They advanced a few more steps toward the far back corner. Out of nowhere, someone cackled loudly and maniacally, and LeBlanc, startled, blundered into an incense burner.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, hurriedly casting a frost spell to extinguish the flames that began to catch along the edges of her flowing dress. “They’ll pay for that,” she vowed, glaring at the burnt, ragged ends.
There was nothing in the store. The thaumaturges headed toward the counter past squat statues that leered at them in the dim candlelight. Both sensed a considerable amount of power throughout the place, but its nature was elusive. They were dealing with a magical tradition outside their expertise.
A hand-painted banner with what looked like Korean lettering hung over the counter access gate; James thought it might be a curse, so he and LeBlanc climbed over the counter instead. Unfortunately, someone seemed to have spilled vegetable oil on it, and James found himself skidding off and into the opposite wall, while LeBlanc watched in horror as the oil sank into the bright fabric of her clothes.
James sighed as he got up. “I’m hoping these people turn out to be really hostile so we have an excuse to nuke them into oblivion.”
LeBlanc took a deep breath. “No comment. Come on.”
There was no light in the hall beyond the main space, and after they activated a minor illumination spell to create a stationary glow in front of them, a series of black shirts and dark blue shawls hung from wires. They pushed them aside and found a bathroom and a jumbled storeroom, but nothing else of interest.
LeBlanc pointed out, “I think we missed a staircase leading up.”
“Probably,” James conceded. They retreated, found the stairs, and slowly climbed them.
The profusions of weird, confusing sounds grew louder, as did the smells, and there was more dull orange light. The steps creaked under their feet. They were almost upon whatever was waiting for them in the heart of the place.
James stood before a closed door with his hand on the knob. He looked at LeBlanc, who nodded and raised her hands to conjure a powerful shield or devastating attack spell at an instant’s notice.
He pulled the door open, and in leapt his partner.
“Oh, hello!” A man looked up from his dinner. He was short, with gray-flecked black hair. A Korean woman, perhaps his wife, sat next to him. “Sorry about the mess. Please, come in! We made too much chicken.”
The thaumaturges stared at one another. The feeling of magic was still here, but the only people they could see were the older couple sitting at the table, enjoying a candlelight supper with aromatic tea.
“Nice Scary Halloween Sounds tape,” James said as he stepped inside.
“Thank you,” said the man. He sipped his tea.
LeBlanc sniffed the air. “That chicken does smell wonderful. We, uh, apologize for entering without permission, but we wanted to talk to you about something.” She seemed to have decided to approach this politely despite her earlier outburst.
She and James glanced at each other again. They could not perceive much of an increase in the intensity of magical power. It clearly emanated from the husband and wife, both of whom were setting the table for more diners.
“You are here searching for magic,” the man said. “Yes, yes, we know. Come in.”
James said, "We're looking for Motorcycle Man before people get hurt.”
“Mmm.” The man looked to the side of the room, where a black motorcycle helmet sat on a side table. “As you can see, no one is presently being hurt.”
James frowned and turned away, checking his phone. Richardson had sent a terse message indicating that taking the Mermaid had been uneventful and nothing was showing up on scans, although two civilians had blundered in after the place was cleared. Apparently, that had been cleaned up, and so far, no one else had so much as approached the building.
James thought, I don’t like this, but he could feel the signature of magic emanating from this place. He and LeBlanc went over and sat down at the table as the older couple introduced themselves.
“First—” he began, but Mrs. Kim held up a hand.
“Eat first,” she said quietly. “You are our guests. You will come to no harm. There is no reason we cannot be civilized, and of course you can check the food to make sure it is safe.”
The dinner was one of the stranger events James had ever partaken in, though between the delicious food and the candlelight, it was strangely soothing. Throughout, he could feel the magical signature he had sensed in the Mermaid, centered more strongly on the woman.
When all that remained was empty plates, Mrs. Kim sat in silence, one hand on her husband’s arm. The thaumaturges looked up.
“So,” Mr. Kim began, in a low, solemn voice, “tell us about the people whose minds you have wiped clean and whose powers you have taken away. We know who you are. There is no need to pretend.” He had dropped the jovial facade.
James frowned. He still could not get a proper reading on these two. They were stronger and smarter, yet weaker and less knowledgeable than he had expected, depending on the issue, and every time he thought he understood what he was dealing with, they threw another curveball. LeBlanc seemed nearly as baffled as he was.
She cleared her throat. “First, thank you for a wonderful meal. Second, we are not in the business of harming anyone. In fact, everything we do is to prevent people from abusing their talents or causing unnecessary problems. Our only goal is the common good.”
The Kims chuckled. The woman said something in Korean, and the man added, “Ah, yes. Many people think they are the good guys, don’t they? We are pretty good, aren’t we? Ha, ha. But there are people who like us and protect us who, you might say, are not as good. Dangerous people who wouldn’t like it if they came back and found us with our brains melted.”
LeBlanc smoothed her dress. She was usually unflappable, but tremors of irritation were going through her.
James tried a different course. “We’re not going to melt your brains. We only wanted to assess whether you posed a threat to the general populace and if you were attracting so much attention to our kind that we would have to deal with a threat from the general populace. Get it?”
Mr. Kim nodded.
James went on, “You two don’t seem like much of a threat, but Motorcycle Man is, and you two seem to be telling us you’re him.”
LeBlanc finished for him. “Reckless vigilante actions are a danger to everyone.”
The Kims laughed again. “Oh,” the man quipped, “that was my wife in disguise. She thought she was dying—false alarm—and wanted to do some good before the end. Have some fun, too. But it looks like she will live, so no point in it anymore.”
James and LeBlanc looked at each other, their expressions mirror images of chagrin. They turned back to their hosts.
“And the altercation at the Mermaid tonight?” James asked. He had checked his phone at regular intervals and knew that nothing had happened. “Your showdown with the Startup? The scanners are clear. How did you defuse that one?”
There was a moment of silence between the couple. They looked at each other.
“That,” Mr. Kim said, “is our secret. Simply know that we will only do it again if the gangs make it necessary.”
LeBlanc looked down at her lap. James felt her certainty, and to his sadness, he felt the same.
This was not a younger magic-user who would be able to conform to a new system of beliefs. This was a couple, one with decades of life experience. Their minds were made up.
Which meant the path ahead was clear.
“You wanted us to join you,” the woman said. “That was why you sent us the message. But, no. This is our home.”
That settled it. James glanced at LeBlanc.
“I understand,” he said.
James focused on the asphalt ahead and the lights above and to the side as he drove through Los Angeles. It would be a short trip, but he had enough time to think. Neither he nor LeBlanc felt like speaking yet.
/> Each had reasons for staying quiet. In James’ case, it was because everything had turned out so...anticlimactic. Their gamble had failed without even enough fanfare to make a proper tragedy of it.
He suspected the reason LeBlanc said nothing was that she was content all was well.
He had to be sure, though. “Did we make a mistake? Was it the right thing to do, wiping the magical ability of a nice couple who gave us half their teriyaki chicken?”
LeBlanc kept her eyes straight ahead too. “No. That woman was in her forties, or perhaps older. If she has not learned better than to ride around stirring up the whole city by now, she never will.”
“I guess.” James sighed.
They left downtown and passed into the outer reaches of Little Tokyo. Turning onto East 2nd Street, they found the parking lot of the Mermaid filled with police cars and “inconspicuous” black vans. Things seemed quiet despite the hubbub of so many law enforcement officers running a virtual occupation of the place.
After parking and exiting the Rolls, the thaumaturges composed themselves, prepared to take charge if need be.
James pointed out, “They said nothing happened. I’m starting to wonder if we screwed up worse than we could have anticipated, and all this has been a false alarm. Still...”
“Still,” LeBlanc said, picking up where he had left off, “we should have a look through the place ourselves. We cannot trust that the FBI will pick up on the same things we would.”
James was having doubts about their abilities to pick up on things as well, but he supposed he agreed.
Within, Richardson and MacDonald appeared to greet them right away.
“Hey,” the former began, chewing on a mozzarella stick, “what did you find? There’s nothing going on here, sadly. We didn’t have a single discharge of firearms. Did scare the crap out of some civilians, but that turned out to be nothing. It turned into a costume party, basically. Good mozz sticks, though.”
Scowling, MacDonald confirmed what her partner had said. “I can’t shake the feeling that there’s more going on than this, or we were duped by someone.” She narrowed her eyes at the thaumaturgists. “Brief us.”
LeBlanc smiled. “We dealt with the problem. It is likely you will have no further issues here. Of course, we can provide more detail than that later, but first, might we have a look around? It’s possible that there may be subtle details here you missed, or we did not detect the other evening.”
MacDonald looked at James, who shrugged. “Yeah, what she said.”
The agents took them on a tour of the place, and they inspected the main floor, the area behind the bar, the public restrooms, the kitchen and storeroom and walk-in freezer, the main office, and the employee break area. The bar’s staff had been hustled into the latter, and they looked bored and nervous.
Neither James nor LeBlanc noticed anything of significance. They saw the same traces of magic they had perceived on their first visit, and that was it. Still, while LeBlanc briefly enthralled the agents with a beautifully-spoken assurance that peace would return to their fair city, James did an extra scan.
His fingers contorted in the proper gestures, and he hummed the incantation in his throat to keep it below the threshold of human hearing. The residues of channeling appeared before his mind’s eye. It seemed they were slightly stronger here in the break room, but not enough to matter. Otherwise, everything was as it seemed.
He came out of the semi-trance and noticed that one of the bar’s employees, a pleasant-looking black woman, was looking at him. “Hi,” he said to her. “Consultants. The feds don’t pay that great, but it’s secure work, right?”
She shrugged, and James turned away from her as LeBlanc completed her speech.
“Thus,” the elder thaumaturgist concluded, “we shall take our leave, and trust that there will be no further wild rumors imperiling people. Goodnight, ladies and gentlemen.”
MacDonald shook her head. “Our big haul amounted to virtually nothing. Better than the disaster that might have gone down if we had failed, but still disappointing.”
“Meh,” said Richardson. “At least this way, we can make fun of those pricks who foisted this job off on us so they could go on vacation by telling them we didn’t get blasted into subatomic particles and got to party in Vegas while we were at it.”
Stephanie watched them go. After the strange, mismatched pair had left, she excused herself to go to the bathroom, trying to shake the bizarre feeling that had arisen when she’d watched the geeky-looking man twiddle his fingers while his eyes went vacant. She had seen too much to dismiss it as eccentricity.
In fact, it reminded her of something she had read. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out her bootleg copy of How to Be a Badass Witch. She smiled, then slipped it back into her bag and headed out. After the hostage crisis, customers were coming in again to get the gossip.
They might as well try to salvage what was left of the night.
To her pleasant surprise, a familiar face showed up not too long after, and the woman’s eyes landed on Cevin. Stephanie gestured Nadine to a table and told her she’d be right back with some water and a menu, then went behind the bar, where Cevin was mixing a drink.
He hadn’t noticed Nadine.
“Be cool,” Stephanie told him in a low voice. “Your chick is here, and she is looking for you.”
Cevin froze.
“Get out there,” Stephanie said after waiting for more than a reasonable amount of time. “Go, go, go. I’ll handle the bar.”
Epilogue
Lia began seeing through her eyes again, finally realizing they had been open for some minutes. She gasped, clutching her chest as her heart thumped, and groaned as she got to her feet.
Her memory was a mishmash of terrifying sounds and images, the dark figure who had invaded their headquarters presiding over all of it. The message Motorcycle Woman had left was clear: she was giving Lia and Johnny and Sven a second chance. She hadn’t mentioned Pauline.
Lia slowly made her way to the back door. She felt her way along the wall, trying to stay upright. Trying to keep her balance. Outside, in the little manicured park, she passed the two men, who were crawling around in the grass like frat boys after a bender. They were alive, which meant Pauline was still a priority. Lia turned and walked quickly down the sidewalk, hoping no one would stop to look too closely at her. It was clear that all was not well.
Pushing through the front door, she found the reception area devastated.
Pauline had clearly shot up the place, and it looked like there had been a hand-to-hand fight as well. As for Pauline?
“Oh,” Lia gasped, turning away. “Oh, my God.” She stumbled back outside and crouched, trying not to be sick.
She became aware that she had been hearing sirens for some time. They were nearby, not moving, but there wasn’t time for much in the way of emotional reflection.
But two simultaneous feelings could not be ignored. One, horror and regret that her friend Pauline was dead. The other was relief that someone had stopped Pauline in time. Things had gone sideways so quickly, and she had gone from a woman who was coldly calculating but calm in the face of pushback to someone whose icy resolve was matched only by her desire for revenge.
I was such an idiot to think this would go any other way.
But she didn’t have time for that now. Lia pushed up and half-ran over to the park, looking for Sven and Johnny. She helped each of them up in turn. They’d lost their guns. That was bad since their fingerprints would be all over the damn things.
The sirens were passing them. Still, the cops would figure it out before too long.
“Johnny. Sven. We need to clear out the evidence and then get out of here. Can you help me with that?”
The men stood, blinked, and drew on their inner reserves.
“Yeah,” said Johnny.
“Probably,” said Sven.
Lia grasped something else. They too had experienced the nightmare vision and the clear wa
rning about what would happen if they didn’t clean up their acts.
They went in through the back door and set to gathering up all business-related documents, memos, invoices, the remains of the bombs they had been making and, so forth to bring with them and later destroy. There was no reason to be sloppy, especially when the state of the office would spur so many questions.
There was enough to fill a briefcase and a half.
After Lia had made sure there were no live cameras trained on the reception area—they had been disabled the night before, probably a “gift” from Motorcycle Woman—they began wiping down the surfaces they had touched recently, leaving Pauline’s body where it lay and trying not to look at it.
“Y’know,” Sven said finally, “I think I’m about done with the Russian Mafia portion of my life. From now on, I’m gonna play up my Swedish nice-guy half and go be a fuckin’ farmhand or something in Minnesota with all the other overly polite Scandinavian types. After this, I’m out of here. Sorry, guys. It’s been nice working together, but I don’t expect to see any of you ever again.”
Lia nodded. “We understand, Sven. Best of luck with whatever you do.” The automatic politeness came out of her, a relic of a different time. It seemed ridiculous to say things like that with a dead body nearby.
She didn’t know what else to do, however.
Johnny patted his shoulder. “Yeah, man. We saved each other’s asses a couple times, but all good things come to an end, or whatever.”
He paused while running a sanitary wipe over the handle of the coffee pot. “I can’t stop thinking about it—all of this. I’m not ready to leave town yet. LA has been my home for my whole life, but I’m seeing a lot of things differently. That’s all I’m gonna say.”
Since Sven was the biggest and had explicitly decided to leave the state anyway, they gave him the briefcases full of papers. He saluted them and shot them a wry smile before trudging eastward. They didn’t ask where he was going. He probably had multiple safe houses or old girlfriends within a mile.
How To Be A Badass Witch: Book Three Page 23
