by Elsa, Sandra
"You never ask any easy favors, do you?"
"If it was easy, I'd do it myself. There are a couple other people I plan to call. But you were the first I thought of."
"I'm so honored." Sarcasm laced his tone.
"So will you try?"
"You're being honest with me? It's for the watch?"
"Yep. As long as the information was denied to the requestor, we don't really care who it was."
"I'll ask around. Is there a name inside the watch I can use if somebody calls me on why I'm looking for info?"
"Captain Jarvis. But I guess I better tell him somebody might be taking his name in vain."
"Don't hold your breath, Frankie. Detective Alban recently got shunted into Registry."
"Alban…Who'd he piss off." The man wasn't my favorite human but nobody deserved to be forced into the mix of mages that ran the registry.
"Apparently Alban made some wild speculation about why the president would welcome a bomber into his family in such a public way. Particularly when he had never publicly acknowledged his son before."
"I didn't…" Maybe it was time to stop denying that accusation. My father had as much as said the explosion most likely had been my fault, no matter how unintentional. Alban had been working the case. "Well…maybe I did. But I didn't plant the thing."
"What do you mean, maybe you did?"
"My father informed me that after careful examination, he believes my talent for turning off magic may have released a containment field on the bomb as I passed it. But I didn't set it and I certainly didn't plan to use it to distract the watch from a fleeing criminal."
"Girlo's still on the run. Do you mind if I share this information? It may shed some new light on exactly what went wrong that night."
"That was five years ago. How could it possibly be pertinent?"
"If nothing else I may be able to work the information to Alban's advantage. If I can get him out of Registry he might do me a favor on his way out."
"And if the president gets hold of it, it will be one more excuse for why all mages should have to register--Look what the untrained mage did just by breathing in the wrong direction."
"How about if I guarantee it doesn't get back to the president."
"That's not a guarantee you can make."
Silence.
"Still there, Rollick?"
"I'm still here. I suppose you know better than most, what kind of reach he has."
"But yeah, use it if you must. How's Wally?"
"Getting over it. He almost quit so he could go hunt for you."
"I'm surprised Drover didn't offer him the task."
"He did. Sarge turned it down."
"He did!" What the hell did that say? Jordan Drover didn't make offers. He told you what he wanted and everybody jumped through hoops to respond. The only people who didn't had strong emotional reasons to stand against the president's desire. Or were nulls, against whom no magic had effect. "Wally has to understand two things and it's very important that he gets it. I'm married, and I'm happy. I know he probably doesn't believe it's real. But it is. Harrison didn't force me to go anywhere with him, it was my decision. At least it was after a certain Were, got through pushing me into the mix of a runaway and his father. Please make sure Wally doesn't waste his time waiting for me to turn back up."
"President Drover has assured the world you'll be back in District Seven."
"What was he supposed to do? Confess to the world he had a son and he had absolutely no control over him? This way he looks like he's trying to do the right thing, and there's an excuse for why we're not there beside the proud Papa. Ten months from now, when he expects us back, all hell is likely to break loose."
"Going through the gate, Frankie. I'd best get off the phone. I'll let you know if I learn anything."
"Thanks, Rollick."
"Want me to give a message to Sarge?"
"No. We'll talk again." I flipped the phone closed. Wally had denied Jordan Drover. Because of me. How could I not have seen he liked me as more than a friend?
Harrison held his hand out for the phone. "I guess I should make a few calls. You want to take care of the GPS?"
I called Captain Jarvis and told him about meeting Detective Allen on the beach and what we were up to, then warned him his name may come up. He had no problem with that and thanked us for our efforts. Then I handed the phone to Harrison and bounced the Positioning Spell around the Districts while he made phone calls.
His consisted largely of speaking to friends he grew up with, most conversations started with a brief explanation of his disappearance, congratulations on getting married and questions that seemed to run along the lines of how the hell had he ever met someone who didn't live in District Seven, and how had he convinced his father to get behind him marrying someone without talent.
Harrison smoothly lied his way through it. It was easy to gauge how close each friend was by how much of the truth he told them. Not once, with any of them, did he come anywhere close to the word null. His last phone call was to his mother, not that he had hopes that she had the right contacts to get the information we were after, but it would have been rude to call his friends and not contact her.
When he was through he handed the phone back to me and I called Jallahan. It still took some effort to think of anybody as my father, but the conversation was warm and he truly sounded glad I had called. He assured me he'd be pulling strings to find an answer to who was looking for Harrison.
When I closed the phone, Harrison pushed me back on the bed. "Do you have any idea how many of my friends wish they were me?"
"None of them. You married an untalented civilian."
"I married a stunning, beautiful woman they're in lust with; even if they don't know she's talented beyond their wildest imaginations."
He pulled my shirt over my head and lowered his mouth to my breast.
#
The phone rang as we started to dress. I looked at the name and number and tossed the phone to Harrison. "You can answer it if you want." I personally didn't feel like dealing with his father just now.
He flipped the phone open and put it on speaker. "To what do we owe this honor?"
"As if you didn't know. You call half the people in the District and leave me out of it. If my skin was any less thick I’d be offended."
"If you were offended, Frankie would probably consider it a day well spent."
"How is my little null?"
I nearly shouted, 'Not yours' but kept a grip, reminding myself I wasn't getting involved.
Harrison grimaced and said, "My wife is doing fine."
"I take it she's not with you at the moment."
"Might be. Might not be. Why do you try to push her buttons?"
"Returning the favor."
"Because nobody pushes your buttons and escapes unscathed?"
He dropped that discussion. "So what have the two of you been up to? Why this interest in who might have requested information from the registry?"
"Trying to help some friends. They've been stonewalled by policy."
"If they find anything out by information received through unofficial channels they can't use it to build their case, and if I were to release the name of the person requesting information, I would have to release the information they requested and no matter what you may think of me, I'm not giving anybody your name as the person who killed a cartel enforcer and one of their top dealers." A tapping noise started in the background every beat ending in a peculiar scratch.
"We're not worried about building a case. Right now they just want to know which direction to look, and if this guy contacted the registry with expectation of answers, he's somebody with some pull, so probably fairly high on the roster of top dog in the illegal drug industry. You offered to send the local watch assistance. Giving them a name shouldn't be difficult."
"I assume you're back in District Two-Three-Seven?"
"For a little while."
"And I suppose send
ing someone would be too obvious a ploy." Tap, scratch. Tap, tap, scratch.
The sound reminded me of Herm with his mortar and pestle, creating a magic spell to prevent Harrison from revealing where he'd purchased forged documents.
"I wish you believed that.” Harrison said. “Neither of us actually expected you to give up for a year. But it would be nice if the president was a man of his word."
A flurry of scraping followed a steady tap, tap, tap. The background noises shifted as though he were moving about. "Am I to assume that you would then keep your word? I don't expect to see you willingly return in a year either. I figured keeping tabs on you would be the easiest way to collect you, but I wasn't going to interfere."
"No doubt. That way we can do the heavy lifting and you can swoop in and take the credit."
"Is this you admitting you plan to carry on with my effort?"
"No. It's me with a whole new plan that will benefit everybody, not just you."
President Drover lowered his voice and growled out his threat. "Just remember, Harrison, I don't need your little wife."
"You need my cooperation. And you do need my wife. I can tell you right now, this would never work without her. Unless you know another null?"
"For the proper reward, I'm sure I could lure one out of the woodworks. Knowing one exists makes me wonder how many of them there are. How does she figure into the equation?”
Harrison laughed. "Wouldn’t you like to know? And it has to be somebody I’d work closely with and there is only one null for me. So if you were even half-serious in threatening her, you may want to think again."
The scraping stopped. Ten seconds crept by in silence. "She leads a dangerous life. She's led you into a dangerous life. Can't you see that?"
"No. In fact she's made me a better person; she would never have gotten in that mess we ran into if I hadn't been providing a distraction for her."
His father's voice firmed up, became adamant. "I will collect you at the end of our agreed upon time. In the meantime she had best keep you alive."
"I'm not defenseless. We'll keep each other alive. Is there a point to this call?"
"I really had hoped to speak to your lovely wife. Since the positioning spell informs me you're right here in District Seven I assume she is nearby." The tapping started again.
"We're making love right now. Is there something we can do for you?"
He snorted. "I'm getting used to those comments, you were never so vulgar. That woman has brought you down to her level." He paused; scrape, scrape, scrape then a muttered oath. Whatever he was mixing must not have come out as he wished, or maybe he spilled it walking around speaking on the phone. "What you can do for me is come home. But since I know that won't happen. I just wanted to ask her how her leg was doing. It is regrettable that she probably holds me responsible for that."
I bit my tongue. He may not have caused it, but he certainly made it worse by leaving me to get down the mountain.
"Strike two, Father. She apparently isn't rising to your bait. And as for bringing me down to her level, it seems she's playing on your field, so does that make me better or worse if I play in the same ballpark. Now what did you really want?"
"Just to hear her lovely voice."
"I'm hanging up now, Father."
"Good-night, Harrison." The edge of frustration was plain to hear, even though he kept the words civil.
"Good-night, Sir."
Harrison folded the phone and stared at me. “What do you suppose that was all about?”
“No clue. And I’m not going to let it worry me." Except it did. What could he hope to gain by provoking me to speak? If he'd merely discovered a way to track us by sound, Harrison's voice should work just as well as mine. And what had that tapping been? A spell using herbs and minerals as Herm had done? Could old magic like that, bind a null? Time to do some research. I'd had food poisoning before, so obviously anything I ingested could affect me. I didn't like the way my thoughts were trending.
"Hungry?" Harrison interrupted my contemplation.
"Yeah." I rolled out of bed and finished dressing. It still seemed odd to dig out clothing I hadn't worn since before I broke my leg.
"Should we try seafood?"
"Sounds good." There were only three other Districts on the continent of America that offered seafood. I'd never tasted any of it. Transportation inland was impractical. District Eight-Four-Nine in the northeast had a small amount of ocean contained in its dome, and Six-Eight-One and Six-Three-Five on the west coast. There had been one on the north shore of the Gulf of Mexico, but it, along with one further inland had proven to be untenable as the annual storms washed away the unstable land from under the dome and the years carried it out to sea. At any rate, seafood was a treat we had planned to get around to during our last stay, but we hadn't quite got there.
Lobsters and crabs were farm raised. Row boats took fishermen in scuba gear out to cages on the floor of the dome to care for them. Fish did swim in the water and for a fairly hefty fee you could go out on a pier on the southern end of the dome and catch your own supper. It was too late for that, but it was something I wanted to try, along with scuba diving.
“Your mother told me you sail?”
“District Seven’s source is huge. There are four sailboats at the dock for anyone to use.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Sailing? Or Seven?”
“Either.”
“I plan to sail again in the near future. I miss some of my friends and supper with Mom every Saturday, but I gladly traded all of them for being here with you.”
“Ever make a boat?”
“No. That was definitely not one of my talents.”
“Then we need to find someone who can.” If we were going to own the outside world, we were going to entertain ourselves. Seeing as we had to stay reasonably close to the water, we might as well learn to sail the ocean.
“You’d think there’d be some here,” he said.
"Might be a conflict with the Fish Farmers. Survival comes over recreation in most districts. Except where recreation is survival, like District Eleven." I stopped--Almost didn't say it, but he ought to be used to my opinions by now. "Or in districts who contribute little to the overall, but take what they need, so have no need to look to their own survival."
"By which you mean District Seven." He snapped his jeans closed and turned to dig for a t-shirt.
"Yep."
"We do contribute, Frankie." Guess he'd been talking to old friends long enough to think kindly on them.
"What? What does District Seven contribute?"
"Leadership for one. No matter how my father got in office, he's done better than most of those elected in fairly run campaigns. He can't afford to tip the scales to where people personally don't like him or persuasion won’t work, so he works for all districts as fairly as he can. Science for another." He tied his hair back in a ponytail, a sign he was annoyed with me, because he knew I loved it loose.
"If you say so. What else?"
"A lot of charms and amulets are used throughout the districts. You've used them. Anybody selling amulets legally is a registered mage with a home in District Seven."
"And they make the most useful ones illegal."
"Useful for who? You only used the illegal ones as props."
"Yeah but plenty of people would like to be proof against magic even if the charms still left them open to higher level mages."
He slammed drawers closed. "Who decides what the price of turkey is going to be?"
Wasn't sure where he was going with this but what the hell. "The farmers that raise them."
"And why shouldn't a mage have a say over their own creations?"
Oh…that's where he was going. He put his sandals on and dug out the keys. While I backed up and searched for the flaw in my thinking. "They don't tell certain people they can smell the turkey but not eat it."
"Why can't you just admit, we're not all bad?"
"
I thought I did that when I married you."
His lips narrowed into a thin line. "I know you've always survived on your own, Frankie. It's part of what I love about you. But I have a lot of friends in District Seven and sooner or later I'd like to see them again." He dangled the keys in front of me. "Let's go."
Yeah…Riiiight. "That wasn't the story I got when I agreed to marry you. In fact you don't sound very much like the person I married at all." I opened the door and strode out ahead of him without slowing down by the car. This wasn’t him. Somehow it was his father’s witchery, but if I stayed around him we’d be divorced before morning.
"Frankie!"
"Go eat supper. I need some space." I felt for my pistol and realized I’d walked out without it.
Chapter 8
Harrison smiled as I turned around, but frowned as I stomped past him. I jammed my pistol in its holster, and my credchip in my pocket and left again, striding toward the trolley stop. Before he took two steps I snarled, "Don't follow me." I ran as a trolley slowed at the corner.
I leaned back in the faded green seat and went over the conversation in my head. What the hell just happened? When did he become a champion of District Seven? I had sensed the change and still I hadn't managed to shut my mouth.
I sensed the change. What did that tell me? There had been no physical signs that he'd changed his mind about his desire to leave District Seven far behind. No alteration of expression, no argumentative stance. Why then had I hesitated to speak badly of District Seven? Magic. It had to be…except some of the things he'd said made perfectly good sense. Which I really didn't like. Then again he wasn't the only mage I’d changed my mind about in the past couple of months. There was Nan, and my father, Mage Jallahan. I could even tolerate Terry, and my dislike of him really didn't have much to do with the fact he was a mage. Dee was a full-blown mage.