War Song (The Rift Chronicles Book 2)

by BR Kingsolver

Carmelita-Dolores laughed. “I told you she wasn’t someone to screw around with. Carl’s out of circulation. You need a magitek? I brought you the best. If you’re not interested, there are other resistance fighters we can talk to.”

  “Let him go,” Susan said.

  “Gladly—he stinks. But with the understanding that I’m going to kill the next person who pulls a gun on me,” I said, triggering the lightning box to send its lowest voltage charge at a lamp sitting on a table in the corner. It exploded, and everyone in the room jumped.

  I let go of the guy I held, and he slid to the floor. A wet stain spread on the front of his jeans.

  “Now,” I said, “can we go to meet the people you said are the action guys?”

  Susan turned and led us through the house and out onto the deck in the backyard. When the three of us were alone, she said, “That wasn’t very smart. You could have been shot.”

  I shook my head. “Check it out. None of those guns work anymore. I’m a magitek, remember? Now, are you the person I need to talk to, or are you just a little girl playing revolution?”

  Susan leaned on the rail and stared off into the distance. After a couple of minutes, she said, “Carl and Slobodan were two of the key operatives in this area. The HLA is really just a public front for the real revolutionaries, you know.” She held her hand in front of her and let a flame play back and forth across her fingertips. “You’re right. Those kids in there are playing revolution. But the people who are really serious are mostly magik users.”

  “Witches and mages from the lower social tiers,” I guessed.

  She gave me a lopsided grin. “And younger sons and daughters of the Hundred and the Families below that. Just like medieval Europe, you start slicing the pie too many times, and there isn’t enough to go around. When one small group has ninety percent of the world’s total wealth, they shouldn’t be surprised when the masses want a taste. That’s what happened to trigger the first atomic wars. The elites were too damned stupid to understand that people who are starving have nothing to lose.”

  Susan chuckled. “If the Magi weren’t so self-absorbed and greedy, they would understand that the revolution could be bought off with ten percent of their wealth, and living standards for the whole world could be upgraded if they’d just manage to hoard twenty-five percent less.”

  “And what do you want?” Carmelita-Dolores asked.

  With a shrug, Susan said, “A slice of the pie, just like everybody else.”

  She seemed to make a decision. Pushing herself away from the railing, she said, “I’m still not sure I trust you, but if you’re a plant by the Magi, I’m screwed anyway. Meet me tomorrow night at Luigi’s in Columbia. You know where it is?”

  I nodded. An upscale Italian wine bar and restaurant run by a witch.

  “They’re closed tomorrow for a private function,” Susan continued. “Tell the guards at the door that you’re there for the cannelloni special. They’ll ask if you’re meeting someone. Tell them that Assunta is expecting you.”

  Carmelita gave her a strange look. “If we are working for the Magi, you’re going to let us in, and you don’t care? You aren’t going to protect your comrades until your dying breath?”

  Susan barked out a laugh. “You can probably find some people like that in the Movement, but I’ve found that most people care only about themselves. Like I said, you could buy off everyone in the world for a fraction of the money that the Magi wipe their asses with. People who have nothing aren’t greedy. Me? Yeah, I’m greedy. Give me a couple of million, though, and I’ll be happy.”

  Back in Baltimore, I stopped by Enchantments. I filed my report with Whittaker online from there, then waited around for Kirsten to close the store.

  We wandered down to the harbor and hit a rowhouse pub called Jack’s for beer and fresh oysters. On the way, I told her about Susan Reed’s take on the world economy and revolution.

  “She has a point,” Kirsten said, “and witches do resent the mages. Let’s face it, the top mage Families are bullies. I also understand Olivia’s point of view. If it wasn’t for the mages, we’d probably be dinner in a world ruled by demons, and no one wants that.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The way the Families live has always bothered me, though. You’ve seen how Findlay and Novak and the other powerful Magi live. Are gold-plated bathroom fixtures really necessary? Luxury foods flown in from all over the world? I mean, Mychal couldn’t afford his suits on his cop salary, and we get paid three times as much as non-magikal cops of the same rank.”

  Kirsten shrugged. “If they didn’t pay you that much, they wouldn’t have any mages on the police force. You’d go to work for Whittaker’s business, or for Osiris. A low-rank Findlay guardian makes as much as you do. The Families have money to burn.”

  Once we found a table at the restaurant and took receipt of the oysters and beer we ordered, I asked, “Are there any small business organizations that you belong to? I mean, some way to pool political power?”

  She laughed. “Political power? Outside of the Hundred, that’s a joke. The Magi control everything. Yeah, I’m a member of a couple of associations. That’s how I get health insurance and property insurance for the shop and our house. There are associations that pool purchasing power, but I have very few competitors, and I try to sell unique goods. Not the sort of thing you buy in bulk quantities.”

  “Good evening,” a deep male voice said. I looked up and discovered Aleksandr Janik standing over us. Tall, with dark-chocolate eyes, dark hair, tanned skin, and a wonderful smile that lit up his face. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  “Oh, no,” Kirsten said. “I think we’ve pretty much solved all the world’s problems. Join us?”

  Janik hesitated and looked from her to me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Do you like oysters?”

  He pulled up a chair. “As a matter of fact, I do. That’s why I dropped in, but the menu isn’t usually as attractive as it is today.” That was accompanied by a grin and a wink.

  Kirsten laughed, and I blushed.

  “Is that one of those lines you practice in the mirror?” I asked.

  “It is,” he said, his smile growing larger, “and I’ve been waiting ever since Marco’s betrothal for a chance to use it.”

  I felt my face warm up even more. “You’re terrible.”

  “I am, but only around you. I gave Kirsten my number so you could call me. Did she tell you?”

  “Yes, but I’ve been busy.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” He looked crestfallen.

  “With work,” Kirsten said. “Have you heard about the mage murders?”

  “Ah. Of course. Yes, I have. So terrible.”

  “Dani isn’t dating anyone,” Kirsten said. “She just works all the time. She really needs a diversion.”

  I felt my eyes pop wide. I stared at her and tried to kick her under the table. She expected it and moved her leg so I kicked the table leg instead. She batted her eyes at me.

  “Surely you don’t work every night,” Aleks said.

  “She doesn’t.”

  I wanted to kill Kirsten.

  “No, I don’t, but my schedule is rather erratic,” I told him. “It makes it difficult to plan things.”

  “When is your next scheduled day off?” he asked. “Perhaps you could join me for dinner some evening.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to think. “It’s supposed to be Friday, but I don’t know, what with everything that’s going on.”

  “Friday it is,” he said. “You have my number, right? If you can’t make it, call me. Now, where should I pick you up?”

  Chapter 15

  One of Courtney’s attempts to murder me had resulted in the destruction of my motorcycle. Insurance companies don’t make money by paying claims, so it practically took an act of God to convince them that I didn’t burn up my bike on purpose. But they finally came through, and I ordered a new bike.

  The motorcycle shop had called several days bef
ore to tell me it had arrived, but with various members of the Magi inconveniently getting murdered, I hadn’t found time to pick it up. Since I was going to be working in the evening, attending Susan Reed’s revolutionary happy hour, I took the morning off to claim my new bike.

  I rode into town with Kirsten, then walked from her store over to the motorcycle shop.

  Basically, the new bike was exactly like the one that was flambéed, just two years newer. But it didn’t have the magitek customizations—gyroscopic stabilizers, turbocharger, electrical anti-theft system—not to mention the recoilless rifle for demon and monster hunting. The magitek enhancements were legal—although expensive if you weren’t a magitek—and the recoilless rifle was legal only because I was a cop. Even so, the paperwork I had to fill out just to buy the damned weapon was insane.

  I took the long way home, enjoying the fresh air as I rode over the Key Bridge across the Chesapeake Bay. The bike performed well, and although it wasn’t quite comfortable yet, I was excited.

  After wheeling the bike out to my shop in back, I was able to quickly attach the magitek devices. The magitek-powered recoilless rifle took a little longer to install, but I finished all the work in plenty of time to down a beer, take a shower, and ride back downtown to meet Carmelita.

  We drove southwest from Baltimore to Columbia, which wasn’t a city in the conventional sense, but rather a collection of villages and commercial areas surrounded by residences scattered through the forest. My understanding was that it was planned that way at the end of the twentieth century, and it really hadn’t changed much. I knew the area fairly well because that’s where Kirsten’s parents lived.

  Most of the area west and southwest of Baltimore, all the way to the Potomac River, had a lot of small towns and estates owned by mages, witches, and humans who comprised the upper echelon of the merchant and professional classes. If, as Susan Reed said, the Magi controlled ninety percent of the wealth, the next tier down probably controlled another five percent, and the remainder was split up among the ninety-nine percent of humanity below them.

  To an extent, Susan was correct that the majority of humans were barely scraping by, but she, as did Kirsten and I, fell into the tier that controlled five percent of the wealth—those who weren’t considered rich but never worried about missing a meal. I would have been surprised if Susan and her fellow revolutionaries truly planned to distribute the Magi’s wealth among the masses. History’s lessons were that revolutions simply changed who sat at the top of the social hierarchy, replacing the old lords and ladies with new ones.

  I didn’t really blame the revolutionaries, but I didn’t have any sympathy for them, either. I completely rejected their methods. Mass murder, such as bombing the Palace of Commerce, offended my sense of right and wrong. A lot of salaried bureaucrats, not to mention maintenance and janitorial staff and people who just picked the wrong day to do business there, had died in those bombings, leaving their families to starve. And no one deserved to die the way Joseph and Elaine Greer did.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Carmelita said as we wound our way along the road leading to Luigi’s in the village of Owen Brown.

  “Thinking about revolution,” I said, “and how it’s usually just trading one master for another.”

  “You’re right about that,” she said. “Even the revolutions of the proletariat in the twentieth century left the proletariat still grubbing in the dirt and building their new masters’ castles. But, hell, trying to claw our way to the top is what makes us human. If it wasn’t for that stubborn refusal to accept our lot, we’d be demon food now.”

  “That’s kind of what my roommate said, and she’s not even a mage.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Carmelita said. “I believe that humans would have fought the demons off even without magik users. We’re just that damned stubborn. Of course, without magik users, we wouldn’t have the Rift or the demons.”

  Without my grandfather we wouldn’t have the Rift or the demons. I shot her a look, but she didn’t seem to notice. Maybe I was just oversensitive and she didn’t mean that as a dig at me.

  She pulled into the parking lot for an apartment complex.

  “You don’t mind walking, do you?” she asked. “I prefer to leave the car here in case we have to leave in a hurry. If I die in there, you don’t need keys, do you?”

  I shook my head. “No, but I won’t leave you in there. You have a premonition or something?”

  “Naw, just trying to cover all the bases, that’s all. I’ve felt like I’m walking on eggs ever since I started working on this case.”

  Luigi’s was about a city-block’s distance away. We walked over there and knocked on the door. The parking lot held half-a-dozen cars, most nondescript middle-class vehicles. We waited a couple of minutes, then a man pushed the door open and stuck his head out.

  “We’re closed tonight.”

  “We were hoping to get some of the cannelloni special,” I said.

  He cocked his head to the side and looked us over. “You meeting someone here?”

  “Assunta.”

  Nodding, he pushed the door farther open and held it for us to walk past him. “Wait here.”

  “Turn off your phone,” I murmured to Carmelita.

  “Why?”

  “So it still works after we leave.”

  She gave me a puzzled look, then her face cleared as she understood. I spent the next five minutes studying a menu while Carmelita-Dolores looked at the pictures hanging on the wall. Susan came from the back and motioned us to follow her.

  “We’re still waiting on a couple of people,” she said. “It’ll give me a chance to introduce you.”

  She led us to a back room where a dozen men and women milled around, drinking either beer or white wine and snacking on cheese and little meatballs. It was an eclectic group, ranging in age from Susan up to a white-haired woman with a million wrinkles who was riding in a powered wheelchair. I recognized a few people. A Baltimore businessman who was a vocal democracy advocate, a prominent doctor who was on the board of Johns Hopkins Hospital, and a media newscaster with blonde hair as perfect in real life as it was on the screen in my kitchen.

  No one even blinked as Susan introduced Carmelita as Dolores Hernandez, an emissary from the Mexico City HLA. But everyone knew who Danica James was, and few of them seemed happy to see me.

  “I’m surprised,” said Professor Alvin Blair, a tall man with dark, tousled hair, “that you expect to leave here alive. You must have a SWAT team waiting outside for your signal.”

  I batted my eyes and smiled at him. “I’m surprised you let me in at all. Most members of polite society prefer not to be seen with a James. You know how it is, your grandfather commits one faux pas, and your family is ostracized for all eternity.” I leaned close and whispered conspiratorially, “If my intentions were nefarious, I wouldn’t need a SWAT team.”

  Eventually, everyone who was expected arrived, and we sat around a large table. It quickly became apparent that the purpose of the meeting was to determine whether I should leave alive. Cute people, but I had to admire their honesty and forthrightness. None of that stab-you-in-the-back stuff.

  I turned to the woman in the wheelchair. “Mrs. Donnelly,” I said, “I assume you are the truthsayer?”

  She gave me a toothless smile and nodded.

  I returned her smile. “Well, ask your questions, but first I would like to say that I came here in good faith, under the assumption no one would try to murder me. But if that assumption is erroneous, I hope you all have your affairs in order. I haven’t survived this long completely due to luck.”

  The smiles vanished. An hour later, they seemed satisfied that I really was unhappy with the world’s rulers and ready to join their revolution. Obviously none of them, including their truthsayer, had ever dealt with the Fae. As I was only one quarter elf, I could lie, but my mother had raised me to believe that doing so was a terrible thing to do. Besides, avoiding the truth and telling a li
e were two entirely different things, as any self-respecting Fae could have told them.

  As Carmelita-Dolores and I walked out, I cast the spell that killed all the phones in the place. We hiked from the restaurant over to the apartment complex where we left her car.

  “You said that’s a department loaner?” I asked when we got about fifty feet away.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “So, you’re not particularly attached to it?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well, let’s leave the car and walk over to that bar we passed and I’ll buy you a drink.”

  “Okay, sure.”

  We turned toward a footpath through the apartment complex that would lead to the bar. When I judged we were a safe distance away, I sent a surge of magik toward the car, setting off the bomb someone had placed under it. The explosion was very loud. Obviously, the charade we had just played was a formality. Someone at that meeting had decided ahead of time that we deserved to die.

  “Holy shit!” Carmelita said, throwing up an air shield between us and the car. A fountain of flame shot about twenty feet into the air.

  “I guess parking way over here wasn’t as unobtrusive as we hoped it would be,” I said. “Sweet folks, them revolutionaries. Axe murderers and car bombers. C’mon, let’s go get that drink.”

  While we walked, I pulled out my phone and called Novak. “Hi. Carmelita’s car just blew up. Big fireball.” I gave him the address. “If you can make sure everyone knows there were two women inside, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Where are you now?” he asked.

  “Walking over to the bar where you are. I could use a beer and a shot.” I turned to my companion. “Carmelita?”

  “Margarita. Make it a double.”

  I could hear sirens. The residents of the apartment complex had called the police and the fire department. Anyone who was parked close to Carmelita’s sports car would be very unhappy since it was a very powerful bomb. Magikally enhanced. It seemed that Susan and her friends didn’t need my magitek expertise. Either that, or Carl Beaver had made some devices I hadn’t found at his house.