by T. A. Pratt
“He betrayed me.” Nicolette shrugged. “It's no good having someone that untrustworthy in your organization. I've got you outgunned here, Marla. You didn't come expecting a fight, and this is my turf. Let's try to reach an understanding.”
“The only thing I'm interested in understanding is why? What's the angle? You wanted Bulliard to steal the spores for you? But he didn't even know who you were.”
“Giving that kind of weapon to a nutcase like Bulliard is bound to increase the net chaos in the world, Marla, and that's only good for me. Plus, having him come to town, stomping around, fucking things up for you, that makes things messier in Felport, and that's definitely to my advantage. The more things tumble down here, the higher I rise. You're way too orderly for my taste. You make the trains run on time, when I'd rather have a few of them derail every now and then. It's not so complicated. I am what I am, and what I've always been.”
“How can I tolerate somebody like you in my organization, Nicolette?”
“Point. But I'm opposed to organizations in principle anyway. And imagine the chaos around here if you were to suddenly disappear.” She snatched a charm from her hair.
“Urizen Protocol,” Marla said loudly, and Nicolette froze like a statue, one hand tangled in her hair, the only sign of life a high thin scream—like the sound of a teakettle just starting to boil—issuing from between her clenched teeth. Marla went to her and gently pried the faceted blue charm out of the chaos magician's hand.
Then she drew her dagger and sawed off all Nicolette's dreadlocks, one by one, depositing them carefully in a plastic grocery bag she found near the Giggler's corpse, padding the charms with bloodstained shreds of Bubble Wrap. “Sorry for the Samson-and-Delilah thing, hon, but the paralysis won't last for long, and I need to get you neutralized.”
Nicolette's throat worked, and her lips parted enough for her to say, “What have you done?”
“You murdered your last boss, Nicolette—on orders from me, but still. I never trusted you. So I had my friend Mr. Beadle—you know him, obsessive-compulsive little guy, has an affinity for straight lines and right angles and law and order and everything you aren't?—do me a favor. He posed as a window washer and put some nice gold-inlaid binding spirals all over the outside of the building for me, very subtle, and all keyed to my code phrase. You're bound up right now in a cage of orderly forces; it won't hold out against you for long, but, well, long enough. You didn't seriously think I'd let you into the highest councils of the city without some kind of insurance, did you? An attack dog is useful, but you gotta have a shotgun near to hand in case the thing turns on you someday. One question—is Bulliard the only bull you set loose in my china shop, or are there others coming?” Nicolette didn't answer. “Come on, now. You need all the leniency you can get. Speak up. Are there other nasty surprises coming?”
Nicolette said “No.” She couldn't technically hiss a word with no esses in it, but she did her best.
“That's a comfort.” Marla fished around in the many pockets of her black cloak until she found a little sachet of sandalwood and chamomile. “I'm tempted to just hit you in the back of the head with that sledgehammer you aimed at me until you go unconscious, but Dr. Husch gets mad when I bring her brain-damaged patients—”
“Husch?” Nicolette hissed—she might have been alarmed or appalled, but since she couldn't move most of her facial muscles, Marla couldn't be sure.
“I'm having you hauled off to the Blackwing Institute. If Dr. Husch decides you're crazy, we'll lock you up there. But if she decides you're competent, well… either banishment or execution.” She sighed. “I'll have to hold a fucking meeting with the other leading sorcerers to determine your fate, since you're one of us. I hate meetings. I'm much more a rule-by-fiat type, but you gotta make allowances.”
“You can't—”
“Night-night.” Marla threw the sachet at Nicolette's face. It bounced off her nose, and Nicolette glared, grunted, and then dropped into a deep and magical sleep. Marla took her under the armpits and said “Arioch Protocol” to disable the order spells. Nicolette's weight came slumping down, and Marla lowered her to the floor. The chaos magician should sleep for a few hours, so deep she wouldn't even dream.
Marla patted Nicolette down and found a cell phone—her own phone was charged, for once, but only because it was plugged in and sitting on the desk in her office. She couldn't get reception in the basement, but the sleeping and the dead would keep, so she carried the sackful of charms to the elevator and rode back up to Nicolette's apartment, then called Hamil and told him what had happened. “Better send some guys over to bundle her out of here, and make sure Mr. Beadle comes along, too. I took her charms away, but Nicolette's dangerous just by herself, especially in a situation this disorderly Oh, there's a corpse to clean up, too. Good job finding the Giggler, but he's not going to do anybody any good anymore.” She called Rondeau, and went straight to voicemail, and then tried B, but got the same—Rondeau was, she hoped, busy convincing her brother to drop his scam, and B was probably just sleeping.
It was all over but the cleanup. She'd get Nicolette squared away, then deal with Bulliard's corpse. She could be in bed by midnight without even hustling much, if she wanted.
Marla sighed, sat down cross-legged on the stained concrete floor, and began sorting through Nicolette's charms to see if there was anything worth comman deering.
As night began to fall, Bulliard paused in his snuffling down some random alley and said, “We require transportation. Marla's brother is too far to reach quickly on foot.”
“How about a motorcycle with a sidecar?” the courier said. “That would be sweet. Or, I know, a hot air balloon!”
Bulliard went to the end of the alley and pointed to a battered old truck parked beside a sagging wooden fence. “Hotwire that for me.”
“Sorry, big guy, I was never a car thief. I wouldn't know where to begin.”
“You are useless. I can't understand why the Mycelium won't let me kill you.”
The courier flashed back to his glimpse of Bulliard's god, that terrible, knowing face that wasn't really a face. He still wasn't sure if the thing he'd seen was real, or a mere hallucination—whether Bulliard was deluded, or truly in service to something terrible and inhuman. It wasn't a question he liked to dwell on. The courier was a fan of pizza, weed, beer, and watching sports on television. This crap was way outside his mental comfort zone. “If I got a vote, I'd vote for releasing me, but whatever. Find us a car, and I'll drive you. What, you want me to do all the work?”
Bulliard stomped out of the alley, onto a street. The courier had no idea where they were—he'd never spent a ton of time in Felport, just coming in and out on a few deliveries—but it didn't look like a nice part of town. A low-rider vintage Chevy Impala convertible with four guys inside came cruising down the street, music thumping brutal bass, and Bulliard stepped in front of the car and held up his hand in a stop-right-there gesture.
The car slowed and stopped, and a couple of Hispanic teens jumped out of the backseat and sauntered over. “Check this motherfucker out,” one said. “A mountain man.”
“I require your vehicle.”
“I require your wallet,” the guy said, and the others laughed.
Bulliard hit him so hard he flew back and landed on the hood of the car, groaning.
The other two bounced out of the car, one with a knife and the other with a tire tool, and the driver glanced at the courier, who held up his hands. “Don't worry about me, bro. He's the one with the anger management problem. But you're better off just tossing him the keys and taking off, trust me.”
“Fuck that,” the driver said, but nervously, glancing at his friend, who was no more sure than he was. They took a few steps closer.
Bulliard simply walked around them to the car—they backed away warily at his approach—and opened the driver's door. “Come.” He gestured to the courier. “You will drive.”
“Get the fuck away from my car!”
The driver went at him swinging his tire iron, and Bulliard disarmed him and chucked him bodily toward the gutter. He gestured again, impatiently, and the courier darted around the last two guys, mouthing “Sorry.” They backed away, eyes wide.
Bulliard held the door open for him, and the courier slipped in. “Sweet ride,” he said. “I'll try to leave it somewhere relatively intact, all right?”
“We will drive this back to the forest, once we've acquired the spores,” Bulliard said, climbing into the backseat.
The courier snorted. “Right. Because this car sure isn't conspicuous. It's got flames painted on the side, mossface. They'll report it stolen, and the cops will stop us, and you'll kill the cops, which will in turn bring more cops. Even you can't withstand a blizzard of bullets, am I right?”
Bulliard grunted. “Very well. We will acquire more subtle transport when our business is done.”
“Cool. Hey, guys, you want to get your friend off the hood? Otherwise he'll fall off when I start moving.”
The two came forward and lifted their friend away “We'll fucking kill you, man,” one of them said, but not very confidently
“Promises, promises.” The courier put the car in gear.
ondeau had no idea what he was going to say to Jason. Bullshitting a professional bullshitter was going to be tough. “It'll just take a minute.”
“No,” Cam-Cam said. “No more private conversations that don't include me. Is that understood? I've put up the money, we've acquired the spores, and I am a full partner now.” The chain-wrapped crate was in the middle of his living room, and he stared at it as he spoke, like a religious fanatic gazing upon a holy relic.
“The man's right,” Jason said. “We're in this together. What's up?”
“Ah, but it was a call from Marla, and it's, you know… sorcerer stuff.”
Cam-Cam lifted his calm, serious eyes to Rondeau. “Then I definitely insist on being included.”
Rondeau sighed. “Well, okay. A sorcerer from out of town heard about the spores somehow, and came to steal them.” Cam-Cam sat up straighter, and a look of annoyance flashed across Jason's face—he thought Rondeau was improvising, and Jason had made it clear that improvising was strictly a no-no at this point. “Don't worry, Marla took care of him. But unfortunately, this means word got out about the spores being in town, so we'd better be on our guard.” He glanced at Jason. “Your sister wants us to speed up the transaction with the Aeromancer, and get the spores out of town ASAP.”
“If you could give me just a second to discuss this with my associate.” Jason's voice was pleasant enough, and if Rondeau hadn't known, he never would have guessed the grifter was furious.
“No,” Cam-Cam said. “I told you, no more shutting me out. That's the whole point, I'm in now.”
Rondeau looked Jason in the eye, wishing for telepathy. “Marla says we need to wrap this up, Jason. It's not my call, it's hers. I'm sure she has a good reason.”
Jason appeared to get it—at least, he frowned, and looked thoughtful. “This is a delicate operation. She should know we can't rush things. There are lots of arrangements left to be made.”
“Nevertheless, she wants us to make those arrangements with all due haste.”
Jason pondered, then shook his head. “No. Can't do it. Not without risking the whole mission, and I'm not comfortable letting a bunch of vampires run loose just because Marla got spooked. We'll proceed as planned.”
“But Marla said—”
“Marla isn't running this op,” Jason snapped. “She runs the city, but she doesn't run me. I'll talk to her about it later, all right? You can call and tell her that.”
Well, he'd given it his best shot. Marla would have to play the heavy and make Jason drop this… but what if bad shit happened in the meantime? He opened his phone and called Marla's office, but there was no answer, and when he tried her cell, he got nothing but voicemail. He talked as if she were on the line. “Marla, Jason says things are too delicate to—I told him. But you said you neutralized—oh. Shit. Shit shit shit. Okay. Yes, okay, you got it.” He shut the phone. “Marla says she has reason to believe we're in imminent danger, and we need to get us, and the spores, to a safe location.” There were safehouses all over the city, but he was thinking of his nice cozy club, particularly the secret conference room hidden in a broom closet in the back. That room had magic-deadening capabilities, rendering the spells of most sorcerers useless, and if some big bad out-of-towner did manage to track them there, they wouldn't be able to do a lot of damage.
“This is dreadful,” Cam-Cam said, but he looked more excited than anything else.
“This is… unexpected,” Jason said. “I don't think—” His phone rang, and he answered, then frowned. “Cam-Cam, do you know anybody who drives a low-rider Chevy Impala convertible?”
Rondeau thought it must be Danny on the phone—he was supposed to lurk around the grounds and fake another vampire attack later on.
“No, I don't think so,” Cam-Cam said. “Who are you talking to?”
“We've got eyes everywhere.” Rondeau was trying to keep up his end of the scam, but he had the feeling things were about to crater, and fast. Something was happening, and it couldn't be good.
“Fuck!” Jason said, eyes widening. “They just—somebody just took out the guard at your gatehouse, and they're coming up the driveway now.”
“Panic room,” Cam-Cam said, in a distinctly unpan-icky voice. “Help me with the spores.”
Rondeau and Jason both looked at the box. If something was attacking them, they didn't have much interest in carrying an empty crate, but the show must go on. “You go ahead and get the room open,” Jason said. “We'll bring the box.”
“It's just down this hall, to the right.” Cam-Cam hurried away.
Jason and Rondeau crouched and lifted the box. “What the fuck is going on?” Jason grunted as they rose with their burden.
“Somebody heard about the spores,” Rondeau said. “A big bad someone. They're coming to steal them. Marla took one guy out, so this must be another. And there might be more. That's why she wanted us to wrap this up, before we got hurt.”
“The things aren't even fucking real.” Jason's whisper was harsh and disbelieving. “Sure, Cam-Cam buys it, but people with weight believe this magic shit?”
“You'd be surprised.”
“So where's my sister now? Shouldn't her organization be protecting us?”
“She's dealing with her own issues,” Rondeau said.
“But I can call her consigliere… when I get my hands free.”
“This is ridiculous,” Jason said. “A beautiful play like this, blown because some morons can't tell fantasy from—”
“Come on,” Cam-Cam called from the end of the hall, and they followed. The room held a few bookshelves, but one wall was solid steel, with an imposing door standing open. Inside was a well-appointed, if small, room, with a cot, a shelf of rations, and a bank of surveillance screens.
“Sweet,” Rondeau said. Jason grunted and backed into the panic room, Rondeau following, and Cam-Cam pulled the door shut behind them. As they set down the box—which didn't leave a lot of room inside the panic room for them—Cam-Cam turned on the screens.
One showed a convertible parked in the driveway, empty. “They're in the house.” Cam-Cam pushed buttons and flipped through views. Abruptly, the screen showing the living room went dark, but it was just the lights going out, not a camera malfunction. “They cut the power,” Cam-Cam said. “But the cameras are on a separate circuit, and this room has its own generator.”
“Call your man,” Jason said, and Rondeau nodded.
His cell phone didn't work. “Uh, I'm not getting any reception—”
“These are three-inch-thick steel walls. Of course you aren't getting reception,” Cam-Cam said.
Rondeau swore. Why couldn't he have a sweet magical cell phone like Marla's, which got reception practically anywhere? Probably because he used to have one, and lost it, a
nd Langford had refused to waste time building him another.
“Here, use the landline.” Cam-Cam gestured, and Rondeau picked up the handset.
“It's dead.”
“That's impossible. It's secure, the line is heavily armored.” Cam-Cam picked up the phone, stabbed at the buttons a few times, then shook his head. “It must be… sorcery.”
“Right, because that's more plausible than a technical difficulty,” Jason said. “Fuck. So we're trapped in here. Okay. But at least whatever's out there can't get in here, right?”
“Right.” Cam-Cam nodded. “It's impregnable. I had an acquaintance who suffered a home invasion a few years ago, and after that happened, I had this room installed. Besides, I hit the alarm when we closed the door, so the police should be coming soon.” He frowned. “But, you know, it's not a silent alarm, and it should be making quite a racket.”
“It seems not.” Rondeau started to say that sorcerers were really good at neutralizing things like phones and alarms, but didn't like to contemplate the nasty look Jason would probably give him. “I think we should assume we're on our own.” Rondeau also doubted this room would keep out a determined sorcerer. Sure, it was tough, and it would probably slow the bad guys down, but wielders of magic had a way of making openings where they were needed.
“Where are they?” Jason said, leaning over the screens.
A young man dressed in black ambled into sight of the camera trained just outside the panic room's reinforced door. The room was dim, lit only by moonlight through the windows, but he looked to be in his twenties, with messy hair—not a particularly imposing sight. “Can, uh, you guys hear me?”
Cam-Cam pressed a button beside a microphone. “We can. What do you want?”
“Me? The sweet release of death, at this point. But my, uh, let's say ‘employer’ wants the whatchamacallit spores. You probably oughta hand them over.”
