Essentially, she would be left shooting blanks.
A pair of notions occurred to her simultaneously. One, she might be able to add small amounts of iron or silver to her wardrobe. Not enough to shut down her power altogether, but enough to dampen her magical signature and prevent prying eyes from noticing it. Two, she could try using spells to detect spells on herself. The grimoire contained a spell for scrying. She had used a modified form of it when she was seeking information on the terrorist incident she’d resolved not long ago.
“Yeah, that’s potentially doable.” She looked at Zee, who crouched in his place, silent but looking slick, as usual. “Hear that, my man? We could, say, cast a charm that sustains itself in one particular location, then go somewhere else, try to locate it by scrying, and see how well it turns up with given amounts of anti-magical substances in the way.”
Or perhaps the Kims could help. This book conceptualized some of the principles of magic differently, so it stood to reason that there might also be different spells—either ones the author of this grimoire was unaware of or that they had chosen not to include.
“Fuckers,” Kera muttered under her breath.
Her language had gone downhill since she’d started using magic, or more accurately since she’d started seeing more of how the worst people in the world behaved. Some of that could only be properly described with expletives.
She opened the second book, this one on Eastern mysticism, and began poking around for things that looked useful. Some of what she read reminded her of stuff she’d seen in old kung fu films when she was a kid—lots of references to chi, which modern science scoffed at.
A few weeks ago, she would have scoffed as well, but now she knew better.
“Okay,” she mumbled, “but before we plunge into all that stuff, how about we start by looking at clothes that could be complemented by iron studs or silver fringes? Hell, I could sew thin strips of the stuff into the lining if I have to. Just have to make sure it doesn’t constrain movement….or throw off my balance, come to think of it.”
The idea appealed to her. Metal studs in her clothing had a medieval vibe to it, not to mention she was a biker.
“You like that idea, Zee?”
He didn’t respond, but she suspected he approved.
“Now,” Kera said, “on to Subject Number Two.” She nodded gravely at Zee. “Namely, how to track down the motherfuckers who are sending people after me.”
She had considered the possibility that the ones tracking her might be behind all this, but she didn’t think so. So far, they didn’t seem smart enough, and she hadn’t seen any indication of them using magic against her.
She wanted to be done with them soon, though, so she had only one focus: whoever was coming to find her.
Chapter Nine
Ben crouched and put the final touches on the trap.
He felt like a James Bond supervillain, to be honest. This trap was way over the top—or to be more accurate, the multiple traps he’d set up were way over the top. He wasn’t sure what was going to work, so he’d made a few different ones, each with multiple restraint mechanisms.
Motorcycle Man was fast, so they all involved a slowing element. One had a cloud of pepper spray, while a second had a bucket of honey, some to go on the floor and some to coat the guy. Ben figured you could slow someone down by restraining them or by distracting them.
So far, it didn’t seem like anyone had tried to take down Motorcycle Man with any tactics other than brute force.
Clearly, that hadn’t worked.
Once the slowing mechanism was in place, it was time to address Motorcycle Man’s second major strength, which was his physical strength. Or her strength. Ben couldn’t believe they were dealing with a woman, but this whole thing was weird. He figured it didn’t much matter either way.
In either case, they needed something stronger and more durable than another human to hold Motorcycle Man in place. Ben was going with wire nets and metal bars, the second of which he’d had to buy from a very dubious private club at an exorbitant rate.
He’d made sure not to touch it.
Then, the finale: something that would kill Motorcycle Man automatically unless one of the team members stepped in. That had been Ben’s idea. It seemed like people just gave up on fighting Motorcycle Man after he’d talked to Xavi’s group about it. They couldn’t remember most of it. In fact, the only thing they did remember was that they didn’t know why they were there or what had happened to make them hurt so much.
The rest of Ben’s team thought Xavi was a lying little bitch who just didn’t want to admit he’d gotten beaten to a pulp.
Ben wasn’t so sure. He didn’t know how Motorcycle Man would have pulled that off, but he knew it had happened more than once, and he didn’t want his plan to go to hell even if he lost his mind.
Speaking of which, he was planning to stay in the shadows tonight. Ostensibly, it was to work the spring-loaded-knife mechanism if it malfunctioned, but actually to see if he could figure out what Motorcycle Man did to people.
Was it a drug? It had to be a drug.
He dusted off his hands and stood. His choice of location was risky—the same warehouse where Motorcycle Man had beaten up almost two dozen assorted gang members last week. Whoever this bastard was, they probably knew the inside of this place pretty well.
On the other hand, it didn’t look like they’d been back since then, and after the police and rescue workers had come through, it was pretty torn up. Motorcycle Man would expect some differences, and it would be difficult to see the traps in the rubble.
Ben gave a last nod and headed for the exit, where two of his team members waited.
If he could pull this off, he was going to be set for life.
Alone in her apartment, Kera rolled her neck and started a series of stretches. She had spent a good portion of the previous evening carefully testing her range of motion in her leathers, and despite a few ungraceful moments, she was doing well and didn’t anticipate any surprises similar to the one she’d had two nights ago.
She was, however, glad she didn’t have any extra equipment hanging between her legs. The leather pants didn’t leave much in the way of room.
“I hope no dudes get the idea to emulate Motorcycle Man,” she murmured and smiled slightly.
She had gone out after her practice but had found nothing too worrisome.
She was fairly sure that meant her opponents were regrouping, and she didn’t like that. Whatever they came up with next could hurt more people, and if they realized that was her weak point…
She didn’t like to think about that.
It was frustrating in the extreme that she hadn’t been able to get any names out of the gang members who had attacked her. If she were honest with herself, she had gone into that fight unprepared. She hadn’t known how to interrogate someone; she had just figured she’d do it, and that would be that.
That strategy—which wasn’t a strategy at all—hadn’t worked. It was also starting to catch up with her during the fights. Sure, right now, they couldn’t do any meaningful damage to her, but what if they found a way? She hadn’t understood how their world worked when she attacked the man with the Mustang.
She needed to take them out, and her window for doing so was shorter than she’d like. The next time she ran into some hired underlings, she had to figure out who had hired them.
That need had led her down a rabbit hole of unpleasant research related to interrogations. Fortunately, she didn’t have time for most of the really nasty techniques, so she didn’t have to decide if she would use those.
It looked like her best bet was to intimidate them into believing she would know if they lied to her. She wanted names. Failing that, she wanted locations. She would have to get that and get out.
Once her stretches were done, she fixed herself a snack. A few weeks ago, she would have considered the amount of food an unbearably heavy meal, but things had changed radically since then. She
didn’t know if she was going to run into anyone tonight, but if she did, she wanted to have plenty of energy to work with.
Accordingly, she wolfed down a can of macadamia nuts, a plain avocado, and a bagel with cream cheese. Then she put on her leathers and her helmet and wheeled Zee out the door of her warehouse.
Riding around calmed her, at least at first. It was easier to let her mind settle when she had to pay attention to the road and the feel of the bike beneath her.
As had become normal at this point, she found more people than usual looking at her. People tended to look at motorcycles because the engine sounded different, and they caught the eye more than a car. Plus, in Kera’s experience, most people secretly wanted a motorcycle.
Now, however, people’s eyes lingered, and they perked up when they heard a motorcycle. After all, anyone in all black on a black bike might be Motorcycle Man.
It was funny to watch their eyes go out of focus and flick away. Her spells made it difficult to see or notice Zee or her. So far, they also seemed to work well on cameras, but Kera knew she couldn’t count on that continuing. Sooner or later, she’d need a more comprehensive strategy.
One problem at a time, MacDonagh.
She had been riding around for nearly an hour and was beginning to think there wouldn’t be any activity tonight after all when the scanner crackled to life. They were reporting a break-in…at the textile factory where Kera had begun the fight several days before.
Alarm bells went off in her head.
After the last spate of activity there, the police were going to be quick to respond, and the people she was fighting didn’t want police involvement any more than she did. That meant this was either copycat kids wreaking havoc…
Or the real break-in was somewhere else.
Kera pulled over to spend a moment thinking. The last thing she wanted was to crash while wrapped up in thought or not think the problem through because she couldn’t focus.
Everything told her this was a trap. They had regrouped and they were trying again, which meant there was a possibility, however unlikely, that they had found a way to take her down.
And if it was a trap, and they didn’t want any interference…
She knew exactly where they would go. She pulled back out into traffic at the first opportunity and hung a U-turn soon after, heading back toward the warehouse where she had set her traps.
She doubted any of hers were still active, but she had no doubt that there were new ones. As she drove, she prepared herself with luck spells and others to help her remain unnoticed. She decided to stack the deck by showing up from an angle they wouldn’t expect.
Driving this route again made her think of Christian, and she tried to squash the emotions. It had not been a good thing that he had been involved in the event several days back, and it was good that he was not here now.
As she drove, she tried to mask the sound of her motorcycle, though she had to be extra careful of other drivers once she had done that. It was difficult to tell if it was working, but no heads were turning.
She drove past on a nearby street, one with a good view of the warehouse. She couldn’t see movement, but she had a sudden memory of a bullet tearing through one of the windows as she left the last time.
This was where the shooter would have been. She looked around but didn’t see anyone there…yet.
Time to go in. She wanted to leave Zee somewhere he would help her make a quick escape, but not somewhere they’d have advance warning that she was here.
Of course, that was assuming she was correct about the trap, but her hunches had been good so far.
She parked Zee on a side street and crept back to the warehouse, moving as quietly as she could in the dark. The warehouse had been damaged internally by the fight, and emergency services must have done some damage of their own. Kera wasn’t sure if it had been amusing to them to play demolition crew or if they had hoped to keep other people from doing something dangerous.
Either way, it was worth expecting that the floor wouldn’t be stable under her feet and that none of her spells were in effect anymore.
She amplified her hearing magically, not only compensating for the motorcycle helmet but also giving her a keener sense of everything around her. There were people inside, but she didn’t know how many or where they were.
Shit, what’s the magical version of night-vision goggles?
Stealth hadn’t been her forte so far, mainly because she had charged into situations with guns and explosions. She hadn’t needed to be stealthy. This time, she wanted to think things through.
There were two main places she could picture people hiding in the warehouse: in the alcove underneath the stairs, which were metal and thus not entirely demolished, and in the shadows along the far wall, where a tumbled-down section of wall allowed someone to hide without sticking out.
She amplified her vision as well and leaned slightly into the room, just enough to examine the area under the stairs. Yes, there were people there. If she was careful, she might be able to jump them before they realized she was in the building.
Kera readied herself and began her slow movement into the warehouse. If they were smart, which she should assume they were, they would be watching all of the potential entrances. Still, with a combination of effects, she might be able to keep them from paying attention to her.
With a flick of one wrist, she cast her first spell. It was modeled on one taught in the book, a sound of animal noises that seemed perpetually to come from around the corner. This time, Kera made it sound like a motorcycle.
There was a flurry of movement, but she kept moving, creeping closer.
Soon she’d be close enough. A few steps more, a few—
An aerosol went off near her face, making her jerk back with a hiss. A moment later, iron bars snapped up around her: a cage of some sort, something that wouldn’t look out of place in a certain type of dungeon.
There was laughter and a few whoops, and a light went on, shining directly into her eyes. The light bounced as the person holding it stepped forward.
“Hello, Motorcycle Man.”
Her eyes were stinging faintly. The aerosol must have had an irritant in it.
Whatever the case, she knew she didn’t want to stick around in this cage. Kera came up with a plan and executed it within a split second. The bars in front of her began to glow red-hot, then white-hot. Even inside the helmet and the leathers, she could feel the heat radiating from them. She initiated a magical poke to push them out of place and cooled them as they landed.
She had only meant to keep them from catching anything on fire, but the rapid heating and cooling had the bonus effect of shattering the metal.
Kera stepped out of the cage and stared the man down.
“Do you have any idea,” she asked him, “what a gigantic fucking mistake you just made?”
Chapter Ten
Ben had thought he more or less knew what he was getting into. Motorcycle Man was strong and fast. There were drugs involved, and also weird light effects or something. The trap had worked exactly as intended. They had all been distracted by the sound of the motorcycle, but the trap hadn’t.
Then the plan had gone off the rails. Ben had not expected to see the bastard straight-up melt the metal bars.
Fuck. He paused for a second.
Wait. All he had to do was keep Motorcycle Man there. Then the trap would take care of the problem for him.
He crossed his arms and stared. “You think your little magic tricks are really working, man?”
“I saw you flinch.” There was a laugh from inside the motorcycle helmet. Motorcycle Man—who, it had to be said, was shorter than the average dude—stepped forward.
Determined to keep him within range of the knife, Ben stepped up to meet him.
His team sucked in their breath.
Thanks for the confidence, everyone. Ben made a mental note to take a bigger share of the payout than he’d planned.
He ope
ned his mouth to speak, and Motorcycle Man cut him off with a spinning kick. Ben went staggering sideways, and Motorcycle Man grabbed him by the jacket. The next thing he knew, he was on his knees with something jabbing into the back of his head.
A gun? Fuck, fuck, fuck. The payout from the Startup was good, good enough that some of his own team would probably screw him over to get it.
“All right,” Motorcycle Man called. “All you have to do is answer a couple of very simple questions, and your friend here gets to go home with his life. Maybe not his dignity, but his life.”
There was a pause.
“Who hired you?” Motorcycle Man asked. The hand on Ben’s collar tightened. “You wanna answer, smartass?”
“Fuck you.” He wouldn’t take a bullet for the Startup, but he also wasn’t going to look like a weak little bitch in front of his team. He wasn’t a huge name in LA yet, but he’d done all right for himself, and he’d managed that by grinding tirelessly.
Not by giving up at the first sign of trouble.
“Anyone else?” Motorcycle Man asked.
A second later, there was the twang of the knife coming up, and Ben had just enough time to fear that he was now in the way of it before Motorcycle Man threw himself sideways, dragging Ben with him.
The knife came out of nowhere, and it was only a combination of a hunch and good reflexes that let Kera get out of the way in time. She dove sideways, dropping the piece of metal she’d been using to make the jerk think she had a gun.
She really needed to get one.
“All right, motherfuckers,” she called as she rolled to her feet. “That’s how you want to play? Then let’s play.”
She went for the leader first, taking him down with another spinning kick. He slumped in a heap. Kera wrenched the knife off the spring-loaded rod before ducking away and throwing herself toward the exit.
How To Be A Badass Witch: Book Three Page 8
