by Steven Brust
Donovan realized he had, in fact, been getting defensive. He nodded. “All right. My bad. Keep asking.”
Matt crossed his legs, ankle over knee. “When was it founded?”
“Nineteen thirty-nine.”
“Really? That recently? I was thinking, you know, thousands of years of ancient lore and all that.”
“The group it split from goes back to the Middle Ages, if that helps.”
“Oh. What’s the group they split from?”
“A bunch of pricks.”
“Really?”
Donovan tapped his beer bottle against his teeth and thought about how to answer. “They protect each other, help each other, and at least some of them are total bastards.”
“So, let me guess: They’re the bad guys.”
“Not this time. The bad guy is killing them.”
“Oh. What do you mean when you say some of them are total bastards?”
“Well, let’s see. Of the people whose deaths we’re investigating, one of them was a racist asshole who got people beaten and maybe killed. Another made reporters disappear if they were going to expose something embarrassing to whoever was paying him. And the third was, at least, a corrupt State Senator.”
“Really? It doesn’t seem like killing them is such a terrible thing to do.”
“I had that conversation with my boss not long ago.”
“And?”
“It’s bad because they pay me to think it’s bad. That’s the best answer I could get.”
“How much do they pay you?”
“Minimum wage, plus a stipend, plus the apartment is free.”
Matt looked around the room. “That doesn’t sound like a lot.”
“No. If it was a non-rent-controlled apartment in Manhattan, that would be different.”
“Can you live on that?”
“Sure. Easy. As long as I also get in twenty hours a week or so doing medical billing.”
Matt tapped his fingers against the beer bottle. “Why do you do it?”
“I can do it at home. It’s very exciting work. I recommend it.”
“I meant the other. Why do you do the investigations?”
“Oh. I ask myself that a lot between jobs. Maybe I’ll get a PI license one of these days.”
“So, you investigate when people are killed using magic?”
“Or when magic is used for crime, or anything else that might get noticed.”
“How long have you been doing it?”
“Eleven years.”
“How many times have they called you in?”
“Thirty-nine. This makes forty. Most of the time, it turns out to be a new sensitive playing around, someone missed by Recruitment, so we just turn it over to them.”
“And the others?”
“Some are false alarms—someone picks up indications of magic, or hears a report, and it turns out to be nothing.”
“And?”
“And sometimes it’s a bad guy. Someone using magic in a way that could get discovered.”
“What do you do when it’s a bad guy?”
“Depends. Sometimes you can intimidate the guy into stopping. Threats. Shows of force.”
Matt was staring, intense. “And if you can’t?”
Donovan hesitated, then said, “There’s a thing the sorcerer is trained for. It, like, pulls out the person’s ability to sense the grid lines. Takes away his ability to do magic.”
“You can do that?”
“We don’t like to. It leaves the guy magically dead, completely, can’t even trigger an artifact like normal people can.”
“An artifact?”
“Never mind.”
“So, Marci’s done that?”
“No, but her predecessor had to a few times.”
“What happened to her?”
“Him. He got old and retired.”
Something about that must have struck Matt as funny, because he started to smile but stopped himself. “Is there a pension plan?”
Donovan had another swallow of beer. “Yeah, but it sucks.”
“Health care?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty good, actually. Like, ten-dollar co-pay, twenty for dental. Pretty sweet, really.”
“So, you’ve never taken a life?”
“Me personally? No.”
“Your team?”
Donovan looked at him, looked at his beer, looked up again, and nodded. “Twice. Susan once, the sorcerer once. Not the guy we were after, guys that were backing him. Like, say, what you were doing. We like killing people even less than we like de-sorcelling someone.”
Matt laughed. “‘De-sorcelling’? That’s the term?”
Donovan felt his lips twitch. “That’s what I call it. There’s a technical term that everyone else uses.”
Matt nodded and became serious. “So, what are you going to do with me?”
“I told you. I’m going to let you go.”
“Then why are you answering all my questions?”
Donovan shrugged. “You seem like a decent guy for someone who tried to kill me. I don’t know. Why does it matter?”
“If secrecy is such a big deal—”
“Like I said before, who will you tell? Me, I think they’re a bit paranoid about it. It would take something really fucking huge to convince the public that magic was a thing. But, hey, I’m just a hired grunt.”
“I want to help.”
“I heard you. But the only thing I know for sure about you is that you took five hundred bucks to kill a complete stranger. I mean, that’s not all that much of a recommendation, right?”
Matt nodded.
“Ever done that before?” said Donovan.
Matt shook his head. “First time. It just, I don’t know, it fell into my lap, and I said what the hell.”
Donovan waited, looking at him.
“Okay,” said Matt after a moment. “A couple of months ago I needed some dental work I couldn’t afford, so I knocked over a couple of stop-and-robs. I never thought of myself as being that guy, but I did it. And then this … shit. You know how they say sometimes you have to hit bottom before you can work up again? Well, everyone has a different bottom. I kind of think taking money to kill someone is mine. I want to start working up again. I want to be a good guy.”
If Marci had been there, she could have told if he was lying. Sometimes you can tell if someone is lying by following his eye movements, but Matt’s eyes weren’t giving anything away. Donovan’s Uncle Gary had said that you develop an instinct for when someone was lying, but Donovan was still waiting for that instinct to kick in.
“All right,” he said. “I’m going to believe you. I’ll send your name up to Recruitment.”
Matt finished his beer, set the bottle on the end table. “Where’s the head?”
Donovan indicated it with his chin.
When Matt came back out, he said, “What about working with you? On this? I mean, I’m already involved.”
Donovan shook his head. “Yeah, sorry, but my team is pretty set. We have Hippie Chick to be the tough guy if we need it, and Marci handles the magic.”
Matt sat back down on the couch. “What do you do?”
“Investigate.”
“You any good at it?”
“Which came first, playing guitar, or collecting comic books?”
Matt stared at him, then looked at his fingertips, nodded, smiled. “Yeah, Mom was always on me about washing under my nails. You got training in that?”
Donovan nodded. “My mother’s brother. He was, like, genius level. Sometimes he’d scare me he was so smart. He got a scholarship, full education, then became a fed. Mom was so pissed.”
“Why?”
“Seriously? A fed? When I told them I was going to go live with him and learn how to be a PI, Dad smacked me across the face. Mom didn’t invite me for Christmas that year. They didn’t get over it until he—Uncle Gary—died.”
“Killed in the line?”
“No
, cancer. He’d quit the feds by then.”
“Why?”
“He wouldn’t talk about it. I got a suspicion he found out Mom and Dad were right about ‘em, but he never said so. He wasn’t big on admitting he was wrong.”
“What was he like?”
“My uncle? He had, like, an on-off switch. He liked to sit around in his underwear, drink beer, and watch ball. But, man, then he’d start to teach me something, and he just got ice in his veins. He could make you feel two inches tall just by the way he looked at you, and he’d stay on you with shit until you had it perfect, and then he’d grunt like he was saying, ‘Took you long enough.’ Then you’d be done he was all slapping you on the back and, ‘What do we eat tonight, Donny? You make some of that Hawaiian bread, and I’ll do a pot roast.’ Weird motherfucker.” He shook his head. “Man, you’re bringing back memories.”
“You get along with your folks?”
“Now I do, yeah. Don’t see ‘em much. They live in Philly.”
“That’s not that far, is it?”
“Not in miles. Tell me, other than hit people and shoot people, what can you do?”
“Back to me, huh? I was trained in interrogation.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“I know.”
Donovan smiled a little. “What else can you do?”
“Talk down a drunk before he gets aggressive.”
“Oh? What’s the technique?”
“Shake his hand.”
“Yeah?”
“Shake his hand, put your other hand on his shoulder, look him in the eye, shake your head, say, ‘Yeah, man, I know what you mean.’ You’d be surprised.”
“That doesn’t come up that often in what we do, but it might be useful in my personal life. What else you got?”
“I can get hit a lot and keep going.”
“That isn’t something we need. I hope.”
“Some demolition. I’m not an expert.”
“I’d like to believe we won’t need that.”
Matt sighed. “So, sounds like I’m confined to the titty bar.”
“Sorry. And sorry to leave you on the wrong coast.”
“I’ll get by. And, well, you know, I did sort of try to kill you.”
“I don’t take that personally.”
Matt nodded. “One more beer for the road?” he said.
“Sure,” said Donovan, and headed for the fridge. He had the door open when Matt said, “You know what? Skip it. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
Donovan nodded, returned from the kitchen and opened the door, stepped aside. “I’ll send your name upstairs. Maybe you will.”
* * *
Sometimes it seemed like Susan put as much effort into doing nothing as she did into training. Thirty minutes before her own official Game of Thrones start time, she did a quick pickup of the apartment: She put her gi into the hamper, put the plate and glass into the sink, and put her artifacts into the closet. There were only three artifacts she carried with her: a smoke bomb (with an enchantment to prevent dispersal) in the form of a golf ball; an earring that would improve all of her senses; and her belt buckle that would generate a field of magic protection when she gripped it and said “velociraptor.” Of these, the belt was the only one she ever used. She just never seemed to remember the others until after the point she should have used them. Nevertheless, they all went into the closet along with the other gifts from the Burrow that she never used. Then she double-locked the closet.
Twenty-five minutes to go.
She got out the ice bucket, filled it, opened the wine, and set it in the bucket next to her chair. Then she cut up the celery and spread cream cheese on it, put that on a plate, added some carrots and some exquisite little pickles acquired from the Russian Deli. She brought the plate along with what had become her official Game of Thrones wine goblet (acquired at King Richard’s Faire outside of Chicago when she was nine) and set these next to the ice bucket. Then she used the bathroom; then she gave the computer the traditional you’d-better-not-go-off-for-the-next-hour glare, picked up the remote, and sat down.
Still five minutes to go.
Sometimes she wished she had someone to watch with her. Even a dog. Maybe a dog. Be nice if it was a guy, but she hadn’t yet met a guy who could stand to be around her for more than a week. It wasn’t just that she was so intimidating; there were boys who could handle that, even liked it. It was the secrecy, all the things she couldn’t share, the way she might have to just run off with no notice, and wouldn’t say why. And every time—every goddamned time—she could see, Are you secretly a call girl? in their eyes, and that would do it. If they’d asked, Are you a call girl? it would have been different—she’d have said, Sweetie, if I were a call girl I wouldn’t hide it. But no, they’d thought it, and it made her want to break their legs, which was really no basis for a long-term romantic relationship.
She and Laughing Boy had hung out together a few times, talked about it. He’d even braved the wrath of Oversight a couple of times and visited her, staying on her couch. They’d talked about how hard it was to find anyone who could deal with the lifestyle. In Donovan’s case, sometimes girls thought he must be some kind of secret agent. The ones who thought that was hot turned out not to be the ones Donovan wanted in his life.
How did Marci do it?
She shook her head.
It was time. She turned on the TV, fiddled with the TiVo, and settled in. Damn, those pickles were nice.
* * *
Camellia Hortense Morgan pushed her chair back from the long glass table, and decided she needed to be patient and diplomatic. It was already getting dark, and it was way past her dinnertime, so it was difficult, but she had to. She spoke English, because that was the only language they all had in common; it gave her an advantage because she was a native speaker and could perfectly express the nuances she needed.
“You are,” she said patiently and diplomatically, “all idiots.”
Hodari Nwosu twitched his lips at her. “You are charming as always, my dear,” he said in his Oxford accent. “Care to expand on that?”
Camellia barely nodded to him. Hodari was perhaps the sharpest person in the room; he’d jumped in to smooth things over before the others got annoyed because he knew her, because he would have realized that she wouldn’t have let herself say that unless there was something going on far more important than whose feelings got hurt.
“The rumors of Mystici presence within our organization have been going on as long as we have existed, and we have yet to find a shred of proof. Nevertheless, I do not propose to dismiss them, as Madeleine has implied. Nor do I wish to panic, as Sir Thomas seems to think we should. Yes, there have been murders, and yes, this is a threat. But we are investigating it as we always do. That is what the Ranch is for. If every time this happens we throw away the systems we have built up exactly to deal with it, we may as well abandon everything else we do at the same time, because nothing will survive.”
She looked around the table; the three men and three women were all focused on her, even Fat Harold, who lifted his head—it had been drooping onto his chest as if he were sleeping—and said, “You contend, then, that these events are ordinary?”
Camellia avoided making eye contact with him, because this wasn’t the time to remind him how much he irritated her just by existing. She studied the glass table while she let the annoyance wash over her. I really need to get rid of this stupid thing and get something nice, like cherrywood. Something less antiseptic, less corporate, more real. And replace those goddamned fluorescent lights. She raised her head and stared at the far wall, with its plaque listing, in Latin, the Three Laws that they all ignored.
“No, Harold, I am not claiming the events are ordinary. In fact, they are quite extraordinary. Having been the one to bring them to your attention in the first place, I am not in the least suggesting that this is business as usual. What I am contending is that there will be consequences if our response throws away seven
ty-five years of protocols and systems that we’ve put in place for exactly this.”
“If I may,” said Nwosu.
Camellia hesitated, then nodded. Nwosu rose to his feet—he knew damned well how imposing he was, how he took over the whole room when he stood. Worse, he was unpredictable; there was no way to know what position he was going to take. She kept her face expressionless and listened closely, ready to shut him down if necessary. If possible. He nodded back to her, then turned to the others.
“I would put it this way,” he said. “No one denies the seriousness of what is happening. It has exactly the earmarks of something big, organized, and, obviously, well funded. But what we do not yet know is why it is happening, who is behind it. If we react to it by throwing aside our security protocols, are we doing exactly what those behind the attacks are hoping we will do? Ms. Morgan is proposing we discover the answer to that question, and, in the meantime, carry on the investigation in the usual way.”
He sat down while the others thought about it.
Yes, he was exactly right. What he hadn’t said, and perhaps hadn’t considered, was that the security protocols had been a mistake from the day they were implemented. And what she couldn’t say was that she would love to see the idiotic, paranoid compartmentalizations thrown into the dustbin where they belonged. She didn’t say this, because there was one thing she didn’t know: Was this the best possible time or the worst possible time to do so? She imagined the looks on their faces when, after the crisis passed, she walked in with a proposal identical to the one Ursine had just introduced, and had to keep a smile off her face.
“Mmm,” said Harold to Hodari. “Ten minutes ago you were ready to approve the motion; now you sound like you’re against it.”
“Yes,” said Hodari. “I have changed my position. She convinced me. That will happen, sometimes, when reasonable people speak with reasonable people.”
“All right,” said Betty Ursine, nodding her head slowly, her pink New England skin looking somehow unhealthy between Hodari and Nailah. Betty’s fingers were tapping on the table as she studied Morgan. Careful, thought Morgan. Careful. She’s no fool. Then Betty nodded. “All right. I’ll withdraw the motion for now.”
Camellia nodded back, keeping the relief off her face. “Then unless someone objects, I’d like to hear a short—I repeat: a short report from Grants and Acquisitions, after which what I really want is lunch and a strong drink. You can get your own lunches, but the first round of drinks is on me.”
