by W. J. May
Devon paused a moment, playing it back in his head, then nodded at top speed.
“That’s right. That’s what I meant. Thank you, by the way.” He cupped a hand over his mouth, tilting in the direction of the stairs. “Aria, if you’re not down in three seconds—”
“Relax, Pops. I’m here.”
Both men glanced down as a tiny girl appeared between them—wearing what appeared to be a forsaken ballerina costume, partnered with a punk-rock jacket that Rae had conjured on a whim.
Devon raised his eyebrows as Luke snapped another picture.
“...Pops?”
She nodded seriously. “I’m trying it out. What do you think?”
He plopped a backpack onto her shoulders before herding her out the door.
“I’ll never forgive your mother for being American.”
THEY MADE THE DRIVE in record time, and despite every obstacle a six-year-old mind could conjure the car rolled into the lot with eight minutes to spare.
“All right—you have everything you need?” Devon rummaged around in her backpack for the second time. “Food, homework, writing materials...?”
Aria rolled her eyes, unbuckling her seatbelt. “Honestly, Dad, you make it sound thrilling.”
Only then did she notice her father had packed a bag of his own. Her eyes lit up with excitement as she pointed to the duffel in the back seat.
“Wait a second—are you going on a mission?!”
He held up a silencing hand as they stepped onto the sidewalk, glancing at the other parents walking their kids to the door. “It’s not a mission. I’m just tying up some loose ends.”
Despite having slightly different parenting styles, each of the friends had come together on the same collective rule: they did NOT speak with the kids about missions.
They were entirely too eager as it stood.
“Then can I come with you?” Aria pleaded, twisting around to face him as he gently man-handled her inside. “I’ll be really quiet and do whatever you tell me...I can be your lookout!”
He forced a laugh, then knelt down in front of her.
“What’s the rule?” he asked softly.
The adults had one rule. The children had another.
Her shoulders fell ever so slightly as the excitement faded from her eyes. “We don’t talk about this out in the open.”
Or anywhere else. Ever.
He fixed the collar of her jacket, flicking her chin with a little smile.
“Uncle Luke is picking you up after school. I want you to help with your brother and be on your best behavior, all right? If I hear that you are...maybe we can spar a little in the backyard.”
Her hands flew up to her mouth as she bounced on her toes. But she didn’t make a single sound. She simply looked her father right in the eyes, then extended her littlest finger.
“Promise?”
Devon smiled in spite of himself, shaking it with his.
“I promise.”
She squealed with excitement, then ran off to see her friends—doubling back at the last moment to kiss him on the cheek. “Good luck,” she said in a dramatic whisper. “With the...thing.”
Devon closed his eyes with a grimace before forcing another smile. “Thanks, honey.”
Yet another talent she gets from her mother. All those brilliant acting skills.
He was just pushing to his feet, wishing he had somehow taped the moment to send as a joke to Rae, when a hand touched his shoulder.
“Mr. Wardell?”
He glanced around to find himself face to face with a kindly middle-aged teacher. A woman who was looking significantly worse for wear since helming the children’s school play.
“Oh—good morning, Mrs. Brody. What can I do for you?”
Please say it isn’t about Aria.
“I was actually wondering if I could have a quick chat with you about Aria.” She cocked her head towards the schoolhouse. “Maybe you have a few minutes before heading into work?”
Given that his day consisted of abducting someone on a rather leisurely schedule he nodded helplessly and followed the woman inside, feeling the gazes of the other parents on him.
Despite their unpredictable schedules and the fact that a good portion of their work was done overseas, he and his friends still managed to spend a surprising amount of time at the little schoolhouse. Each one had manned tables at the annual fundraising events. Each one had donated ‘home-cooked’ food. Angel came by regularly with doughnuts just to gain credit with the PTA.
But he always felt like a bit of an outsider, rolling down his sleeves to hide the tatù.
“If this is about the play—”
She held up her hands, motioning for him to take a seat across from her desk. “It’s not about the play. I forced Miss Abernathy to sign a pledge to oversee the spring musical, so we can all just begin the process of putting that day behind us.”
Devon raised his eyebrows, surprised she got a signature.
“She’s new.”
That makes more sense.
“No, I wanted to speak with you about a few things,” the teacher continued, waving at a group of students as they careened into the classroom. “First of all, I still need Aria’s permission slip—”
“That’s right—I have that here.”
Devon rifled quickly in his jacket, emptying the pockets as he searched for the crumpled paper his daughter had shoved into his hands. The teacher smiled as he extracted a pile of receipts along with a pair of ear plugs, laying them on the desk.
“That new baby of yours throwing some tantrums?”
“I’m sorry?” He glanced at the ear plugs then shoved them back into his pocket, locating the permission slip at the same time. “Oh—yeah. He’s, uh...he’s pretty loud.”
In reality, the ear plugs weren’t for James at all. Since Devon had turned sixteen, he’d started carrying around a pair for concerts or crowded restaurants or movies—things too loud for his over-sensitized ears. Most of the other people he knew with animalistic traits did the same.
She took the paper with another smile, slipping it into her desk.
“Devon...I had a strange moment with Aria the other day. The latest in a long series of moments, actually, but this one stood out in my mind. I was doing a group exercise with the class, talking about future plans and having them write down some of the things they wanted to do when they grew up.” She paused a moment. “Aria refused to write anything on the paper. Benji didn’t write anything either. When I tried to ask them about it, they claimed they weren’t allowed to say.”
Devon froze in his chair, trying to even out his breathing.
Since the day that magical ink had appeared on his skin, he’d been tasked with keeping the secret just like the rest of the supernatural community. He dodged questions about his education and employment, he routinely slowed himself down and wore clothing to cover the mark itself. He had once spent seven hours trapped on a midnight train, denying the existence of sorcery to a man who’d seen him leap down a public stairwell in order to slide between the closing doors in time.
But faced with his daughter’s second-year teacher...?
“Well, that’s...uh...you know kids,” he stammered, forcing a quick laugh. “Taking things out of context and all that.”
She laughed obligingly, but continued to stare.
Come on, Devon—think.
“We’re always telling them the future is wide open. They can have every interest under the sun, make all the plans they like, but you never know what’s actually going to happen.”
The teacher regarded him with a little frown, nodding to herself.
“That being said, I can tell you firsthand that Aria has several occupations in mind,” he continued charmingly. “Just this morning she decided to become a scientist. Last week, she’d seized upon the idea of playing professional trombone...”
That last one might have been stretching the truth, but it did the trick. The woman pushed to her feet, c
huckling at the same time. “It’s a good thing you’ve got those ear plugs.”
He laughed as well, following her towards the door. “They come in handy more often than you might...”
He trailed off, staring at a tiny mobile of stars hanging off a desk in the corner. Normally, he wouldn’t have given it a second glance but the thing had been painstakingly crafted by tiny hands, and he happened to recognize the backpack hanging off the chair.
“Did Aria make that?”
The woman stopped short. “Yes, she didn’t tell you? It was part of their astronomy unit.”
Devon continued to stare, his eyes dancing with the stars. “No...she didn’t tell me.”
DEVON WAS STILL THINKING about that little mobile when he pulled up to the warehouse in Chelsea, preparing to arrest Mr. Pete Lansing for the second time.
The streets were mostly deserted, just a few laborers wandering back to their cars. The buildings were primarily empty as well—a good place for staying off the grid whilst being located conveniently close to a tube station at the same time.
He watched until the men disappeared, then reached into the bag in the back seat.
...and pulled out a gun.
His mouth tightened with distaste as he loaded the ammunition, snapping the cylinder back into place. He’d always hated using such weapons—they lacked finesse and it was easy for things to go wrong—but he was using one today. The man had a python tatù. He wasn’t taking any chances.
With a brisk stride, he walked straight across the street—pulling up the hood of his jacket to hide his face from any cameras. Usually, he would have considered a different approach. But the man had picked the place in a hurry, he was travelling alone, and his ink didn’t provide any heightened sensory advantages. The only thing it gave him was bursts of sheer, unadulterated speed.
Speed that was, in theory, much faster than his own.
He hopped the chain-link fence in a single bound and landed lightly on the gravel, making a cursory sweep of the building at the same time. As far as safe houses went, it was ill-equipped. It might have been isolated—especially considering the bustling district nearby—but it was an old steel processing facility, and both of the long walls were made almost entirely of calcified windows.
The roof, however, was comprised of ancient, corrugated tin. Much too loud for an aerial incursion. The rickety sheets that must have sounded truly deafening in the rain.
Devon stayed on the ground instead, circling the building until he found a protected corner and ducked inside. He glanced around a final time, then froze perfectly still and closed his eyes.
It was in these moments he understood the mark on his arm was truly magic.
In the space of a heartbeat, one world faded and another took its place. A landscape painted not in images, but in every other sense the body had to provide. He felt the vibrations of a street car thundering over the road a few blocks over, and smelled the soft, downy fuzz of a bird nestling half a mile away. The power lines provided the structure, buzzing in predictable grid lines while his mind filled in the gaps. A pair of joggers listening to reggae, five people eating lunch at a distant café. The faint vibration of power tools. A sweet goodbye, followed by the sound of a kiss.
The warehouse itself was easy. He was leaning right against the wall.
Where are you...?
It didn’t take long to find him—the man wasn’t a light step. There was a rattling of glass bottles on the top floor then he marched down the rusted stairs, unzipped his jacket, and plopped down on a musty sofa with a broken spring over the left leg. The beer scented the air and he took a sip.
There wasn’t any wind-up, nor were there dramatic stunts. It wasn’t best to startle snakes, as they were fast and unpredictable. Devon took a breath, then walked right through the front door.
“All right, Pete...let’s try this again.”
The man whirled around with a gasp, leaping twelve feet vertically before plopping straight back down on the couch. Both hands came up, like he could ward the imposter away through sheer force of will. Then they fell with a defeated curse back to his sides.
“You again?!”
Devon took a casual step forward, hands in his jeans. “Well how do you think I feel, Peter? I had already crossed you off my list.”
The man threw up his hands again, with a sound somewhere between laughter and more cursing. Judging by the accompanying hand gesture, it leaned towards the latter.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” he snapped, watching his fallen beer empty in a slow puddle on the floor. “Perhaps, if you let me go—”
“So you can keep trafficking guns through the Bankside Pier?” Devon asked lightly, watching the beer as well. “Pretty brazen, moving stuff that like out in the open. You know that most members of the Privy Council actually live in the city, right?”
The man spat on the ground.
“We always moved the product at night,” he hissed before lifting both hands. “Not that I’m admitting to any involvement. I told you and your friend the last time—you got the wrong guy!”
Devon nodded with a faint smile. “You know, we must really suck at our jobs. Because he and I?” He took a few steps forward, casually blocking the door. “We get that all the time.”
The smiles faded as the men stared each other down.
It was a tricky pairing, but Devon had proven just a few weeks before to be the superior talent. More than that, he had proved it in such a way that didn’t leave his opponent eager for a rematch. Nevertheless, there was enough ink on both sides to do serious damage.
“You have this particular kind of charm,” the man growled, flexing his arm involuntarily as his eyes drifted to Devon’s neck, “that makes people want to get to know you better.”
“Believe it or not, I get that all the time as well,” Devon answered honestly, hands tingling with readiness by his sides. “Mostly from people I know.”
Mostly from people I married.
“We could strike a deal,” Pete offered quietly, taking an experimental step forward. It was immediately countered, and he returned to where he was. “It took two of you the last time.”
This time Devon’s smile was real.
“It took two of us the last time because there were seventeen of you,” he replied. “And if I recall correctly, my partner spent most of the time on his phone.”
Playing Tetris.
The man swallowed, eyes flickering to the door.
“I could give you money,” he began before seeing the car parked outside. “I could give you names. All the people I’ve ever worked with. All the buyers and sellers who supplied.”
Devon nodded slowly, eyes dilating in the filtered light. “I expect you will. And once my people determine your level of involvement, that might actually be of some help to you. But for now, you’re coming with me.”
A faint hiss echoed between them, prompting another smile.
“I’ve trained against snakes.”
The man nodded, stepping slowly away from the couch. He would have a single chance to outmaneuver such an adversary. The trick was finding an opportunity to do so.
“Yes, but have you trained against pythons?” he asked, kicking the bottle so it shattered against the far wall. Devon didn’t flinch. “It isn’t just speed, you know. There’s a strength element as well.” He flexed his arm again, itching to wrap it around the young man’s neck. “Pythons like to squeeze their prey, slowly...” He eased forward another step, then another. “They like to feel the way each tiny bone quivers, then snaps. When there’s nothing left to offer...that’s when they strike.”
Devon stared a moment, then reached into his jacket. “That’s why I brought this.”
Something’s wrong.
The sensation struck him immediately, though he couldn’t pinpoint the reason right away. It came over him gradually, like a slow-motion pour of icy water—seeping over him from head to toe.
It was familiar, so famil
iar. The grip, the texture.
But it wasn’t the gun he’d been grabbed. It was something quite different.
“Is that...Sophie the Giraffe?”
Oh, shit.
Devon froze where he was standing. The man froze where he was standing. Both were staring at the rubber toy resting in his hand.
How. Is. This. Happening.
It might actually have been funny if he wasn’t about to die.
Devon’s eyes squeezed tight for a split second before he lifted his gaze with a kind of apology. His mouth went abruptly dry, but he managed to answer. “Yeah...it is.”
Pete pursed his lips, holding back a smile. “I’d better mind my manners, then.”
Why didn’t I take back-up? Why didn’t I double-check the gun?
“Let me guess...wrong pocket?”
Before Devon could answer, the deed was already done.
The snake didn’t really shove him so much as simply take his place on the floor—digging a hand into his jacket at the same time and grabbing the correct weapon for himself.
Less than a breath later, he was standing in the exact same place by the couch.
Aiming the gun at the center of Devon’s chest.
“There’s no way you could have the right perspective on this now,” he flicked off the safety with a broad smile, “but this is going to make for a great story one day.”
Yes, I’m afraid it will.
Chapter 7
With a spark and a burst of powder a hailstorm of bullets sprayed into the air, ricocheting off the metal walls and imbedding themselves deep into flesh. Devon flew backwards with the sheer force of it—letting out a sharp cry as he crashed to the floor. The sound alone was deafening. He thought he’d go mad from the ringing in his ears.
Then, just as quickly as it had started, everything was quiet once again.
Did I just...?
He pried open one eye, then another—finding himself staring at a pair of gigantic leather boots. His vision blurred as he craned his neck, struggling to see to the top.
