by Tom Larcombe
Amber shrugged.
“I'm alive, but what have I done? We're guessing I'm around forty years old and I spent almost all of them as a pre-teen living in a gang house. I've got a lot to make up for if I'm going to be worth what she did to save me.”
“Well, you're working on it now at least, and you've probably got a century or two of life in which to catch up. You'll manage it, I'm sure.”
She sighed heavily.
“I hope so. I wish I knew why she did what she did. Maybe she could've saved herself if she hadn't.”
“There's no way of knowing, so don't tear yourself up over it. Just... This will sound corny, but just do what you feel is right. If you have any questions about that, ask Greg or myself. We'd be happy to be a sounding board for you. I'm sure I can speak for him on this, I know him at least that well.”
She smiled faintly at him.
“I'll do that,” she said.
* * *
The rest of the week was spent training Amber more intensively. Charles couldn't recall ever having a student pick things up as quickly as she did. And it wasn't just one thing, everything related to magic came to her, if not easily, then at least quickly. She still had problems with some things, mainly the ones that required longer periods of focused concentration. But simple things that could be done with a moment's thought she picked up in under an hour. She even learned the things that required longer concentration as well, he quizzed her on them, she just couldn't reliably perform them yet.
When Monday rolled around he led her down to the parking lot.
“You actually own a car?” she asked. “I thought you were all public transport and your pickup truck for transportation.”
“Ever tried to walk a two hour drive or drive it in a beater truck?” he asked. “I own a car, I just don't use it a lot.”
It was a classic early model Honda Accord sedan, somehow still in near mint condition.
“Who'd have guessed,” she said. “You know, If I pictured you driving a car? This would be the one.”
“Was that supposed to be a dig at me? It's a very reliable car and gets incredible mileage, well at least for one built in the seventies. Plus it has the added bonus of no computer in there to get screwed up if I get irritated at someone while I'm driving.”
She looked at him, then at the car.
“Well, I needed something I could drive for when I had longer trips. I didn't want anything with a complicated computer I could fry, so I had to go older,” he said, defensively.
“I wasn't questioning you, I was just trying to get over the fact that you own a car and a truck,” she replied. “I never would've guessed that you did.”
“Just get in, we're going to be late if we keep this up much longer.”
Later that afternoon, she sat on the couch in Charles' living room, staring out the window, mumbling.
“Two million dollars? Two million dollars...”
“It's not as much money as it sounds,” Charles said. “But your great-grandmother chose some incredible investments, I'll say that much.”
The door burst open and Greg came running in. He looked around quickly, but didn't see Amber slumped down on the couch.
“Charles, they're still there!” Greg said. “But not for long. These last few years there's been a listing for cull notes, of people they're going to remove from the community. They're both on that culling list this year and the date shown is only about a month from now.”
Charles was desperately trying to shush Greg throughout his speech, holding a finger to his lips and pointing at Amber. Finally Greg stepped forward enough to look over the back of the couch. When he did, Amber was staring straight up at him.
“Who is on this cull list that you're so excited about?” she asked him.
Greg's jaw dropped open.
“Uhhhh...” he said.
“If we're going to have to act within the month, you might as well go and tell her,” Charles said.
“So, who is it?” she asked again.
Greg's jaw snapped shut.
“Molly and Peter,” he replied.
“My mom and dad? I thought they were dead!”
“So did we, until just recently. I found their name on some lists as I was decoding the paperwork we took from the factory.”
“And you didn't tell me?” Amber said, her voice rising as she stood.
Greg stared at her, slack-jawed again. Charles cleared his throat.
“He told me a few days ago, but he hadn't decoded the latest census lists yet. We didn't want to tell you they were alive, until we knew that they were still alive. At first we only knew that they were alive ten years ago, not very useful information, right? But, as you heard, now we know that they're still alive.”
The expression on her face crashed.
“But, why didn't they look for me if they were alive?”
“They're listed as being part of a 'support community'. Greg and I believe that that's a code name for a jail or something of the sort. If they're being held prisoner, they couldn't look for you, right?”
“You're sure of that? That they're being held prisoner?”
“Well, there's a bunch of other names we recognized from the people who went missing. Would you willingly work to support someone who kidnapped you?” Greg asked. “And these are the same people that were holding Ted and company.”
“Plus, this cull list Greg just found,” Charles added. “One of the definitions is to remove by killing, normally applied to animals when used that way. But if our theories are correct, I could see them using it to refer to people here.”
“You said a month, right? They're going to kill them in a month?” Amber said.
“That's the dates that were showing,” Greg replied.
“So where are they?” she said.
“At this other factory, this power generation factory.”
“Where's that?”
Greg stopped for a second.
“I don't know yet, I don't have an address. But there's still more paperwork for me to decode. It might be in there,” he said.
“Please? Find where they are? I've got to get them out of there,” Amber said.
* * *
* * *
Chapter 18
My parents are alive, Amber thought. But he didn't say anything about my grandma. That's not encouraging. I can barely remember my parents, most of the few memories I have are of grandma. But maybe if I can get my parents out of there, then I might actually get to know them.
She was puttering around her apartment, not really doing much of anything. She was too distracted to work on some of the magic Charles had her studying, but not tired enough to sleep. Finally, she settled down with one of the books Greg had brought for her. It didn't work to keep her distracted either, but this way she could just stop reading whenever the distraction became too much.
Damn it all! If only I knew where they were I could be doing something about it instead of just sitting here while they're held prisoner someplace. It's got to be even worse for them than it was for Ted, it was only ten years for Ted, but they've been kept prisoner for four times that long.
She couldn't stand it any longer so she got up and headed for Charles' apartment. She knocked on the door softly since Ted was still sleeping about fourteen hours a day and had just been lying down to nap when she left earlier. Charles opened the door after about a minute and motioned her in.
“He's still sleeping,” Charles mouthed.
She nodded and pointed to the kitchen. Once they were in there she spoke softly.
“Charles, is there any other way to tell where my parents are? In case Greg doesn't find it in that paperwork?”
“There is, but it has its own drawbacks.”
“What is it?”
“Divination,” Charles said. “But the problem is that divination never, ever gives a straightforward answer. It's always something that's perfectly clear in hindsight, but takes a lot of work to solve beforehand. It's
easily misunderstood also, so if we have to do that we want to know as much about the problem we're trying to solve as we can first.”
“Who can do divination?” she asked.
“Mostly Spirit Wizards. But occasionally some of the other elements show a degree of skill at it as well. Except for Earth Wizards, I've never heard of someone doing divination with Earth Magic. Air Wizards sometimes get premonitions, Water Wizards can scry in a pool, and Fire Wizards can occasionally see things in the flames. Earth Wizards are pretty well left out of that though.”
“Oh,” Amber said.
Crap, I'd been hoping there might be something he could teach me, but he's just got Earth Magic so that's out of the question. Maybe Ted knows something though, or Greg, they're both fire and spirit so they might. I'll ask Ted when he wakes up again.
“Is there anything I can help with?” Amber said. “I'm going nuts with my thoughts running in circles and I keep getting distracted so I can't work on my magic.”
“Not unless you want to start cleaning up your parents' apartment. They'll need a place to stay after we rescue them and where better than their own apartment?”
“I don't know that that would help, I think it might just distract me more,” Amber said.
“I can't think of anything else right now. Maybe you could go up to the garden and talk with Rose? She's been complaining that I don't spend enough time up there now that I have a student again.”
Amber thought about it for a moment. The last time she'd talked with the little fae, it had been obvious there was some jealousy on the fae's part.
“No, she doesn't like me too much. She thinks I take up too much of your time and is holding that against me.”
“I don't understand why she's like that,” Charles said. “She never used to be.”
“How much more time did you spend up there then? With me here as a student and Kathryn frequently here as well, how much time do you spend with Rose now?”
“Okay, I kind of understand that. But she's a fae, why would she want to spend so much time with a human?”
He really doesn't get it, Amber thought. He doesn't know that Rose thinks she's in love with him. Even I can see that and I'm not exactly the best at judging human emotions, never mind interspecies emotions.
“Well, I'm going to go back down to my apartment then. Maybe I'll figure out something to do,” she said.
“I'll call you later for dinner. Right now I'm trying to think of what we might need to take with us for the rescue that won't change depending on the situation. I figure there's a few things we'll need regardless of anything else and am trying to get those taken care of now.”
“That's a good plan,” she said. “Let me know if you need help.”
She let herself out of the apartment, careful not to disturb Ted, and went back down to her own.
Actually, that's a really good plan, she thought. And I know just what I want with me regardless of anything else. A smaller gun than dad's revolver. The damned thing almost broke my wrist when I shot it and I couldn't manage to aim at all when I was trying to shoot as fast as I could. So, I need to find a nine millimeter. I wonder who's in charge back at the building now? I bet they'll remember me and I can work a deal with them now that Eric's gone.
She barely noticed that the thought of Eric's death no longer set her off. It remained a queasy, uncomfortable feeling knowing that she'd caused it, but the thought of it no longer incapacitated her.
* * *
Amber retrieved her remaining cash. She'd actually had more than she told Charles. Understating her resources was a long ingrained habit from when she'd been living on the streets. If others had known what she had then, they would've wanted it for themselves and tried to take it, so she'd always lied about it. That way they left her be, thinking that she had barely anything herself.
Five hundred and a little. I'll leave that little here to last me until I get that bank card they told me they'd send. It should be here in a couple of days. But the five hundred ought to be enough to get me something in nine mil.
She set off back towards the building that had been her home for what seemed like forever. In the middle of the day, the streets were more crowded than she was used to so it took her longer than she'd thought it should. When she got to the building she was shocked.
All the entrances were completely covered with yellow police tape. Even the side entrance in the alley that they'd used that wasn't a door, just a broken out window covered in plywood with a hinge for it to swing open.
What the hell happened here? I guess I got out just in time and I'm glad Alicia came with me, but what about Josh? I could care less what happened to Tim or the Guardians, but Josh was a good sort and so were a few of the others. Crap! What am I gonna do about a weapon now? I've still got dad's revolver, but damn that thing's tough to shoot, at least to shoot well without breaking my wrist.
Rather than stay near the building, where she knew she might draw attention, her feet were wandering off, directed by her subconscious. Lost in her thoughts, she was surprised to realize she was in front of Second Chance Books.
She let herself into the store and, when the bell over it jingled, Greg looked up from the counter where he had papers spread all over the place.
“Amber, what's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost,” he said.
“I think there's something wrong. I was going back to the building, was going to try to make some contacts again, but it's all taped up. Police tape, you know? It looks like they raided the place, but they've never done that before. The only thing I can think of that's different now is that I'm gone and I can't help but remember what Eric said about a benefactor who was keeping the water and electric on, and the police off our backs.”
“Are you serious? The building was never raided before?” Greg asked.
“Not as long as I've been there and we decided that was what, around forty years?”
The silence stretched out between them.
“Sorry Amber, I'm just thinking here,” Greg said.
After another brief pause he looked up at her.
“We could have a serious problem,” he said.
“What? Just because the building got raided?”
“It wasn't raided in forty years. Eric said your benefactor was responsible for that, for keeping the police off of them. Who's got the kind of pull to keep the police away from a specific building for that long. Or to keep the accounts at the water and electric companies from showing up, or just being ignored, for that long? It's got to be someone with a lot of pull.”
“Yeah, but that'd be easy. You said it's a Spirit Wizard, right? He just has to go in and make someone forget about one specific account, or go into the chief of police's mind and put something there that keeps him away from the building.”
“Yeah, but within a couple of weeks of your being gone, the police raided it. That means that either he set some compulsion so they wouldn't do it while you were there, which would mean someone is keeping tabs on you somehow, or he had access so easily that as soon as he found out you were gone he revoked their immunity with the police. I don't like either of those options.”
“I hadn't thought of it that way. I just figured he could wander within sight of someone and do it.”
“If that's the case then we've got bigger problems than I thought. Either way we do, really. If he's got that kind of pull and finds out we're after him, then we'll have problems. He could set the police after us or have the utilities shut off, or any number of things.”
“Well, he can't shut the electric off to Charles' place, he makes all his own, remember?”
“Yeah, but he could have the water shut off. The other option scares me more though.”
“What, being able to do his thing just by seeing someone?”
Greg nodded.
“Most Spirit Wizards I know would have to talk to someone for at least a few minutes, drop something into the conversation to bring the topic they want to work thei
r magic on to the front of the victim's mind, then plant their compulsion. If this guy can do it by just looking at someone, then they're a lot more powerful than any Spirit Wizard I've heard of.”
“I think I still have a lot to learn about magic,” Amber said.
“Most people study for years under a mentor and still don't know everything they should, you've just had a few weeks, so give it some time. Now, why were you trying to make contact with your old gang?” he asked.
Amber blushed.
“Um, I don't know if I should say anything about it. I don't think you'd approve.”
“I'm not Charles, we have very different mindsets. Now, out with it.”
“Well... my dad's revolver? I'm not that good with it. It packs too much recoil and I hurt my wrist. It's hard to aim too, if you're trying to fire fast. I was going to negotiate for a nine millimeter and some ammo. That's what I fired before and even before I started growing I didn't have any problems with controlling that one.”
“Ah, you're worried about gun control, the proper form of it. As in, can you control your gun?”
She chuckled briefly, then nodded.
“So, did you want a concealable one or a full-sized model?” he asked.
Amber stared at him blankly.
“Earth to Amber, you there?” he asked.
“Why do you care what kind I want?” she asked.
Greg walked out from behind the counter and flipped the lock, hanging a sign on the door that said 'back in fifteen minutes' after setting the little clock on it to the current time.
“Follow me,” he said.
Amber followed him into the back room. Greg pushed the table out of the way, then knelt down and pulled out what looked like a solid chunk of the floor, revealing a handle. When he tugged on the handle, a trapdoor rose out of the floor, swing over into open position with a quiet 'chunk'.
“This is why,” he said, walking down the stairs beneath.
She followed him down into a dark room. When Greg flipped a switch, her breath caught. The room boggled her mind. It was filled with a variety of items, most of which she couldn't picture Greg owning. One entire wall held racked guns.