Trace of Magic: 1 (The Diamond City Magic Novels)

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  He left and soon returned with a bottle of water, two ibuprofen, and a Band-Aid. I swallowed the pills and let him apply the Band-Aid. Neither one of us spoke. My mind was spinning. The next obvious step was to go look for Nader. But I still had the six baggies in my pocket. What should I do with them? Did I track them down? When? I was stuck with Price. And if I did want to, their trace wouldn’t be simple to pick up. They all probably used personal nulls with regularity. I needed to go a traditional route, which meant relying on Price, the professional detective.

  I stared down at my lap, thinking hard. Did I dare trust him? God, I was so far up the creek, I’d left the planet. Everything in me said don’t risk it.

  But if I didn’t find Josh, Taylor would be heartbroken. I’d never forgive myself. My only choices were to escape from Price, somehow track down Josh, and try to free him, which, after the Nancy Jane incident, didn’t seem too easy. Or I could lean on Price and hope to hell he would do what he said and help me rescue Josh and not just turn me over to his boss.

  I reached out and touched the letter Josh had written to me. I opened to the trace. A ribbon of silvery red light fell in coils and spun away through the wall. It pulsed with a vibrancy that said he was alive.

  I couldn’t rescue him alone.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the baggies, laying them out on the desk so he could read their names. I locked gazes with him. “Josh put these in the box, too. The question is, now that you know who’s involved, what are you going to do?”

  Chapter 12

  PRICE LOOKED AT the baggies. You know that metaphor about people turning to stone? I swear he actually did it. I couldn’t tell if he was pissed, scared, or both. Hard to imagine him being afraid of anything. ’Course I could have been reading him the wrong way. Maybe he was just shocked I’d handed him all my evidence. I was sure the kidnappers had taken Josh to get this box back. Now that I’d handed it to Price on a silver platter, his captors could kill Josh, Price could kill me and Taylor, and voilà! No more witnesses or evidence. End of problem.

  I probably should have considered that a minute or two ago, but it wouldn’t have changed my decision. I still needed help to rescue Josh. Price was that help. I had to trust him.

  He picked up each of the baggies and examined them, setting them carefully back down. He turned around and paced back to the wall, thrusting his hands into his pockets as he stared at it.

  As the moments ticked past, my heart stuttered and then shriveled. Fuck, but I was an idiot. I pushed back the chair and stood up, gathering up the baggies and the other contents of the box. I packed them back inside the burlap sack and tied the top shut.

  “What are you doing?”

  Price was looking at me, his eyes nearly black. He looked like—an enemy.

  “I’m going to look for Josh,” I said, and my throat tightened up. “Since you aren’t going to help me.” I couldn’t believe it. I was starting to get teary. How stupid. Should I really be surprised that he didn’t catch my Hail Mary pass? So we’d had sex. It was physical. He didn’t care about me. At least not enough to risk his life going up against the Tyet. It was too much to hope for. “Where are my things? Coat? Phone? Boots?”

  He didn’t say answer.

  I paused. “Unless you’re holding me prisoner until you can turn me over to your boss.”

  He snarled. “I’m not holding you prisoner.”

  “Then where’s my stuff?”

  “Laundry room.”

  I hadn’t seen anything when I found my pants and underwear, not that I’d been searching.

  “Great.” I grabbed the sack and stalked past and ran down the stairs.

  Inside the laundry room I found a basket on top of the dryer containing everything I’d had on me, including my gun. I looked around for my coat. It was still wet, hanging on a rack behind the door. A dark hole burrowed through the front. My stomach lurched and I swallowed hard.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll lend me a coat,” I said to Price, who leaned in the doorway. If he wanted to appear relaxed, he failed. His were fisted tight in his pockets, and a muscle twitched in his jaw.

  He swung around wordlessly and left. I pulled on my boots and laced them up, then started distributing my things in my pockets.

  Price filled the doorway again. He handed me a gray down jacket.

  “Thanks.”

  He went back to leaning and watching. The coat was too big and smelled of him, but it had enough pockets for all my gear, including my gun. I stuck it in a roomy outer pocket. I rolled the sleeves back and put my gloves on. When I was zipped up and had the burlap sack again, I stopped in front of him.

  “You make a crappy door,” I noted.

  “What do you think you’re going to do?”

  “Trace Josh. Break him out.”

  “How?”

  “Which one?”

  He scowled. “Pick.”

  “I’ll figure it out when the time comes.” Which was exactly true. I hadn’t a clue what I was going to do or how, just that I had to try. “Want to let me take the snowmobile?”

  He looked down at the floor and shook his head. “You’re certifiable, do you know that?”

  “I do know,” I said. “But I don’t see that I have much choice.”

  “You go alone, and you’ll get killed.”

  “What other choice is there? I’ve known all along you’re a Tyet man. You were never going to go up against them. Just let me have a head start.” I gave a weak smile. “I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

  He grinned back. As if I could hurt him. The worst I’d done so far was smack him with my baton and bleed all over him. Scary shit, that.

  “I should get going,” I hinted, looking past him down the hall. “I could seriously use the snowmobile.”

  He didn’t budge. “You don’t know how to drive it.”

  “I’m a quick learner.”

  He dragged his fingers through his hair. I had a flashback to doing the same thing while he was making me feel crazy good. I flushed. Concentrate, I told myself. He’s the enemy now. Always was, I corrected myself, pushing away all thoughts of him tangled up with me in bed.

  “You’ve gotta let me go now,” I said. My voice had turned husky.

  He flinched. Before I knew what he was going to do, he snatched my hand and pulled me into the kitchen. He pushed me down onto a barstool and poured me some coffee.

  “Stay put,” he said and vanished upstairs.

  I stared after him, then to the door. He’d catch me before I got far. I sighed and set the burlap sack down. I took off my gloves and got the carton of cream from the fridge, pouring some into my coffee. I stirred the sugar a little overzealously, splashing coffee onto the counter. I didn’t know what to think or feel. I wanted to be hopeful, but doubts continued to claw at me. I glanced again toward the door. I should try to run. Maybe I couldn’t drive the snowmobile, but I could disable it and go on foot.

  In this snow, it wouldn’t take long for Price to catch up with me. I sipped my coffee. That brought me to the next problem. How was I going to get around if he didn’t let me have the snowmobile? I’m a decent skier. In Colorado, it’s pretty much required. Did I want to go home and get a pair? Or break in someplace and steal some? On the surface that sounded like a better option, but really, what was the likelihood I’d find a place with the right sized boots or even something close enough to make it work?

  Details. I bet Price had skis. Or better, snowshoes. I didn’t need those to fit.

  I didn’t have any more time to contemplate my escape. He thudded down the stairs and back into the kitchen. He was dressed for going outside, with a black turtleneck and a thick coat. He carried a backpack in one hand and a roll of black fabric in the other.

  “Take off your jacket,”
he ordered.

  I was going to make a joke, something about how I didn’t have time to fool around, but there was a strained look on his face that said he might go ballistic if I pushed him. I unzipped the coat and dropped it onto my chair.

  He unrolled the fabric and pulled it down over my head before velcroing it tightly.

  “A bulletproof vest?” I asked, looking down at myself. He was wearing one too.

  “We aren’t going in unprepared this time,” he said. “It won’t help much against magic, but at least you won’t end up Swiss cheese.”

  “We?”

  “I told you I’d help you get him back.” He went to a cupboard and pulled out a handful of protein bars. “Eat a couple of these. Hurry, we don’t have much time.”

  That sounded ominous. What did he know that I didn’t? “We don’t have much time? Why not?”

  “They figured out I was with you at Josh’s office. I’m supposed to bring you in.”

  Cold slithered down my spine. I set my protein bar on the counter. If I tried to swallow now, I’d either choke or vomit. “When were you going to tell me?”

  “I was working it out.”

  Hysterical laughter bubbled in my throat. “Working it out?” I repeated.

  “I bought some time. I told him you were shot, that I needed some time. He trusts me.”

  “Who?” But I knew. His boss. Gregg Touray. Head of one of the biggest Tyet syndicates in the city.

  “Touray,” he confirmed, looking only slightly guilty.

  “So you were planning to drop me in his lap, and now you’ve changed your mind?” I asked, acid dripping from my voice. My knight in shining armor. I should have stabbed him in his sleep.

  “No, I haven’t. I’m not taking you in. I never was.”

  I blinked, and my mouth fell open. “Excuse me. What did you say?”

  “I said I’m not bringing you in and I never was.” He looked like he meant it.

  I snorted. “Right. Because putting yourself sideways of one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the Tyet is a sure ticket to the bottom of a deep, dark hole. Why wouldn’t you do that?”

  He sighed, aggravated. “It’s the truth. I wasn’t turning you in to him. When you got all high and mighty upstairs and decided to go off on your own, I had every intention of letting you while I tracked Josh by myself. I didn’t want you in the line of fire. But then I realized that you’d end up in the middle of the mess anyway. You find trouble like a moth finds a flame. So we’ll do it together, and I’ll take care of Touray.”

  My brows knitted together. “Why? I never expected you to keep your promise. I always knew you had a conflict of interest and I wasn’t on the winning side.”

  He gave a short bark of laughter. “You’re wrong about that. Right now, you’re about all I can think about. God, I could use a drink.”

  “My eldest brother says I could drive anyone to drink,” I said, my head reeling from his confession.

  “He’s right.”

  “Are you sure? Because Touray isn’t known for forgiving disloyalty.” I was pretty sure I’d gone insane. I was arguing for him to take me in. Somehow he’d become important to me. You’re about all I can think about. Even the memory of his words made me catch my breath.

  “Let me worry about that. Let’s go.”

  He gathered up the bars I’d left on the counter and stuffed them in his pack before heading out the garage door. I pulled on my jacket and followed.

  It took awhile to get the garage door open. A lot of snow had drifted up against it. Price smashed a ramp down for the snowmobile, waving me out of his way when I tried to help.

  “Where are we going?” I asked when he told me to get on. Our helmets were long gone, left at the Franklin Watley building. Our pursuers had probably used them to trace us. Which meant that Touray’s people had shot at us. I frowned. Had they not recognized Price?

  “We’ll start at Nader’s place.”

  “I should warn my family the Tyet’s looking for me,” I said and waited for Price to nod. Not that I needed his permission, but I was trying to show that I trusted him. Or at least that I believed him. I dug my phone out of my pocket. I had only a sliver of green left on my battery icon. Taylor had left several messages for me, but I didn’t bother checking them. Instead I popped open a text message and put her, my brothers, and my stepmother into the recipient list. I hesitated. What did I tell them?

  Tyet. Get out of Diamond City. Hide.

  I hit SEND and powered off the phone. I hoped they’d take me at my word. I hoped it wasn’t already too late.

  Chapter 13

  A GOOD THREE or four feet of snow had fallen since the storm first began. A few flakes spun through the gray air, but mostly it had stopped, for now. Thick clouds built up against the mountains to the north and west. It wouldn’t be long before the next storm rolled in. A few people were trying to dig out. Smoke rose from chimneys, and here and there the Christmas lights of those houses slow to take them down glowed cheerily in the gloom.

  Price’s apartment was on the south side of the crater on a small singular shelf called, with a great deal of creativity, the Ledge. It was connected to Downtown by a long bridge. A zigzagging road on the side of the crater led up over the rim in case the bridge was ever to collapse. It should have been an exclusive and expensive area, but it was too far from the rest of the city to attract people like Taylor, and too low—on the same level as Downtown—to attract the über-rich. So a person could get a reasonably cheap place if he was willing to make the drive and didn’t mind that the bridge over to the Ledge was a suspension bridge that swayed wildly when the wind spun down in the crater like it tended to do.

  Luckily this morning it was decently calm. I still got a little seasick going over. The snow was piled so high the side rails had vanished. I ducked my head down behind Price and squeezed my eyes shut. If we were going to slide off, I didn’t want to see it coming.

  We made the other side without any problem, and I heaved a relieved sigh. Price headed for the suburbs on the south end of Downtown, a few miles from the Squires’s place. A snowplow had been down the main drag relatively recently. Price pulled into a gas station that was miraculously open. A man wandered out of the building. He wore a wool hat with the flaps tied down, a heavy green jacket, and high laced-up boots. His beard was frosted with snow.

  “Wasn’t sure I was going to be seeing any business today,” he said by way of a greeting as he approached. “Turns out, a lot of folks been needing fuel for the heaters, snowmobiles, snowblowers—been running pretty brisk. Guess nobody else got open yet. How much you want?”

  “Fill it up,” Price said, taking off the gas cap.

  The man inserted the nozzle and started to pump. “Name’s Garen. We don’t usually do full service, but I’ve hardly seen a soul in days. Keep an apartment on the back of the shop.” He motioned at the small convenience store. “Live alone with the cats. Lucky the cable’s been working or I’d have gone stir-crazy. Where you folks from?”

  “Over on the Ledge,” Price said.

  “Bridge is good then?”

  “Got a lot of snow on it.”

  Garen shook his head. “That’s bad. Hope they get it off before the next storm. Hate to see it collapse.”

  “It’s built to withstand a lot.”

  “Sure, but haven’t had snow like this since the 1920s. Damned wet and heavy. Almost broke my back just scooping out the sidewalk to get the blower outta the shed.”

  “The plows will get to it soon, I’m sure.”

  “I expect so. Hope folks are stocked up on enough food. Don’t think we’re going to see any grocery deliveries this week. Maybe not next, either. Nothing on the freeways is moving and neither are the trains or planes. Everything’s shut down from here to Omaha and Sa
lt Lake. It’s a mess.”

  Lead settled in my belly. That meant my family hadn’t left—couldn’t leave. They had the means to hide. Dad had insisted that everyone had a safe house to run to. I wasn’t sure they could even get to those.

  Garen finished pumping gas and took the proffered money.

  “Keep the change,” Price said, climbing back aboard.

  “Thanks and drive careful. Ain’t a fit day out for man nor beast.” He smiled and waved and returned to his store.

  We pulled back out on to the road. We went a few more miles and turned off, then wove in and out of the streets to find the place we were looking for. It was a little house set right on top of the sidewalk. It had no garage. Snow heaped halfway up the front door and only about the upper third of the windows was exposed.

  Price pulled the snowmobile up outside a side window. “Let me have your baton,” he said, holding out his hand.

  I gave it to him. He smashed the glass and used it to scrape away the sharp shards clinging to the pane. He grabbed the upper part of the frame and held on while he put one foot then the other onto the sill. He lowered himself inside, then turned to reach for me.

  I was not nearly so graceful as he was. I ended up waist deep in snow. By the time I got inside, I my jeans were soaked through.

  Price flipped on the lights. Luckily, the power was still up. The place wasn’t much to look at. A couple of sagging couches, a TV, some pictures of wild animals, and a whole lot of ashtrays. I wrinkled my nose at the stench. Price wandered away into another room. I picked up some envelopes that were stacked on a couch cushion. Bills and advertisements. I tossed them back down.

  I opened to the trace. The ribbon of light that belonged to Nader was dark orange shot through with brown streaks. It looped every which way in the house and in and out the door. The most recent trail led out but not in. Don’t ask me how I know directionality; I just do. I can also tell gradations in time from most recent to oldest. It’s like tasting the difference between coffee brewed in the morning and left to sit all day, and fresh stuff. It just tastes different.