The Neon Boneyard

by Craig Schaefer

  “Never heard of him,” Harding said. The sudden shift in his eyes told me something different.

  “He’s dead now, so I can’t introduce you. But, see, when he told me I could trade my life for my brother’s, I asked him about trading for you and Mayor Seabrook too. And he told me that Seabrook was going to die, nonnegotiable.”

  “Not surprised,” he grunted. “These people are crazy.”

  “The odd thing is,” I said, “he didn’t mention you at all. Then this morning, one of my people found a paper trail originating in a Network-linked bank account. Ten payments over the last three months, four thousand dollars each time, to a newly formed political action committee.”

  I leaned in and laid my hands on the edge of his desk.

  “The Committee to Elect Mayor Harding,” I said.

  His head tried to bury itself in his neck, and his eyes landed anywhere but on me.

  “Can name a PAC anything you goddamn want,” he said. “Sounds like they’re trying to set me up.”

  “Come on, Earl. Give it up. You gave the order to call away the police convoy. You were in on the entire plan. And who could blame you? You’ve got your sights on the throne, or maybe it’s just a step stool to even bigger ambitions, but we both know Seabrook’s welded to her seat. With her polling numbers, it’d take one of two things to get her out of office and out of your way: a massive scandal or a convenient death.”

  He held his stubborn silence until it crumbled in his hands. I waited, patient as a spider.

  “You want to know what’s funny?” he asked me. “This worked out even better than it was supposed to. Plan was, Seabrook would eat a bullet and I’d get some public sympathy points for losing my dear, sweet friend and colleague. Now? You said it: I’m a hero. Hell, I can probably run against her and win clean, if I keep my momentum.”

  “You can,” I said, “but you won’t.”

  Harding locked eyes with me, squinting hard. He might have had the law on his side, but he carried himself like a back-alley thug.

  “Think real careful before you make any threats.”

  I showed him my open hands. “Hey, quite to the contrary. I’m here to extend an offer. You want to be the next mayor? We can make it happen for you.”

  His anger gave way to suspicion. And the tiniest sparkle of greed.

  “You’d stab Seabrook in the back?”

  “What’s she done for us lately?” I said. “I can’t even get her to put a little weight on the Board of Liquor and Gaming. Not even a phone call. If you’d be more willing to play ball, well…we can make things happen for you. Fast.”

  I had him now, a fish on a line. “How fast?”

  “One well-timed tragedy, some backroom pressure in the right places…you could be Mayor Harding by this time next year.”

  He made a show of taking his time. He drummed his fingers on the desk and licked his lips.

  “Ground rules,” he said. “I’ve built my entire career on being a hardliner. Integrity, you understand? You never come here again, and we never meet in person. When we have to talk, we use third-party cutouts.”

  This wasn’t his first tango. I wondered just how many dirty little secrets the commissioner had buried in his backyard.

  “Of course,” I said. “And hey, just to prove my friendship and good intentions, I’d like you to accept a small token of my regard.”

  I slid a gray velvet box across the desk. He took it, suspicious again, and popped it open.

  “A tie clip?” He turned the box from side to side. The diamonds along the platinum glittered in his eyes. “These real?”

  “Absolutely. Go on, try it on. Live a little, Earl. You earned it.”

  He fumbled with the gem-studded clip, prying it from the case, and clipped it onto his tie. It looked garish on him, but he nodded with smug approval.

  “Not bad,” he said. “I could get used to this kind of thing.”

  Then he winced. He pressed one hand to his belly.

  “You okay, buddy? Doing all right?”

  “I just—” He shook his head and pushed his chair back. “I think I ate something I shouldn’t have.”

  He stumbled to his private bathroom as beads of sweat broke out on his ruddy cheeks.

  “Breakfast burritos, Earl,” I called after him. “They always seem like a good idea at the time, but one hour later—”

  The bathroom door slammed shut. I shrugged and circled his desk, jotting a note on his legal pad. Then I ambled out of his office, pausing just long enough to have a word with his receptionist.

  “Hey, Commissioner Harding says not to disturb him for a little bit. He, uh—” I pitched my voice low. “He’s got some intestinal issues.”

  She slapped her pen down on her desk. “He ate dairy again, didn’t he? I tell that man, every single time—”

  “He did,” I said on my way out. “Terrible. Do not go in there, and when you do, bring air freshener.”

  Technically, I was misusing my cursed gifts from the knighting party, and I was probably committing some gross breach of court etiquette. Tough. Sitri knew I was a rebel when he hired me. Besides, I could always steal the tie clip back later. It’d be with the rest of Harding’s personal effects, down at the morgue.

  I needed to send a message, and a simple bullet wouldn’t have done the job. Harding had been working for Elmer Donaghy, directly or through a middleman, and eventually his gruesome fate would filter up the ranks. So would the discreet note I left on his desk, the one that simply read, “Your move.”

  I had one more job to take care of today, and it didn’t involve killing anybody. I was actually going to do something nice for a change and make somebody happy. So of course, I was sweating bullets.

  * * *

  “Don’t make me regret this.”

  Emma punctuated her words with a hard poke at my shoulder. Then she stood, a stony sentry at the edge of the conference room. The lower floor of Winter wasn’t all fun and dark games; the nightclub sported a pair of meeting rooms—sleek, modern, with warm lighting and ergonomic chairs—for handling court business.

  When someone like Melanie ended up in here, it was usually to have a chat with Caitlin. Not the good kind of chat. The two of them were sitting at the end of the beechnut table, Caitlin silently staring, Melanie looking like she was about to slide out of her chair and try to tunnel to freedom.

  “I really don’t know what I did,” she said.

  “Are you absolutely sure about that?” Caitlin asked her.

  Caitlin’s lips curled in the faintest of smiles. Then she giggled, the sound coming out in a tiny sputter.

  “I can’t,” she said. “Melanie, you have this delicious frightened-rabbit affect that makes me want to terrorize you, but I just can’t keep a straight face.”

  Melanie looked from her to her mother to me and back again.

  “What is going on here?” she whispered.

  “What’s going on,” I said, “is that the three of us had a long talk, about you and…things, and…so, uh, did you still want to learn magic?”

  I was not prepared for the scream of joy. Or for Melanie to bound from her chair, race at me, and jump. I suddenly had a hundred and twenty-five pounds of teenager hanging around my neck and squeezing for dear life.

  “There are rules,” her mother announced, but she was glaring at me when she said it. I gently extricated myself as best I could.

  “There are,” I said. “First and foremost, you’ve got to keep your grades up. School comes first.”

  “Totally.” Melanie’s head bobbed like it was on a spring. I could have told her she’d have to walk a tightrope across the Grand Canyon, and I would have gotten the same answer.

  “And,” Caitlin added, “I expect I won’t be receiving any more disciplinary reports. You’ll be on your best behavior at all times and comport yourself as a dignified representative of our court and our prince.”

  I looked her way. “Which one of us are you talking to?” />
  “Both of you.”

  That was fair.

  “Okay,” I told Melanie, “that’s it, then. Report to the Scrivener’s Nook tomorrow after school, and we’ll get started. You’ll need two pairs of black shirts, two pairs of black pants, one pair of combat boots, two pairs of black socks—”

  “Wait, wait!” Melanie grabbed her phone, tapping with both thumbs as fast as she could. “I need to write this down, start over.”

  “No, I was quoting a—” I blinked at her. “I mean, have you never seen Fight Club?”

  She looked up from her phone. “You do know that movie came out the year I was born, right?”

  “Subconsciously, I think I must have realized that on some level, but pointing it out really drives home how old I am. Thanks for that.”

  “Anytime.”

  Emma folded her arms and met my gaze.

  “Welcome to my world,” she told me.

  Maybe Jennifer had been right, back when this whole mess started. Maybe I was having a midlife crisis and my search for a legacy was just a symptom. But I couldn’t shake the hunger to make some kind of a difference, some kind of an impact before I was gone, and I hadn’t been too good at it lately.

  I had tried to help Harry Grimes and show him a better way. In the end, all I could do was put him down like a rabid dog. I held out my hand to Fleiss and she slapped it away.

  But here was someone who needed a hand, who needed the skills I knew I could teach. The only thing holding me back was Desi’s ghost.

  And the only one keeping her alive was me. Besides, I think she would have liked Melanie if they’d ever met. And if anyone would approve of me getting back on the horse and taking on another student, it was Desi. She would have kicked my ass for waiting this long. It was time to let go of the past. Learn from it, yes, but let it go. And try again.

  This time, I’d get it right.

  Epilogue

  There used to be a village nestled deep in the province of Nuevo León. It isn’t there anymore. Survivors streaming into Monterrey, lugging the remnants of their lives in bags and backpacks, told an all too common story. A cartel had been hiding product in a farmer’s storehouse. The mayor talked to the federales. And by night, men with guns came to deliver their punishment.

  That was the story, anyway.

  A dusty, bone-dry day brought new arrivals, rumbling in a convoy along a broken road. Four semi trucks—trailers unmarked, plates mismatched and stolen—ran convoy behind a single white limousine. They followed the ping of a satellite transmitter and left the road, tearing across scrub grass and dirt.

  At the end of the line, they circled ranks and stopped at the edge of the dead village. From a distance, their passengers might have been astronauts, buried under bulky helmets and lime-green Tychem pressure suits. They rolled out hoses and drove stakes into the barren earth, erecting sealed plastic tents.

  By sunset, the village had become a CDC-grade biohazard unit.

  The most prominent—and most secure—encampment was dead center, erected over a lonely pit in the earth. Rough-hewn steps led down to a tunnel where a couple of the new arrivals swept bright white LEDs across the ancient masonry.

  “They didn’t know it was here?” one asked, voice muffled under his hood.

  “The old-timers knew. Didn’t know what it was, but they knew it was bad news and to keep people away from it.”

  “And here we are. Not too bright.”

  “Shh,” his partner said. “He’s here. You don’t want to get downsized, keep your mouth shut.”

  The tunnel dipped and turned and dipped again, a black corkscrew gouging a wound deep into the earth. Then the passage leveled out, and a putrid yellow glow rippled, like light on water, off the walls ahead.

  “Is that…” one of the men breathed.

  They stood before the portal and froze in abject horror.

  “Eden,” said Mr. Smith.

  He stepped up behind them, beaming. The glow washed over his face, his forehead pink and soft like the skin of a newborn baby.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  * * *

  Northlight Tower held vaults within vaults. This one was secured close to the Enemy’s penthouse, so he could keep a close eye on the treasures within. Fleiss often found him wandering the room, muttering to himself, his flickering form reflecting off the polished stainless-steel walls.

  “Not so smart now, are you?” he would say. “No. Not smarter than me.”

  This time, she stood alone, surrounded by pedestals of white Italian marble. Each plinth bore a tiny brass placard and a red velvet pillow, and each pillow bore the tools of a stage magician’s trade. Brass linking rings, a length of sturdy cotton rope with a knot on one end, steel cups and red foam balls.

  Two of the pedestals, reserved for Howard Canton’s wand and top hat, stood empty.

  The terror gripped her, like it always did when she had to report her failure. It sank bone-deep and nailed her feet to the floor.

  “Amazing,” her creator said from the doorway. “Everything going swimmingly, our allies from the Network were doing their part, then you were placed in charge of the final phase. And promptly didn’t obtain the hat, didn’t obtain the wand, and lost Faust.”

  “That isn’t fair.”

  She froze in shock as the words fell from her lips. So did he. She felt his power wash over her, probe at her, as his shadow loomed.

  “Excuse me?” he whispered.

  Fleiss bowed her head. “I…I just mean…my lord, you can’t trust these people. The Network will betray you in a heartbeat.”

  “Of course they will. I’m certain they’re planning on it. But if I can buy their momentary cooperation with the gift of a trifle I don’t even care about, it’s worth the risk. Do you think me a fool, Fleiss?”

  “No, my lord! I just want to watch out for you. Care for you.” She looked up at him. “I love you.”

  He nodded. “I know you do. It pleases me.”

  Daniel Faust’s words on the rooftop, when Fleiss cornered him at Elmer Donaghy’s lair, drifted back to her now.

  “He does love me,” she had insisted, infuriated by his disbelief.

  “Has he ever told you that?”

  And now she realized—as if a patch of fog had been lifted from some far corner of her mind, unveiling something that had been right in front of her all along—that the answer was no.

  “Do…you love me, too?” she asked.

  His flickering fingertips traced the curve of her jaw.

  “You are a very valuable servant,” he replied.

  Then he turned and gusted away without another word, leaving her standing alone.

  She deliberated in silence, then took out her phone. She had arrangements to see to, matters to contemplate further.

  Decisions to make.

  Afterword

  Change isn’t easy.

  I’m writing this afterword from my new office in North Carolina, sipping a Diet Coke on an eighty-degree afternoon. One week ago, I was looking out the window at Chicago snow. There’s nothing like a cross-country move to shake your world apart, but now that it’s finally over and I’m settling in, I’m glad I did it. That’s the other thing about change; it’s stressful and it’s crazy-inducing and it can feel like hell, but more often than not, there’s something good waiting for you on the other side.

  It took a while for Daniel to break out of his inertia, and now he’s found the world never stops moving. Birthdays keep coming (with midlife hovering on his doorstep), challenges keep looming, and the city keeps changing. He has to change along with it. I think that’s a feeling we can all relate to, in a wild and uncertain world, though hopefully most of us aren’t getting shot at quite as often as Daniel is. If there’s a takeaway, I’d say it’s this: if he can survive the combined fury of the Enemy and the Network and teach magic to a teenager, we can survive anything. And change is a lot easier when you face it with friends.

  Speaking of friends
(see what I did there? Segue.), let me give a big shout-out to Team Schaefer: Kira Rubenthaler, my editor (sorry about the roach-pit scene, Kira); James T. Egan, my cover designer; my awesome assistant Maggie Faid; and also-awesome audiobook narrator Adam Verner. I couldn’t do what I do without ’em. And now it’s time for me to bravely venture into the living room, and unpack some more boxes.

  Want to know what’s coming next? Head over to http://www.craigschaeferbooks.com/mailing-list/ and hop onto my mailing list. Once-a-month newsletters, zero spam. Want to reach out? You can find me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/CraigSchaeferBooks, on Twitter as @craig_schaefer, or just drop me an email at craig@craigschaeferbooks.com.

  The Daniel Faust Series

  1. The Long Way Down

  1.5. The White Gold Score

  2. Redemption Song

  3. The Living End

  4. A Plain-Dealing Villain

  5. The Killing Floor Blues

  6. The Castle Doctrine

  7. Double or Nothing

  Also by Craig Schaefer

  Sworn to the Night

  Harmony Black

  The Complete Revanche Cycle