“She was shot. I don’t know if the bullet went inside or just clipped her.”
After pulling the blanket off Frisk, Jonas hummed and poked about the site of wound, as Daisy had, before frowning and turning to her. “I’ll have to, uh… lift her dress, I think. Not to be improper, of course, but the cloth is in the way.”
Daisy hardly expected puritanical bashfulness from any of her coworkers at that point. “Oh, of course. Here, I’ll help.” She reach over to grab the hem of Frisk’s dress and pulled it up until it was bunched around her waist, revealing veiny, bone-white thighs and red undergarments that contained a telling lump. Daisy groaned. “Oh, ash and embers, of course she had to lose all that blood when she’s on her monthly.”
“I’ll see what’s up with the wound, and then I’ll try to get her awake again,” Jonas said, pointedly focusing on the bloody mark just above her right hip rather than anything below it. “She’ll need some help recovering. Do you have any food you could make? She’ll need it once she’s up.”
Aside from the injury and her period, there was the fact that Frisk had been drinking mana and alcohol earlier that night, too. Food would probably do more for her than magic or medicine. “Sure. I’ll get on it.” Off to her kitchenette to dig around for anything that could be thrown together as a passable meal, Daisy soon found herself scrambling eggs and grilling thick cuts of salted ham. Just the thing for breakfast, since it was nearly morning, anyway. Jonas worked while she did, and just as Daisy was dishing up plates she heard Frisk shout out in pain.
“Gah! Bauer, what the hell?”
On hearing Frisk’s cry, Daisy hurried over with a plate in each hand, shoving one at Frisk as she struggled to push herself into a half-sitting position. Her dark hair whipped around her face in oily strands, and her dress was still pulled up to her waist, but Jonas had cleaned the wound at her side, and the dark red mark left behind didn’t look so bad. Her eyes were bloodshot, though, and her face more skeletal and gaunt than usual.
“Here, Frisk. You need to build your strength back up.”
“Dell, what’s going on?” Frisk glanced down at her bare legs, but she only grunted in irritation. Lifting her head, she focused on the plate of steaming food before her, grunting again before sitting up straighter to take it.
“You were shot.”
Frisk shoveled a forkful of eggs into her mouth, muttering through it, “Dammit, again?”
“It just brushed you,” Jonas said. “Nothing to worry too much about. It looks like you bled an awful lot, though. You should eat up while you have your wits about you. I cast a spell to get your eyes open, and once it fades you’ll probably drop like a sack of rocks.” Frisk mumbled something back that sounded vaguely like an agreement. “If you hold still, I can just bandage up the wound, and then you should be good to start sleeping this off.” He didn’t wait for an answer before reaching for the bandage and unrolling a length of it to wrap several times around her torso, reaching around and under her arms while she tore into the breakfast Daisy had made for her. Once he was done with his task, and she with her meal, Daisy gave the other plate to Jonas and got the last for herself while Frisk began asking questions.
“Where the hell am I, even?”
“My apartment.” Daisy settled on the floor next to Jonas, feeling a bit like a child when she noticed that her head didn’t even reach his shoulder at that position. She wasn’t even a short woman. “The Gin Fountain was shot up by some… well, I don’t know who they were. I took you to the car and drove us here. Do you remember any of that?”
Frisk frowned and blinked several times. Her eyes were a bit unfocused, but Daisy couldn’t be sure if it was from magic, mana, or blood loss. “Some. I remember going back to the balcony to check on you, and being hurt, I think.” She shook her head. “Where’s my car? Where’s Lia?”
“I parked the car a few blocks away. All the others went with Angel to Mr Swarz’s house.” Frisk huffed a sigh of relief, but the movement in her torso earned her a miserable wince. “He called me earlier to check on us, and he’s the one who sent Jonas. He said all three of us could take tomorrow off.”
Jonas glanced sideways at her. “Who’s gonna be the bouncer, then?”
Daisy shrugged. “I don’t know. Weren’t you off today, too?”
“Yeah. Pinstripes is closed the sixth day of the week. Everyone in the house gets the day off.” Daisy supposed that explained how they could all go out dancing together without having to worry about their speakeasy being left unattended.
Frisk waved aside his concerns. “Vicks will take care of it, I’m sure. Swarz probably doesn’t want us running any liquid tomorrow, anyway, not after another speakeasy got attacked the day before.” That was about the point when she began nodding off, and Daisy took her plate and covered her with the blanket again.
While she began to doze off, Jonas drank two vials of mana before handing Daisy the bandage roll, suggesting that she dress Frisk’s injury again when she woke back up. He was gone soon after that, and Daisy decided not to wait for Mr Swarz to phone her again. She called him to let him know that Frisk was faring better, and his responses barely registered with her. After finishing the call, she slunk to the bed, unsure of where she was going to rest with Frisk stretched out on the mattress. There wasn’t much option except to grab her bathrobe and curl up under that on the floor. She hadn’t thought much of it earlier, but she was relieved that Mr Swarz was giving her the whole next day to sleep off the night’s events.
Chapter 5
Ming sat in her kitchen, the bird charm pinched between her fingers as she examined it. Just a tacky piece of metal. Morning light reflected through sheer curtains caused it to sparkle faintly, but other than that, nothing seemed particularly magical about it.
She was exhausted, but she tried to convince herself that she had accomplished something. That conviction was easier to find in the comfort of her family’s meager estate.
It was only her estate now, really. Both her parents were gone, and Grandmother An had had to move up north to the countryside when her lungs got too bad. Yun had gotten out of prison a while back, but he was staying with friends on the opposite side of town, trying to stay out of his sister’s hair. Maybe he even felt ashamed for all the trouble he had ever brought Ming’s way.
It was strange to remember a time when they had all lived together. Ming could even remember when Grandmother An had been excited for her son-in-law’s promising new job as a clerk at the county office, before he had been arrested for selling government secrets to fascist cells. Ming remembered being young and fascinated with the painted details on An’s porcelain dishes and the embroidery on her blouses. Details – Ming had always had an eye for them. Maybe that was what made her good at her job, now. Dad had been good at collecting them, but not good enough to cover his tracks. Ming was smarter than he had been.
But she and Jase had still botched it last night.
Ming sighed and slapped the charm on the table. Notches scarred the table’s legs from some game she and Yun had played as kids. She didn’t remember the rules of it, only that it had involved knives, and both An and Mom had scolded them for it. On the far wall of the kitchen was another table, or more of a cabinet with a cracked glass door, and on it was Ming’s radio. She hadn’t bought it until An moved out, partly because An hated ogre technology but mostly because Ming had to save up for months to afford it.
She flipped it on.
“…a lair of debauchery and occult practices,” the scratchy voice on the radio was saying. Ming pulled up a chair from the table and settled in front of this miraculous information-box. Grandma An didn’t know what she was missing out on. “Officers report no deaths on the scene, but a number of individuals involved in the riot were found inebriated, showing symptoms of mana consumption.”
Ming and Jase’s handiwork, unless Linden had hired an entirely separate set of hands to carry out a similar hunt elsewhere in the city.
“The may
or is praising the Soot City police for their efforts in securing the scene and stopping any magicians involved in the fighting from spreading their terror into the surrounding neighborhoods. More information as details unfold.”
The newscaster was followed up by a man reading an advertisement for lightbulbs, and Ming went into her own head as he babbled. An airiness came over her, easing all that tension in her shoulders and jaw. She and Jase had left with no magician corpses in tow, but the police – who Linden built her career supporting – were garnering praise. Although it was not technically what Linden had asked of Ming, it would achieve the same effect.
That morning, Soot City would wake up fearing magicians and hearing reminders of who would protect them from the mystical threat.
Ming felt easier as she returned to her bedroom, which had once been Grandma An’s. A series of carved and painted Gao-style figurines decorated the shelf over the bed, but An had been fond of middle-continent lace, and a stranger would be forgiven for thinking that the room belonged to a Glynlander immigrant, not that a stranger would have ever seen An’s bedroom. Ming hadn’t changed much about it since she overtook it – couldn’t be assed for the effort – and although the old lace-trimmed sheets had had to go for the sake of hygiene, the frilly curtains and tablecloth draped over the wardrobe remained. The contents of the wardrobe were far less fanciful than the drapery or the tiny polished quartz knobs on the drawers. Ming dug out a pair of loose brown pants and one of her nicer shirts – simple, but well-tailored. An’s sensibilities were far removed from her granddaughter’s, but the familiarity of this place soothed Ming’s anxieties, even if she no longer had family around to give it that lived-in sensation from her childhood.
For as backwards as the Gin Fountain fiasco had gone, she felt abruptly glad for Councilwoman Linden’s patronage. It was bad enough that she had to watch over her shoulder for cops and competitors, but the bank trying to sell her own home out from under her? She couldn’t wait to rid herself of that looming specter, and how much worse it would have been without Linden’s warning.
When she was dressed, Ming retrieved the charm from her kitchen table and set out to her bleak, shadowy office. As she arrived and settled at her desk, once more twisting the charm between her fingers as she awaited Linden, she quietly glowed again at her pride in serving Linden’s need without actually dragging home a corpse.
When the councilwoman arrived for the meeting, though, she had an odd way of showing her gratitude for all of Ming’s hard work.
“No deaths reported,” Linden said, barely a foot into the room.
“No deaths occurred,” Ming admitted. She could hear the confidence in her own voice. “Quite the spectacle, though, right? The media’s even blaming the magicians for attacking their own kind. The police – those who are working under your budget measures – are being lauded as heroes for digging up that snake hole.” It felt ridiculous explaining all this to her. In big-picture terms, it was so obviously what Linden had wanted. Could she not see that?
She could, Ming soon realized, but she pretended otherwise. “Our agreement was that you would kill a magician. That’s not what occurred.”
Ming fought a scowl, but judging from the tightness in her jaw, she wasn’t sure if she was succeeding in keeping her expression neutral. “Will this not have the same effect? Magicians are vilified, the police are celebrated as heroes. You can take some credit for the latter, and anything your opponent does in reaction to this will risk alienating some group of his supporters or another, depending on how magic-sympathetic they are. This was never about blood.”
Linden narrowed her eyes at Ming. “You make poignant observations, Roxana, but we had a formal agreement, and you did not stick to the letter of it. It is not your place to claim that I should be grateful that you failed to live up to your end of the bargain. You will not be receiving the second half of your payment, considering this fumble.”
Ming tightened her hand over the charm, feeling its metal edges jab into the flesh of her palm and allowing the gentle sting of it to distract her from her fury. She was lucky that she and Jase had made it out unscathed and undetected by the police. Of course, she had to compensate him all for his efforts. That would eat up a good portion of the half Linden had already paid Ming, but even without that – even if Jase agreed to a raincheck – it wasn’t enough to buy out the lease.
The bank would sell her house. And if Linden was this steamed, she might even push her friend at the bank to move faster on finding a bidder, just to get under Ming’s skin.
Linden was still a clown for not seeing how the events at the Gin Fountain worked in her campaign’s favor, but maybe Ming had been just as much a fool for not expecting a tight-ass politician to be an exacting control freak. Ming’s knack for detail had failed her in that regard, but not again. If Linden wanted to play it like that, it was too late for Ming to salvage their deal and she needed to alter trajectory – quickly – to find another source of income.
“We have nothing more to discuss, then.” She stood, and despite her small stature, Linden flinched and took half a step back. “Get out. I don’t do business with sneaks who use pedantic literalism to weasel out of agreements.”
Linden sneered. “Not so different than every meathead mercenary after all, then, are you? This catastrophe was your error, and if you had half a brain, you’d be begging me for an opportunity to make it up–”
“Awfully full of yourself if you think you can wield guilt against a hired assassin. You’re damn lucky I did even this much for you – it’s clear you’re going to need all the help you can get with this re-election. But it’s not going to do you any good if you get shot dead in here because you didn’t get out.”
Linden’s expression went blank – at least she had enough political savvy to hide her fear – and spun to stride out the door without another word. Ming almost regretted demanding she leave, as she thought of more angry tirades to fire at Linden just as she slammed the door shut behind her. Well, it was done now.
And now Ming couldn’t afford to buy out her lease before her bank would try to sell her house to some corporation.
Alone, Ming sat back down and tried to steady her breath as she let the fury run its course through her veins. When it settled, leaving her feeling hollow and rattled, she went to the table in the back of the shady room, reaching for the phone there. She dialed for Jase.
He answered with only a raspy, “Hello?”
“Jase, you follow politics better than I. What’s the name of that man running for Daphne Linden’s council seat this election?”
On the day that Daisy returned to work, Mr Swarz offered her a late start, requesting that she come straight to the speakeasy rather than the office sometime around noon. Since she didn’t have a key to that narrow door in the corner of the lobby, she had to go through Pinstripes’ main door.
The front entrance to Pinstripes was located several blocks away from the actual office, indicated by a plain sign posted above an archway between a pawn shop and a barber. Beyond the archway, a set of stone steps led down to what appeared to be the basement of one of the buildings to either side. When she descended, she found it actually led to a brick-lined tunnel lit with oil lamps hanging at intervals from the walls. “All right, terrifying,” she muttered to herself as she followed the tunnel, clutching her purse to her chest. Knowing how far this stairway was from the speakeasy’s backdoor in the office, she wasn’t surprised that the tunnel went on for quite a while. She was alone down there, and she couldn’t tell if that made her more or less jittery in the eerie, empty underground. She was similarly conflicted when she finally reached a heavy wooden door at the end of the tunnel. There was a bronze knocker, which she used to rap three times on the door. An eye slit in the wood slid open, and pale beige eyes framed by thick, ashen skin peered out at her.
“Hey, Miss Dell,” Jonas said. “Hold on just a second.” He shut the eye slit and muffled sounds of clicks and swipes came through
the wood. A moment later, the door opened, and he allowed her inside.
“Jonas, you can just call me Daisy,” she said as she stepped inside, and she patted him on the arm. “How are you feeling?”
Jonas was a sweet thing, she was coming to find, and she had appreciated his presence two nights ago. He offered her a crooked smile as he shut and locked the door behind her. “Better than Frisk.” He nodded toward the bar, where Frisk was slumped on a stool, half-laying across the countertop while Vinnie restocked bottles on the shelf. The stout, bespectacled man ignored Frisk as she whined at him, though Daisy couldn’t catch her specific complaints from the distance she was at.
“Mr Swarz is in the brewery lab,” Jonas said.
“Thanks, Jonas. I’ll talk with him in a minute.” She went over to Frisk first, gingerly reaching out to touch her on the shoulder to get her attention. Rather than jump at the contact, Frisk only jerked her head to face Daisy and glared with bloodshot eyes.
“Dell, you gotta help me.”
“She already helped you,” Vinnie snapped. With Daisy there, he finally acknowledged that anyone was at the bar. “Miss Dell, I heard you saved Frisk’s life. Very courageous.”
Daisy didn’t know why that kind of praise embarrassed her, but she tried not to duck her head like some bashful little girl. “Well, I certainly couldn’t have abandoned my friend.”
She was still jittery around the warehouse girls – so much so that she wasn’t sure how Frisk would react to her casual claim of friendship or its implications. Frisk didn’t give any outward reaction to that particular phrase, though, instead sitting up to clutch at the front of Daisy’s dress.
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