Strange Brew

by P. N. Elrod

  I shoved the mage to the side once we hit concrete and rolled across the alley, crawling through the trash from the mangled can toward the entrance. Mage number two passed me in the process, firing as he moved in. I could have taken him, but I didn’t know where his friend was. I opted to go for the street instead, exiting the alley carefully, looking for mage number one. And found him pressed flat against the brick wall outside, waiting for me.

  He grabbed me before I could shoot, and this one knew how to use his body, wrapping his legs around mine and twisting my gun arm nearly to the breaking point. Not to mention that he wasn’t above hair-pulling, which considering his crew cut gave him a really unfair advantage. He somehow got behind me, his hand closing over my wrists as he snarled a spell into my ear. And the world went white behind my eyes.

  I fought blindly, tuning out the pain of my overtaxed muscles and slamming him back against the wall behind us. The force of the blow made him grunt, but he didn’t let go, or call off the swarm of enchanted knives that were buzzing about, scraping bricks as they tried to zero in on me. He didn’t have to kill me, I realized, as the searing pain of a blade tore through my shoulder. All he had to do was keep me immobilized long enough for his weapons to hunt me down.

  I sent my own arsenal into the air, hoping it would hold them off for a few seconds, and heard the clash of steel on steel as I twisted my gun enough to fire. It only hit him in the arm, but he yelled and jerked back, bashing his own head against the brick. His hold loosened and I tore out of his grasp, spinning to fire into his still-open mouth.

  My feet were clumsy as I staggered away, gritting my teeth on a scream, blood welling up between my fingers as they clutched my shredded shoulder. I hadn’t heard anything from mage number two, which probably meant he was sneaking up on me, but he wasn’t my problem—the witch was. I felt around with my senses, and surprisingly, the tug of the locator spell was very nearby; she must have wanted to watch her boys take me apart. I got a fix on her position and started to run.

  I didn’t get far. I’d taken maybe half a dozen steps when my feet became clumsy, like I was trying to walk through molasses. It’s just another damn illusion, I told my body, but it didn’t seem to be listening. There was a low-level buzz of energy vibrating through the air, plucking at my awareness, and suddenly a giant face appeared in the air above me, peering down like the Great and Powerful Oz.

  “Impressive,” Colafranceschi said as I struggled against my legs’ stubborn belief that they were dragging hundred-pound weights. “How much are you being paid?”

  Not nearly enough, I thought, forcing myself to concentrate on the fire escape two buildings down. My eyes told me that there was no one there, but the spell said differently. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Because whatever it is, I’ll double it,” she offered. “I could use someone like you. Good help is hard to find, as you must have noticed.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you’re mourning your men too much,” I noted, trying to concentrate on the conversation while also listening for approaching footsteps and keeping a read on the locator charm.

  “Four against one are good odds; they should have killed you,” the projection said, shrugging a misty shoulder.

  “Not much of an epitaph,” I gritted out, barely keeping the strain out of my voice as blood gushed down my arm. I ignored it because I couldn’t afford the magic loss it would take to staunch it. I’d passed the first building, but going forward was getting harder with every step. What had felt like molasses was starting to resemble half-set glue. “But I guess your business isn’t so much about compassion, huh?”

  “In my business, you don’t meet too many people who deserve it,” she said wryly.

  And for a moment, that stopped me, freezing my feet as her spell hadn’t, a rage flooding my veins. “Did Adam deserve it?” I spat. “Did Jason?”

  “Who?” she asked, just as somebody dived at me out of the night.

  I’d reloaded, but I didn’t bother firing. I tossed a vial instead, one that shattered against the mage’s shields in a cloud of blue flames, evaporating them like smoke before engulfing the man himself. He fell to the ground, writhing as they ate into him, and was dead before he could scream.

  That particular potion was one of Dad’s more spectacular inventions. And while it wouldn’t have been so effective against a war mage’s shields, this guy hadn’t been one. It was gruesome enough to snap Colafranceschi’s concentration and allow me to cover the last few yards before she could get off the fire escape. I threw her to the ground and straddled her, gun under her chin before she could blink.

  “One chance. Where’s Jason? And if he’s dead, so are you.” I forced the barrel into her skin hard enough to bruise.

  “I don’t know who you’re talking about!” she said, eyes huge. “I don’t know a Jason.”

  And that infuriated me even more, that she hadn’t even known the names of the men she’d used, of the lives she’d destroyed in pursuit of her revenge. I grabbed her up and dragged her back to the spot where the mage’s body had already been reduced to cinders. “You sent him to kill me less than twenty-four hours ago. Ring any bells?”

  “No!” She was crying and her nose was running and she looked like she was about to pass out. Some superassassin.

  I deliberately stepped into the middle of what had been the mage’s body. It collapsed with an inaudible sound, causing black particles to billow up around us. “How about now?”

  “I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she shrieked, then choked on part of her former colleague. “Please, let me pay you—anything you want. I have a big payday tomorrow—”

  “Who were you planning to kill?” I demanded, wondering who was next in line.

  She looked confused again. “No one. One of my marks—one of the men I’m blackmailing—has until then to pay me. And when he does, I could give you—”

  “A blackmailer and an assassin. You do stay busy, don’t you?” I took another vial out of my belt and held it in front of her eyes. “Tell me where Jason is, or you’re going to die the same way as your friend here.”

  Her eyes fixed with horror on the tiny tube. It wasn’t more of Dad’s special dose—I was all out—but she didn’t have to know that. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered, licking trembling lips, her eyes never leaving the vial. “I swear I don’t know anyone by that name.”

  And something in her face made me pause. Because I’d been around enough fear to recognize it when I saw it. And terrified people seldom made good liars.

  “There’s a phone in my right coat pocket,” I said abruptly.

  Her eyes switched to me. “What?”

  “A phone. Get it out. And be careful. If you make any sudden movements or any movements at all that I don’t like, that’s it. The same goes for trying an illusion.”

  She nodded and opened my coat slowly, carefully extracting my cell phone. She held it out to me, but I shook my head. “Hit speed dial one.”

  It took her three tries to get it right, because her hands were shaking. By the time she managed it, I was starting to feel a little light-headed myself from the blood loss. But then Dad’s voice was on the phone.

  “Who the hell is this?”

  “Your loving daughter.”

  “Do you know what time it is?”

  “Yeah. Do you know what Martina Colafranceschi looks like?”

  That made him pause for half a second. “Yes. Why?”

  “Later. Just tell me.”

  Dad hadn’t been a war mage for over sixty years without being able to respond quickly in a crisis, which the strain in my voice told him this was. “Short, dark, busty—”

  “Short?” I repeated, eyeing the tall, slim woman in front of me.

  “Maybe five foot two. She was Ferretti’s mistress for years, and he had a type: petite and extremely dangerous.”

  I noticed the inflection, but didn’t need the warning. “I’ll be sure
to keep that in mind if I ever meet her,” I said evenly. “Bye, Dad.”

  The woman cut the connection on my signal. “Who are you?” I demanded.

  “O-Ophelia Roberts.”

  “And you’re a blackmailer.”

  “Yes.”

  “And those men?”

  “My bodyguards. One of the challenges of blackmailing powerful people is staying alive long enough to collect.”

  “Yeah. I guess so.” I was putting the clues together, and not liking the picture they made. She’d run when she saw me not because she recognized me, but because I was a war mage reaching for a weapon. And she hadn’t gone back home, because she wasn’t a cool-headed assassin, but a panicked blackmailer. Which meant she wasn’t the one I was after.

  “Are you telling me this was all a mistake?” she asked shakily, openly crying now. “I thought you’d been sent by one of my clients who had decided not to pay!”

  I looked numbly down at the ashes dusting away over the concrete, now being splattered with my blood. “I think I was.”

  IT WAS ALMOST 5 A.M. by the time I made it back to HQ. The halls were as silent as they ever got, empty except for an occasional early riser and piles of unpacked crates. The medical facilities were still staffed, but I didn’t stop by. I’d done an emergency patch-up job on the way here. My shoulder felt like it might need surgery, but at least the bleeding had stopped. Anything else could wait.

  Like everything else, the labs were still in the process of getting organized, with half-finished electrical wiring poking out of the walls and stacks of files and paper everywhere. A ward wove itself around my fingertips, its dainty tendrils like threads of fine silk as I opened the door to Simons’s office. I pushed past it, setting off the alarm and bringing him running from the back.

  “Oh, it’s you,” he said, his face relaxing. “Did you get her?”

  “You waited here all night to ask me that?” I let my finger trail through the dust on a packing crate. “Such devotion to duty.”

  “We’ve all been working extra hours lately,” he said, tensing up again slightly.

  “That’s what I like to see—someone looking on the bright side. Our guys are getting ambushed left and right, but hey, at least there’s overtime.”

  “That’s not what I—”

  “It’s a good thing we’ve stepped up recruitment. Assuming most of them pass the Trials, we’ll have replacements soon. Speaking of which, how did you do?”

  “What?”

  “The Trials. How did you do?”

  Simons looked a little squirrely suddenly. “I—I did fine. Obviously. Or I wouldn’t be here. What does this have to do with—?”

  “I bet you did. Just as I would have if I’d taken them. Because the spell doesn’t work on us half Weres, does it?”

  “I’m no such—”

  “Then you won’t mind taking a blood test, will you?” I asked innocently. “There are doctors right down the hall and lab facilities onsite. We can have the results in minutes.”

  He closed his eyes. “She talked.”

  “Oh, yeah. Roberts told me all about how she used her ability with illusions to help you fool the docs who did your physicals. They put you down as one hundred percent human, allowing you to infiltrate the Corps. You’re the one who’s been sending reports to your dark mage allies about our every move.”

  “They aren’t my allies,” he said, opening his eyes to glare at me. “They pay through the nose for everything I give them.”

  “So you’re in it for profit?”

  “What else?” he asked viciously. “Not all of us had famous fathers to pull strings in our behalf! If I’d applied to the Corps as I was, how far do you think I’d have gotten?”

  “But you did get in,” I pointed out. “You’ve been here over a decade. You’re head of a department! Why turn now?”

  “Don’t be naïve,” he sneered. “I’ve been feeding the dark information for years! It’s only recently that the price has skyrocketed. Thanks to the war, I’ve made enough to retire on—pleasantly—in the last six months.”

  I smiled. “Glad to hear it. If only I had a little nest egg like that, I might think twice about turning you in.”

  “Is that what this is about? Ophelia puts the squeeze on me, and now you think you’ll try it?” He looked almost indignant, like how dare I do something so dishonorable. Under other circumstances, it would have been funny.

  “Why not? You know my reputation. I’m not a fan of hard work, and war is turning out to be very hard indeed.”

  The sneer on his face became a little more pronounced, but his shoulders relaxed slightly. “Aren’t you afraid? The last person who blackmailed me—”

  “Ended up dead, yes. But only because I killed her for you. Which I don’t get, by the way. You’re a war mage. Why not just do it yourself?”

  He looked irritated. “I’m a lab tech! I went through basic training a decade ago and wasn’t much good at it then. I didn’t know if my skills would be enough. She warded her apartment and acquired protection.”

  “So? It was nothing your dark mage buddies couldn’t have handled.”

  “I told you—they aren’t my ‘buddies.’ And you can’t trust people like that. Some of them might have decided to kill her and take over where she left off.”

  “So you sent me instead.”

  “I needed someone with the ability to shrug off illusions and the necessary combat skills. It was a short list.”

  “You sent my own students to attack me, knowing they’d fail, that I might have to kill one or more of them—” I cut myself off before my voice got away from me. I’d always had more trouble controlling it than my face.

  “To give you a motive to go after her, yes. I have no idea what happened to the real Colafranceschi, but if she’s still alive, she’s probably hiding under an alias. All I did was substitute a photo of Roberts in her file and fake the tests to make it seem that she had originated the Trial spell instead of me.”

  “So I’d kill her for you.”

  “Yes.” He looked perplexed. Why talk to her first? It’s one thing I didn’t expect—”

  “Because she had Jason—or so I assumed. I’ve been racking up a lot of black marks lately and figured getting him back would erase most of them. Out of curiosity, where is he?”

  Simons ignored the question. “I should have thought of that, shouldn’t I?” he asked fretfully. “But I’ve been run ragged with the demands of the war and trying to do intelligence gathering on the side and then that bitch showing up with her ridiculous demands . . . I couldn’t be expected to think of everything.”

  “Guess not. So where is he?”

  Simons shot me a suspicious look. “Why do you care?”

  “I told you: I’m curious.”

  Something in my face must have finally slipped, because his eyes widened. “You’re not here to shake me down, are you?”

  Fuck it. I hadn’t really thought this was going to work. I drew my gun and pointed it at him. “Where?”

  And then had to duck to avoid the curse he threw in my direction. It hit the metal shelving behind me like a hammer blow, knocking it over and sending a bunch of still-full packing containers tumbling down on top of me. One of them crashed into my skull and another hit my wounded shoulder, opening it up again and spraying the floor in front of me with red droplets.

  I scrambled to my feet, slid on my own blood and went down again, before finally getting enough traction to follow him into the next office. There was no one in sight. Dammit! He’d already disappeared through the door to the hallway.

  I started after him, but there was a violent hammering in my chest and the room started spinning. And then I was grabbed from behind and dragged out the door. The hallway wasn’t so quiet anymore. Half a dozen mages blocked the way to the stairs, and three more loitered near the one elevator that had so far been installed. Simons headed for it anyway, but drew up at the sound of his boss’s voice.

 
“Ben! You bloody fool!”

  Simons whirled, taking me with him, in time to see Hargrove walking down the corridor toward us. He looked as pulled together as always, not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle on his snappy charcoal suit. He even had a little yellow pocket hankie standing to attention over his left breast.

  Simons jerked us back against the wall, holding me in front of him like a shield, making my brain slosh up against the back of my skull. I bit back a groan—I really hadn’t needed that. “Tell them to get out of the way or I’ll kill her,” he said, looking wildly at the mages surrounding us.

  For some reason, Hargrove was looking at me instead of his onetime colleague. “You never took the Trials, did you, Accalia?” he asked thoughtfully.

  “I’m not joking!” Simons screamed, shoving a gun into my ribs.

  Hargrove ignored him. “I always wondered. How would you have chosen?”

  If I’d had a hand free, I swear I’d have flipped him off. I knew what he was asking, and for a moment I tried to think of appropriate last words, but they kept tripping over the edges of my tongue, falling away into oblivion. “Oh, fuck it!” I finally said. “Just kill him already!”

  I slammed an elbow back into Simons’s gut and tried to wrench myself free, but he held on. There was a series of explosions and something slammed into my side, quickly followed by searing pain. The room spun wildly and he dropped me, sliding down the wall to a seated position, leaving a wide smear of red on the unpainted concrete. I staggered a few feet, but my leg gave way and I fell, my head bouncing off the floor when I hit.

  And then nothing.

  I WOKE UP in a hospital bed under cold fluorescent lights. The division’s leading physician was bending over me, his usual scowl firmly in place. It deepened when he noticed that my eyes were open. “Trust you to wake up early,” he muttered.

  I had just enough time to think, Oh, I guess I’m alive, before every nerve ending in my side exploded. I screamed and thrashed, sending him staggering back into the wall. And wow, was that a mistake.