As LeBlanc silently weighed the pros and cons, an idea occurred to James. He didn’t like it. In fact, it was borderline-painful to consider, but arguing for it might be his best shot to sway his friend to his way of thinking.
“What if we ask the council what they think?” he suggested. “Float the idea before them and hear what they have to say. Agree to submit to their standards, which, when you get down to it, are about the same as ours, explaining that the aim is to temper Motorcycle Man’s overly proactive and reckless tendencies and instruct them in the smart way of doing things. If they turn out to be unteachable, then and only then will we block their power, memory-wipe them, and dump them back into normal life.”
Normally, it did not take LeBlanc long to process information or decide on a course of action, but she was quiet for nearly a full minute.
“So be it.” Her voice was quiet. “We will contact the others and allow them to weigh in before we make our move.”
Lovecraft smiled. “Ma’am, you’ve got yourself a deal. And in the meantime…”
She raised an eyebrow at him curiously.
“I say we start asking around in motorcycling groups,” James said. “The details on the type of motorcycle are maddeningly few. I know there’s magic in play, but it’s likely they’ve managed to see something.”
Chapter Eight
By the time Kera got to the Mermaid the next day, she was in a terrible mood. Everything annoyed her, from the traffic to her gloves snagging on her coat. Winter had settled into the endlessly gray phase, which did not impress her either.
She took a moment outside the back door to compose herself before going in.
“Remember, Kera,” she said, mimicking her mother’s voice as best she could, “you’re a witch, not a bitch.”
She punched in the combination and stepped into the shadows, only to hear Cevin call her name. The manager came to his door when Kera poked her head in.
“Hey,” Cevin said. He looked worried.
Kera did her best not to look as annoyed as she felt. “What’s up?”
Cevin grimaced. “I tried to call you, but you must already have been on your way. We’re still absolutely dead out there. The violence has scared people off, and the few people who are coming in are not the clientele we want.”
“Oh.” Kera felt a flicker of annoyance that was quickly swamped by relief. She didn’t want to be left alone with her thoughts, including the question of how to find the gang that was putting out hits on her, but she also didn’t want to have to fake-smile at customers for eight hours. She shrugged. “If you need someone to give up a shift, I definitely can.”
Cevin ran a hand through his hair. “I…don’t want you to feel obligated. You’ve really taken one for the team, and—”
“Cevin. It’s fine. Seriously.” Except it didn’t feel fine all of a sudden. Kera realized she just wanted to get out of there before she embarrassed herself by looking fearful. She took a deep breath. “I’m, uh…I am going to take a bathroom break before I drive home, though. Bye.” She whisked off before he could see her expression.
In the bathroom, she splashed cold water on her face and considered it in the mirror. She didn’t feel like herself today. Between the black hair and the eye makeup, not to mention the shadows under her eyes, she looked like someone who knew the walls were closing in.
Someone who might not be the hero of this story after all.
Things had gone so well at first, but now she had the sense that the smooth sailing had been the calm before the storm.
On the way out, she bumped into Stephanie.
“Hey.” Kera smiled and kept walking.
“Hey,” Stephanie called to her back. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” Kera knew she had to look back to show Stephanie things were fine. She plastered a smile on her face. “I am. Promise.”
“You don’t look okay,” Stephanie said bluntly. She came closer. “Look, Kera…never mind. You said you were fine. I don’t want to pry. I just want to help if you need help.”
“I don’t mind giving up the shift,” Kera assured her.
“Okay.” Stephanie nodded. She hesitated, then came to offer Kera a hug.
Kera, to her surprise, found herself hugging the other woman tightly. When she pulled away, there were tears in her eyes, and she swiped at them angrily. “God. I’m sorry.”
“Is it…the guy?” Stephanie asked.
Christian. She’d almost managed to forget about him. Kera squeezed her eyes shut and counted to five in her head, trying to regain her composure. When she opened her eyes, Stephanie was staring at her sympathetically.
“Yeah,” Kera said tightly. It was the only part of this she could even halfway explain.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” Stephanie reached out to squeeze her hand.
“It’s for the best,” Kera told her. “We, uh, we weren’t going to work.”
Stephanie nodded quietly, then shot a quick glance over her shoulder at the room, but as Cevin had said, the place was dead. The recent crime spree had done a number on the number of people wandering around Little Tokyo.
Kera sighed. “I should go. Unless you know any way to make sure a guy doesn’t show up at your house.”
She was joking, but Stephanie’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. Are you okay? Did he get creepy?”
“No. No!” Crap. It was the logical conclusion after what she’d said, but it would not be fair to Christian to let the people here think he was creepy or violent. “Promise. It’s just, I don’t want to see him. I know it isn’t going to work, but I don’t think he feels the same.”
“Aha.” Stephanie looked dubious. “Well, you know we’ve got your back if you need us.”
“I do.” Kera gave her a smile, this one slightly less forced. “I really should go, Steph, but seriously…thanks.”
“Anytime.” Stephanie smiled at her. “You should go out tonight. Get moving. Dancing, maybe? It helps, I swear.”
“Uh-huh.” Kera’s smile this time was genuine, amused by the idea of dancing her way through LA’s two-bit gang members. “See you soon.”
Pauline Smith’s impassive mask of professionalism was slipping, and even she knew it.
“What the fuck is going on?” Her voice was a snarl. She had worked hard to all but eliminate her native Russian accent, but it was creeping back into her speech. “We walked them through this. They had all the training they fucking needed.” She clenched her fingers on the table’s edge.
“They had instructions! And there were twelve of them!”
There was silence. Lia and Sven were sitting as still as mannequins.
Johnny, on the other hand, was lounging in his chair. He shrugged. “We were pretty sure the first few groups were going to get their asses handed to them. That was the point of bringing in these guys—to try a few things.”
Pauline shot him a glare, and Lia flinched.
Johnny didn’t. He stared Pauline down. “You saw this happen before. I told you what I saw.” He shifted uncomfortably. “What I remember of it.”
“You sure you’re not just enjoying watching other people go through it?” Pauline snapped at him.
“Oh, I am.” His grin looked almost like a snarl. “You thought I was full of shit when I came back here a few weeks ago with my car busted. You didn’t want to believe this was as bad as it is, but you’re starting to fucking get it now.”
Pauline had regained some of her composure. “’It,’” she repeated precisely. “Explain, Mr. Torrez.”
“Miss me with that shit.” Johnny stared her down. “We keep thinking the problem is prep-work. Throw enough people at it, train ‘em well enough, it’ll be fine. Truth is, this bitch can take down more people than they should be able to—and when they decide to bug out, they’re just gone. We have to assume the next few groups are going to get their asses handed to them too.”
Pauline’s eyes flared at his disrespect, but she was accepting his words, no matter how much she mi
ght not like them.
She turned back to the board for a moment, looking at the company diagrams she had set up—all blandly labeled in case they fell into the wrong hands. She tapped her fingers on her arms.
Then she turned back.
“Very well. Johnny, get the next groups ready to go. Shelve the ideas from Sven and Lia, and make the next one trap-focused. Something immobilizing.”
Johnny nodded.
“And next time,” Pauline said, “I expect you to be there to oversee it personally.”
“I was there—”
“In the fight,” Pauline snapped. “I’ll handle surveillance.”
Johnny’s lip curled, but before he could respond, she’d moved on.
“Sven.”
The big man tensed.
“What the goddamn fuck were you doing?” Pauline demanded. “Someone of your experience would have been useful in supervising the whole operation. You should have volunteered. Do you think I respect employees who only do the bare minimum? Successful organizations are the ones whose workers go the extra mile without having to be asked.”
Sven’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly like a fish’s. Johnny saw that he was trying to figure out whether to remind her that he’d been told to stand back on this operation. In the end, he wasn’t brave enough. He just nodded.
“And Lia,” Pauline snapped, her tone still cold and jagged, “you of all people know that results are what’s important. I asked you for ideas, and I still haven’t seen any fucking good ones. We have several unexplained phenomena going on, and I expect you to have answers on my desk by midday tomorrow about how this bastard is pulling those off. Am I clear?”
Lia had gone white. Johnny thought she looked angry, but in the end, she only nodded.
A heavy, awkward silence hung in the air while Pauline took three deep breaths. “Very well. To continue with the agenda, reports. Now. Lia, you start.”
Each of them spoke in turn. There wasn’t much to tell, but the illusions of normalcy and routine it invoked helped them relax.
Pauline folded her hands one last time. “Good. We are moving on to the next phase. The pushback has taken an unexpected form, but it’s nothing we can’t handle. Sven, Johnny, go make a plan—a good one. Then brief the next group. Lia, you have research to do.”
Pauline waited until the three were gone, then she dropped into her chair and let out a stream of expletives under her breath. English might be adaptable as a language, but when the time came to swear, it had nothing on Russian.
She was done hand-holding. She had allowed Lia and Johnny to convince her that their setbacks had been unavoidable when she should simply have held the line and demanded results.
Well, she’d start now.
As for Sven…
He was going to have to step up. At the start, Pauline had believed Sven had more of an idea of what was going on than Johnny. Less of a challenger. Knew what was expected of him. Didn’t make waves.
He also didn’t take risks. If he didn’t start being serious about this, Pauline wasn’t sure he would get through this operation with his head still attached to his shoulders.
She had no use for people who couldn’t get things done.
Johnny stood before the assembled mass of LA’s least-fine, as it amused him to think of them, with Sven at his side. The pair of them looked quite different physically, but given their identical dark suits, dark glasses, and ties, it was easy for the group to look up to them as important and respectable middle managers.
By now, the group had heard what had happened to Xavi’s team. The ones who were present were uneasy, and several had not come. Johnny had noted who. Many others looked like they wanted to run out on the job.
He’d take care of that immediately after this meeting.
In the meantime, he exchanged looks with Sven, who was hanging back, then looked over the assembled group. They had gathered in a grassy, weedy lot hidden between four- and five-story buildings and conveniently surrounded by a tall, rusty fence.
“So,” Johnny said, “earplugs don’t work. Now we know.”
There was a round of nervous chuckles, but the sound died quickly. They were too tense to be amused.
“What also doesn’t work,” Johnny added, his voice a whiplash, “is a group of grown-ass men getting beat down like little girls on a schoolyard.”
There was total silence. All humor had died. Xavi’s group had gone from embarrassed to mutinous.
“You want to explain to me what happened?” Johnny asked them.
In response, Xavi rolled up a sleeve to show the marks on his arm. It was early for the bruise to be showing all the way, but from the spread and color, it was going to be a doozy. Whoever had hit him and however they’d done it, the blow had been hard.
Johnny didn’t waver, however. He just waited. A bruise wasn’t an explanation. It was time to start employing Pauline’s methods, he felt.
“This wasn’t us folding,” Xavi told him furiously. “Fucker hits hard. He’s too fast.”
“So, we’re dealing with a kung-fu master, is that what you’re telling me? Someone with mystical powers? Did you see a long white beard?”
Xavi glowered at him. “Fast enough for it.”
“Then we need to be faster,” Johnny said. The ‘we’ was a concession. He looked around. “Who here is faster than Xavi?”
There was a pause, then a few people raised their hands. One or two even stared at Xavi while they did.
“Good. You go next.” Johnny didn’t spare a glance for Xavi. “I want you on your fucking A-game, you got it? No drinking between now and then. No drugs. No injuries. We know from Xavi’s group that this bastard prefers less crowded places, and they respond quickly.”
Everyone nodded.
“What we’re going for is a trap,” Johnny told them. “Something to keep them immobile.” He held out a hand to Sven without looking over, and the other man put a sheaf of papers in it. Johnny handed it to a young man who seemed to have assumed command of the second team. “Those are the specs. We’ll go tomorrow night to give you some time to prepare. You bring this motherfucker to us in chains if you have to.”
“And if they don’t?” Xavi asked bitterly.
“If they do,” Johnny said coldly, looking at him, “they’ll have their fucking careers made. If they don’t, they’ll be nobodies.”
“Don’t forget,” Xavi said, “this motherfucker is looking for you too.”
One of the team members raised his hand. “I can’t remember everything I saw, but I’m pretty sure Motorcycle Dude is a chick. No shit, bro.”
Murmurs went around the group, and three or four of the South Park group agreed. The others didn’t know or weren’t sure, and the men who hadn’t been there snorted in derision.
Sven just chuckled. “That would be a nice change of pace, a beautiful woman in tight leather instead of some ugly fuck. Maybe not beautiful if she’s always wearing that helmet, but whatever. Duty calls. Either way, they won’t be alive long enough for it to matter.”
When he heard Sven say that, Johnny squinted into the distance as something rumbled within his brain—a memory trying to come out but unable to, like a scene from a dream that had been vivid five seconds ago but was now fading.
It had been like this from his first experience with Motorcycle Man—or the LA Witches, whatever they called themselves—and it frankly scared the shit out of him. Brain damage would mean the end of Johnny Torrez. He had always prided himself on his inborn smarts and his accumulated street smarts. They’d saved his life many a time.
It didn’t seem like brain damage. Just, every time he was supposed to have tangled with this person, he couldn’t seem to remember much about it.
He wasn’t going to think about it now.
“Whatever this tech is,” he said bluntly, “first one to figure it out is gonna be fucking rich. You’ll be set for the rest of your life if you do. The bad news is, you’re going up against our acquisi
tion specialist, and she’s good at finding answers, so I’d get a move on.”
He didn’t mention that this was how Xavi could restore his reputation. The other man was smart enough to have caught that on his own.
“We’ll be there to oversee tomorrow night,” Johnny said. “See you then. Oh, and one more thing… We want this fucker to answer some questions, sure. But if push comes to shove, we wouldn’t be too upset if they wound up dead.”
He left without another word, Sven following at his shoulder.
Gloves off, Johnny thought to himself. Now we wait.
Kera had borrowed some books from the Kims, and as she plunged into the first, she found herself stumbling onto things that might prove far more useful than she would have expected.
The book was written in an archaic style, much like the grimoire— perhaps a relic of an earlier time given a brush-up. If she hadn’t known better, Kera would have lumped the Kims’ books into the category of folk tales from the old country, on a level with her grandmother’s belief in the fae.
Although come to think of it, maybe her grandmother had been right. After all, magic was real.
Kera decided to shelve that for now. If she went down that rabbit-hole, she’d still be researching when the gangs came to finish her off.
She picked up half a grilled cheese sandwich and turned the pages with her clean hand as she snacked.
The author of this book focused on a general overview and the historical background of magical scholarship, rather than the nitty-gritty of magical activity. They also mentioned enough topics and keywords that Kera had a starting point from which to conduct further research.
An hour and two grilled-cheese sandwiches later, the book lay face-down beside her on the bed and her laptop sat open on her knees. She’d spent the last hour reading up on the properties of iron and silver, both of which had been mentioned in The True Nature of Magic.
So far, the problem was that both metals inhibited magic instead of shielding it. She wanted to hide her magic, but it sounded like those metals might block it instead.
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