Unbinding

by Eileen Wilks

  “I’m not crazy about jail, either.”

  “He’s really not good in them.”

  “Might not come to that. Michalski isn’t a fugitive yet.” He clicked the locks on his car.

  José climbed in back. Kai got in the front. The car smelled like an ashtray. “You haven’t said where we’re going. I’ll need some privacy. I have to trance lightly to set the charm. A restroom would work.”

  “What charm?”

  “The Find charm, of course. I’m not Cynna. I can’t just Find someone.” Ackleford hadn’t come and whisked her away because he was worried about her. He wanted her to Find the missing witnesses. “Not that you’ve asked if I can do it, but if you had, I’d say that yes, I probably can, but it may take a lot of driving around. The charm only reaches about three miles.”

  One corner of his mouth kicked up a fraction of an inch in an Ackleford-style grin as he pulled out of the illegal parking spot. “I’m beginning to like you, Michalski.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  ACKLEFORD lit a cigarette as soon as they were on the way, heading for a nearby McDonald’s.

  “I’d rather you didn’t smoke,” José said.

  “Ask me if I give a fuck.” He drew smoke deep in his lungs like a drowning man coming up for air. “Could this elf who keeps shooting at you have made herself look like Stockman?”

  “It depends on her skill level and on other variables, such as whether she was able to get hold of some of Karin’s hair or skin. Would she need to look exactly like Karin?”

  “Probably not exactly. Far as I know, no one at the station has ever met Stockman.”

  “Then yes, she could probably make it work. The features would have been only an approximation. She wouldn’t have had Karin’s walk or mannerisms, and it’s unlikely she’d have had Karin’s voice. Aural illusions have to be cast separately, and voice-matching is supposed to be tricky. But if no one there knew what Karin was supposed to sound like, that wouldn’t matter. I’m assuming everyone at the station was human?”

  “Far as I know.”

  “Then the problem with scent wouldn’t arise.”

  “What problem with scent?”

  “Illusions don’t include scent. Well, I’m told the Queen of Summer can cast a scented illusion, but no one else can, not even her sister. But that wouldn’t be a problem unless there were lupi around.” Or Nathan. She tucked that thought away in a private place. He was alive. He hadn’t been Dyffaya’s prisoner long, after all, and she had to believe he was okay, or she wouldn’t be able to do what she needed to so.

  Ackleford stubbed out his cigarette and promptly pulled out another one. “What about the ID? Could she have illusioned that up, too?”

  “It depends on . . . never mind. You don’t want details. Yes, that’s possible, again depending on a number of variables, but most of the older elves can carry two illusions simultaneously. If she’s good enough to cast invisibility, she can probably carry two illusions.” Kai frowned, thinking it over. “There’s another possibility that doesn’t involve her. One or more cops could have been corrupted or persuaded by Dyffaya into letting the witnesses go and lying about it.”

  “I don’t see how it could be done with just one guy. Probably have to be several.”

  “What happened, anyway? I need to know what you know.”

  “Not much.” After the shooting at the morgue, he said, he and Stockman had gone to the local FBI office. They’d barely gotten the coffee brewed when four cops showed up with a warrant for Stockman’s arrest. He couldn’t get anything out of the arresting officers, but after they left he made some phone calls.

  “That’s when I found out that my wits are missing. Funny how no one let me know about that. Supposedly, Stockman released them on her authority as a Unit agent. The timing’s tight but possible. Barely. Stockman’s supposed to have been at the station around 4 A.M. I met her at the morgue at 4:45.”

  “What was she charged with?”

  “Interfering with an investigation.”

  “Since it’s her investigation, that would be hard to do.”

  He grunted. “When I called Brooks, he hadn’t heard from her yet. That bothered me. I made a couple more calls, found out about the warrant in the works for you. Sounds like someone’s trying to clear the decks of you woo-woo folks. Just to be clear, though—could Stockman have done like they claim because she was under some kind of compulsion shit? Maybe not remember it?”

  “A compulsion might have evaporated after she acted, but . . .” Kai consulted her memory of Stockman’s thoughts at the morgue to be sure. “No. I’m sure she hadn’t been under compulsion recently when I saw her at the morgue. Compulsions do damage. I would’ve seen that in her patterns, especially if it tampered with her memory. I’m pretty sure the same goes for mind control, but—”

  “What the hell do you mean? Isn’t mind control what we’ve been talking about?”

  Kai explained the difference between mind control and compulsion.

  Ackleford pulled into the parking lot at Mickey-D’s. “I hate this magic shit.”

  * * *

  THERE was a brief argument about her vest before they went in. Ackleford said she stuck out like “a goddamn sore thumb in that thing,” which was true, but Kai didn’t want to take it off. José agreed—and pulled off his T-shirt. He ripped off the sleeves, put it back on, and used what was left in an almost-empty soda can he found to dampen his hair and slick it back. Then he borrowed a pen from Ackleford and asked Kai to draw some kind of design on his face. “Tribal stuff, if you can. Or runes. Something weird.”

  “Uh—okay. Why?”

  “So you and I look like we’re together. That makes Ackleford the odd one out, especially in this neighborhood. People notice the thing that doesn’t belong. They’ll remember him more than you.”

  She looked as if she fit with a guy wearing a wife-beater with a pretend-tat on his face? Kai shrugged and drew a sidhe rune for good luck on his cheek. Just for the hell of it, she fed a trickle of power into it. Luck was the province of patterners, not mindhealers—or anyone else, for that matter. Patterners could read and sometimes manipulate the probabilities, which were not going to be affected by a simple rune.

  But it couldn’t hurt. God knew they needed some luck.

  Maybe it worked—the costume, not the rune. They drew some glances when they went in, but the gazes that lingered were on the man in the rumpled suit. Only suit in the place, she noticed, and most of the faces here were as dark as hers or José’s. Ackleford stood out.

  Most people used the drive-through at this hour, so the place wasn’t crowded. There was a pair of moms accompanied by five little ones, an old man sitting alone, a trio of teens, a few men in various versions of work clothes. And most of them were anxious. Kai saw that clearly in their thoughts. Some cloaked fear with anger, like the two men who came in while she and the others were waiting on their food. One man blamed the chaos events on, “all this gay marriage shit. Upset the natural order and this is what happens.”

  The other one told him not to be an asshole. That didn’t make his companion happy, but it cheered Kai up a bit.

  Say what you might about Mickey-D’s, they were quick. Kai ate fast, washing down fat and carbs with surprisingly decent coffee. Nothing like Fagioli, of course, but . . . “Shit. I need to warn Arjenie. If someone’s trying to get rid of everyone who can help with the magical end of things—”

  “I’ll call Isen,” José said. “He’ll take care of it.”

  “Keep your damn phone turned off,” Ackleford said.

  “It’s a prepaid,” José said. “Not my regular phone. Bought with cash. It’s policy now for the leader of an outside squad to have one.”

  “Why the hell would that be policy?”

  José just smiled and tapped in a number.

  Ackleford scowled and l
ooked at Kai. “What do you know about—hell.” His phone was dinging. He took it out.

  She frowned. “Why haven’t you turned off your phone?”

  “Because they aren’t looking for me.”

  “You can’t be sure of that.”

  “Yes, I can. I know a lot of people. Shut up now.”

  While José filled Isen in, Ackleford identified himself to whoever had called him; listened, scowled, asked a couple questions that didn’t tell Kai a thing, then said, “Good job. Stay on it, and find out more about that fire.” A pause. “How the hell do I know? Maybe nothing. Find out anyway.” He disconnected. “Nieman found out who’s after you and Stockman. Assistant Chief Franklin Boyd.” His scowl deepened. “Boyd’s a good guy. Territorial as hell, but a good guy. I don’t get it. Something convinced him that you put a compulsion on Stockman. That’s how he got the warrant for her—by claiming she’s under outside control and is therefore dangerous.”

  “That’s a handy circular argument. Stockman’s guilty because I am. I’m guilty because Stockman is.”

  “Yeah, but they’ve got at least one wit for what Stockman’s alleged to have done. Nothing ties you in except that you’re weird, and judges like to have more than that to issue a warrant. Boyd’s having trouble getting one, but he’s put out an APB to pick you up for questioning. We need to move. Go do your thing with that charm.”

  “In a minute. What was that about a fire?”

  “Nieman heard gossip about a fire at Boyd’s house last night. Small one. He had it out by the time the fire department got there. Probably doesn’t mean anything, but the timing makes me itchy.”

  “Dyffaya’s good with fire, but . . . no one’s missing, I take it?”

  “Not that anyone’s heard.”

  A small fire didn’t sound like a chaos event. The amount of power a chaos mote generated made for big, splashy fires. “If Boyd’s doing what Dyffaya wants . . . Compulsions and mind control need some kind of contact. Normally that means face-to-face, but we’re dealing with a god, so. . . . but I don’t see how he could set compulsions long-distance. Mind control, maybe. The chaos motes carry enough of Dyffaya that he can probably use one to take over someone. Or maybe he can out-source that—place a bit of himself in one of his followers, who transfers it to the person he wants to control. But mind control requires him to stay in contact with the subject, which limits the attention he can give to other things, so it seems like he’d prefer to use compulsions—only I don’t see how.” But he had, somehow, hadn’t he? He’d beguiled and compelled the hell out of the four young people who were missing.

  Kai rubbed her face. Shit just kept happening. Her brain felt like a worker bee—busy-busy-busy, but it was all buzz, no honey. “There’s always corruption and persuasion. Those aren’t face-to-face deals. Dyffaya may be low on spiritual power. He isn’t out of it. He could’ve persuaded or corrupted Boyd.”

  “Whatever he’s done to Boyd, we need to find those missing wits. And I need to call Brooks, update him. Go get that charm working. “

  “Right.” She stood—then frowned when José did, too. “You’ve got to be kidding.” They’d taken the table closest to the restrooms. José could guard her just fine from here.

  “If I wait at the door, it might discourage others from going in and interrupting you. How long does it take?”

  “Setting the charm only takes a minute. Getting myself into trance may take five or ten.” She was good at trance normally, but in a public place, without Nathan or Dell to stand guard, and with the way her brain was buzzing . . . “Make it fifteen.”

  * * *

  THE ladies’ room was a two-staller. Kai went into the one with the wheelchair emblem, which was roomy enough for her to sit on the floor. José’s wife-beater and pretend tat might discourage some people, but a woman with a small child who needed to go right now was going to push right on past him.

  Her Find charm was fairly sophisticated. You could set it in three ways: use a piece of what you sought to Find the rest, such as a hair from the person you wanted to Find; use one thing to Find more of the same; or, if you were good at patterns, you could mentally supply the pattern you needed the charm to hunt for. Kai wasn’t particularly good at patterns, but there was one she knew really well—the trigger designed to blow up the minds of Dyffaya’s beguiled followers.

  Some people could set a pattern into the charm without trancing. Kai couldn’t. She spared a second to thank someone, somewhere, for the relative cleanliness of the floor, then sat on it tailor-style, took the charm off her necklace, and held it in one palm. She whispered the words that, along with a trickle of power, woke it. Then she paid attention to her breath . . for about three breaths, then her mind was off and running.

  So much kept happening so fast . . . sure, Dyffaya was a god, but he was a little-g god. He wasn’t omnipotent. Not even close. How was he orchestrating everything? What did he want?

  Maybe he was just stirring things up. God of chaos, after all.

  Back to her breath, dammit. In, nice and slow. Out . . .

  First he wanted to grab Kai. Then to kill her. Now he just wanted her arrested. How did that make sense? And why Stockman? Was her arrest a device for trapping Kai? Maybe he’d decided to get Kai put in jail so she’d stay put until he could send someone to kill her. And that was just crazy, which Dyffaya was supposed to be, but why take such a roundabout path to his goal?

  Maybe that wasn’t his goal. Maybe he’d achieved exactly what he wanted when Boyd had the Unit agent arrested. What did that do for him?

  What did any of it do for him?

  Look at what else he’d done. Grabbed people, yes, and aside from Nathan she had no idea what he meant to do with them, but look at how he’d done it—in the most flamboyant way possible. Scattered chaos far and wide . . . in ways that really got everyone’s attention. In ways that scared people. Hadn’t she seen that in everyone’s thoughts? No one had a clue how to stop him, and maybe that, too, was the point. He was making it clear that he could do whatever he wished—and that the people who were supposed to protect the country were helpless to stop him. Helpless, clueless, out of their league.

  Over and over she’d circled back to the fact that they were going up against a god, and yet she’d missed the obvious.

  What do gods want?

  Worship.

  Nowadays you heard a lot more about the love of God than the fear of God, but that hadn’t always been true. Love was one approach to worship, but fear worked, too. Dyffaya wanted—needed—people to worship him, and fear was faster and easier to evoke than love. He’d arranged Stockman’s arrest because she made a great symbol. Unit agents had one hell of a lot of authority. They’d been given it right after the Turning, when everyone was scared shitless, and Congress had gone overboard. Rumor said that a single Unit agent could call in the Army if necessary. As far as Kai knew none of them ever had, so maybe that wasn’t true, but everyone knew they had tremendous authority. Plus everyone knew that Unit agents were Gifted. They knew how to use magic in a world where, up until the Turning, some people had decided magic didn’t exist.

  Stockman stood for everything the government was doing or could do to oppose Dyffaya. And depending on which story you believed, he’d either corrupted her or he’d swept her out of his way. Either way, he’d proved his power.

  What she needed to do was serve Dyffaya up with a big, public defeat. Maybe the way to do that was to stop him from using his followers for . . . well, whatever he had in mind. She might not know what that was, but he’d needed them out of jail for it, hadn’t he? Which meant she needed to get them back in jail, which meant she’d damn well better Find them.

  Kai took a slow, careful breath. Another . . . This time she slid into trance easily. Moments later, she’d imprinted the charm with the pattern. It didn’t light up. That would be too easy. They’d have to get within thr
ee miles for it to start cueing her which direction to take. But it was warm, which meant it was active.

  When she left the restroom, José was leaning against the wall. Grinning.

  She looked at him, eyebrows raised. “What?”

  “I’ll let him tell you,” he said, straightening.

  Ackleford wasn’t grinning. For once he wasn’t scowling, either. He looked . . . horrified.

  “What is it?”

  “That bastard. He’s batshit nuts, you know that?”

  “Dyffaya?”

  He gave her a disgusted look. “Ruben Brooks. The man’s insane. I don’t know how the hell he talked me into it.”

  “Talked you into what?”

  “He had this feeling. A strong feeling, he said. If Dyffaya wants his Unit agent where she can’t act, then it’s real important for Brooks to have another Unit agent in place who can.”

  “That makes sense. In fact, I was just thinking a lot the same thing.”

  He glowered at her and shoved to his feet.

  “The special agent is having trouble saying it out loud,” José said. “I’ll help. Brooks just made Ackleford a Unit Twelve agent.”

  “Temporarily,” Ackleford said, looking like the world had come to an end. “It’s just temporary. Goddamn it. I hate this magic shit.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  BOREDOM is a prisoner’s biggest enemy. Boredom added to the profound loss of control from imprisonment can lead to lethargy and depression. Or it can propel someone in the opposite direction—to action for action’s sake, anything to break the monotony, however pointless or rash.

  Nathan knew this. He was patient by nature, and he’d been on long hunts before. This one had only lasted twenty-five days, according to his personal time. It would either be over soon, or it would last a very long time.

  That’s why he was running.

  He’d explored everything within ten miles of their clearing in the days spent waiting for Benedict to heal. He wasn’t doing anything so productive now. He’d run for miles and was heading back now, following a dry creek bed with high banks through the black pillars of the trees, running for the sake of motion. Running because he couldn’t be still. Pointless, maybe, but not rash. He hadn’t been driven to that, though he might have been, had his isolation continued. Being able to sign with Cullen had made a huge difference.