“So why do you care? You’ve tried to take a piece of the Gamagori more than once yourself.”
“I don’t mind putting people in their place, even using force to do it if it has to be that way. I don’t even think I’d mind if someone had to die from it, if there was no way around it. But even if I was Genghis Khan reincarnated I wouldn’t want to see someone killed just because he had a crush. Besides, I know Celeste. Better than Father does, at least, and I know that if Kenta dies at Father’s order Celeste will never forgive him and never come home.”
“Cut to the chase. What is it that you want me to do?”
“Simple. I want you to break into my house and kidnap my sister.”
I let out a groan as a headache blossoms between my eyes. “You have to be kidding. Why me? You live there too. Why not just slip her out yourself?”
“Father has bracelets on her wrists that are magically bound to the house. He made the spell lock himself. Nobody but him has the counterspell, and as long as they’re on she can’t leave the house without him knowing. If what they say about you is right, you can disable the binding spells and she’ll be free.”
“And in the morning, it’ll take your dad about thirty seconds to figure out it was me, which leads to me being drowned, or flayed, or whatever kind of execution he prefers.”
“And here I’d heard you used to make a living storming castles of evil wizards.”
“I didn’t have to live in the same town as them afterwards.”
“Father’s always cautious because he’s always suspicious. He won’t even think of you. His natural inclination will be to suspect Kenta Gamagori, which we’ll reinforce by leaving evidence in our house that will point to him. Father will be sure that somehow Kenta found a way to disable the spell lock and whisk Celeste away. He may even try to hire you to help find them.”
“Find them. I guess it’s safe to assume that he’ll be going with her.”
“Like I said, he wouldn’t last a day here after that.”
“You’re sure about that? About his wanting to abandon everything to run off with her. Eloping sounds romantic as hell until the reality of it slaps you in the face. Are you certain that he’s still on board with this?”
“Ask him yourself if you want to. He’s been giving you coffee all morning.”
I look over at the waiter, who’s standing off by the wall looking at me expectantly. Kenta Gamagori is about five-eight and slender, but his arms in his short-sleeved shirt look wiry and strong. He’s got a shock of coal-black hair grown out into an artful wave that starts over his left ear and cascades over to his right. His eyes are deep and shining with keen intelligence, his mouth twitching with nerves but held with what must be tremendous effort in a thin smile. A red gemstone the size of a pencil eraser is stuck in his left earlobe, a green one in his right. Around his neck a wooden pendant the size of a domino is hanging from a leather cord, an intricate carving of some kind on its face. The plug of wood has an old look, but the carving has freshly cut edges. When I meet his eyes he glides through the tables, his movements diffident and tentative, and he joins us at the table with the air of a lamb sitting down with two very competitive butchers. There’s not a lot of steel in this one.
“While you’re in there he’ll leave the pendant behind,” Calvin says. “His father gave it to him and a lot of people have seen him wearing it. Even if he wouldn’t already that will make Father assume it was Kenta. He’ll march straight to the Gamagori compound, of course, but they’ll be as clueless as he is. By the time he’s settled down Celeste and Kenta will be far from here, where neither of our families will ever find them again.”
“I notice that you said he’ll leave the pendant,” I point out.
“He wants to go in with you. Insists on it, actually.”
Kenta Gamagori looks like he’ll wet himself if I say boo. I doubt he has the sand to follow through on his promise, but young love is ever a fountain of foolhardiness. “I could list the reasons why that’s a bad idea,” I tell them. “I could do so alphabetically. I could do it chronologically. I could do it by likelihood of happening.”
“You need another pair of hands,” Kenta insists, but he’s not actually saying what he thinks he is. He thinks he’s planting his flag in the grown-up world. In his mind he and Celeste have a real chance to make it on their own, blazing their own trails and living their own lives. Oh, hell. Maybe he’s right. There have to be kids like them out there who’ve bucked the odds and gotten their fairy-tale ending.
“You’re taking a hell of a risk, you know. If anyone in either of your families ever even suspects that something like this happened a lot of blood will flow. Are you sure you want to take that kind of risk? Both of you?”
Calvin answers first. “I love my sister, Mr. DeLong. I want her to be free. I wish it hadn’t come to this, but Father is as single-minded as they come. I don’t like the Gamagori, but at least I could tolerate Kenta for Celeste’s sake. Father, on the other hand, is from the school that came before the old school. He’ll never bend. Personally, I think their little honeymoon will crash and burn within six months, but she deserves to at least have the opportunity. If nothing else, it’ll be a life lesson. She’ll come home eventually. Father will be furious, but that shouldn’t last much more than a year or so. At some point down the road, we’ll heal. I expect it’ll be the same for them.” He nods back at Kenta, who’s watching us with hawk like intensity.
“And in the meantime, all I’ll have to do is put out all the fires this little caper will have started. This has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever considered.” I sigh and push a clean napkin across the table to him. “I’ll need a map of your house.”
Five
It’s six forty-five later that evening, well past twilight, and as light seeps from the sky I’m standing in front of a massive iron bar gate at the end of the short but very convoluted driveway of an estate ringed by a fence made up of ten-foot-high concrete slabs that would stop an anti-tank weapon even if they hadn’t been buttressed with protective spells. I stand well away from them, maintaining my distance carefully. According to Calvin, the protective magical spells extend about ten feet from the fence, but since he didn’t lay them himself I don’t want to risk that his gauging of the distance might be off. Aside from the way he dresses, his attention to detail has never impressed me.
I’d spent most of the day studying over Calvin’s napkin map, combing through my bag of tricks, and generally coming up with a plan. Looking at the property in person, I think I could have used more time.
The house is just about what you’d expect given its owners. It’s not a castle, but not for lack of trying. There’s about a hundred yards of manicured grass between the gate and the south-facing main hall, which from here looks like a dog house designed for a mature Tyrannosaurus, with its gargantuan twin spiraling staircases dominating the center of the massive room. It’s got three levels that I can see, two wings branching off from a round central nucleus, the front of which seems to be one unbroken, grass-to-sky pane of glass. Armored glass, Calvin told me, able to stop most anti-tank weapons. I bet the construction contract specified that.
Each of the wings end in a three-story octagonal tower with three floors of wide, sun-admitting windows. The walls look like pale sandstone, with a slightly peaked roof and balconies around the outermost rooms of the second and third floors. It’s my guess that their home cost north of thirty million dollars, and I’d bet my griffin feather pillow that the Reese family doesn’t have a mortgage.
From my perspective, it’s a tactical nightmare. One that requires a very specific plan of attack. Or, more accurately, several plans.
While my innate magical immunity is a wonderful defense against a direct attack, there are times that it makes being sneaky next to impossible. According to Calvin the protective wards surrounding the Reese homestead aren’t lethal. They’re not even harmful, only an early warning system designed to notify the family about un
welcome visitors. It’s rather surprising, actually. Many wards can cause a lot of harm, or worse. The ones laid on my own house are a good example of how dangerous they can be. Regardless of their purposes here, though, the end result of my body coming into contact with them will be the web of carefully woven energies shattering at my touch like fine china under a steel-toed work boot. That won’t have the same effect as they were designed to have, but their collapse would surely be noticed by someone inside the house, who will then send the troops out. That’s problem one.
Past the fence it’s a hundred yards from the fence to the house. At my peak I could have made that in around fifteen seconds but, as much as I hate to admit it, my age and the wear and tear of the last decade have robbed me of a bit of my spring. Now it’s likely to be at least twenty seconds before I can cross the lawn, and that’s if I’m not spotted by anyone (or anything) that objects to my presence. Call that problems two and two point five, since the second point is only a possible and not a probable one.
After that comes getting into the house itself. Of all the stages of my plan, that one concerned me the least. People who have vast amounts of magic at their disposal tend to forget about the mundane side of life, including things like standard, run of the mill home security system. Why bother with a burglar alarm when a tripwire spell can transform an intruder into something small and squishy? And, while I’ll never claim to be a master cat burglar, I can handle most commercially available locks without the benefit of a key. That’s three.
Calvin assured me before we parted that he’d make sure that Celeste would be in her bedroom just after sunset, so all I’d have to do is make my way to her without running afoul of any random wandering Reeses on the way in or out. That makes four. And a half, if I run into someone outside.
Several problems whose solutions, run consecutively, form a larger plan.
I walk back to my new Jeep, parked several yards away on the grass just off the driveway under a small copse of starved-looking elm trees. My old one got destroyed the night I met Lisa, but this one is almost pristine. Except for the stain on the front driver’s side quarter panel that has eaten away most of the paint, of course, but it’s only a foot or so wide and you can’t see it unless you’re almost on top of it anyway.
I reach in and pull out a black hooded sweatshirt and slip it on, completing the ensemble started by black jeans and matching running shoes. A thin black balaclava goes into the sweatshirt’s pocket, along with a thin pair of leather gloves. I tuck my Springfield into a waistband holster (more for intimidation if I should need it; I’m not planning on shooting anyone tonight) jam a few last minute miscellaneous items into my pockets, then I reach into the back seat and the green canvas backpack I’d tossed into the passenger seat a short time ago.
Calvin wasn’t wrong when he’d said I’d done this kind of thing before. Since my immunity to magic is so broad, back in my time with the Aegis I’d usually been the one called on when some wizard or witch forgot their place and started throwing their weight around where it wasn’t wanted. You know that popular image of the stone castle in the mountains, accessible only by a goat path through a haunted forest? The one where the brave knight charges the evil sorcerer and his warped, gnarled black dragons with his sword shining in his mailed fist? Well, I’ve actually done that. Twice, actually, though with matte black Kevlar instead of gleaming plate mail and I only used a sword once. The other time it was a Mossberg 930 Tactical shotgun.
I have stormed castles. It’s not as romantic as you think, but as far as experience goes, it’s a very unique one. One that may uniquely qualify me for the job at hand.
I stand by the Jeep for a moment, just the slightest bit surprised by what I’m feeling. I let my head roll, savoring the brisk evening air in my lungs, the crisp tickle of a small breeze on my face. I feel the tick of my pulse in my throat, the sear of adrenaline as it seeps into my blood, my heart rate climbing fast.
Damn if I didn’t miss this.
It never occurred to me that I might feel nostalgic for my time as an Envoy of the Aegis. The organization had treated me no better or worse than any other employee, though our parting hadn’t been exactly amicable. It had also been very one-sided. One day I was gainfully employed, the (literal) next I’d been curb-kicked. Leaving had its ups and downs, but getting shown the door on their terms and not my own had stung.
I’d always made decisions on the fly that they didn’t like, but up until that last time four years ago I’d been given some leeway. After that I’d been shuttled off to Superstition Bay, ostensibly in retirement but under secret order from my old supervisor to maintain some semblance of order in a town with what may be the largest concentration of magical people and creatures in the hemisphere.
Apart from the episode of this past summer, my “retirement” has consisted of reeling in drunk monsters, stepping on overinflated magical egos, and a hundred other minor scraps, fights, and poor judgment when it came to small-scale adepts trying to use their talents to get over on someone else. It was quite a change from hunting merlions in Nova Scotia, breaking up a cabal of sorcerers in South Africa, or exorcising a hundred ghosts from a haunted cruise ship in Greece to getting in between two genies who claimed ownership of the same bottle.
There were times since I stopped being an Envoy of the Aegis that I felt like James Bond after being busted down to traffic cop. From Double-O to Officer Krupke. West Side Story is still on my mind.
I pull in my focus, open the door, and pull out the old, military-style canvas knapsack on the passenger seat. I sling it over my shoulder as I head back toward the gate, shaking off loose thoughts and concentrating on the task at hand.
I don’t get far before I hear soft footsteps scuffing behind me. I look back and see Kenta Gamagori sneaking up the driveway, a look of open panic on his face. Romeo didn’t show fear when he climbed right up the Capulet wall, but I guess Kenta is no Romeo. He’s wearing clothes similar to mine, as I ordered: dark jeans, black sweatshirt, black running shoes. No hood, but close enough. I wait for him to catch up.
“I wasn’t sure you’d show,” I say.
“I gave my word.”
I’m impressed. He’s so scared that I’m now genuinely worried he’ll lose bladder control, but he’s here anyway. His word means something to him. I have to give him credit for that. It’s not always easy going to your girlfriend’s father’s house for the first time.
I start walking towards the gate again, Kenta falling in behind me like a shadow. Like a stumbling, hard-breathing shadow with heavy feet and a runny nose. I manage to take it for about ten seconds, but when we’re about twenty feet away from the gate I stop and pull him aside, pressing him up against a tree.
“You’re waiting here,” I tell him.
“But I’m supposed to go with you.”
“Kid, I respect that you’re willing to dive headlong into the lion’s den, but I’m going to have enough to do keeping myself out of trouble without having to mind you, too. You want to help, you just stay here and be ready to run when we get back.”
“But what about this?” He holds out the carved wooden domino.
“Put that back in your pocket.”
“But you told Calvin…”
“I told him what I had to. I’m not framing you for this. I think he’s a little too forgiving when it comes to his old man. If he has any proof that you’re involved with kidnapping his daughter, it’s my bet that you’ll be landfill before the next full moon. Without proof, he’ll have no choice but to hedge his bets and you’ll be dead anyway. No, I’ll get her by myself. Clive Reese knows the Aegis will come after anyone who kills me. You’ll live, both of you. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but…”
“But nothing. You stay put. If everything goes right, we’ll be sneaking back.”
“What if something goes wrong?”
“Well, then we’ll be running.”
I take him by the shoulders and mar
ch him over to one of the larger trees, planting him behind it with a terse stay-put order. Once I’m satisfied that he’s not going to do something stupid I steal my way back to the gate. Just out of range of the wards I crouch down, taking the sack off my shoulder and holding it out in front of me. I set it down flat on the gravel and give it a spin so that the opening faces the gate, making no special effort to do any of it gently. The ride in the Jeep rocked the bag’s contents to sleep, but I need it to wake up now.
“Go get ‘em,” I whisper as I open the top of the pack.
Something roughly the size of a basketball rushes out of the bag, the darkness glittering behind it as it charges the gate. It has no distinct shape, but since it moves faster than the human eye can follow that doesn’t matter much. Faint blue light pulses irregularly as it moves, always almost out of sight, continuously drawing your attention and tempting you to follow it. In other places it’d be called a will-o-the-wisp. Here in Louisiana, they’re called the feu-follet. Free-floating balls of light, like the wisps, but unlike the aimlessly meandering wisps the feu-follet are aggressively mischievous. In plain English, they’re jerks. They seek out wanderers and actively try to lead them astray, leading them as far into the marshes and bogs as they can until either sunrise or the person dies, whichever comes first.
Took me all afternoon to catch one out in the creepy, creature-infested woods behind my house (it’s nominally a game preserve, but the kind of beasts who live in there are no reasonable person’s idea of game). It’s almost impossible to trap one if you’re not using a specialized spell. Or if you’re not susceptible to their lure and have been taught how to set a wisp trap.
The feu-follet flashes through the thick gate bars and immediately begins dashing pell-mell across the vast Reese lawn like a cat chasing a herd of mice through a field of catnip. It immediately makes the most of the wide-open expanse of lawn, its pale light blinking out an indecipherable message on the night in blue Morse code and neatly solving Problem Number One. I find a space behind a tree, pull on my gloves and ski mask and watch, waiting for the inevitable.
No More Devils: A Visit to Superstition Bay Page 4
