by A. L. Tyler
“It’s a nice house,” I said gently. I’d been in evidence long enough to know there was nothing one could say. Things were things. When a person lost someone, let alone someone important, things became everything and nothing. People clung to them like childhood teddy bears, all the while knowing that they would never fill the unending hole that grief would tunnel through them.
Robert nodded. He took a deep breath. “Nick says you stuck your neck out to find this killer. Stuck it out so far you risked losing your head. That’s really something. Not many people would do that, let alone for someone like Farrow. I want to thank you. Would you take his house?”
It took a moment for Robert’s words to register. I turned to him in shock. “His house?”
“I got no need for it. I got my own place. I can’t go back there knowing he’s not coming back. I know you’re one of us—a refugee from the Bleak—and I know your assets were seized when you went on the list. The Bleak don’t ever give back what they take away.”
I smiled wryly. His words stung on a much deeper level.
“You’re going to need a place to stay, or at least the money from selling it. Please, you’d be doing me a big favor.”
“Oh, Robert, I couldn’t—”
“You could,” he said flatly. His eye twitched as he downed the rest of the amber beer. “And you will. I already told Nick. He’ll make sure it happens. You’re absolutely sure you’re no relation to Samson Grift?”
“I’m sure,” I said. “Robert, I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”
“Oh.” He set his glass down suddenly. “I forgot. I almost forgot—there’s a flower bed in the back yard, and you must never dig it up.”
I cocked my head in apprehension. “Okay. I guess I can honor that.”
“There’s a box buried there. You can’t open it.”
“What’s in the box?”
Robert squeezed his eyes shut and put both hands on his temples. “I can’t remember. Just don’t open the box. Consider it my payment for the property.”
I didn’t blink as I watched him, forehead veins straining as he appeared to be comically holding in his own brains. This wasn’t the type of promise I liked to keep. “Alright.”
Robert immediately relaxed. He snapped his fingers and the bar tender brought another beer. “And get a cat. Farrow had a rodent problem.”
“I will take that under advisement.”
“I’m sure you’re going to do great things.”
“Thank you,” I nodded. “I hope so.”
“You will,” Robert said with certainty. “Nick has an eye for the good ones. He picked up Samson, too, and even with his faults, Samson did great things. But you’re not him. I’m sorry for the mistake. Jette, was it?”
I nodded. His memory must have been truly fried by whatever rebounded on him.
“Good luck, Jette. And take care of Nick. He puts on a good show, but he needs taking care of. He lost some people a long time ago, and you can never make yourself whole again. He tries. Sometimes with the wrong people, but you seem like the right type. You’ll watch over him, won’t you?”
I smiled a little. “Yeah. I’ll watch over him.”
Robert smiled. He gave me a nod and pulled on a knit hat before heading back out the door.
I stared after him, shaking my head a little as Nick came back over. He resumed his place next to me, leaning back on the bar.
He nodded at Robert. “He didn’t say anything weird, did he?”
I did a double take. “Are you kidding me? I usually meet guys like him buying used shit on Craigslist. And speaking of used shit, I might need your help digging up a flower bed behind Farrow’s house.”
Nick turned back toward the bar, settling onto a stool. He looked confused. “There aren’t any flower beds behind Farrow’s house. And believe me, I’ve been there enough times to know.”
I rested my hand around the shot Kane had left me. I scoffed in defeat. “You’ve got some weird friends.”
“Everyone serves a purpose.” His eyebrows went up and he nodded. “Even Kane serves a purpose.”
“Being a moochy drinking buddy is not a purpose.”
He laughed. “Yeah. Well, he knows some things. There are a lot of damaged people in this world, but I’ve found the vast majority of them are diamonds in the rough. You have to look for it, though. You’re going to have to become a lot less cynical if you’re going to work with me.”
He put his elbows on the bar, and his jacket spread just enough to show some of the inner pockets that held his arsenal of protections and attacks.
I sighed, shaking my head. I wasn’t sure if I could get used to the sound of any of those things constantly riding in my jacket, but there was one I wouldn’t ever carry. “If I’m going to work with you, we’re talking about those cuffs.”
“What about the cuffs?”
“Get rid of them. They’re going to remind me of Bailey’s too much.” The feeling of total powerlessness and dead silence sent a fresh shiver down my spine.
“No. The cuffs stay, because they’re awesome and you know it. Are you going to drink that?”
I could tell, though, that even the mention of what had happened at Bailey’s had shaken him. He’d taken a leap of faith that I could handle myself if he laid down his life as a distraction. I pushed the shot toward him and he rested it between his thumb and fingers.
“The cuffs are useful. You’ll see the day we need them and they stop some asshole from taking a shot at you...”
But my brain was too busy to listen, because I was reliving those moments. Stepping into Bailey’s house. Feeling naked without my magic. Realizing that there were wards.
And wards meant that someone—someone who knew magic, and very well—was helping him. And for just a moment, I wondered why someone would bother dragging a body, at least partially hidden in a kitchen, over next to the window by the back door. And then leaving the murder weapon in plain sight.
It was almost like they wanted to be caught. Noticed by the Bleak. And when the body wasn’t found after a day or two, they sent someone back to set a fire.
Pretty hard to miss a fire.
Pretty hard to miss a guy murdered with his own athame.
What if none of this was actually about Bailey and Travis Gregory?
“...I’m keeping them. End of story.” Nick raised the shot.
I put my hand over the top of the shot glass just as he lifted it, barely stopping him in time. His lips touched my fingers. I felt his teeth brush my skin.
I pushed the shot back to the table as I frowned. My pulse quickened, and I was uncomfortably aware that Nick noticed as his eyes wandered over me.
I slowly drew my hand away.
If Bailey or anyone else had found Joe and Farrow by following me, then surely they knew about Nick and Kane. Kane had been ordering in food for every meal.
If poison was these hunters’ modus operandi, opportunities didn’t get much better than that. Kane had been a little too insistent that we partake of the libations when he poured our shots, too.
“Driftwood?” Nick asked, frowning. “Jette?”
“Who made your cuffs?” I asked the question, but I already knew the answer.
Nick’s eyes flashed. I took my hand off the shot as we slowly turned around to look out at the room again.
And we stared out at everyone, drinking, with no idea if any of the bottles had been new when we entered.
Nick dropped the volume of his voice. “Where is he?”
“He’s gone,” I said, my eyes doing another sweep to be sure.
Nick swore under his breath. “Did you drink anything out of a cup?”
“I opened all of my own cans,” I said. “Thank the gods for Marge and her lectures on bars and roofies.”
“I’m going to need you to put up a barrier around this building. Now. And plan on holding it all night.”
Complicated spell work, but with the fear coursing through me, my mana burn wa
s suddenly feeling peckish. Sealing an entire building wasn’t beyond me.
Nick was already moving. He approached Alan first, and then went on to whisper in the ear of a shorter woman with gray hair. The three of them started to move, and so did I.
I went to the doors, and then the windows, and Nick walked with me to make sure our perimeter was secure as he made a phone call for backup.
We didn’t know how many drinks Kane had handed out. The bartender was missing, and we didn’t know how many bottles had been tainted. It didn’t matter.
Because what followed was chaos.
Chapter 36
IT STARTED WITH CONFUSION and disorientation, and in magically armed handlers, that’s a bad combination. Paranoia set in. People were collapsed over tables and stumbling to the bathroom to throw up. Anyone with an aggressive streak started making accusations and taking shots.
Nick and Allen Tack were restraining a burly janitor when Allen collapsed on the floor. Nick took a punch on his chin that knocked him backwards into a table.
I hit the big guy with a frost ball that knocked him back into the wall and he dropped, motionless and groaning, on the floor.
“Keep the barrier up!” Nick growled.
“You’re welcome!” I snapped, but I could see his point. My focus needed to be where it mattered.
This was what they wanted. These were probably the best handlers in the region but killing them now would have been like shooting fish in a barrel.
My anxiety was reaching a fever pitch as we tried to keep people from panicking or doing anything dangerous. Some of them were trying to stagger away in escape or perform defensive spells now out of their league as all of their training told them to flee or fight with everything they had.
We were dodging curses and shrapnel from exploding bottles. Dragging unconscious bodies out of the way. Calming people who were having psychotic freak outs.
And every so often, I could hear them outside, brushing against the magic wall I had created. They were testing for an opening.
When everyone was finally restrained, contained, or silent, I stood in the center of the bar with Nick.
“Are they coming?” I asked in agitation. “Any backup?”
“The backup I would want is already here,” Nick said with a furled lip, his eyes darting around the room. “But yeah, they’re sending the bait, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Bait?” I shook my head. “You mean interns?”
“Rookies. Newbies. Bait. Why?”
I exhaled as my nerves overtook me and my palms started to burn. “Because they’re here. They’re waiting.”
I stalked toward the door, stretching my aching fingers.
“Wait!” Nick grabbed my arm.
I spun on him and he let go. There were blue flames licking up my wrist, and I stripped off my jacket and dropped it on the floor.
“If I don’t go out there, this will be a slaughter,” I said under my breath. I was eerily aware of the people around us, some still disoriented and awake, and some quietly trapped in the prisons of their bodies.
Nick stepped in close to me and grabbed my arm again to keep me from moving away. I smelled the musk of the leather jacket he was wearing mingling with the sweet notes of the alcohol around us as he whispered in my ear.
“You are a desk rider,” he said. He stared straight into my eyes. I had to tilt my head up to hold his gaze. “You can’t go out there. What are you going to do?”
I tried to keep my breathing slow. I had to hold the flames on my left wrist out and away from us to keep from scorching him. It was a building harmony now, but I could feel the crescendo coming.
And if I wasn’t outside when it hit, this song would bring down the house. Literally.
“I’m going to talk it out with them. Gods, Nick, what do you think I’m going to do?”
“If you die, the barrier goes down,” he said. “I’m going with you.”
He still didn’t understand. I stared straight into Nick’s eyes. “You’re not going to want me in here in a minute. And you’re not going to want to be out there with me, either.”
Now he understood. “Jette...”
He grimaced as he let me go. I flexed my fingers, sending shock waves through the buzzing music around me, and walked out the door.
“Do not die. You hear me? Do not die!”
Thanks, Nick. Because I really needed more pressure. I was ready to blow. “I won’t.”
The music was too loud. Too unfocused.
It was like being between stations on the radio. Punk rock competing with Tchaikovsky. Focus...
Focus on the plan. Because this time, I had a plan.
A plan that sucked, but still.
“Kane!” I called into the night. The bar was located on one of the street malls in Fowl Gulch, and while this place would be bustling in daylight hours, everything was shut down now. The only parking lot with cars was next to the bar. Bright street lamps fell on the empty spaces that lined the street. “Darling!”
I stopped at the edge of the sidewalk. The edge of my barrier. I could still feel them, pushing, testing...
And something hit the barrier hard in the back alley.
Magic. Kane.
I walked quickly to the back, still trying to tune my own discomfort as the flames leaked out.
He was standing by the dumpsters, smoking. I stopped to face him, just inside my barrier. Only an arm’s length and a shitload of magic separated us.
“You,” Kane said with a little smile. He shook a finger at me. “You promised me you’d relax and have a drink. You’re too uptight, Sparky.”
“It was you,” I said. “You were the inside man from the start.”
“Always running a con.” He frowned. “But really, this was your fault.”
“My fault?”
He flicked his cigarette away and exhaled sharply, sending a plume of smoke at me. It hit the barrier and turned back on him, shrouding him in a halo of white. “Bailey was keeping tabs on you. Since high school, the way he told it, but we both know that wasn’t the case. When Nick picked up your case, and he told me to keep an eye on you. And when your memory spell gone amateur saw me following you, he took me in so that they wouldn’t find you. And he had bullets, Sparky.” His eyes flashed anger. “Bleak bullets. He said he was going to shoot me to see how long I’d make it, but he couldn’t let me live. I was going to draw his friends’ attention to you, and he really didn’t want that. So, I did what I do. I said I’d help him protect you. I said that for the right price, I could give him a bigger catch, too.”
“Why?” I asked quietly. Maybe I had stared at too many crime scene photos. Too many murders. Marge said there was no use in asking, but now I had one right in front of me. I had to know. “Why would you do this them? What did they do to you?”
“They?” Kane asked disinterestedly. He dropped his cigarette and stepped on it. “Who?”
“The Gregorys,” I said. “Joe and Farrow. The handlers. The Bleak. Why?”
“Bailey’s little squad of psychos had already put a target on the Gregorys. They were going to die anyway. I just told them how to get attention with it.” He licked his lips, shoving his hands into his coat pockets. His smile was sickening and serene. “And as for the handlers? The Bleak? Money, Sparky. My last con. I’m going to retire a rich man.”
“But you have talent,” I said. “Your wards are the best I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t even break them. You could have made an honest living—”
He laughed. “You’re one to talk. Trying to sell me on working for the Bleak? Fuck that. Everyone knows what they are, and it isn’t an honest living. They use people up and then they get rid of them. No loyalty among thieves, Driftwood. As I’m sure you’re aware, the only happy endings these days are the ones you work hard for. You can work for thieves and murderers and make an ending for the Bleak, or you can work for thieves and murderers and make one for yourself.” He pulled a gun from his pocket and aimed
it at me. “And you’re the only thing standing between me and my happy ending.”
I stared at the gun. I looked back at Kane. “You’re not going to shoot me.”
“I’m not? If Bailey hadn’t had the hots for you, this would have happened a lot sooner. He repeatedly begged me to keep your secret from the others. Wanted to try to fix you. Lucky for all of us, he’s out of the picture now.”
POP.
I stared down at the blood pooling in my hand as I pressed my palm against the hole in my shirt.
He’d shot me in the stomach.
And then my plan went to shit.
Chapter 37
TIME FOR A NEW PLAN.
I had tensed at the same moment that the gunshot rang out. Instinctively, I knew that the only way to stop that bullet from stripping my magic was to stop it from penetrating my skin. In that crucial millisecond, I had thrown out a barrier just around myself. It hadn't stopped the bullet.
But it had slowed it down.
It sounded like I was standing next to a jet engine, and I could feel the magic leaching from the bullet into my system.
My barrier around the bar was gone. My barrier around myself was gone. I was at his mercy.
I clutched at my stomach, where the bullet had struck me, and I closed my eyes.
I could feel it. It was only a superficial wound—just beneath the surface of the skin, and the casing was still intact. I still had a chance.
I covered one hand with the other as Kane stepped forward, over the threshold of the barrier I could no longer hold in place. The gun was still in his hand. He smiled to himself.
I tried to make it look like I was clutching the wound. I knew what I had to do. With my covered hand, I dug through the blood and carnage and tried to pull the bullet out.
Kane knelt down next to me as I screamed in agony. He grabbed the front of my shirt to pull me up and then settled me tenderly in his lap.
“See, this is the problem, Sparky,” he said in a whisper. He ran one hand over my hair as a cold sweat broke on my brow. “You're no good at this job. You spend all this time with me, and you think you’ve got me figured out, but that's because you're good at logic. Handlers don’t survive on logic.” He pointed the gun at my chest. I cringed. “They can feel it, right here, when something isn’t right. They feel it. Fuck thinking. That’s how they survive. But you’ve got nothing in there, because it’s all in your head.”