by Jim C. Hines
TESTIMONY AND QUESTIONING OF WITNESS NUMBER 18: ISAAC VAINIO (CONTINUED)
The CHAIRMAN: As a field agent for the Porters, what rules were you bound by, if any?
Mr. VAINIO: No resurrecting the dead. No pulling living creatures from books. No—
The CHAIRMAN: What about the rules regarding relationships with nonhuman creatures?
Mr. VAINIO: I’m not aware of any such rules.
The CHAIRMAN: You’re in a romantic relationship with both Lena Greenwood and Nidhi Shah, are you not?
Mr. VAINIO: Nope.
The CHAIRMAN: Sir, please remember you took an oath to answer truthfully, regardless of—
Mr. VAINIO: I’ve been romantically involved with Lena for about a year and a half. Lena is also in a relationship with Doctor Shah. I hope you didn’t make me fly out here just to gossip about my sex life.
Mr. VAUGHN: Is there a point to these questions, Senator Keeler?
The CHAIRMAN: Simply to demonstrate the moral and ethical gulf between most Americans and gentlemen like Mister Vainio. He engages in sexual congress with a creature who isn’t even human. Who, according to our understanding, is half tree? Is this the kind of thing you want to legitimize?
Mr. VAUGHN: We’re here to talk about magic, not to finger-wag like my grandma over what consenting adults do in their own homes. Mister Vainio, have you had the chance to look over the recently proposed legislation?
Mr. VAINIO: You’re referring to the Regulations on American Magical Protection and Response Tactics Act? Yes, I’ve read Mister Keeler’s bill of wrongs. All nine hundred thirty-six pages.
Mr. VAUGHN: Would you mind sharing your thoughts on that act?
Mr. VAINIO: I think you’re out of your goddamned minds. Bad enough you’ve got the FBI spying on us. Tapping our phones, flying drones over our homes, interrogating our friends and family and neighbors. Now you want the authority to imprison us on a whim? To hold us without trial? Is the chairman so ignorant of U.S. history? We tried this in World War II. Locked up more than a hundred thousand men, women, and children whose only crime was having Japanese ancestry.
Mr. CHILDRESS: The RAMPART Act is hardly comparable to that sad chapter in our history, which you’d know if you’d truly read it.
Mr. VAINIO: Pages six thirty-four through six forty-one. Sections 184 A and B specifically state, “Whereas intelligent nonhuman entities, including but not restricted to vampires, werewolves, merfolk, sirens, nymphs, dryads, and cryptids, have been living in the United States under false pretenses, such creatures are not presumed to have the rights or obligations of citizenship. Furthermore, whereas such beings pose a potential danger to the security of this nation and its people, authority is hereby granted to both the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Magical Crimes Division, under the supervision of the Department of Defense, to hold without charge anyone suspected—”
Mr. VAUGHN: I think we get the point, thank you. I trust that was enough to jog my esteemed colleague’s memory?
Mr. CHILDRESS: I . . . yes, thank you. But that refers to nonhuman creatures, not individuals such as yourself.
Mr. VAINIO: I can see you scrolling through your tablet to check the text of the bill. You want section 184 D, which throws people like me under the bus as potential terrorists. You’d give DHS and FBI the right to arrest and hold us indefinitely, without trial or charges. Please let me know if you need me to explain any more of your proposed legislation to you.
“Nobody fears magic more than kings and priests.”
“We don’t have many kings in the twenty-first century.”
“If you believe that, you’re a fool, Isaac Vainio. In my day, before the spread of libriomancy, sorcerers were few. If you hoped to survive and prosper, you had to choose your alliances well. Loyalty to the church or monarchy could protect you. It could also cost you your life.”
“We have the same kind of loyalties back home, only with hockey teams.”
“I created the Porters in part to build a community with its own strength, but that strength relied in part on secrecy. We disappeared from view, erased ourselves from history. We were not beholden to anyone.”
“We’re doing our best to keep it that way. Or are you suggesting the Porters align themselves with a particular church or government?”
“Don’t be daft, boy. I’m trying to help you understand the fragility of your position. To continue your hockey reference, if you’re not one of the teams, you’re probably the puck.”
I WAITED close to an hour in the luggage claim area of the Savannah Hilton Head International Airport in Georgia. Lena’s flight had been delayed because of a thunderstorm in Detroit. She arrived just before sunset, with Deb DeGeorge in tow.
Though it had only been a few days, Lena kissed me like I’d been away an entire year. I returned the embrace with enthusiasm, sliding my fingers into the waistband of her jeans and pulling her tighter. I pretty much forgot we were in a public area until Deb cleared her throat.
Lena broke away, then hugged me again. “That one was from Nidhi. So when are you going to finish Gateway so I can see you without having to fly halfway across the country?”
“I’m working on it.” I patted one of the pockets in my carry-on backpack where I’d packed the mirror I’d been working on. “We don’t have much time. I’ve got a car waiting outside.”
“Anyone know you’re here?” asked Deb.
“Only my team back in Vegas. I pulled a bit of magic from Frank Herbert to make sure we don’t show up on anyone’s crystal ball, either.” In the books, a millennia-long breeding program led to the creation of humans who were invisible to psychic detection. I’d discovered those passages could be used to hide me from most forms of magical scrying.
I didn’t say another word until we’d gotten into the rented sedan and were pulling out of the airport parking lot. “At ten p.m., the Kagan and two other Coast Guard vessels will be setting out for a siren colony fifteen miles from the coast. How much did you and Vanguard know about this?”
“Nobody tells me anything,” said Deb. “I knew the Kagan was a potential target, and then it wasn’t. That’s it.”
“Have you told Nicola?” asked Lena.
“Not yet.” I trusted Nicola, but I also knew she’d talk to the rest of the Porter Council. If Babs was compromised in some way, who was to say she was the only one? “I said I was taking the weekend off to spend time with Lena in Michigan.”
Deb chuckled. “You’re finally catching on.”
“You can’t trust anyone these days, eh?” I didn’t give her time to answer. “You sent Sandy Boyle to his death back in Lansing. How do I know you won’t do the same to us?”
“I didn’t expect him to die,” Deb said sullenly. “I don’t give a rat’s shit about you. I’m not here for the Porters or for Vanguard. But I’m not gonna let the military sail in and do to the sirens what they did to the vamps in Detroit. Whatever conspiracy we’re dealing with, it’s targeting people like me. I need your help to bring them down. As long as we’re going after the same assholes, I’ve got your back.”
“Fair enough. Hey, while we’re talking, do you still think it was worth it becoming a Renfield?”
She hesitated. “Sure. Why do you ask?”
A muffled bell rang from within my jacket.
“What was that?”
I deactivated the lie-detecting magic of the book and ignored her question. “I’ve been trying to think of a way to warn the sirens.”
“Warn them to do what?” Deb snorted in disgust. “You want them to run away while their homes are destroyed? Hope their children and their elders are healthy enough to travel and hide? Wait until the next ship finds their new nesting place and finishes them off?”
“Better than being caught unprepared,” I snapped. Unfortunately, sirens preferred privacy and isolation. They kept to the deeper areas of the ocean, and it wasn’t like they had cellphones. “You said Vanguard originall
y intended to hit the Kagan as part of their joint attacks the other night, but they changed their mind. Why?”
“Not enough manpower?” suggested Lena.
“I doubt it,” said Deb. “Believe me, there’s no shortage of volunteers willing to fight back against the people who want to lock us in cages.”
“How did they find out about the Kagan and her mission in the first place?” I asked. Deb didn’t answer. “Maybe they were waiting for confirmation that she was going after the sirens.”
“Or they wanted a bigger audience,” said Lena. “The Michigan state capitol attracted a good-sized crowd and plenty of media attention. You can’t get that same mob coverage by attacking a single ship fifteen miles from land.”
P.R. again. My gut tightened, a sensation that usually preceded being punched or shot at. “Vanguard hasn’t officially claimed responsibility, right? All they accomplished by murdering a handful of anti-magic politicians was to turn public sentiment more strongly against people like us.”
“If Vanguard wants to look like the good guys, they can’t just attack a Coast Guard ship. People can sympathize with wanting to kill politicians, but murdering our military?” Lena was flexing her fingers one at a time. Each made a series of quick wooden snapping sounds.
“You have to make the military into the bad guys,” said Deb. “Wait and film them attacking the sirens. Show innocent creatures being captured or killed. If people had seen the vampires screaming and dying in the tunnels back in Detroit . . .”
I checked the in-dash GPS and switched lanes to make the next exit. “Meaning there’s a good chance we’re going to be heading into a war zone tonight.”
“The war’s already here, hon,” Deb said airily. “While you’re off messing around in your lab or testifying and looking for ‘compromise,’ people like me are getting killed in the streets. Nobody should have to compromise their right to exist.”
Two hours later, we were heading out in a rented thirty-four-foot fishing boat called the Nemo. The owner had been hesitant about letting three strangers take one of his boats, but a mental nudge from Deb and a large cash deposit from me persuaded him.
“When did you learn to drive a boat?” asked Lena.
“My dad taught me on our pontoon boat when I was eleven years old. We used to spend a few weeks each summer camping by the lake. I learned to sail, too.”
It had been a while though, and the Nemo was significantly bigger than I was used to. Its twin outboard motors made the old pontoon boat look like a child’s bathtub toy.
The weather was good: clear skies and gentle winds. The waves were topping out at about two feet, and the Nemo cut through them with hardly a bump. We moved quickly enough to keep the spray behind us, making for a surprisingly dry ride. On another night, I’d have been happy to just cut the engines and drift beneath the stars with Lena.
Deb stood at the port rail, working on a bucket of KFC she’d insisted on picking up on our way to the docks.
I leaned out from the small cockpit. “I thought Renfields had to eat living bugs and birds, not dead ones.”
“Hon, nobody eats fried chicken because it’s good for them.” She tossed a bone into the waves and grinned.
Whereas Deb was acting like this was nothing more than a late-night ocean joyride, Smudge was visibly anxious. I’d kept him in his cage in the cockpit, shielded by the clear acrylic windscreen. He’d spent the whole time crouched flat, with threads of smoke rising from his back.
I flipped on a small overhead light and checked my books. I’d sealed some of them in plastic bags as a precaution in case things went badly. I used C. S. Lewis to create an additional vial of healing magic for Lena, then ran my finger along the inner edges of the page. The book was beginning to char. I’d have to update the Porter catalog with a note to leave this one alone for a couple of years.
“How much farther?” called Deb.
I checked the screen. The Nemo was fitted with a radar and satellite positioning, overlaid with an electronic chart of the waters off the coast. “About two miles.”
The owner had also mentioned the state-of-the-art radar, which he used to pick up flocks of seabirds that led him to the best fishing locations. Unfortunately, the Coast Guard’s radar was probably much better than our own. Between that and their radar detection systems, we needed another way of sneaking up on them. “Take the helm, love?”
Lena kissed my ear and slid past me to grab the wheel.
I traded the Lewis for another book. “Time to engage the cloaking device.”
Lena glanced over her shoulder. “Stuart Little?”
“In the book, Stuart had a mouse-sized car.” I hadn’t read this one in years, but it had been a favorite when I was in kindergarten. I reached into chapter eleven and pulled out the miniature automobile. It was just as I’d imagined it: half a foot long, bright yellow with black fenders. “You see that tiny button on the dashboard? That’s the invisibility button.”
“And a mouse’s car has an invisibility button because . . . ?”
“Because it’s cool!” The nice thing about using children’s books for libriomancy was that you tapped into a different kind of belief. Children had less skepticism about such things, fewer questions about how invisibility would or wouldn’t work. If a button made a car invisible, then that’s all there was to it. Press the button, and the car became impossible to see.
I drew that piece of the car’s magic into myself, then pushed it into the Nemo. “Watch your step, Deb! We’re about to disappear.”
She tossed the remainder of the bucket overboard, wiped her hands on her pants, and grabbed the rail.
“Are you all set with your heading, Lena?”
She glanced at the stars and the moon. “I’m good.”
I used the tip of a pencil to press the tiny button in the car. It vanished from normal sight, along with the rest of the boat. Lena, Deb, Smudge, and I disappeared as well.
“That’s disconcerting,” commented Lena.
We continued to cruise along the waves, appearing to fly just above an abnormally smooth V where the bottom of the Nemo flattened the water beneath us. I removed my glasses and focused not on the ocean, but on the magic flowing over the boat and ourselves. It was a bit like the final scene of The Matrix, only instead of seeing glowing green computer code, I saw the black-inked characters from the book.
“A thousand bucks to anyone who can explain why my glasses blur my magical vision even when they’re invisible,” I muttered. It had to be either a side effect of the charring on my retinas, or else something to do with the logic of young Stuart Little fans.
A loud thump vibrated the cockpit, followed by copious swearing.
“Mind the canopy,” I said.
“Bite me.” Deb rubbed her head. “How far until we reach the sirens?”
“Five minutes or so?” I put a hand on Lena’s back and eased around her to take the wheel. “Lena, do you have the earplugs?”
I heard her unzipping a bag. “I picked up some noise-canceling headphones to go with them.”
I shoved the foam earplugs into a pocket and hung the headphones around my neck. Having survived the weakened song of a scarred siren last year, I had no interest in suffering the full power of an entire group.
“Lights at eleven o’clock,” said Deb.
Her vision was better than mine. I replaced my glasses and squinted into the darkness until I spotted the lights of the approaching ships. “How many?”
“Three.”
I guided us closer, keeping the engines low and hoping nobody would hear us over the waves and the noise of their own vessels. By the time we were near enough to make out the individual ships, the frontmost cutter had come to a stop and was lowering equipment into the water. Uniformed men stood watch at the rails, assault rifles in hand.
“Any sign of Vanguard?” I kept my voice to a whisper, despite the fact that it would be impossible for anyone to overhear.
“Nothing yet,” s
aid Lena.
An explosion sent a shudder through our boat. I’d missed the source of the blast, but the ocean bubbled and burst like a geyser a short distance from the lead cutter. They hadn’t even tried to communicate with the sirens, or to survey the ocean floor. They’d simply begun bombing.
“Shit!” I’d hoped to have more time to observe and plan. I snatched several books and carefully removed the magic keeping them invisible, like peeling fruit. Nobody was likely to notice a few books floating above the water. I flipped to the page I’d bookmarked during my flight, peered over the top of my glasses, and created a personal body shield that should stop any mundane bullet.
Next up was Control Point, a military fantasy with several potentially nasty new forms of magic. The power I wanted was called aeromancy. I absorbed the book’s magic and seized control of the wind, turning it against the lead cutter. The waves grew taller and battered the ships from the side. Slowly, they began to veer away.
Three more explosions followed, the bright flashes muffled beneath the water. A body floated to the surface, her long, matted hair streaming like seaweed. I couldn’t tell whether the siren was dead or simply stunned.
My grandfather had told us stories about fishing with dynamite, tossing lit sticks into the water and then rowing out to scoop up the concussed fish. The Coast Guard was using the same approach on a larger scale.
“Earplugs,” Lena shouted.
I’d almost forgotten. I shoved the foam plugs into place, then cupped the headphones over my ears. The world fell silent.
I strengthened my assault, trying to push the lead cutter into its companions. A collision at sea should keep all three ships busy long enough for the sirens to escape, and for me to sneak on board and find out what the hell was going on.
I had just stepped out onto the deck when the sirens responded.
Despite our precautions, the sound rising from the ocean drilled into my marrow, making my bones buzz with desire. Lena found my arm and clasped it tight. The slightest edge of the sirens’ song stirred memories and longing.