Silver Bound (Sammy Davis Book 1)

by Holly Rutan

  Our destination was a big grocery store parking lot. Plenty of emergency vehicles were already present. Crews standing around in yellow rain slickers were organizing parking and directing the flow of supplies. My group of six exited and headed toward a knot of people who appeared to be in charge.

  "How the fuck are we expected to work in this?" I shouted, waving at the sheets of water pounding the pavement. The rain was so loud I could hardly hear anything, and even with our slickers and boots, we were cold. A trickle of water ran down the back of my neck. It felt like ice, and the earth kept trembling. The almost imperceptible aftershocks made me feel skittish as a deer, and I sniffed the water-soaked air uneasily.

  "It will rain like this for a few hours, then lighten up to a drizzle for about the same amount of time," a black-bearded man answered, his voice raised to carry. "Soon as conditions get better, we're sending you straight out."

  A round of introductions followed. The black-bearded man turned out to be the site organizer. We were instructed to head to an eye-searing orange tent to review maps and get as ready as we could. A local would be taking us on site.

  About an hour later, the rain reduced to mist abruptly, as though someone had flipped a switch. The silence was so complete that my ears rang in protest. I couldn't even hear the current. I flipped my hood back and sniffed at the sky, ignoring the water that trickled down my face, and listened. Still no current. I shifted to battle form and listened with sharper senses, anxiety growing in my belly. With a whine, I opened my muzzle and howled an experimental note to the sky. It fell flat, as though the song were sucked from my lips and into silence.

  This can't be natural, I signed to Moira, and ran splashing over to the site organizer with my partner trailing behind. He looked blankly at my gestures, so I forced myself back into human form, ignoring the lightheadedness that came from shape-shifting back and forth in close succession.

  "This storm isn't natural, Daniel," I stated. Water dripped from my chin, and I brushed it away with an impatient gesture. "It's magical in origin. Where are all your mages? Someone should have reported this by now."

  Daniel shook his head and spread his hands. "I have no idea; I'm fire department, not DMA. We don't have any mages on my staff."

  I growled and headed for the DMA vehicle we'd taken to the site to pull the radio from the dash. It took a good five minutes to convince the local office to relay my call so I could contact Headquarters.

  "Madeline, can I have Voneshi please? It's urgent."

  "He's in a meeting, honey. Can it wait?" the dispatcher asked.

  "No, it can't," I said.

  Madeline put me on hold. I fidgeted while she got ahold of my boss. If it hadn't been such a dire situation, I would have waited. He was not fond of interruptions, and Madeline would be getting the rough side of his tongue if he thought she was too permissive in allowing my call.

  "Voneshi." His tone was curt.

  "Sir, it's Agent Davis. We just arrived up here in Santa Cruz. Sorry to interrupt your business, but this's important," I started.

  "What's going on?" he asked.

  "I think the weather patterns have been tampered with. All the local current has been drained somehow. The air's dead. I can barely hear any magic up here at all." I was talking and watching Daniel. The black-bearded man shifted from foot to foot. Around us, people were scrambling to get out in the field before the rain returned. The ground trembled again, and we all ignored it.

  "All right, I'll get in contact with the San Francisco headquarters. You get on to your business. Call if you notice anything more." He hung up.

  "What do you mean, it's magical?" Daniel demanded once I'd gotten off the radio.

  "Someone or something caused this storm to happen. The bad news is that means we might have one hell of a mass murderer on the loose. Maybe some sort of terrorist. The good news is it means we can make it stop as soon as they figure out what happened." I frowned at him. "Don't say anything to the press until we have clearance."

  "I'll keep it to myself," he promised.

  We nodded and rejoined our crew, who were waiting with our guide to get started.

  Searching in the rain through mud and rubble for survivors was a miserable experience. Moira and I walked ahead of the rest of our group, along with our guide. We had to move far enough away that the diggers would not interfere with my nose. The scene was enough of a mess that every scent I could eliminate counted, and the constant fear-scent from the diggers qualified as a distraction all by itself. I strained my senses, listening for heartbeats and the sound of breathing, and scoured the ground for clues, sucking deep lungfuls of air as I hunted down the traces of people buried under layers of mud, broken trees, and the shattered fragments of a small town. Corpse sniffing was best done in beast form, and I had mud up to my shoulders within moments.

  It didn't take long to find my first body, and I heaved out the remains of my breakfast in a miserable retch. Hunger warred with years of Departmental conditioning. I threw up, my stomach cramping, until I was so sick blood trickled from my mouth to mix with rain and vomit. Afterward, I had to do my best just to breathe.

  "What's wrong with it?" one of the locals asked.

  "She found a body," Moira answered grimly, cradling my shaking body in her arms. "She'll calm down in a few minutes."

  The volunteer stuck a red flag in the mud.

  More often than not, what I found were bodies. Moira paced next to me, planting red flags where I indicated, her face an unreadable mask but her scent heavy with sorrow. The rest of our crew followed behind, recovering corpses if they could and leaving the flags if they could not. Some of the bodies were crushed under hundreds or thousands of pounds of broken concrete and huge tree trunks, and they would have to wait.

  Gray fur made black with mud was plastered to my skin. Water dripped down my sides in ice-cold rivulets. I was aching and my belly was cramping with hunger and nausea by the time I found my first live person. We'd tagged maybe a dozen bodies, and I was casting about near a mostly buried section of wall when I heard a noise.

  I stopped and lifted my head, excited, and then put my nose to the ground to home in on my target. Female, stinking of pain and fear. I barked. Near my feet was a little hole, and I heard a weak cry. I woofed reassuringly, and a filthy hand reached out toward me, then fell back. I shifted to human form and reached a hand down toward hers.

  "Don't worry, ma'am, I see you. We'll get you out, hold on. Are you injured?" I called down to her.

  "Oh, thank God, thank God. I'm stuck, I can't get out. Something's on my legs." The woman sounded like she was weeping. I took her dirty, cold hand in mine.

  "There's a team incoming, just hold tight. We've got you." I kept up a reassuring patter while our crew came in. Since her legs were trapped, we had to come in from the top, lifting the rubble pinning her down. It was a tricky business, complicated by the periodic shaking.

  The woman was under a part of the wall that had been knocked into a car by mud, creating a kind of shelter. Broken bricks and mud had covered her legs with a crushing weight. Fortunately, she only had some broken bones—a relatively minor and recoverable set of injuries.

  Partway through the rescue effort, I apologized for leaving and wished her well. We had to keep going; there were others to search for.

  Aside from a lucky find of a whole family together in one room that had been buried but miraculously not collapsed, I only found two other people alive. A trail of red flags littered my path, a sad memorial to the dead. We were finding them faster than we could recover the bodies.

  After a few hours, we had to head back because the rain switched from a sprinkle to a downpour. I sadly noted that some of the flags washed away as we picked our way back. It was no longer safe to work. Logs shifted, and the mud oozed and moved, creating near invisible potholes. One of my crew sprained an ankle and ended up on one of the stretchers intended for the survivors.

  Mud-caked and weary, we returned to the stagi
ng area. Tents had been erected during the calm hours, and after eating a sandwich at Moira's insistence, I staggered toward the offered shelter and fell into oblivion.

  The next few days fell into a pattern. The rain slowed, we went out, rescued who we could, tagged who we couldn't, and came back when the rain got heavy. The torrential downpours gave us a chance to eat and sleep. I started having nightmares about those red flags and the heavy stench of death. Moira made me wear my bracelet at night.

  The only bright note was when the volunteers started speaking to me directly. Shared sacrifice and exhaustion tends to wear away at ugly stereotypes, especially when I always met their fear with courtesy.

  We never got an update on the missing current, but on the fourth day, the rain abruptly stopped. Overhead, the clouds began to break up, letting in weak sunshine. Wild music surged forth in my mind so strongly that I howled in delighted harmony, letting the small magic gathered by my notes dissipate harmlessly. The men and women with me cheered.

  We celebrated for bare moments before resuming our efforts. There was no time to waste. With the weather clearing up, we could increase our pace, covering more territory. The broken ground was treacherous, and we risked turned ankles by moving more quickly, so I tested the footing to mark a safe path. A broken ankle was only a minor inconvenience to me. It was well worth risking that pain with so many lives at stake.

  Once, I stepped onto apparently solid ground and fell straight through the crust of dried mud and into a sinkhole. I nearly drowned struggling in the muddy water. My crew pulled me out of the pit with ropes, and I lay on the ground, coughing up water and blinking grit out of my eyes. We took a five minute rest.

  By the end of the week, we were finding no more survivors. We were done. Corpse-sniffing dogs could take over to finish the recovery effort. The dead were patient; they could handle the additional wait.

  Chapter Six

  I woke up the next morning, feeling amazingly refreshed. It seemed like an eternity since I had gotten enough sleep, and I lazed about in bed for nearly an hour, enjoying the luxurious feel of clean, dry sheets. I rolled indolently out of bed and took a hot shower. Clean water that didn't come from a bottle. A miracle!

  I didn't feel like cooking, so I strolled from my apartment down the street to a little family-owned diner, buying a newspaper from a vending machine on the way. My usual booth was way in the back next to the kitchen, where I wouldn't bother the more skittish customers. The smell of cooking food was a pleasure, and it made it to my table piping hot.

  "Hey, Samantha, we haven't seen you in a while. You're looking too thin, what've you been eating?" Jasmine scolded gently, depositing a mug in front of me to take away the sting. She was the owner's daughter, a sweet, dark-eyed girl about to enter college.

  "I was helping out up north and just got back last night," I explained, and then took a sip. Hot coffee scalded the roof of my mouth. I blew on my drink to cool it a bit. "It's always hard to eat on a hunt."

  "I saw on the news. Terrible business." Jasmine shook her head sadly.

  "Yeah. We did as much as we could..." I trailed off.

  "But it was time to come home. Of course. Well, this will cheer you up. The special is sausage burritos this morning. Three eggs, cheddar cheese, two sausages, and hash browns in a flour tortilla. What would you like?" She hovered a pen over her little notebook.

  "That sounds good. And a bagel with cream cheese and a side of fries." Jasmine jotted that down and tucked her notebook away. She topped off my coffee and went to get the order in.

  I ate my breakfast slowly, searching laboriously through the newspaper for anything important. An update on the mudslide that looked suspiciously like the press was hashing over repackaged old news. Some politician in Sacramento caught with his fingers in the pie. Nothing relevant to my job.

  I finished up, paid, and left. Technically, I had today off to rest, but everyone would be at work during the day, so I figured I might as well head on in and catch up on my paperwork before things got crazy again. I pulled out my phone and called Moira. No answer. Well, that was all right. She deserved her rest. I depended on her way too much for everyday activities; she didn't need to be my chauffeur during her off hours too.

  The bus was crowded with morning commuters, so I had to stand. A little bubble of silence erupted around me when I grabbed a handhold for balance. I cursed the stigma of the stupid black and silver band and resolved to get Moira a nice gift that afternoon and leave it on her desk. My lips curled up off my teeth, which only made their fear-smell worse.

  I never regretted being a were, but did find it unfortunate that I manifested more physical characteristics than most. My eyes were bright gold, alien in an otherwise ordinary face, and my ears were pointed well past the human or even the were norm. That, combined with my propensity to pant or bare my slightly too-sharp teeth when I got nervous, would have frightened humans even without my bracelet.

  Fortunately, the Van Nuys police station was only a few short stops down the line. I exited with relief and headed in to our office. Staffers waved and welcomed me back warmly, making me feel better about the bus incident. I was valued. I belonged here.

  The DMA offices in the back were empty; Georgia and Tamara were either off duty or out patrolling. I noted with some satisfaction that I would have the place to myself. It was the perfect environment for me to actually get a bit of paperwork done. The motion and sound of other people was always so distracting, much more interesting than boring forms.

  Naturally enough, my inbox was full of paper, forms, and reports that I would have to fill out in pen and file. It was amazing how that stuff could accumulate while I was out of the office for a week. I resolved to start them later and fired up my computer.

  The department provided its employees with a rather neat little program imaginatively called Vocal Video Software Telecommunications (VVST), which we grunts jokingly nicknamed ViViSecT, since it was often used to rake some poor fool over the coals for infractions that were too minor to be worth a personal visit. I adjusted my web cam and put on my headset while I prepared to pull up some information to wrap up the backlog of work that had accumulated while Moira and I were gone.

  A couple dozen people were online, including our boss. He contacted me immediately, before I had a chance to achieve anything productive.

  "Agent Davis, what are you doing at work? You should be at home." Even over video, he looked tired.

  "Everyone is either at work or sleeping, so I figured I might as well do some paperwork. You're always hassling me to catch up," I replied. On the other window, I pulled up case information for a Bliss dealer we'd picked up last month. Oh good, he'd chosen not to contest. One less thing to do.

  Voneshi grunted. "I'd have rather had both of you so I didn't have to do this twice. Ah well. You want the good news or the bad news first?"

  "The good news," I responded promptly. "Unless the bad news is urgent."

  "It is and it isn't. Good news: For once someone's hard work has been recognized. Your team members are to report to Headquarters on Friday at 9:00 a.m. for a commendation. Out of the two hundred fifty-three people rescued up north, your team pulled forty-five out of the mud. You marked more than two hundred dead, bringing closure to their families. Congratulations on a job well done," he said gruffly.

  "Consolation for the nightmares," I commented. The numbers seemed pitiful to me.

  "Counseling is available if you want it. Don't neglect your health—we need you."

  "Yes, sir. Obviously, someone managed to break up the discordance causing the storms. Did anyone let you in on what was going on?" I asked.

  "A complex runic blood circle was located in a cabin up in those woods. It hadn't washed down with the rest of the slide, which we're now treating as a terrorist attack. Individuals tattooed with similar symbols were guarding the area and killed one agent before they were gunned down. The San Francisco Headquarters has jurisdiction, of course." He frowned. There was a cer
tain rivalry between the North and South Headquarters. We thought they were blithering incompetents, and they thought we were uptight assholes.

  I sat up straight. None of this had made the news, or if it had, I hadn't been able to fish the information out of size 10 newsprint. Alarm bells rang in my skull; something about his story made the skin along my back rise with goose bumps.

  "A rune circle and cultists? That sounds familiar. Are they sharing info or holding it to themselves?" I asked.

  "They're sharing for once. Investigations has pictures, and I have already requested you be given access. There may be ties to your current major case, which brings me to the bad news." He moved away from the camera for a moment and returned with a small notebook.

  "Georgia is dead, and Tamara is in the hospital, critically injured. They hit a bomb while in Valerio, and the perpetrator has not been apprehended. Let's see... I am e-mailing you Investigations' notes on the matter now. Review them. Tomorrow you and your partner are going on site with Magus Irwin and Agent Smith, who will be partnering with your team for the duration." He sighed and rubbed his hand down his face. That explained why he was so tired. Losing an agent unexpectedly was hard on everyone.

  I sat back in my chair, stunned, and then pounded on my desk furiously with a balled fist. "Dead? What the hell! Antonio?"

  "Also in the hospital, under guard. The blast caught him and some of his employees; it does not appear to have been his work," Voneshi answered.

  "I thought those two could handle Valerio," I growled, then took a deep breath and let it out in an explosive sigh. Poor Tamara, losing her partner like that. "I'm on it boss. Why are they saying these cases might be related?"

  "One of the survivors said he saw writing on the walls inside the house before it blew, and kept moaning about blood. He died shortly after, so that is all we have to go on. Considering the circumstances, we are willing to take the risk that there is a tie, especially with the huge influx of mages to Valerio Street. It seems the reason no one spotted the anomaly was because every single mage in Santa Cruz took off at the same time, including those in law enforcement. Hence the population explosion here. And of course, the Valerio spring appears to be undergoing a surge period at the moment, making it doubly attractive."