles. People sat around it, friends of his parents, he assumed. And there, to the side, almost out of frame, was a large red-headed man, smiling and looking right into the camera. Even blurry, Daniel knew it was Otis.

  Otis wasn’t a sentimental man. His offices were always decorated by promotional giveaways. Calendars. Notepads. Practical things. He didn’t keep souvenirs. He didn’t display mementos. The photo was for Daniel’s sake.

  Daniel placed it back on the wall. With a flick of his Zippo, he set about the business of burning the entire place to the ground.

  * * *

  With black smoke boiling into the sky and burning wood crackling behind him, Daniel returned to his boat. A black van was parked close behind it, bobbing in the oily canal water. Face hidden under the hood of a sweatshirt, a figure leaned against the side of the van. Daniel’s heart quickened and his tongue went dry.

  “Did you expect to find him at home?” she said.

  “I thought there was an off chance.”

  Cassandra pulled her hood back, and Daniel experienced a telescoping sensation, as if she were close enough that he could brush his fingers across her cheek, yet so impossibly distant. She was here, a foot away from him, and she was ten years in his past. Even when she stepped forward and gave him a brief, strong hug, her physical presence did little to steady him. He’d spent a decade imagining some version of this moment.

  “How’d you know to find me here?”

  “Barometric pressure changes when you’re around. The birds fly differently. Dogs and cats become unsettled. I just had to read the signs.”

  “Moth told you, didn’t he?”

  She came just short of laughing. “Yeah.”

  “And did he tell you I’m trying to track down Sam?”

  “He did. But you can stop looking for him. Sam came to see me. He’s fine. Both him and the Emma.”

  “Oh.” Iron bands around Daniel’s chest loosened, and he took his first unrestricted breath since waking up in the Funeral Mountains and learning Sam was gone. “Oh, thank god. Really, he’s not hurt or … he’s okay?”

  She touched his arm for brief comfort, and when she drew her hand away, he felt the faint tingling ghost she left behind. Cassandra wasn’t an osteomancer, but she always made him feel as though she were.

  “I got the feeling he’s been through a lot,” she said, “but he was okay. And that Emma girl he’s with is about as Emma as Emmas come. They’ve got a good partnership. He’s a smart kid. A good kid, I think.” From Cassandra, who hadn’t met a lot of people she considered good, this was a tremendous compliment. “He seems strong,” she added. “Really strong. Like, almost as strong as you.”

  “Yeah?” Daniel said with a twitch of dread.

  Cassandra knew him well enough to notice. “Shouldn’t he be strong?”

  “I think I’ve been harmful to him, Cass. I’m here in Los Angeles, soaking in the magic, and I feel really good. And mostly, in the desert, I’ve felt the same, osteomantically. But when I wasn’t near Sam…”

  “You were poisoned. You were sick. Of course you didn’t feel the same.”

  “Yeah,” Daniel said. “That sounds good. Okay, I’ll believe that.”

  “You think you’ve been using him.”

  “Yes.”

  “He wouldn’t even be alive if it weren’t for you.”

  “Where’s he now, Cass?”

  Cassandra answered with a guarded expression. “I don’t know where he took off to after he left my place.”

  Daniel was sure he was misunderstanding her. He had to be misunderstanding her.

  “He came to you and then left? Why?”

  “Because he got what he came for. Magic and gear.”

  “You armed him for Catalina and then let him go? Why didn’t you hold him?”

  “Hold him. You mean keep him prisoner.” Cassandra’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “He’s an osteomancer, and his friend is an Emma. How was I going to stop him? I didn’t want to get into a firefight in my own house. And if I didn’t outfit him, he’d have gone to Mother Cauldron, and I didn’t want to be responsible for that. And, in case you need this pointed out to you, I’m not his jailer.”

  “I’m not his jailer, either. But I am his protector. And sending him to the island … Jesus, Cassie.”

  He stopped himself before saying more. He was being unfair. No, Cassie wasn’t Sam’s jailer. And she was right. Sam would have gone straight to Mother Cauldron, or even tried to rip off Otis. And then this wouldn’t be a rescue mission. Instead, Daniel would be trying to recover his corpse.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Forget it.”

  “No, I really am. And I’m sorry for always having reasons to say, ‘I’m sorry.’”

  Most unexpectedly, the corners of her mouth quirked in a mischievous smile. “Will you quit being morose if I give you a present?”

  “I dunno. Depends if I like it.”

  She slid open the side door of her van. “Have a look.”

  Daniel poked his head in.

  Otis sat on the floor. His ankles were bound with leg chains, his hands cuffed behind his back. He was blindfolded. Several strips of duct tape covered his mouth. And even bound up and humiliated, Daniel saw him as dangerous, this man who raised him as surely as did his own mother and father.

  Cassandra slammed the door shut. The steel of her van didn’t seem thick enough to contain Otis.

  “If I couldn’t keep Sam safe for you, I figured the least I could do was hobble one of his threats.”

  She made it sound so simple. But you didn’t just bag Otis Roth and go on with your day. There would be repercussions. She would be hunted. In her own way, she’d done the equivalent of slaying the Hierarch. And life hadn’t gotten simpler for Daniel after eating the Hierarch’s heart.

  “Cass … I don’t know what to say.”

  “Just say thanks.”

  He couldn’t. The word was too small.

  “How’d you find him unguarded?”

  “Got a tip.”

  “Argent?”

  She scoffed. “I’d never deal with Argent. I know Otis’s locksmith. I could have taken him years ago. Just didn’t have a good enough reason.”

  “Let me take him off your hands.”

  She didn’t consider the offer for a second. “I can take care of your dear old uncle. You’ve got your own stuff to deal with.”

  “You just made my stuff a little easier.”

  She frowned at him, the distinct frown she used whenever she thought he was being stupid. In the old days, it used to put him on defense, but now it just made him miss her. “Just because I’ve got him trussed up in my van doesn’t mean he’s out of the picture,” she said. “He’s already set things in motion. He’s still dangerous.”

  “I know, but at least now he can’t improvise. This is big, what you’ve done for me. And for Sam.”

  “You really like that
kid, don’t you?”

  “He’s my kid. I love him.”

  “Weird world.”

  Fireboat sirens wailed in the distance, coming closer, and Cassandra took that as her cue to depart. She climbed into the van and shuffled over to the driver’s seat.

  “Am I going to see you again?” Daniel asked, hand on the door.

  “Probably. Good luck on Catalina, D.”

  “You should really kill that son of a bitch.”

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  “Oh, and Cass … Thanks.”

  He was right. It was just a tiny word.

  He moved his hand away. The sirens came closer and closer, and he watched her motor down the canal until she turned a corner and left Daniel behind.

  FOURTEEN

  Sam chose the Ships Coffee Shop on La Cienega because he and Em needed to steal a boat and the diner had a great window view of the docks across the canal. But as soon as he saw the mint-green tabletops and the battered toasters bracketed to each table, he realized he’d been here before. This was the first place Daniel took him after killing the Hierarch. He’d set Sam up at the counter with a bowl of tomato soup and a glass of milk, and that small act of kindness meant nearly as much to Sam as saving him from the Hierarch.

  The waitress brought Sam soup and milk and coffee. Em got pancakes and hash browns.

  “So what about the black one?” Em said, looking out the window.

  “The forty-footer?”

  “Yeah, it’s a bateau. Should be seaworthy.”

  Sam shook his head. “Nah, something smaller. Sneakier. Faster.”

  “The red Stiletto?”

  “Well, it’s fast.”

  The docks were part of an all-day marina stretching half the length of the block. The day price was low but the hourly rate was high, which meant people who left their boats there weren’t planning on coming back for a while. There was a single dock attendant who hadn’t strayed from his little booth for as long as Sam and Em had been watching her.

  Sam blew on his coffee. “Oh, check out the purple Baja Jumper.”

  “The pimp ship with the sparkles?”

  “Why not? Those can hit fifty knots.”

  “Unless we hit rough seas, in which case we’ll be at the bottom of fifty fathoms.”

  A woman slipped into the booth next to Sam. She had eyes tattooed on the sides of her shaved head. A man as thin as a flagpole took the seat next to Em.

  “Twelve-foot seas, wind gusts up to forty miles an hour,” the hound said. “That’s the forecast for tonight.”

  Sam slurped his tomato soup. “How’d you find us?”

  “Is that a trick question? I’m a hound. I smelled you.”

  “Out of all the millions of people in Southern California, you tracked me to this city, to this neighborhood, to this diner.”

  “What can I say? You stink good.”

  Em brought a forkful of hash browns to her mouth. “Can we at least finish breakfast before you start bothering us?”

  The hound leaned back in the booth, relaxed. “Take your time. You’re not going anywhere. I didn’t bring cannon fodder this time. I brought Bennie.”

  The thin man carried a certain nonspecific lethal aspect about him.

  “Who’s Bennie?” Sam asked.

  “Bennie’s my gun. Say hello, Bennie.”

  Bennie made a pistol with his thumb and forefinger. The nail of his index finger was a black, gleaming, corkscrew-shaped thorn. It looked like the tip of a manticore spine.

  “Remember, I’m a hound. If I smell you start to use magic, the girl’s life is over.”

  Bennie pointed his finger-gun at Em’s head. “Boom.”

  Em made a shadow-puppet rabbit back at him.

  The waitress came to the table. “Can I get you anything, hon?” she asked the hound.

  The hound’s smile was thinner than a paper cut. “No, thank you. I’m perfectly fine.”

  Sam took a huge swig of coffee. “I could use a refill when you get the chance.”

  “Sure thing, hon.” The waitress pocketed her pad and pencil and went off.

  “Now, I’ve gotten to know you two a bit over the last couple of days,” said the hound, “and I know what a tremendous mess you’re capable of making. I don’t like messes. So I’m going to offer you a deal.”

  “What do you say, Em? Are we interested in a deal?”

  “Absolutely, considering Screw Finger’s scary manicure is pointed at my head.”

  Sam set his mug down. “What’s the deal?”

  “You come with me, and I conduct you safely to my employer. Your girlfriend goes free. Simple as that.”

  “Otherwise?”

  “Bennie spills her brains all over your breakfast.”

  “Simple as that,” Em said. “Who are you working for?”

  “My employer wishes to remain anonymous.”

  “It’s Otis Roth, isn’t it?” Em said. “Come on, just tell us.”

  The hound sighed.

  Em nodded. “Ha, yeah, I saw your head-eyes flick. It’s Otis.”

  “Wasting time.”

  The waitress came with her coffee carafe, and a few things happened.

  She leaned over the table to fill Sam’s cup.

  Sam grabbed her wrist, snatched the carafe from her hand, and splashed scalding black coffee in the hound’s face.

  Simultaneously, Em threw her arm out like a crane flapping its wings. Her wrist made contact with Bennie’s, and then she drove her elbow into the inside of Bennie’s elbow. She used her other hand to control Bennie’s finger-gun, turning it toward his own face. With a soft pop, the manticore nail shot away from his finger, embedding itself in his forehead.

  Meanwhile, Sam drove his fork into the side of the hound’s head, right in the pupil of a tattooed eye.

  She shrieked.

  The waitress screamed.

  And Bennie’s face turned to liquid, melting away like hot candle wax.

  “Call the cops! Call the cops, Lloyd!” the waitress hollered, running into the kitchen.

  Sam scrambled over the back of the booth seat and Em shouldered their bag of gear and scooted under the table. With every customer in the diner gaping at them, they bolted out the door.

  They’d left the dinghy in the small slip yard behind the restaurant. Just the tip of the prow emerged from the water. The hound had taken the precaution of sinking their boat.

  A police siren wailed.

  “How fast can you hotwire a boat?” Sam asked.

  The siren sounded very close.

  “Not fast enough. Hoof it.”

  They walked down La Cienega at what Sam hoped was a brisk city pace and not a guilty-looking sprint. With luck, the cops would stop at the diner, and he and Em would have time to steal a boat or wave down a taxi. But the sirens kept coming. Someone must have told the cops which way they’d gone.

  A yellow speedster with chrome pipes and pontoon stabilizers pulled up alongside them. The boat was so glossy Sam could see his own face reflected in the finish. A blacked-out window whirred open, revealing a guy with blond curls at the wheel. He looked about Sam’s age, but they might as well have been from different planets. He was magazine-cover handsome, the sort of looks one is born with and then improves upon with money and expertise. He was cool.

  He smiled, showing teeth so finely sculpted that Michelangelo would have been proud of them. “You guys need a ride?”

  The police sirens were getting closer.

  “Yes,” Sam said. “Yes, we do need a ride.”

  “Mi barco es su barco.”

  “We’re being chased by cops,” Sam said, hating himself for the weakness of honesty, but it wasn’t long ago that he’d built Sofía Bautista’s cairn, and he didn’t need the guilt of more collateral damage.

  “I get it,” the guy said. “Hop in.”

  “We’re being chased by other people, too,” Sam added, hating himself even more. “Really dangerous people.”

&
nbsp; “I eat danger for breakfast.” He seemed really excited.

  A pair of gull-wing doors lifted and Sam wasted no more time diving into the front seat. Em tumbled into the back. The doors shut, and with an alarming but satisfying engine roar, the boat reentered traffic.

  “Hold on,” the guy said. He throttled up, swerving around slower boats and sending a wake splashing against the canal wall. The traffic buoy ahead changed, and he gunned through it.

  “I think you ran a red there,” Sam said admiringly.

  “Oh, whoops.” His laughter was the sound of childhood delight.

  He maintained the boat’s speed, sometimes straying into the opposite lane. There was a moment of terror when Sam was sure they were going to be sideswiped by a gondola bus, but the guy acted like he drove this way all the time. Strangely, Sam felt himself relax as they tore along the canals. The sirens faded in the distance, and there were nothing but civilian boats behind.

  “I think you lost them,” Sam said.

  “Well, this one goes to me. They do catch me sometimes, which is why I don’t have a license. Technically, I’m a criminal.” He grinned those magnificent teeth and laughed again.

  “So you do this a lot.”

  “It’s not always running from cops. Usually it’s paparazzi.”

  “You’re a … celebrity?”

  The guy blinked, surprised. “Well … yeah.” Then, the laugh. “You really don’t know who I am? You got in a boat with a complete stranger? I like you guys.”

  “His name is Carson,” Em said. “He used to be in Boysquad, but now he’s solo.”

  Carson looked back at her in the rearview mirror.

  “Are you a fan?”

  “No,” she said, but Sam could tell by how vehemently she denied it that she was.

  “Okay, I really do like you guys. So, what’s your story? Runaways? You steal something?”

  Em just looked at him.

  Carson slowed to a more reasonable pace, though it was still above the speed limit. “That’s cool, you don’t have to say. Sorry to be nosy.”

  “Why did you pick us up?” Sam asked.

  Carson made a pff sound. “Cops,” he said, as if that was all the explanation anyone could need. “So, where to?”

  They’d come to the split of Wilshire and Santa Monica canals in Beverly Hills. Across the canal, a cop dismounted his canal skimmer, but he didn’t look up at Carson’s boat, only got out his ticket book and walked toward a bank of docking meters. Still, Sam didn’t feel comfortable here.