High Steaks

by Daniel Potter

  He was teleported directly after being bleached. That's sloppy. They should have bleached him right in the grave.

  Why bury him at all? Why not just burn the corpse to elemental molecules?

  Not everyone is as good at burning things as I am. Ceres is a Picatrix, so she's tied to a conceptual anchor. If Doug is a vampire, then he's tied to a sort of hunger plane. They might not be able to do elemental magic at all. Pan back for a moment, see if there's anything else.

  With effort, I pulled back a tiny bit so I could see Jet's body as a whole. The purple residue suffused his entire body, but there was a slight discoloration around his mouth. A gray.

  Stuffed his mouth with tass. A payment to the disposal crew? O'Meara wondered.

  I don't think that's important. The question is... from where did they teleport the body? Can we trace the body the same way you followed Jet to the bar?

  No. A magus buried him, and he or she will have a ward against time scrying. With so many magi in Vegas, they're standard procedure.

  I growled in frustration. There has to be a way.

  There's always a way, Thomas. We could sit here for the next twenty-four hours, use the rest of the tass we have, and bore through whatever time ward this bastard has. But time is ticking.

  But if we can prove Doug is a vampire, then —

  Then somebody else will take their place as the most dangerous challenger. At least we know Doug is some sort of thing similar to a Tikoloshe. Similar plane, at least. We can use that, build wards against their powers. Remember, we don't have to kill them, we have to outlast them.

  I let my magic sight drop and looked across the circle at O'Meara. Her eyes met mine. Determination shone through. We were done here. Ultimately, we knew who had killed him.

  My gaze shifted to the corpse that had been my friend. "After the hunt, I'm going to walk into Death's little throne room with Doug's head in my teeth."

  "Don't promise the dead things we can't accomplish, Thomas. Survival would be victory enough. We still don't have much in the way of resources, Wizard Phooey or not." Worry leaked through our bond as she picked her way around the grave to deliver scratches to the top of my head.

  I avoided her questing hand and searched for the squirrel, who did not seem to be in the vicinity. "Hey, Rudy?"

  A gray head popped up from a hole nearby. "You guys done yet?"

  "Yeah," I said as O'Meara's fingers found the back of my ears. "Hey, just wondering, but how much do you know about how the casinos store their tass?"

  Rudy tilted his head, his ears pricked. "They store it in a heavily warded vault underground. Why you wanna know?" His black eyes glittered with interest.

  O'Meara stopped scratching me. Oh, hell no, Thomas.

  "Wards. Right. How much tass would you need to, say, blow through a ward that thick?"

  Rudy grinned so wide it threatened to split his skull in half. Paws rubbing together, a high, sinister giggle began to emanate from the rodent. "Ooooh, this is gonna be so much fun!"

  31

  Not a Mario Party

  We bundled up Jet in the same thermal blanket that I had woken under in the desert. Veronica and Gus had enlarged her parasol into a beach umbrella, and a cool breeze caressed my ears and nose as we approached. Gus appeared as a small ball of black fur cradled in Veronica's crossed legs; she lifted a finger to her lips for quiet. O'Meara and I attempted to obey, but Rudy was still emitting an occasional giggle as he remained lost in his own tiny head. Plus, in the quiet of the desert, the trunk's latch sounded like a gunshot. Jet fit in the Porsche's tiny trunk as if it had been constructed for carrying the bodies of dead goats.

  "Need a ride?" O'Meara offered Veronica.

  She shook her head. "No, we'll fly back when Gus is ready. He needs sleep. Before you go, though." Unzipping her small clutch purse, Veronica pulled out a gray bundle of chain and tossed it to O'Meara.

  Snatching it from the air, O'Meara held it for me to inspect. The silvery-purple magic that wove through it was unmistakable. A fey chain.

  "I never had that, and you didn't get it from me," Veronica said before I could look up. O'Meara quickly stuffed it into her pocket without a word.

  "Oooh! Speaking of things you'd never do!" Rudy bounded across the sand and up onto Veronica's shoulder. Her back only stiffened a little as the squirrel began to whisper in her ear. Veronica's eyes grew wide.

  Gus snapped his head up. "Yes! We'll be there."

  The pair of them locked eyes. "Naomi will do it if you need it," Veronica said after a long moment of silence.

  "Awesome!" Rudy zipped back and dived into the car. "Come on, you two! Time's a-wasting!"

  Shrugging, O'Meara and I got into the car. Once we were on our way and the silver glint of Veronica's sequins was well behind us, I couldn't take any more of Rudy's manic bouncing around the dash. "You want to let us in on the plan, Rudy?" I snapped.

  "Nope! I don't have a plan yet, but I got lots of little plan-lets. Infant plans, but I gotta figure out which ones will work and which ones will fail on the atomic level. You two try to rustle up some more tass. Ya gotta spend tass to steal tass, y'know." Rudy talked so fast you'd think his neck would smart from the recoil. "We're gonna need more. Like, twenty groat maybe for plan A. Plan B we can do for ten, but O'Meara's gonna need to get an inquisitor sword back and smack a few guards around. Or! I could go chat up Cerberus."

  "No hell hounds!" O'Meara exclaimed. "They make a mess of everything!"

  "Cerberus ain't a hell hound! At least two-thirds of him would be offended by that. He's Greek!"

  "Does he piddle balefire?"

  Rudy flinched from O'Meara's gaze. "Okay, okay, no dogs from death realms. I get ya."

  "Wait, does hell exist, then? If there are hell hounds..." A sudden existential crisis threatened to maul me.

  Rudy made a dismissive double-pawed shooing gesture. "Infinite planes. Lots of planes look like and possibly inspired mythology. You want to know how the afterlife works, go talk to House Erebus. They've been trying to figure out how it works for a thousand years, and even they stay dead when you stab them. Usually."

  A thought occurred to me. "And is Death one of the exceptions?"

  "Yes," O'Meara said. "He's been killed at least once as far as the inquisitors know. Walked out of his sanctum the next day as if nothing had happened and asked for his body back."

  "Losing focus here!" Rudy chittered. "We need more tass to get lots of tass, and possibly bring down the wrath of all magedom on our heads."

  "I've got a way we could get some more tass." I reached back into my head and pulled out the phone number of a certain apprentice. "Let's see if a certain ambitious apprentice still wants a longer familiar test drive."

  "Sssn'T! Ssssn'T! Sssssn'T!"

  I staggered under an assault of another sneezing fit, bracing myself against the wall of the flood tunnel momentarily. Plunging from dry heat to musty tunnel played merry hell with my sinuses.

  "Hey! Hey! Careful there, you'll scratch the plastic!" Rudy declared.

  With a grunt, I straightened myself as I tried to pull air through my nose. "I thought you said this thing was battle ready," I said, referring to the twin domes of antimagi weaponry strapped over my shoulders.

  "I designed these babies against mages, not against walls!" Rudy exclaimed as he left his perch to buff out a scratch. "Besides, it's really hard to text with all the jiggling around."

  "Who are you texting?" I asked, peeking behind O'Meara's eyes and feeling the smirk on her lips as she listened to Rudy and I bicker. She walked several paces behind us, and unfortunately Rudy's body blocked any view of his screen. In her arms she cradled the thermal blanket that contained the bad news we were bringing to Grantsville.

  "None of your business! Once we're done with the tutorial, I gotta go visit some peeps. Just gonna be you and Madam Flambé for a while. Can you handle that?" Rudy said.

  "What? You're afraid we'll blow something up without you?" O'Meara chuck
led flatly, her cheer drained by the effort of not remembering other times she'd been forced to carry corpses.

  "Exactly. It's not fair if you explode something without me. My rep will suffer!" Rudy said over the near-constant buzz of his iPhone. Whomever he was chatting to, they were chatting back just as hard.

  I caught a shine of blue up ahead and stopped. The conversation fell dead. Grace had come. Squinting into the darkness, I saw her standing just around a corner about a hundred yards up. Her aura did not blaze like it had for most of our meetings, but a subtle trickle of power coursed through her. As if she were trying to hide it. On her back was the grey glow of tass. Of Doug or any other ambusher, there was no sign. "Grace?" I called out.

  The blue intensified. "You promise you're not going to kidnap me?"

  "I swear on my tail and on my sight that we're not here with any ill intentions toward you, Grace." Unless she had brought company who were about to jump us. Then I might start to harbor ill intentions, but I had none at that moment. Doug had stubbornly refused to register in my magical sight, so I eyed the shadows for any sign of polka-dotted felines.

  "'Kay," the answer came back, and she stepped around the corner. I braced myself for a blow, a flash of purple - something to show that trusting the apprentice of a woman who would be attempting to kill me in a few days had been a very bad idea.

  Nothing happened. Grace stood there in the gloom, not as the elf with the afro I had first met but the pudgy girl that Ceres had ordered her to hide. She wore red denim pants and a black T-shirt. Squirtle, a blue turtle-like Pokémon, grinned impishly at us from her belly. I approached her cautiously, the battle harness's electric motors whirring as if someone would be intimidated by their electric whine. Peering down the tunnel she had come from, I saw nothing.

  "You don't trust me," Grace said, hurt in her voice.

  "Well, your mistress is planning on killing me in three days. It's not paranoia-"

  "If they're actually out to get you," Grace finished. "I know." Her voice sank even deeper as she sighed before drawing herself up. "It's the way the game is played, young Grace." Her voice gained the arrogant timbre of her mentor. "This is no gentle world. Your friends are not friends if they stand in the way of your path to power." She sighed again. "Just bond me, please. It all seemed so much better with you in my head."

  "One moment." I checked the other side, while O'Meara jogged down the way we had been going a little ways. She saw nothing.

  O'Meara settled against the corner of the tunnel intersection we stood in. Okay, I'm ready. If anything happens, switch the bond back to me as fast as you can.

  "Rudy, you ready?" I asked my backup squirrel.

  "The Antimagus Phooey is functional at a hundred percent!" The servos whirred.

  Grace swallowed nervously. O'Meara gave a little shiver as Mr. Bitey withdrew from her mind, manifesting only as a shimmer of silver in the air before he plunged into Grace's head. There was no screaming this time; instead, a profound sense of relief and warmth rushed over me. She hurled memories through the link, but I caught them this time and shoved them back into her head. Take them! she pleaded, pushing them back at me.

  I firmly held off her memories. The last thing I want is for you to be a spy for me, Grace. That would be very dangerous for you.

  But you need to know what she's doing! I can show you. She has so many fire wards and location spells getting prepped. I don't want you to die! Please run away.

  Nosing her knee, I wrapped myself around her the best I could with the two globes of weapons strapped to my shoulders. You are helping me plenty by giving me that tass in your bag.

  This is nothing but pocket lint to us! You have any idea how much tass she has access to? Most of it goes to the House, but she embezzles!

  I am not here to use you to my advantage, I told her firmly.

  Why the hell not? Kidnap me, hold me for ransom. It's what she'd do!

  The thought rocked me back onto my haunches. I had thought she'd agreed to meet us because she was a bit naive, and I knew she'd jump at the chance to ease her loneliness. Instead, I saw myself mapped to Bowser with Grace in a pink dress, thrown over my spiky back. I had to admit it was tempting. But I couldn't kidnap a client. There were more ways it could go wrong than right. Ceres had resources to burn if she decided to come after me. In fact, they'd be used as soon as she realized Grace was missing. No, I did not want to declare war. But tweaking her nose a bit before the hunt would be in order.

  Thomas, I'm going to be punished for coming here. But she's going to kill you. Tweaking her nose won't save you.

  I grunted; I'd been letting my monologuing leak! Still, she had a point. If we were to kidnap her, we couldn't hide her in such a way that Ceres couldn't find her. So we couldn't hide her.

  A thought finally sprang up on me. My original, somewhat petty plan would work with a very slight modification.

  Grace let me go as my throat rumbled, but our heads echoed with my own cackling laughter. What are you planning now? Grace thought.

  You will see. Follow me, I thought, already trotting toward the Stables and Alice.

  32

  Because This Plan Is Sure to Work

  O'Meara walked directly behind me and Rudy as we escorted Grace through the tunnels. Rudy lit the way with his iPhone flash, sending the neighborhood phantasms scrambling for cover.

  The bootfalls behind me seemed to grow louder as we approached the gate, and my efforts to keep Grace distracted from the nature of O'Meara's bundle faltered as we approached. The normal murmur of conversation that had drifted down the tunnel fell into silence as we entered. A legion of eyes confronted us as I held the gate open to admit O'Meara and Jet. Some of those eyes were narrowed with anger, but others watched me with a patient wariness, like a herd watching a predator at the edge of a waterhole. Grace stopped as if she had walked into a glass wall, staggering back.

  What's going on? Why is there a Ranch beneath the city? Is this a TAU place? Her questions hurtled through the link.

  Just watch for now, I urged her. We walked about twenty feet in and stood where the stalls began. Most of the residents were crowded into the center aisle, watching me. Alice met my eyes with one of her own as she rested her head on the door to her stall, ears drooping as if invisible weights had been tied to them.

  I looked at them all and was at a loss for words. They all could smell the news. The musty air of the tunnels had reinvigorated Jet's scent, a mix of motor oil and goatness spilling from O'Meara's arms. Yet they were all waiting for something.

  "Go on, Mr. Bad News. It's your show now," Rudy hissed in my ear.

  Swallowing hard, I pushed my voice to speak. "Jet is dead." The crowd continued to stare. Nobody stepped forward. That had always been Jet's job; he, and later Alice, were the ones that greeted me, the local friendly alpha predator. I blundered on. "We, Gus, and Veronica tracked his corpse to a shallow grave, miles out of town. Does anyone know if he had any family among Grantsville?"

  That started a murmur, a swarm of whispered questions with no answers. I looked at Alice; her eyes brimmed with sorrow. She shook her head, knowing precisely what I needed her to do. Of all the citizens of the Stables, she'd been the one Jet had worked with the most to conquer their lack of manual dexterity.

  I let my eyes rest on hers and gave her the tiniest of nods. Watched her big eye close and the muscles in her jaw grind flat, heavy teeth together. She sucked in air through her nostrils before rearing back from the wall of her stall. Her shod hooves rang out as she slammed them into the concrete. To my ears, they sounded a lot like: "Fine, dammit!"

  The crowd's attention rippled from me to her. She cast a baleful glare in my direction before addressing the crowd with a slightly shaky voice.

  "Jet's got no kin outside of the Stables. Nobody who ever came to visit, anyway. We're his kin and his family. You leave the body right there, and we'll take care of him."

  That spawned more than a few nervous bleats and whinnies. "W
hat the hell are we supposed to do with a dead body?" a donkey hawed. "Take him to the council! They got thumbs."

  Alice smiled at the unfortunate ungulate, her eyes narrowing as a few endorsements were called out. "No!" She knocked her stall door aside, and it hit the wall with a thunderous bang. "That's not the way he'd want it done! And you all know how he'd want it done. Don't you?"

  "Nobody here's a mole, Alice," somebody said.

  "And that's why we'll use shovels. Three-person teams. One to stomp the blade into the dirt, two to lift. Exactly how he talked about planting a garden." Her eyes roved the crowd, the hesitance gone. Many were starting to nod. Confusion flowed from Grace, but I gently urged patience for now. "The grave will be six feet deep and will have a tombstone carved from stone."

  "But that-" someone ventured before Alice cut him off with an angry stomp.

  "Will take time! Well, guess what? We have a lot of that down here. Time. We'll figure out how to do it. The same way he figured out how to play poker or use a laptop or do anything else he wanted to do. Remember that fishing trip we all went on last month? In the trailers?"

  "I remember the sound my head made against the roof when we hit a pothole," a horse called out, and everybody chuckled, the tension cracking.

  Alice looked back at O'Meara, her friendly smile making a brief appearance on her muzzle. "We'll take care of him."

  The fire magus stepped forward and laid the bundle in front of Alice, who turned to grab a mouth stick from a bucket of them hanging on her stall before turning back to the bundle. The crowd hushed, and the only sound heard was the crackling of the foil thermal blanket as she used the stick to peel it back. A hungry voice in my head cried out for fresh meat as Alice's knee began to tremble. The stick dropped from her mouth as she looked down at Jet's face, frozen in a rictus of pain, lips shriveled back from his teeth. "No. No." Her voice was a faint whisper.

  I dashed forward, low to the ground as her eyes started to roll back. Rudy gave a squeak of surprise as I swung myself around, slamming the length of my body into hers. "Hold on, Alice, you're doing fine. Almost done."