Zero Sum

by B. Justin Shier

  “How fares your father?” Madam Fremont asked.

  “I would not know.” Rei gave the tea a sniff before taking a cautious sip. “Does the councilor know him?”

  “Oh yes…such an interesting relic.” Madam Fremont turned her eyes to the frosted window. The morning light had begun to melt the frost. “I’ve failed to kill him several times.”

  Rei sloshed her tea.

  Madam Fremont tutted. “Do mind the linens, shadow dancer. Fine cotton is far harder to replace than kings.”

  Before Rei could stab the old lady with her pastry fork, another knock came at the door.

  I opened it to find Jasper Tools. Various scrapes and burns marked the heavy wool trench coat. A sawed-off Remington rested against his left hip. A large combat knife graced his right thigh. The short man’s dark hair looked slept on, and his expression was as sour as a lemon.

  “Let’s go,” he said without a preamble.

  “Right now?” I hinted to my bare toes.

  “Of course, right now.” Agent Tools looked down at my jeans and scowled. “Where’s your robe?”

  “In my bag. We were going for the undercover look…you know, Talmax agents trying to kill us and all.”

  “Go for the official look.”

  Rei set down her cup of tea with a not-so-subtle clack.

  “Dieter, who is this fool, and why would he paint targets on our backs?”

  “Excuse me?” Agent Tools didn’t seem to notice the not-so-subtle Hungaro-Chicagoanian accent. He was too busy giving Rei’s body a once over. “I don’t recall requisitioning a cheerleader.”

  “And I recall no such cheering.”

  Jasper took a step inside the foyer. All pretense of humor had vanished.

  “Have I seen you somewhere before?”

  “Basing on your most thorough appraisal, I doubt you would have difficulty in the recollection.” Rei granted Jasper a serene smile. “My name is Drusilla. I am a witch of humble background.”

  “Councilwoman, may I inquire into the young lady’s whereabouts last evening?”

  “The poor dear suffers from anemia. She collapsed from overexertion in this very room.”

  Jasper crossed his arms. “Are you certain you can make this journey, young lady?”

  Rei set down her teacup and stood. “I am not a young anything—I am nearly two decades old—and I would worry more for our lieutenant. He was the one cougared last night.”

  Stetson nearly chocked on his crumpet.

  Jasper’s jaw dropped. “Fink again?”

  “What can I say” Agent Stetson replied. “The woman’s a menace.”

  “Wait…she’s done this before?” I asked.

  “Aye, lad,” Stetson replied. “Some call her the Florist.” He chuckled. “If you asked me, the woman missed her calling. She should have been born a vampire.”

  I cringed for the ensuing violence, but Rei merely raised a thoughtful finger.

  “That is a most regrettable association. Bloodletting does not require sexual dealings of any sort. True, a mingling of the two urges offers a more satisfactory experience, but that does not mean a Nostophoros cannot both feed broadly and save herself for that perfect…” Rei looked left and right. Her finger drooped. “Or so I am told.”

  Agent Tools smirked. “A girl with that much left-wing nonsense in her head couldn’t be anything other than an Elliot student. I’ll have your vehicle brought around front. Be in the main lobby in fifteen.”

  With a flourish of coat, Agent Tools headed down the hall.

  I shut the door behind him.

  Dante poked his head out of the bedroom. “Did I miss anything?”

  “Aye, savin’ it for the right girl.” Jules tossed him his robe. “Get yerself ready. We’re headin’ out soon.”

  Rei stood and gave Madam Fremont a quick bow. “Madam, thank you for your hospitality and may your impending death be both long and protracted.” Not waiting for a response, Rei opened the double doors to the balcony and hopped on top of the icy railing. She slid on her sunglasses with flash and panache.

  “Dieter, fetch my bag,” she commanded before leaping straight off the building.

  Jules cupped an ear.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Hoping for a kersplat,” she replied.

  Dante ran back into the bathroom.

  I smirked. “There’s your kersplat.”

  After Dante finished his second round at the toilet, Madam Fremont showed us to the door. She looked a little weary with our antics, but was gracious with her well wishes. Thanking Fremont for hosting us, we headed down the stairs with our luggage. The Alumni Club was deserted. Only a bored bellhop was there to greet us. He looked pissed that we didn’t call him to carry our bags. (There went his one and only tip for the morning.) I grabbed a few of the free red apples sitting on the bar top. They’d serve us well if we had to skip lunch.

  “Dieter!” Jules scolded.

  “What?” I shoved them in my bag. “They’re complimentary.”

  Jules tapped her foot. “There be degrees of complimentary, Dieter.”

  I tossed her an apple (which she bumbled). “You have a set of rules for check-out fruit?”

  “The rules be clear. We’re post-checkout. Ya can’t be munchin on them post checkout.”

  “Dante, you want an apple?” I asked.

  Dante looked as green as the Granny Smith apple in my hand. He shook his head and hurried through the mirror. I nearly tripped over a family of four while making my exit. The amount of refugees must have doubled. Folks were sleeping on every available flat space, and some of the newcomers looked wounded. Rei was standing with her back to the front desk. She was holding a carrier loaded with four coffees—and was engaged in a staring contest with an eight-year old.

  “Why won’t you admit it?” the little girl asked.

  “Because your accusations are false.”

  “Are not!” The little girl replied. She crossed her arms and glowered. “I can tell. You’ve slept in a coffin.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  Rei flushed.

  “I have slept not in a glass coffin. And I know no dwarves…and such poisons would have no effect on me.”

  The little girl squatted down to inspect Rei’s naked toes.

  “Arentcha supposta only lose one glass slipper? Hows he gonna find you?”

  Rei flicked her hair. “Impudent child, that is not even the same story.”

  “She forgot them when she jumped off the balcony,” I explained.

  I went for a cup of coffee, but Rei stiff-armed my forehead. She lifted the four delicious rolls of cardboard out of my reach.

  “These are mine. Fetch your own.”

  “That’s not nice,” the little girl chided. “Even princesses should share.”

  I started to laugh.

  Rei went beet red. “Do not call me that!”

  “Thanks for the help, Dieter.” Jules, who had been navigating her enormous bag through the maze of sleeping limbs, arrived on the scene with a huff. “And why do ya need four cups of coffee?”

  Rei pointed to the sunglasses. “Because I am driving.”

  Dante shook his head. “Heck no. I’m the designated—“

  “Puker,” Jules said. “And the tea I gave ya sedates. Dieter’ll drive this mornin’. I’ll take over this evenin’.”

  “But Dieter doesn’t have a license,” Dante said.

  “And the Druid cannot see over the dash,” Rei added with some glee.

  “Go stiff, Bathory.”

  “Swallow a splinter, Druid.”

  The little girl hopped up and down. “Can I go to Las Vegas too?”

  The four of us went dead silent.

  “How did you…” I started.

  “Easy.” She gestured at Rei. “Her mind is really loud.”

  Before I could figure that one out, a harried-looking woman hustled over to the little girl’s side.

  “I’m sorry, Janice
loves to babble. Come on now, dear. It’s time to go to Aunt Paola’s.”

  Taking her hand, she led the little girl out to the car.

  “Mama,” the little girl asked as her mother led her away, “what is a misbegotten hair?”

  A group of four women in trench coats came through the door as the mother and daughter left. They were carrying a man on a stretcher. His skin was an unhealthy grey. DOMA medics. You could recognize them by the bulky satchels full of herbs. The lead woman wore a bloody bandage over her eye. The rest were covered in dust and grime.

  “Dang,” Dante whispered. “If the rear guard looks that bad, can you imagine how bad the front is?”

  I didn’t have a chance to answer. The woman with the bandaged eye caught her foot on the rug and tumbled forward. A small glass vial slipped from a coat pocket and exploded on the ground with a huge puff. As the green cloud cleared, ten identical copies of the medic dashed screaming this way and that. It was a classic distraction potion dispensed to all our fighting forces. The whole illusion was harmless, but in a lobby full of traumatized refugees, it was like lighting a match in a coalmine. Someone screamed bloody murder. Half-asleep folks shot to their feet. No one bothered to ask questions. Nerves were already frayed. A surge of people rushed towards the door.

  “Idiots!” Jules roared. “It’s not a bloody attack!”

  I grabbed Jules and lifted her over the front desk. No one was in the mood to listen. Folks thought their families were in danger, and they were consumed with saving their skins. Random bursts of magic blasted off the ceiling. Someone fired off a handgun. The Christmas tree toppled over. The valet’s station was raided. Men and women jammed into random cars. A blast from Agent Tools shotgun was all that kept him from being dragged from his SUV. Someone shattered the white wagon’s passenger side window. A man and a woman jumped inside. We watch helplessly as our ride hopped the curb, churned up some sod, and headed to parts unknown. Thirty seconds later, the lobby was a mess of writhing bodies, and Madam Fremont’s plan was in tatters.

  “Well shit,” Dante said. “Now what?”

  I grabbed another complimentary apple.

  This time, Jules took one too.

  Chapter 13

  STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU

  There was little talk as we slipped onto the flat plains of Kansas. Wispy cirrus clouds stretched across the horizon. Spent husks of harvested wheat swirled across the road. An errant gust of wind was the drive’s only punctuation.

  I tried but failed to move the seat buckle that was digging into my left cheek. The majority of the SUV’s cabin space was dedicated to overstuffed crates of medicinal herbs. That left the four of us sharing a single row. Dante was snoring off his hangover to the right of me. Rei had gone board stiff to the left of me. We were doing a really good impression of magical sardines. I’d given up hope of ever feeling my feet again.

  Ignoring the tingles in my toes, I returned my attention to Carrera’s book. I was still no closer to piecing together Albright’s message. Why had he handed me this strange book on history? What did the Battle of Chapultepec have to do with our current predicament? Madam Fremont’s words had only made the case more confusing. Diego Carrera couldn’t be planning to win back the Western States for Mexico. That would require an illegal foray into Imperiti politics. The ICE would intervene, and if they were anything like Gastone Spinoza, the alguacils would mop the streets with Talmax’s entrails. In my mind, that left the revenge. Carrera and company could just be busting into the United States to cause as much carnage as possible. It was a reasonable possibility. I knew a lot of folks that would do worse to the people that killed their brother and hacked their country in half. But Madam Fremont’s words had shaken me. She claimed Carrera was fighting for justice, and justice is not the same as revenge. Both can employ violence. Both can right a wrong. But revenge is personal. Justice is impartial. Fremont was careful with her words, and I was certain she was well aware of the distinction…so how could a bloody path of conquest achieve justice for anyone?

  I looked over at Jules.

  The eternally studious witch had a pink highlighter clenched between her teeth like a pirate’s dagger. She was busy flipping through a slim volume with fresh glossy pages:

  Advances in Tactical Magic: The Hewn Path of the Flaming Sword

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Jules, are you studying for war?”

  She gave me a cursory glance. I’d tried for snarky, but it had come out all needy.

  “Is it any good?” I asked.

  Jules flipped the page.

  I bit my lip.

  “Well?”

  She flipped another page.

  “Quite.”

  I leaned across Dante’s corpse (which still reeked of booze). The new page featured an engraving of a man wielding the ‘Lance of Loki’. Flames were shooting out of the top of it. Flames were shooting out of the sides of it. An entire citadel was engulfed behind him.

  “Can I have a look?”

  Jules’ jaw went taught.

  “Absa-fockin-lutely not.”

  She slammed the manual shut.

  “Would you two be quiet,” Jasper grumbled. “The radio is hard enough to hear without your racket.”

  Not wanting to tick him off, the two of us turned back to our books. Jasper had been in a foul mood for the whole drive. The medics’ report had been downright depressing. The casualty figures coming out of Arizona were staggering, and Talmax had managed to slip some men behind our lines to blow one of I-80’s tunnels in Wyoming. The ley network was pretty thin through the Rockies to begin with. Now, with I-80 down, retreating Magi were forced to travel on mana-bare roads. Squads of DEA mages had to divert from Salt Lake to cover the civilian retreat, further thinning our lines on the front. Jasper had cursed for fifteen minutes straight when he’d gotten the news. The setbacks were bad enough, but the risk of exposure was worse. The mainstream press was reporting a mobile meth lab had exploded, but Talmax had—yet again—drawn major media attention to our little magic conflict. More than anything, Jasper was worried this fight would get blown out into the open. Visions of future witch-hunts must have been dancing through his head.

  Francesca remained nonplussed. The fire-haired cataphract spent the idle time rewrapping the grips on her daggers. From time to time, Francesca would pause to look up at the romstone resting on the SUV’s black faux-leather dash. Romstones were semi-transparent crystals I’d seen a few times at Elliot. The product of eons of dead plankton fused together into a single stone, romstones were found hiding in dank caves and sheer limestone cliffs. The Magi valued romstones because when a large amount of mana changed position, they gave off a red ethereal glow. The natural effect was quite subtle, but pushing a bit of mana into the crystal boosted the brightness substantially.

  Leyline surveyors tied the little crystals to the end of their dowsing rods. They could be used to trace out the paths of even the tiniest trickle of a leyline. Francesca was using her romstone for a different purpose. She had it set up like a radar detector. Magical creatures toted around a lot of mana too. So if a powerful super approached a romstone, it would cause the crystal to light up as well. The whole radar detector thing was a good idea in theory…but it wasn’t working out too well for us in practice. The problem is that romstones aren’t choosy. They light up if lightning strikes, or if you pass by a big box store, or if an angel farts in Australia. It just gets worse if you pump them full of mana—and that’s exactly what Francesca had done. The constant false alarms didn’t seem to trouble her, but they were turning Jasper into a stress case.

  I forced myself to sleep until we passed through Denver. There was no point in trying to make a run for it right now. The gruff cataphract appeared to be a tireless, methodical creature…not an ideal guard to sneak away from. It was better to save up our strength for whatever Fremont had planned in Green River. Ill-tempered gusts hampered our progress through the mountains, but Jasper insisted on maintaining
an intense pace. Every time we’d come close to oblivion, Jasper would mutter a spell to make the tires better grip the asphalt. I said a silent thanks when the terrain flattened out. Magical traction control or not, I really hated heights.

  Dante and Rei woke up as we reached Grand Junction, Colorado, the final stop prior to the long crawl to Green River, Utah. Jasper tried to gas up, but all the petrol had been slurped dry. The local coal gasification plant had broken down last evening, and they wouldn’t be able to import any fuel until after the storm. Not a single motel had a vacancy, and a haggard-looking highway patrolman advised us against proceeding. Truckers played cards in the local coffee house, praying a new fuel shipment arrived before they went bankrupt. Benevolent locals took stranded bus passengers into their homes.

  Jasper was undeterred. He offered another driver a thousand dollars for the contents of his tank. That netted us ten gallons, enough to make the long, winding stretch.

  As we struck out across the dry cracked earth, ours was just about the only vehicle on the road. Storm clouds began to crest on the horizon. It was looking to be one of those rare winter thunderstorms. Monstrous anvils stretched high into the sky. Lightning bolts lit up the stratosphere. The romstone went into frenzy. I passed the time counting the seconds between lightning strikes and crystalline sparks. Mana traveled slower than light but much faster than sound.

  What that meant I had no idea.

  I jotted down a few equations to try and account for it.

  By the time the first snowflakes started to fall, we hadn’t seen another car for an hour, and I really needed to get my hands on a calculator. Francesca was still checking the mirrors after each and every flash, but I didn’t really see the point. People were taking the weather advisories seriously. Our biggest enemy tonight was going to be the icy road.

  Agent Tools let out a sigh.

  “Francesca, would you put that damn stone away? It’s worth shit in a storm.”

  Francesca turned and stared at him.

  Some unheard conversation danced between them.

  Francesca smirked.