“And you can collect anytime, you know that. But, ah, not callin’ about good times to come. You hear about the fracas in Ohio?”
“Secondhand. I understand my targets got lucky.”
“More than lucky. Don’t worry, old man, I ain’t callin’ to ding you over not accurately reporting the danger involved. I get paid to handle that.”
“That’s why you’re one of the best in the business,” Calypso said. “Honestly, I figure it’s either you or Nyx claiming this bounty. Everybody else is just here to make it more interesting.”
“It’s gonna be her, then. Sorry to do this to you, but I have to walk away from this one.”
Calypso’s brow furrowed. Tiny motes of copper, like sparks from a piece of flint, danced in the whites of his eyes.
“Too much of a challenge? That doesn’t sound like you.”
“The targets ain’t the problem. Whoever these ladies are to you and whatever they did, that’s none of my concern, but they’re drawing attention from problematic corners. You familiar with a black-bag branch of the FBI, calls itself Vigilant?”
“Vigilant Lock isn’t a problem,” Calypso replied. “They’re small, minimal funding, no legal remit—”
“Which has never stopped them from ruining the days of better men than me, mon amie. Also, there’s a…personal angle, involving one of their lead agents.”
“Meaning?”
“We have,” Fontaine said, “what I might describe as a one-sided and mostly undeclared peace treaty. Anyway, your targets just became their number-one priority, and that’s a fight I don’t feel like pickin’. Don’t worry, much as I hate talking up the competition, Nyx is gonna take good care of you. Hey, about those drinks—”
“Another time.”
Calypso punched a button on the speaker. The line went dead.
Six dead assassins in Ohio. Seven, if the lone wolf that went missing on the highway last night turned up the same way. And out of the two top-tier hunters on this contract, one had just taken his ball and gone home.
Calypso’s fingers dipped into the inner pocket of his tan linen jacket, fishing out a pack of Winstons and a silver-plated lighter. He’d been told—three times now—that smoking on federal property was illegal. Didn’t stop him from keeping a battered old tin ashtray in the top drawer of his desk, right next to a spare bottle of bourbon. He was going to need both to make it to quitting time.
He deliberated as he lit his first cigarette. Then he made a phone call.
“This one is busy,” Nyx snapped.
“Good afternoon to you too. Situation’s changed. I need this job wrapped up by tomorrow night at the absolute latest.”
“And you are willing to pay extra for speed?”
“Speed and scorched earth, if it comes to it.”
Nyx hesitated. “The agents? Temple and Black? You’ll add them to the target list?”
“Not officially, no. I can’t justify that, not officially, and I’m not putting a damn thing in writing. But if they get in your way…you do what you have to, so long as Vanessa Roth and Marie Reinhart get done in the process, and I’ll take responsibility for any fallout. This entire situation is one bad beat from sliding completely out of control. I need you to clamp down on it before that happens. If you need backup, hire them. Hire anybody you need to.”
“You will pay all of this one’s expenses? Plus a bonus?”
Calypso took a long drag from his cigarette. A plume of gray smoke whirled from his lips like a cyclone, swirling up to the office lights.
“Hire a small army if you have to, pussycat. Do whatever needs doing, just finish this. Finish it fast and don’t leave any loose ends dangling.”
Calypso broke the connection. He ashed his cigarette. The bottle of bourbon rattled on his desk alongside a water-spotted shot glass. As he poured, he couldn’t help wondering if he’d just chased a bad mistake with an even worse one. Time would tell. He’d thrown the dice; nothing to do now but wait and see how they landed.
* * *
Lake Shore Drive snaked along the shoreline, a ribbon of curving expressway pinned between Lake Michigan and the concrete spires of downtown Chicago. The sun had just started its long slide down, turning the water into a fistful of scattered diamonds, and traffic slowed to a syrupy slog.
“I’m thinking about protection,” Marie said, her foot heavy on the brake as they headed north. “We don’t know what we’re walking into, if these people are just eccentric weirdos or the real thing.”
Nessa stared out the passenger-side window and watched the lake water sparkle. Sailboats drifted on the horizon, white canvas billowing in the afternoon wind.
“I’d be more comfortable if I had my book when we went inside,” she said. “I’m a little hesitant letting it out of arm’s reach, to be honest, given it was written just for me.”
“And I’d be happier with a gun. Don’t suppose you’ve got a spell that can turn us invisible?”
“No.” Nessa sank lower in her seat, sullen. “I looked. Believe me.”
One after another, a procession of crimson brake lights flared. The Eldorado came to a dead stop. While they idled, waiting, Nessa watched the water and Marie’s gaze drifted left, to the brownstones and condominiums that lined the drive. The sidewalks were almost as packed as the street. Marie watched a woman pushing a baby stroller, a pack of students toting laptop bags and backpacks—and an idea sparked.
“I think you might,” she said.
“Hmm?” Nessa said. “How’s that?”
“Do you remember our first night together at your place? When you showed me your workroom?”
Nessa’s hand slid across Marie’s thigh. Her fingers tightened.
“Nothing short of dying again,” Nessa told her, “could ever make me forget that night.”
“You kept the workroom key in a box covered with little mirrors, on your credenza downstairs. That was the first time I really…I mean, I don’t want to say I freaked out—”
“You were a tiny bit startled.”
“Well, yeah,” Marie said, “considering there wasn’t a box on the credenza until you reached for it.”
Nessa chuckled. “That wasn’t invisibility, as such. Just a little enchantment to make it…not interesting. So dull, in fact, the eye would slide right off it. I was proud of that one. It was my first magical experiment. I mean, the first one that actually worked.”
Traffic started to move again, grudgingly, chugging along so slowly that the sedan’s speedometer barely bothered to perk up. Marie pointed to the pedestrian hordes.
“Could you do it again, with something a little bigger? A book bag or a backpack, maybe?”
Nessa leaned forward in her seat. Her middle finger pushed her glasses up on her nose as her eyes widened, taking in the possibilities.
“Number one,” she said, “get us off this godforsaken excuse for an expressway. Number two, find us an arts-and-crafts store. I need some supplies.”
* * *
It wasn’t a complicated spell, all things considered, but Nessa was accustomed to the luxury of her workroom. She’d never done the preparation for a rite while sitting in a hole-in-the-wall coffeehouse, sipping an over-sugared latte while she sorted out her haul from the Michaels up the block. Forty minutes of work with a hot glue gun and she was starting to build up a rhythm.
“Oh wow,” gushed a passing woman, dressed in a sweatshirt and leggings. “That’s so creative! Do you have an Etsy store?”
“I do not,” Nessa replied through gritted teeth, “have an Etsy store.”
“Well, if you open one—”
Marie got up and got between them fast. “I’ll take your contact information.”
“If one more person asks me that…” Nessa grumbled after Marie sent the onlooker packing.
Marie winced. “Sorry.”
Nessa’s palm fell upon the canvas tote bag she’d bought and the tiny craft mirrors she’d been adorning the fabric with. The mirrors caught the
overhead lights, turning into shining beacons.
“I can’t work like this. I need solitude, focus. I need to be away from…people.”
“We can’t really afford another hotel room,” Marie said. “I mean, we can, but the cash is getting low and we don’t know what’s going to happen after tonight.”
“I know. I know. I just feel like I’m missing something. I’m going at this the wrong way.”
Nessa looked over at Marie, shoulders sagging. Her glue gun dangled in her hand like it had turned to lead.
“I feel like I’m going at all of this the wrong way.”
“How do you mean?” Marie asked.
“I have done…this…for how many lifetimes? Never exactly the same. I had a conversation with some of my past lives, on my way to find you at Vandemere. It was brief but lively. And it leaves me wondering, in retrospect…do I just not get it? Some cosmic force has decreed that I’m the Witch. Not a witch. The capital-W Witch.”
“It’s a lot to put on one person’s shoulders.” Marie’s hand closed over hers.
“I’m not shrinking from the call. I just want to answer it correctly. Which of my past lives got it right? Which were just spinning their wheels, waiting for the curse to kick in? Our time is running out, and I do not want to join the ranks of the failed and forgotten.” Nessa’s voice grew sharper, harder, as her sapphire eyes glinted behind her glasses. “I want to be the best of us all. The one, win or lose, live or die, to make the heavens shake. I just have to find the way.”
“If it helps,” Marie said, “you’re not alone, you know. You’d think I’d know what being a knight means, how to live it—”
“I think you’re doing an excellent job.”
Marie gave her half a smile. “Well, thank you. But from what I gathered, when Savannah injected me with ink…I’m not entirely sure all my past incarnations were very good people.”
“Who says you have to be a good person?” Nessa asked.
“I do.”
“Then that’s your way of being a knight. That’s your path. This time around, at least.”
“Okay,” Marie said. “So flip that around. Forget your other lives, forget the curse, forget all of it. What’s the essence of being a witch?”
Nessa thought about that. She picked up the glue gun and got back to work, ruminating in silence. A couple of minutes later they had another visitor. Hair in a bun, gym bag slung over one shoulder, she leaned in and studied Nessa’s work.
“Oh, that’s pretty,” she said. “Do you sell those?”
Nessa took a deep breath.
“No,” she replied, deadpan. “Actually, I’m a witch, and I’m here to smash the patriarchy. This bag is for smuggling weapons. I’m decorating it because there’s no reason a bag for smuggling weapons shouldn’t look nice.”
“Oh,” the young woman said. She stood there, rooted to the spot. “So do you, like, read tarot cards or something?”
Nessa lifted her chin. She studied the woman, really seeing her for the first time. There was something in her eyes, some shifting, uneasy, uncomfortable need. An embarrassed hunger that was making her shoulders clench and her body fold in on itself.
“You need to know something,” Nessa said.
Her head bobbed once. Nessa gestured to the open chair, opposite Marie.
“Sit down, then. Let’s see if I can help.”
Twenty-One
“I need to know if—”
“No,” Nessa said. “Don’t ask your question. Don’t sway me. Just think it and finish your tea.”
Their visitor drank, tilting back her cardboard cup, steam carrying the scent of chamomile. Nessa took what was left, setting aside her glue gun and holding the cup in both hands. The dregs glistened at the bottom, tea leaves scattered in wet, earthy clumps.
She murmured a simple charm under her breath, flint to spark her intuition. The constellation of leaves glimmered like stars and showed her the way. They read like a steep trail, paved with frustration and pain and ending in a sheer cliff drop.
“I can give you one of two things,” Nessa told her. “I can offer you the truth or a comforting lie. Either way, you have to live with the consequences. Make your choice.”
The young woman hesitated. She cradled her gym bag on her lap like it was a child, nervous hands rubbing its nylon folds.
“The truth.”
“He’s cheating on you,” Nessa said.
Her words landed like a bullet to the woman’s belly. She crumpled in her chair.
“But you already knew that,” Nessa added.
“I guess,” she said softly. “No. No, you’re right. I knew. I always knew.”
She leaned her head back and let out a breath. Even as her body seemed to deflate, she looked lighter, like she’d slipped some invisible chains and let them pool on the sticky coffeehouse floor.
“I chased him. For a year, can you believe it? I changed my look, changed my routine, changed me, because I thought he was worth it. I was invisible until I turned myself into a fucking Barbie for him.”
Nessa wasn’t a beacon of sympathy. She wasn’t cruel, either. She simply watched with unblinking eyes, carved from ice and silence, letting their visitor pour out her pain.
“I thought I was going to cry.” The young woman blinked a couple of times and rubbed a finger across one eye. “I don’t feel like it now, though. Thank you. Do I owe you anything?”
Nessa’s fingers curled around the woman’s wrist. She gently pressed her palm against the skin of the mirrored tote bag.
“Here’s how you pay me,” Nessa said. “You know what it feels like to be invisible. Think about it now. Imagine it. Feel it. And let it go.”
When Nessa sent her away, her footsteps were lighter than they were before. Walking on uncertain air, all the way to the door.
“That was…” Marie offered, studying Nessa, “something.”
“At Barnard, I taught my students that witchcraft, historically, was the tool of the politically dispossessed. The last resort of the powerless.” Nessa watched the woman leave. “Maybe I’m starting to listen to my own advice. Changing the world isn’t always about fire and thunder and storm. Sometimes it begins in the small things.”
“Excuse me,” said a hesitant voice.
Nessa turned. A husky woman, older, her hair in a silver ponytail, stood in her orbit like a bashful satellite.
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop—” she started to say.
Nessa extended her hand.
“Sit with me.”
* * *
Daniel Faust took a flight to O’Hare and drove southwest in a rented hatchback. If he’d known what he was looking for, he might have spotted the dirty white Eldorado passing him in the opposite direction on Interstate 55. He followed the road all the way to the end of the line, sailing through the endless farmland and cornfields until he got to Carolyn’s ranch house.
The second the house came into sight, he jammed on the brakes. Wheels kicked up loose gravel as the car stuttered to a stop.
“Aw, no, no, no.” His palms slapped the steering wheel. “Come on!”
A caravan of jet-black SUVs with tinted windows thronged the pebbled driveway and the road out front. Men in dark glasses and suits carried out a stream of cardboard file boxes, loading them into the back of an Explorer one by one.
Their overseer stepped into sight. From a distance, he could still make out the details: short blond hair, a man’s suit, and a paisley necktie. Daniel slid low in his seat, fast. Then he stomped on the gas, wrenched the steering wheel, and scattered dirt and dust as he pulled a hard U-turn.
He watched Harmony Black and her team dwindle out of sight in the rearview mirror.
“On the list of shit I don’t need today,” he grumbled. “Or ever.”
He had warned her about this. Carolyn made her living weaving the real-life dirty laundry of the occult underground into her pulp-fantasy potboilers. He’d told her, time and time again, that one day she was g
oing to attract the wrong kind of attention.
“So of course, when it finally happens, it happens today,” Daniel said to the dusty road ahead. “Because fuck my life, that’s why.”
He figured he had an obligation to mount a rescue attempt. Carolyn was a pain in the ass, but she was useful. Sometimes. That said, getting into a gunfight with an entire squad of black-bag operatives—operatives specially trained to handle threats like him—was pushing it.
He was still making up his mind when he stopped for gas a couple of miles down the road. He wandered inside the old Shell station and grabbed a plastic bottle of Coke. Normally he’d be focused on springing Carolyn from custody, but that wasn’t who he’d been sent to retrieve. And if Vanessa and Marie had been snatched up by the feds right along with her, his job had just gotten a hundred times harder.
A job he couldn’t walk away from, because the Mourner would probably kill him. He peeled a few bills from his wallet, paying for the gas and the soda.
“Out of curiosity,” he said, “don’t suppose you saw a couple of women come through here recently? Not locals. Out-of-towners on a road trip.”
The clerk, a teenager whose ponytail poked from the back of an oil-smudged baseball cap, thought about it. Then she nodded.
“Yeah, actually. I only remember because they came in and asked for directions. It was maybe three hours ago? One had long black hair, the other was kinda rumpled looking?”
A wave of relief washed from his neck down to his toes, muscles unclenching.
“You’re a lifesaver. Where were they headed?”
“Up to Chicago. They asked the fastest way to the on-ramp, and if I knew what the traffic was like.”
There was an art to a good bribe. Too little, you could offend the person you were trying to win over. Too much, they’d start thinking they had a gold mine on their hands and they might try squeezing for more. Daniel weighed his options. Then he curled a pair of twenties around his finger, held them up for the clerk’s approval, and laid them down on the counter.
“Do me a favor,” he said. “Anyone else comes around asking, you didn’t see anything. You didn’t see them, and you didn’t see me either.”
Detonation Boulevard (The Wisdom's Grave Trilogy Book 2) Page 14