Bum’s Rush: White Lightning Series, Book 2

by Debra Dunbar

  “Fine,” Smith declared with a sweep of his hands. “I accept.”

  Lefty nodded. “I’ll get your retainer by end of day tomorrow. At which point you will offer Vincent a location.”

  Vincent nodded. “Let me at him.”

  “Her,” Smith corrected. “Seriously, do we have to go over this again?”

  Vincent grinned at the man. “I’ll need more than a location. You told me I’ll need a plan. Something besides my good looks and charisma.”

  Lefty eyed Vincent. “Charisma?”

  “I know words.”

  “You know enough to order pasta.”

  Vincent sighed, then faced Smith once again. “We’ll continue that conversation later. Because you’re right—I’m gonna need a plan.”

  Smith nodded. “Tomorrow, then. I’ll meet you at the Old Moravia.” He turned to Lefty. “Unless that will give your boss heartburn.”

  “It’s a free country,” Lefty chided.

  Vincent and Lefty took their leave of the manor. As they cleared the wrought iron gate, closing it on smooth, oiled hinges with a discreet clink, Vincent stood silent for a moment watching the house.

  A thought boiled in his brain. It truly wasn’t a thought, but more of a notion. If that. It was a stirring of a notion. A notion about Alexander Smith. Vincent kept it buried beneath the colliding thoughts and questions dominating his attention, because, if Vincent was wrong about this, then he would make things much worse.

  Lefty nudged Vincent’s arm. “Hey. Where’s your head?”

  “Oh, I’m square. I was just thinking about buying myself a house like this one of these days.”

  Lefty snorted. “Right.”

  “It’s not that ugly.”

  “It’s hideous. It’s vulgar. Like someone asked himself what would an Englishman have built in the days of Gladstone?”

  Vincent followed the other man to the car. “Who the hell is Gladstone?”

  Chapter 13

  A boom rattled the glasses inside the old pine wood cabinets hanging on the kitchen walls. Hattie, Raymond and Lizzie sat at a modest square table, worn with years of use and a few intrepid grade-schoolers who felt the need to carve their names into the surface with cutlery. The air was thick, humid and sticky, relieved only by the occasional waft of rain-cooled air rushing through the tiny kitchen window. It’d been a while since Hattie had heard a proper thunderstorm. This one was a dandy—a late summer storm that had slipped in after sunset and was now busily lighting up the sky with lightning as it washed the nighttime air of its soot and harbor stench.

  This kitchen was on loan to Lizzie, courtesy of one of her cousins. The tiny shack nestled shoulder-to-shoulder alongside more just like it near the Jones Falls was as safe a space as the three could’ve hoped for. It had been three days since the Crew had sent Vincent to collect Hattie. Three days of silence. Three days of isolation. Hattie spent that time on the water, floating a skiff on loan from one of the boys at Winnow’s Slip. Those were two days of sheer frustration, and she was glad to have had all the space around her on the Bay to scream out loud. This was the nightmare her parents had striven to shield her from. The worst-case scenario. The Baltimore Crew knew what she was. They knew who she was. And they’d chosen the one person in this world who shared her gifts, who shared her unique existence, who had conspired with her to delve into the very nature of their powers, and they’d leveraged him against her.

  She hadn’t even gone home these past few days. How could she face her father and mother, knowing that their time in the cramped apartment in Hampden was drawing to an end quicker than either of them were physically prepared to cope with? Could they move to another city? Magical elixirs notwithstanding, the physical toll of this situation hung like an anvil over her family’s heads.

  She would have to tell them. The moment had come. But before she could break the news, forever changing her destiny and the destinies of her parents, she had to deal with Liz.

  Hattie glanced up at the woman who sat across the table, arms folded, jaw clenched. She hadn’t said a word since they arrived. Raymond had done most of the talking, but he’d run out of chit-chat long ago. Now, the depressing inevitability of the subject was all that remained.

  And so, Hattie decided to quicken the end. “I want the two of you to know, I take full responsibility for all of this.”

  Raymond’s bottom lip lifted, the way it always did when he was about to play it casual.

  But Lizzie beat him to the punch. “Agreed.”

  The woman still hadn’t made eye contact. She was incensed, that much was clear. Hattie had seen Lizzie angry before. Even livid. Every time, she would fly into a spit-flying rage, shrieking profanities she reserved for special moments in order to flay the object of her wrath by words alone. But this? This was new. It was a dreadful, soft-spoken anger, filled with doom and recrimination. And Hattie couldn’t even rise to the bait, since there was no volume to shout over.

  Hattie pressed on, “Until this whole bloody mess is dealt with, one way or another—” She spared a half-second to check on Raymond, whose face swelled with alarm. “I resolve to keep my distance. No sense in endangering the two of you on my account.” She took a second to compose her thoughts, having suddenly run out of things to say. “I want you to know, both of you, how deeply sorry I am.”

  Lizzie stood up, shoving the chair into the wall of the claustrophobic room. “That’s for the best.”

  Hattie’s boss, or former boss as the posture seemed to communicate, swept behind her chair on her way to the back door.

  Raymond half rose from his chair to offer some sort of response, be it holding the door for Lizzie or fetching an umbrella, but Lizzie presented a flat hand to him.

  “I’ve got a lot to deal with. Let’s all just…let’s figure out our own lives for now.”

  With that, Lizzie twisted the old brass door knob, jerked the humidity-warped door open and plunged out into the rain. She left the door open, sending more cooling wind into the stuffy room. It would have felt like waves of welcome comfort from the heat, if the icy licks of breeze didn’t feel like the lashing of a devil’s whip against Hattie’s shoulders.

  Raymond finally rose all the way to his feet and closed the door. He lingered a second, mumbling something to himself, as was his way.

  Hattie ventured a glance at the man as he took a seat once again. “So,” she muttered, “I’ve run short on friends.”

  “Can you blame her, though?” he asked, voice more assertive than Hattie was ready for.

  She shook her head. “I suppose not.”

  He reached for her hand. “Listen, baby girl, you’re gettin’ that look. I know that look. Like you’re ready to pack your things and run for the hills. How many times we been in this situation, already?”

  Hattie thought about it. “Maybe…three?”

  “More like ten.” He chuckled. “And that’s the point I’m tryin’ to make. You’re special. I know it. You know it. Liz…well, we all know it now. Early on, I weren’t sure what you were all about. Gettin’ the itch every other month, start to talkin’ about movin’ west. At first, I thought you were just another hobo on the lam, or somethin’. But when I knew what the score was I realized you weren’t wrong to worry. And yet…” He released her hand and lifted a meaty finger to illustrate his point. “Not once has it been the end of the world.”

  Hattie attempted a smile. “A lot’s changed, though, hasn’t it? I’ve managed to keep my head down, to date. But this? There’s no coming back from’t.”

  “And how many times have you thought that very thought?” he asked with a waggle of his brow. “I’m guessin’ more than twice. You’re smart. You find your way outta things. And you’re gonna do it again, this time.”

  She sighed. “I want to believe that.”

  “That’s okay, Baby Girl. I’ll do enough believin’ for the both of us.”

  She reached over for his arms, dragging them toward her until she could clutch his n
eck in a desperate hug. “Thanks for that.”

  He let her cling to him for a moment, before breaking the embrace.

  “Where you goin’ now?” he asked.

  “Home,” she replied. “At least, for tonight.”

  “Are you really gonna just pull up stakes and leave?”

  “What else is there for me here?” she replied. “Our jobs? Gone. Any hope to live a normal life? Gone. There’s nothing to stay and fight for.”

  “You told your folks yet?”

  She shook her head grimly.

  “Holdin’ out hope?”

  “More like avoiding the inevitable,” she replied. “Alas, it’s where I’m bound after I leave here.”

  He nodded. “You need the truck?”

  She winced, reluctant to borrow the vehicle Lizzie had hauled out of the Potomac and Raymond had spent the last two days fixing, but unwilling to walk across the city in the middle of a downpour. “If that’s alright with you?”

  Raymond laid a hand on her shoulder. “Drop me off at the creek, then take your time. I don’t think Lizzie will need it anytime soon.”

  They ducked out of the shack and into the rain, which had unhelpfully decided to pick up speed. Hattie drove Raymond down the sloppy mud lane leading along the back river toward Curtis Creek, dropping him off farther than she wanted, but closer than a smart person would’ve ventured with the lane turning to sludge. A three point turn and a tiny slip of the tires, and she was bound back for the city.

  Lightning split the sky with a flash of white brilliance. Hattie blinked away the spots in her vision as the rain pounded against the windscreen of the Runabout. There were hardly any vehicles running in the city. The roads were hellish when it rained, and this had turned into a downpour. Fog spread across the inside of the glass. Hattie slashed her hand over the windscreen to clear her vision as she practiced her speech.

  “Right… Ma? Da? I’ve been discovered. No, that’s too direct. Ma? Da? Remember that job I ran to Deltaville back in the Spring? Funny thing, that. Ugh!”

  She turned a corner onto North Avenue, easing her way around the intersection as she debated simply driving on out of town. Heading west. Anywhere away from here.

  She gasped and laid on the brakes as two Fords appeared in her view, both blocking the road. The Runabout slid on the murky street, sidling sideways a little. It was enough to bring the driver’s side window in line with the roadblock. Hattie spotted six men in suits, each sporting a Tommy gun.

  The Crew!

  They lifted their weapons slowly, leveling the barrels at a slight angle to the ground as rivers of rainwater poured from the steel.

  Hattie threw the gear into reverse and twisted in her seat, peering through the utterly clouded rear of the truck. It was no use. She’d have to trust there was no one behind her.

  She ran the car backward, only to hear engines behind her. Two more cars pulled onto North Avenue, moving to pin her in. With a curse, she hammered down on the accelerator to squeeze between the two, crunching with a jolt into one of the intercepting vehicles.

  The Runabout’s rear slipped up against the other car’s hood, lifting the axle off the ground just enough to rob her of any sort of traction. She was stuck!

  Hattie jerked the door open and plunged into the rain at a sprint. A quick burst of gunfire sounded behind her. She ducked and spun around to find one of the goons holding his Tommy gun in the air. Warning shot.

  Fine. They wanted to play? She’d play.

  Snapping her fingers together into tight, flat blades, she spread the fingers apart one by one. With each motion, she pinched light to create the illusion of another Hattie Malloy. The magic came surprisingly cheap in this nighttime storm. Visibility was low, to begin with. Phantoms of pinched light swam between raindrops—left, right, back and forth. The thugs lifted their weapons, dropping the weight into half-crouches as each leveled their attention onto a separate illusion.

  Hattie bolted for the darker side of the street, hoping that any gangster who decided she was the real Hattie was a bad shot.

  A spray of brick dust hammered the side of her face as she reached the sidewalk. A line of pock marks erupted along the side of the brownstone in front of her. She ducked with a whimper and waved both hands in front of her face. “Disappear.”

  She could feel the additional tug of magic in her guts. As light twisted around her, rendering her invisible to her assailant in this dark rain, Hattie ran north. More guns opened fire behind her, taking aim at the phantoms of her making. Half a block. A whole block. It was working. She was going to get away.

  Dashing around a corner, Hattie collided into a dark figure barring her path. With a shriek, she threw two hands into the air, shoving at this man’s chest. One hand landed against something hard lurking underneath his jacket. Slipping her hand into the jacket, she gripped the iron and jumped back, pulling it free of its holster. Without thinking, in the space between heartbeats, she pulled back the hammer and opened fire dead center at the looming figure barely three feet in front of her.

  The gun flashed, then—

  A red blossom of fire froze at the end of the barrel as the space between buildings became a column of tiny prisms reflecting the light of the gunshot. The thunder of the gun plunged into a murky thud. The splattering of the raindrops ceased entirely. Each drop of rain hung in the air, the brilliant yellow-orange from the muzzle flash glistening in each.

  She sucked in a lungful of impossibly heavy air as she peered into the face of Vincent Calendo, illuminated by her own gunshot. The bullet hung in the air, inches from his chest, slipping almost imperceptibly forward in this bubble of nearly frozen time.

  Vincent took a step to the side, his cheeks slapping against suspended raindrops, shoving them aside like tiny diamonds. His face was leaden. Drawn. Displeased.

  Well, she had nearly shot him with his own gun…but she’d had no way of knowing it was him.

  As she pulled the weapon down, a spiderweb of light laced random branches in the sky above them, winding in treelike tendrils along the route of the street. The lightning crept forward, shoving its surrounding cloud aside to reveal its full brilliance.

  Vincent lifted a hand, then snapped his fingers.

  Hattie’s chest pounded with the gunshot and the explosive thunder overhead as the raindrops fell into their usual gravity. The rush of rain filled her senses.

  Vincent glared at her through the downpour. Distant gunshots fell silent as the distraction of the time pinch ended Hattie’s illusions. She stood stiff, gasping for air as the gun trembled in her hand, pointed at the street.

  “Are you serious?” Vincent snapped.

  She didn’t reply.

  “You almost shot me.”

  She glared back. “They’re shooting at me!”

  “No, they’re not,” he chided. “I told them you’d do this. My guess was you’d either make them go blind, or you’d make copies of yourself. I had them ready either way.”

  “Well, one of them didn’t get the memo, ’cause he damned near took my head off back there.”

  Vincent grew frighteningly still, like a snake about to strike. “Who?” he demanded.

  She snorted. “Like I can see anything in the dark with all this rain. You weren’t with them in the cars? You’re just standing here? Waiting for me?”

  “Figured you’d ditch the truck and bolt north.”

  “Why north?”

  “Because you’d run home,” he answered.

  Hattie tightened her grip on the weapon. “Don’t…don’t you dare…”

  Vincent lifted his hands. “I have no intention of threatening your family.”

  She lifted the pistol, aiming it at his impassive face. “Don’t you dare hurt them!”

  “I swear it,” he assured her. “Listen, I’m not here to kick up a fuss.”

  Hattie released a single disbelieving guffaw. “Evidence to the contrary!”

  “It was a show of force,” he explained, his emp
ty hands lifted in front of him. “Because I think you’ve lost sight of the nature of the Crew. We have eyes everywhere and the manpower to cover this whole city.”

  “I know it well enough.”

  “Do you? And you think you can escape this?”

  She glowered, then lowered the gun once again. “You swear you won’t lift a finger against my parents?”

  “It’s my solemn vow. I have no interest in hurting you, or your family.”

  “Then you’ll step aside and let me go?”

  He blinked slowly, then said, “No.”

  “Then we’re at an impasse, I think.”

  “We’re not done with our conversation. The one where I show you how you have no options besides the Crew. None. Vito’s got you in his sights. There’s nowhere to run. And as I’ve just demonstrated,” he gestured to North Avenue, “I can find you.”

  She shook her head. “Lucky guess.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “But maybe I’m part of something bigger, like a family with the resources to sniff you out, now that we know who to look for.”

  Her hands shook, as much out of fear as the chill of the rain. The gun threatened to fall from her grasp.

  Vincent stepped closer. “Hattie, I want you to work with me, here. I know this is difficult, but I’m actually on your side. I can make this easier. I’ve been given special allowances.”

  “Allowances?” she scoffed.

  “To make sure your transition is painless.”

  Hattie lowered her hands all the way, the gun thumping against her thigh. Why was he being this way? If he’d only try to hit her, or grab her, or anything, then she could just hate him, then she could do what she needed to do. But this? This couldn’t be some sort of silver-tongued manipulation—Vincent wasn’t devious enough for that sort of mischief. No, he’d only ever been capable of honestly speaking his mind.

  Which meant he really was trying to help her. Because he saw no hope. No options.

  Hattie’s stomach twisted into a lead weight as she considered he might not be wrong. She took a step forward, twisting the gun around in her hand so the barrel was outward.