by Jim C. Hines
Their pack tried to stay within range of the cell towers, and Jeff insisted on running into town for his weekly beer runs, but they weren’t always in touch with world events.
“We got a call earlier tonight. What the hell happened down there?”
I filled them in while Lena maneuvered through the blocked-off streets of downtown Lansing, crawling toward 496. “Do you or Jeff know a fellow named Sandy Boyle? Stroudus werewolf. I’m told he was involved with trafficking inhumans.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell. Hold on.” Her voice went muffled. “Jeff? You know anyone named Sandy Boyle?”
“Who’s asking?” Jeff yelled. “If it’s that pug-faced asshole from the collection agency, tell him I’m not ratting anyone out. They think they can harass us about back taxes on property they stole—”
“Calm your fur before you give yourself another heart attack. It’s Isaac.”
I heard Jeff snatch the phone from his wife. “Isaac! Is this about that mess in Lansing?”
“Yah. We don’t know much about who was behind it, but at least two of them were werewolves.”
“Aw, shit. Listen, I don’t know any Sandy Boyle, but the packs are fragmented these days. Most of us are laying low. Some of the young pups have been grumbling about fighting back against the humans. The older wolves are keeping ’em in line so far, but that ain’t gonna last forever. They’ve been turning more of your lot, too. Plenty of humans want the strength and sexiness of being a werewolf. Truth be told, some of us think it’s a good idea to boost our numbers for whatever comes next.”
Sandy Boyle could have been a relatively new convert, headstrong and caught up in the flush of power. “What about a group called Vanguard?”
“Where’d you hear that name?” he asked cautiously.
“A fellow from the FBI mentioned it.”
His voice dropped a full octave, not quite a growl. “You’re working for the feds now?”
“You know better, Jeff.”
“Helen and I, we’ve learned not to take things for granted these days.” Jeff sighed. “Early this year, we got a call from a fellow who said he was with Vanguard. He gave us the heads-up to get out of Tamarack. Offered to help us relocate somewhere safe.”
“So you’ve worked with them?”
“Nah. We don’t need no outsiders to help us find a home. But it’s thanks to them we had time to gather up our belongings and vacate before the National Guard showed up with guns and bulldozers. Otherwise, things would’ve gotten a lot uglier.”
“Thanks, Jeff. Now what’s this Helen was saying about a heart attack?”
“Helen talks too much. She—ow! Dammit, I’m on the phone! I’m fine, but I’m not a pup anymore. The first week of running around and howling at the moon damn near did me in.”
“Why the hell didn’t you call me?” I knew why. Jeff’s pride was going to get him killed one of these days.
“Doc called it a minor incident. As long as I lay off the burgers and ribs from Emma’s Diner and stick with meat I catch myself, I should be fine.”
“You’re not fine, you stubborn son of a bitch,” Helen shouted. “And if you skip your pills one more time, I’ll grab you by the scruff of the neck and shove them down your throat!”
I smothered a laugh. “Jeff, if you have any more trouble, so much as a damn twinge, you call me, got it? Otherwise I’ll come up there right now and microchip you like a runaway Chihuahua so I can keep tabs on you.”
“Chihuahua. Now that’s good eating.”
“Jeff . . .”
“Yah, fine, whatever. ’Sides, I thought you weren’t allowed to do your healing mojo on folks.”
“Not on humans. What are you going to do, turn me over to the cops?”
“Bastards won’t be happy until they’ve thrown us all in kennels. You watch your ass, Isaac.”
“You do the same.”
He chuckled. “I’d rather watch Helen’s. You ever romped naked in the woods? You and Lena ought to try it one of these days. Just check for ticks when you’re done.”
“I’m serious, Jeff. The governor and attorney general are both dead. Whatever heat you’ve been dealing with up there is about to get a lot worse.”
“Good to know, thanks. I’ll call you if I hear anything.”
“Thanks.” I hung up. “Jeff and Helen don’t know the late Mr. Boyle.”
“Have you checked in with Nicola yet?” asked Nidhi.
“I’m sure she’s dealing with enough right now. I can follow up with her tomorrow.”
Lena and Nidhi glanced at one another.
“When we make it to the highway—” I began.
“Head toward Detroit,” Lena said. “Got it.”
“How’d you know that?”
It was Nidhi who answered. “You told the police and the FBI Sandy Boyle’s thoughts had been manipulated, but I could tell you knew more than you were saying. I thought maybe it was another Porter who’d done it and you were trying to protect them, but if so, you would have called Nicola first.”
“That narrows it down to the handful of inhumans on your friends list who can mess with people’s minds,” Lena continued smoothly. “Deb DeGeorge is the closest, and she’s definitely not above a stunt like this. With her being an ex-libriomancer and former friend, you’d want to investigate personally rather than handing her over to the authorities. Is she still living over on Benson?”
“I think so, yah.” So much for my dramatic announcement.
“Try to relax, would you?” Lena said without looking back. “I can feel your tension from here. I like being attuned to my lovers, but you’re making my neck tighten up.”
“Sorry.” I rubbed my eyes and leaned back in the seat. Between the hearing, the attack in Lansing, and the amount of magic I’d burned through, I was spent. Sleep would help, but magic tended to leave you hyper and insomniac. It also destroyed the appetite. Not a healthy combination. I grabbed a protein bar from my jacket and forced myself to start eating.
“It’s not just you.”
Nidhi snorted. “It’s been a rough night for everyone. My job has given me plenty of practice at feeling powerless. That doesn’t mean I like it.”
“Tonight could send everything we’ve been working toward for the past year straight to hell,” I said. Whatever Gutenberg’s flaws, and there had been plenty, at least when he’d been running things, I hadn’t spent all my time jumping through red tape and worrying about political bullshit. “New Millennium was supposed to show the world what magic could do. Instead, the government is pissed because we won’t make them weapons, and the rest of the world is freaked out because they think we’re making weapons. Do you realize we could have had a working space elevator two months ago?”
Sometimes I wondered if libriomancers like Weronika Bulat had the right idea. Weronika was one of more than twenty people who’d quit the Porters and gone rogue. She spent her time traveling from hospital to hospital in Poland and healing the most critical patients. She was saving lives, and many considered her a national hero. At the same time, the ease with which she evaded hospital security only fed fears of what we could do.
The song on the radio came to an end. None of us spoke as a somber DJ announced that Governor Sullivan and Attorney General Duncan had been murdered by werewolves. He went on to remind listeners that Lansing, East Lansing, and surrounding suburbs were under curfew. “We’re getting reports that a group of Michigan State students have gathered in an impromptu protest demanding stronger regulation of magic. They’ve rallied near the site of the campus library, which was destroyed several years ago in what’s now understood to be an internal Porter conflict. Another group is counterprotesting across the street. Campus police are threatening to deploy tear gas to forestall a riot.”
I thought about Callie, the pizza delivery girl who’d gotten us to Lansing, and wondered if she was part of the counterprotest. “We’re not the ones who demolished the library.”
“They’re not protest
ing because of the library,” said Nidhi. “They’re protesting because they’re angry and afraid.”
“They’re not the only ones.” There had to be a better way, one that didn’t lead to fear and violence and war. But damn if I could find it.
Detroit Salt Mine
From Michipedia, the free encyclopedia of Michigan facts and history
Note: This article may not meet Michipedia standards for neutrality. Please see the Discussion Page for further information.
The Detroit Salt Mine was established in 1910 beneath the city of Detroit, Michigan. The mine soon produced 8000 tons of rock salt each month from the salt beds more than 1000 feet below the surface.
The mine was believed to cover approximately 1500 acres underground. Customers included leather tanneries and food suppliers. Today, the Detroit Salt Mine primarily sells rock salt for deicing roads.
Last year, it was discovered that the Detroit Salt and Manufacturing Company had dug an additional mine two miles away. This second mine was operational from 1909 to 1916 before being shut down and eventually erased from the public record.
This hive of tunnels and caves deep beneath the surface was an ideal nesting place for a community of vampires. They occupied the second mine for almost 100 years, hidden from the world and the potentially deadly rays of the sun, and emerging at night to hunt and feed.[Citation Needed]
Detroit Edison estimates the electricity siphoned from their grid to power the vampire nest cost the people of Detroit at least $926 million.[Citation Needed] The vampires also tapped into gas, water, and sewage services.
Earlier this year, a vampire murdered 13-year-old Jennifer Wilson.[Citation Needed] The people of Detroit responded with riots, demanding the authorities hunt and destroy the vampires and their home. Forces from the National Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers eventually discovered the second mine and used explosives to collapse the tunnels.
No one knows how many vampires lived beneath the city of Detroit. Estimates range from a few hundred to more than twenty thousand. A letter to the Detroit Free Press written by someone claiming to be a vampire condemned the destruction of their home and blamed Michigan governor John Sullivan for the murder of a thousand vampires who died when the tunnels collapsed.
Sullivan responded that every effort had been made to warn the vampires of the coming demolition, including radio and television broadcasts, and leaflets dropped into the mine. He said he regretted the loss of life, but stopped short of apologizing, saying his priority was the safety and security of the people of Michigan, and likening the vampire community to a hornet’s nest in a basement.
“New libriomancers are all the same. So optimistic. So caught up in awe and wonder, eager to learn what they can do.”
“Some of us never outgrow that stage.”
“I’m sorry, who did you think I was referring to when I mentioned new libriomancers?”
“I’ve been doing this stuff for more than a decade.”
“Talk to me when you’ve finished your first century. If you survive. I’m not criticizing you, you know. The passion and excitement of people like yourself have advanced our knowledge of magic tremendously over the years. But it’s equally important to discover your limits, and to accept there will be things you can’t do. To recognize that some problems can’t be fixed by magic. Some can’t be fixed at all.”
“Or maybe you just haven’t looked hard enough for a solution.”
I TRIED TO stretch out in the back seat to catch a nap during the drive. I failed. After a night like tonight, I usually needed to pop at least two Melatonin capsules to get my brain to settle enough to let me sleep, but if I did that, I’d be too drowsy when we reached Deb’s house. Instead, I pulled out my smartphone to check my work email.
First up was a report from Charles Brice on the side effects of his new bionic eye. The man was going to kill himself one of these days. Fortunately, his latest “upgrade” had caused only minor migraines and occasional double vision, an afterimage that appeared to come from the book he’d used to create the eye.
I signed off on the report and brought up the next message, an order for the following month’s supply of animal feed. Reading through Vince’s meticulous line-item breakdown was almost as good as the Melatonin.
Unfortunately, the very next message burnt the fatigue from my thoughts. I jabbed the screen and dialed Charles.
“Tell Potts the answer is no,” I said as soon as he answered.
“I see you got my email.”
“To paraphrase my friend Helen, New Millennium is not DHS’s bitch. We’re not building weapons, we’re not giving them surveillance tech, and I’m sure as hell not letting them use the Gateway Project as a replacement for drone strikes.”
“I don’t like the idea either, but Gateway would be more precise,” he said. “It could reduce civilian casualties and eliminate a lot of bad people.”
“Charles, do you know how many high-ranking government officials consider us to be bad people?”
“Hey, I’m just playing devil’s advocate.”
“Since when did the devil need your help?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Nidhi twisted around and touched my knee. I bit back my retort. Charles had a gift for getting under my skin. I took a series of slow breaths. “Nothing. It’s been a long night. I’m probably not going to be back tomorrow morning.”
“I thought your niece was getting her leg fixed in the morning.”
“She is.” I closed my eyes.
“No wonder you’re worked up. What do you want me to tell Potts?”
Russell Potts was one of two civilians on New Millennium’s four-person Board of Directors. Fortunately, the other board members—Nicola Pallas and Thérèse St. Pierre from the Porters, along with Doctor Heather Neuman from the National Institutes of Health—had consistently voted down his efforts to turn our work toward offensive military magic. “What I want you to tell him . . .” I shook my head. “I’ll set up a meeting to talk with him next week.”
“He doesn’t like waiting.”
“Good. Make it two weeks.” I hung up the phone. “I’ve decided to relocate to the moon to pursue a career as an astrohermit. Either of you interested in a job as Director of Research?”
“You couldn’t afford me,” said Lena.
“Besides, Smudge would hate the moon,” added Nidhi.
“He might enjoy the decreased gravity. Can’t you see him jumping around my moonbase, spinning like a little flaming pinwheel?”
“What could possibly go wrong?” asked Lena.
I sighed and shoved my phone back into my pocket. The rest of my messages could wait. At the rate I was going, I’d give myself a stroke before we reached Detroit.
When all else failed, there had always been one guaranteed way to calm my thoughts. I hooked a clip-on reading lamp to the collar of my jacket, grabbed one of my newest acquisitions—Nnedi Okorafor’s Zahrah the Windseeker—and started reading.
The recession a few years back, combined with the decline of the auto industry, had hit Detroit hard. The city had just begun to turn things around when word got out it was also home to the largest nest of vampires in the Midwest.
That was back in late June. A week later, a thirteen-year-old girl turned up dead, her throat slashed. There was no proof a vampire was responsible, but it didn’t matter. Her death led to mobs of self-styled vampire hunters roaming the streets. At least two vampires ended up dead, along with five “suspected vampires” who turned out to be humans in the wrong place and time.
It wasn’t until the vampires began fighting back that the National Guard was called in. They used ground-penetrating sonar and satellite images to pinpoint the nest’s location, deep within a forgotten salt mine.
For eight days, they poured fire and explosives into the mine. By the end of July, not a single vampire remained in the nest. Some escaped and fled to join nests in other parts of the country. Others refused to abandon
their home town.
Parts of Detroit were once again beginning to recover. Deb DeGeorge lived in one of the areas that wasn’t.
We passed abandoned houses and vacant lots as we got farther from the highway, making our way toward the northeast part of the city. Cars lined the streets and plugged narrow driveways like corks.
Deb lived at the corner of Benson and Concord in a narrow two-story brick building with broken windows and a gutter jutting down over the front porch like a compound fracture.
We parked on the opposite side of the road, just past a street lamp. I saw no lights inside the house, but that meant nothing. Deb could see perfectly well in the dark. It was one of several changes she’d gone through when she traded her humanity for a longer life as a creature from a book called Renfield, by Samantha Wallace.
I scooped Smudge off the ledge beneath the rear window where he’d been sleeping and eased him into his cage. He twitched awake and began to pace, giving off the faint scent of burnt dust. He wasn’t on fire, but he was nervous about something.
I kept meaning to attach a thermometer to the outside of his cage. Smoke and flame were vivid enough, but more sensitive readings might help me notice sooner when he was upset, especially if I could jury-rig the thermometer to an audible alert of some sort. Talulah back at the lab could probably set it up to talk to my smartphone via Bluetooth.
“My turn to sit things out,” Nidhi said. Of the three of us, she was the least able to protect herself against something like Deb, and she knew it. “Watch yourself, Isaac. You pushed your limits in Lansing. Call me as soon as the house is secure.”
Lena kissed her, then climbed out and fetched a thick oak cane from beneath her seat. The cane’s twisted design reminded me a little of the caduceus with its twin snakes spiraled around one another. She gripped the end with both hands and pulled.
The wood softened like green willow branches, untwisting and thickening into a pair of wooden bokken. The curved swords continued to shift in her hands, taking on edges as sharp as steel.