by Jamie Davis
The chime sounded and Trent pulled the pad back and tapped the screen once before returning it to his pocket.
“What happened over there? Our employer said there was collateral damage.”
“Why don’t you ask Marci? She’s your daughter, after all.”
Trent scowled. “You’re supposed to keep her out of trouble when you need her to open gates for you or need magical backup. That’s the deal.”
“I did, but if you want an explanation of what happened, you should get it from her. She’s got a quick temper and isn’t shy about shedding blood. It’s getting a bit old.”
Trent laughed. “She takes after her mother. She always had a bit of bloodlust. I suppose inheriting mommy’s arcane powers wasn’t enough.”
“This is why you don’t sleep with random witch doctors when in the jungle on a mission.”
“She was a shaman. How was I supposed to know she was going to magically override my implant so I wasn’t shooting blanks? Some spirit guide told her she should have a kid by me.”
“The old gal wasn’t sleeping with you for your looks, that’s for sure.”
“You special forces guys got all the decent booty on those jobs. Even your female operatives landed the best bunkmates in the field. Us CIA handlers only got the castoffs, or worse, nothing at all. I was happy she chose me at the time.”
“Yeah, until your ten-year-old daughter showed up on your doorstep with a note telling you she was your problem now. That, my friend, is the gift that keeps on giving.”
“Hey, it wasn’t all bad. She’s a good kid for the most part. Top grades in school and two PhDs by the time she was eighteen ain’t too shabby. I couldn’t be prouder.”
“You raised her with the morals of a contract killer, Trent. You had to know she was going to grow up with at least some issues.”
“Who doesn’t have issues? Look at you and Clara. She leaves you while on deployment, shacks up with a used car salesman, and you still chase after her every chance you get. It’s been two years, dude. When are you gonna give up on winning her back?”
“Leave my marriage problems out of it.”
“Fair enough,” Trent said. Opting to change the subject, he pulled a data chip from his back pocket and laid it on the counter. “Here’s the next job, if you want it. It’s a doozy. The payout’s bigger than we’ve seen in over a year.”
Kurt stared at the chip for a few seconds and then slid it back across the counter to Trent.
“I think I need a break. I’m thinking I need to get out of this business altogether at least until I fix the mess from the last job. I’ve got a price on my head now.”
“Why go and mess up a perfectly good gig? You’re going to need more cash than you have on hand if you want to retire, especially if you have to pay off a blood debt. You can’t just settle down and take over the dry-cleaning business downstairs. You’ll have to get lost and start over completely. The Hell’s Gater Clan isn’t going to stop looking for you. They’ll track you down with ease unless you get a really good identity wipe and those cost a lot of money.”
“I can handle the Gaters. Maybe it’ll blow over. These gangs are always starting a new blood war with someone. Just thank your lucky stars they think I killed their guys back there instead of Marci.”
“Hey, you know I appreciate it. You also know you’re full of crap. The Gaters are everywhere here on the East Coast and they aren’t going to forget what you did. They’ve spread their cult through just about every gate around these parts and have a foothold in at least a dozen worlds. You’re going to have to square this with them somehow or they’re not going to stop coming after you.” Trent pushed the chip back across the counter to Kurt. “Take the job. It’s a big score. Do the delivery, take the money, and then you can decide if you want to retire.”
“I’ll think about it. Leave it here. I’ll take a look and let you know before I make up my mind.”
“Sounds like a plan, but don’t wait too long. It’s time-sensitive.”
Trent finished his drink, belched, and set his glass in the sink. He clapped a hand on Kurt’s shoulder inducing a wince at the bruises there. “And get yourself fixed up. Don’t be a cheapskate. You went to all that trouble to stock the clinic with your stem cells. Why waste it?”
Kurt followed his partner to the door and held it open for him. “I’ll heal up fine on my own. The clinic supply is there for when I really need it.”
Trent shook his head. “It’s your body. I know how I feel after just a long walk. I feel every ache and joint these days. You’re not as young as you used to be, Kurt. You don’t have to pretend you are. Get down to the clinic.”
“Bye, Trent. If I decide to take the job, I’ll let you know.”
Trent waved and headed down the stairs to the street. Kurt shut the door and went back into his kitchen. Sipping at the lime-infused seltzer water, he stared at the data chip on the counter for a few minutes.
He finished the drink and placed the glass in the sink next to Trent’s, leaving the chip where it lay on the counter. He went upstairs to change clothes and deal with the more immediate demands of his day, starting with his daily workout. He almost skipped it because of his sore knee but decided to power through and see how it held up. If he took that job, he needed to make sure he was in a condition to finish it.
Chapter 4
The whole time he was at the gym down the street, Kurt’s mind kept drifting back to the job on the data chip. If it really did represent such a big payout, it could solve all his problems once and for all, at least all the current ones on his plate.
A black market mediator could arrange to negotiate a blood price with the Hell’s Gate Clan. It would be expensive with four bodies to account for, but it would be worth it to avoid any unpleasantries in the coming weeks and months. He might even have a bit left over to buy some new custom artwork for his place.
He decided to jog home and see how his knee held up on the run.
It turned out it didn’t hold up that well. His knee ached as he slowed to a limping walk a block from home. He was also surprised at how the run left him more winded than usual. It was probably because he’d done it in the heat of the day rather than the early morning as he usually did.
That was the price he paid for oversleeping.
He limped over to the side of the building, his knee was now throbbing. Kurt grumbled to himself, admitting he was going to have to visit the clinic later and get them to give him a regenerative injection.
Stripping his shirt over his head as he approached the door leading up to his apartment, Kurt leaned forward for the retinal scanner to unlock the door and let him inside. The door’s lock gave a double chirp indicating the door was already open.
Kurt looked up the stairs and smiled. There was only one person who was still in the security system for his place. She had the only other access code for that door. It was just to be used for emergency purposes but he didn’t care. After all, she was still the emergency contact on his personal comm.
His smile disappeared as Kurt reminded himself why she was probably here. She only showed up when she needed something from him. He tried to remain strong but in the end, he always ended up helping her.
Kurt shook his head. Trent was right. He really had to deal with his feelings about this.
Heading up the stairs to the first floor of his place, he saw his ex-wife, Clara, standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room.
Situated as it was on the corner, the building offered an excellent view down the broad avenue of Charles Street all the way to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. At night, you could see the lights of the tourist attractions and restaurants in the distance.
Staring down at the street with her back to him, Clara was dressed in a tight-fitting blue blazer and skirt combination that looked really good on her. Not that there was much that didn’t.
“I miss this view,” she said sighing.
“So do I,” he said from behind h
er.
“That’s enough of that,” she said, turning around. “You know what I meant.”
“I offered you the apartment in the divorce. You said you didn’t want it because it held too many memories.” Kurt tossed the sweaty t-shirt down the laundry chute. It led to his personal bin in the dry cleaners below. “You know, I never asked you if it was because of the good memories or the bad ones?”
“Both, I suppose.” Clara laughed as she saw him standing there shirtless. “I think I’m immune to your sweaty man chest by now. Put a shirt on.”
“Don’t blame me. It’s not my fault. You let yourself in and I just got back from a run.”
She checked her watch, the jeweled one he bought her for their first anniversary. “You got a late start today. I figured you were just out shopping or something.”
“I’m not much on keeping groceries around anymore. It’s hard to cook for one,” Kurt said as he headed for the stairs to shower and change. “Get yourself something to drink. I’ll be down in a few minutes. I’m just gonna rinse off.”
Clara must have spotted the fading bruises on his back as he walked away.
“Still letting the bad guys beat you up, I see. I assume that happened at the same time as your knee?”
“You don’t get to worry over my work-related injuries anymore, remember?”
“It doesn’t mean I don’t think about whether you’re being safe or not. I do still care about you, Kurt.”
He shot her a sly grin over his shoulder. “Care enough to come up and join me in the shower? I could use someone to wash my back.”
“I’ll pass. I just did my hair and makeup.”
“Maybe next time.”
She rolled her eyes and he decided to let it drop. He clearly wasn’t going to talk her into coming upstairs with him. “Get yourself that drink. I’ll be right back down.”
He winced, trying to hide his limp as he climbed the stairs. He shouldn’t have pushed the knee so hard.
It took him ten minutes to shower and change. He headed back downstairs, wearing blue jeans and a red, collared golf shirt.
“I assume you have a reason for dropping by unannounced?”
“Just checking in, that’s all.” She picked up the data chip off the counter. “What’s this?”
Kurt reached across the counter and took the chip from her. “Something for work.”
“One of your mysterious jobs? Where are you going this time?”
“I’m not sure I’m going anywhere. I think I need to hang up this delivery thing. I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“Honey, you and I haven’t been that young for a long time. I don’t know how you manage to get yourself up the next day after you get yourself beat up the way you do.”
“Funny. Trent said the same thing.”
“How is he? I haven’t run into him lately.”
“It’s not like the two of you run in the same circles. He’s alright. He does his best to keep me busy. I do my best to avoid being busy.”
“And Marci? Is she finished school yet?”
“Graduated a few years ago with two advanced degrees and a penchant for the arcane.”
“Really? I should reach out to her. I’m interested in doing a showing at the gallery of enchanted artwork and it would be fun to have some random spells that go off at different times with harmless but humorous effects.”
“I don’t think Marci does harmless when it comes to magic. She has a dark side that her father still needs to get a handle on.”
“A shame, she was such a nice little girl.”
“Oh, she’s nice enough to her friends but she isn’t the type to let her enemies off the hook when she decides they need to pay up for something done to her. I wouldn’t trust her to cast a completely innocuous spell. It would likely have an unexpected outcome.”
Kurt dropped two slices of bread in the infrared toaster and pressed the lever. “You mentioned an upcoming event. How are things with your gallery?”
Clara paused and did that thing where she bit her lower lip and looked at the floor. It tugged at his heartstrings, along with a few other things. He shook it off. Kurt realized that was why she was here. She had something going on at the gallery and needed his help.
While she ran a mostly reputable art gallery catering to the upper crust of Baltimore society, Clara made most of her money dealing in stolen and black market artwork. That side business sometimes got her in hot water with shady characters. When that happened, she needed Kurt to bail her out.
It was strange how Clara never had trouble wending her way through the politics of the local and national law enforcement units. When it came to the underworld types, however, she incorrectly assumed they would play by the same sort rules or any rules at all.
“What happened? Did you double-cross the wrong bad guy again?”
“It’s just a misunderstanding. There were some middle-eastern antiquities in transit, including an item that was supposed to be delivered to a boss on the other side of a hidden gate in the hills northwest of Atlanta. Unfortunately, they all got intercepted by the GEU and are now impounded in their warehouse outside the city.”
“Why don’t you try to get your buddy Shareen to help you. Isn’t she a captain or something with the Gate Enforcement Unit goons now?”
The GEU was a branch of the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. They handled oversight for all trans-gate traffic since the Incident ten years before. Shareen was Clara’s maid of honor and never thought Kurt was good enough for her best friend.
“It’s one thing to ask her to look the other way when I’m trying to broker a difficult deal with a vendor on the other side of a gate. Getting her to help me remove items from the impound warehouse would be going too far. She thinks I only skirt the edges of the law.”
“So you won’t get your best friend to help you, but it’s alright to come here and ask me to break into a federal warehouse and make the delivery for you because Shareen already hates me and thinks the best thing you ever did was divorce me.”
Clara shrugged. She didn’t say anything. If they were still married, she wouldn’t have hesitated to ask, and she had, often. Now, the dynamic was different. She knew he still loved her and used that to get him to help whenever she couldn’t solve the problem on her own.
Kurt knew all of it, even expected it, and still felt obligated to help her. The irony of the situation didn’t escape him. He didn’t care as long as it kept her coming back from time to time.
“Look, Clara, getting into a GEU impound lot isn’t as easy as picking a padlock and backing a truck up to the door. It’ll be warded against arcane attacks in addition to the usual high-security measures. How big is this contraband antique anyway?”
“It’s about eight hundred kilos,” Clara whispered.
“What was that?” Kurt hoped he hadn’t heard her correctly.
“Eight hundred kilos.”
Kurt gawked at her. At least she had the decency to wince when she said it. He’d been fine in the past smuggling a rolled up canvas painting or small sculpture through one of the portals before, but this was close to a metric ton.
What had she gotten herself into trying to smuggle something that size? “Please tell me you’re kidding. Who talked you into brokering something that was that huge?”
“It’s gold sarcophagus from a peripheral Egyptian kingdom on an alternate earth. The mummified corpse inside is purported to have wondrous healing properties and capabilities to bestow great power on the person who invokes its power. The contact on the other side sold it to my guy and he found a buyer through another portal where they’re experiencing a little political upheaval right now.”
“Great! You know ‘political upheaval’ is just another word for war.”
“The creatures on the other side of this Atlanta portal are non-human. They mostly look like us, with some minor differences. My contact with them has been pretty civil but he’s getting a little impatient with me. The delivery is
almost a week late now. I’ve tried everything else I can think of, including returning my fee. The answer back was ‘don’t screw me over.’”
“Great, so I should sign this guy up to join the club along with me.”
“This isn’t funny, Kurt. I made promises and now there are a few of his enforcers here in Baltimore asking questions about where I can be found. I need to resolve this before the upcoming gallery opening. That happens in just over a week. They know I’ll be there and I’m afraid they’ll cause a public incident and important clients will get hurt.”
“As opposed to unimportant people like my friends and me.”
“You know what I mean. Don’t play that pity-party card with me. There was a time when you would have leaped at this job. I wouldn’t even have to ask you. You’d have begged me to do it.”
“Yeah, well we were both young and stupid once.”
“Judging from your battered body, one of us still is.”
Ouch, she had him there. “Let me talk to Jonesey and see if she has any gear that can not only get into the GEU warehouse but also get something that heavy back out again before all hell breaks loose. How soon do you need to know if I can do it?”
“The gallery opens next weekend so we have ten days. Ideally, it should be resolved by Wednesday so there’s plenty of time to call off all the goons.”
“Seven days, got it. Where will you hide out in the meantime? Where can I reach you?”
Clara glanced at the floor and then back up at him. She actually batted her eyes.
Kurt laughed.
“You can still play me like a fiddle, Claire-bear.” He used the old term of endearment on purpose because she hated it when he said it now. “Fine, you can stay in the guest room. The master bedroom isn’t yours anymore.”
“Not unless I say it is.”
Kurt shook his head. “No games this time, Clara. You can’t come over here and ask me to break into federal facilities and sleep your way into my heart again until I’ve finished what you needed me to do. I know you’ll disappear again and leave me here wondering why we split up to begin with.”