Master of None

by Sonya Bateman

  We made fast work of the remaining incidentals. Grabbed a big hiking pack and a smaller canvas bag, an assortment of sustenance that wouldn’t spoil or squash, some bungee cords and duct tape, and a decent set of screwdrivers. I surveyed the contents of the cart and summoned a grim sliver of determination. “All right. Next stop, sporting goods.”

  “I hope the rest of these clowns are ready for this,” Jazz murmured.

  “Everything’s under control,” I said, hoping to convince myself, too. “We’re a go.”

  “Sure we are.”

  I declined the bait and kept walking. “See what you can do about packing up,” I said. My gaze automatically panned the area while we moved. I took in shelf angles and potential blind spots, department phones and staffing checkpoints, the numerous black-bubble security cameras dotting the ceiling and the occasional thin white cameras mounted on columns. The system probably wasn’t live-monitored, but I intended to act as if it was.

  With casual, almost unconscious movements, Jazz opened the backpack and slipped a few items into the main compartment while she pretended to check out a rack of DVDs. We lingered a few seconds, moved on, walked past sporting goods. We approached and deliberately ignored Tory and Lark, who were feigning a debate over which brand of motor oil to buy and whether it was worth an extra two bucks for the synthetic.

  I drifted to the other side of the cart so I’d be next to them when we bypassed. “Back door in five,” I said under my breath. “Do a walk-by on Ian.”

  Tory offered a barely perceptible nod. “Whatever you want,” he said to Lark. “Just get the damned synthetic. I need some of that tire-wash stuff, too.”

  “Fine.” Lark grabbed a bottle off the shelf. He still looked like hell, his complexion pale and pasty beneath a sheen of sweat, but at least he was on his feet. “Let’s go.”

  Jazz and I circled back toward the sporting goods. She’d already gotten most of the supplies in the pack, and I hadn’t even noticed. Damn, she was good.

  I skimmed a glance over the glass-fronted gun case. Standard cylinder locks on the doors. The selection wasn’t terrific, but I’d take what I could get. The lower portion of the case held ammo. A few dozen boxes, and most of them were BB and air-rifle pellets. I’d have to clean them out of the heavy stuff.

  “You’re lookout,” I said. “Be ready to move, and try not to freak out,” I added with a grin. “I’m going to disappear.”

  “Great.” Jazz positioned herself at the perimeter of the department, in front of a display of fishing lures. “See you on the other side, I guess.”

  I winked, grabbed the smaller canvas bag from the cart, and walked down one of the narrow aisles. Once I hit a spot that wouldn’t be picked up by the cameras, I took a second to collect myself and did the invisible thing. The brief pain was manageable enough. I unzipped the bag, then headed for the guns.

  I still had my lock picks, but it’d take me precious minutes to open the cylinders that way. And I’d have to crack at least three locks, maybe four. I figured if Ian could unlock a car door, I might be able to magic them loose somehow. All I had to do was need it to happen.

  Since the ammo shelves were lower and less noticeable from the camera angle, I knelt to go for that first. The boxes I wanted, .22 cartridges and shotgun shells, were in the same compartment. I debated half a second before resting my fingertips on the glass around the lock and thinking, I need this fucking thing to open.

  A jolt to my chest blurred my vision for an instant. I expected the lock tongue to turn or the cabinet door to slide. Instead, the cool glass against my fingertips warmed and softened, and my fingers went right through it. My palm hit the metal of the lock and pushed it out of the glass. The whole locking mechanism thumped onto the top shelf of the display.

  That’d work. I could get used to this magic stuff.

  I slid the panel open and tossed boxes into the bag, listening for a signal from Jazz. Nothing yet. I shouldered the bag, stood, and reached for the upper lock on the .22s. My internal clock insisted on keeping track of my time. A minute and a half. A minute forty-five. The lock collapsed. I swiped four rifles and started on the next case.

  In less than three, I had all I could handle. I glanced back at Jazz and gave a low whistle. She sent an uneasy look in my direction, but she slipped the backpack on and grabbed the mirror. She started at a fast clip for the darkened tire center, where three figures stood around trying to look as if they had every reason to stare at a locked door.

  I caught up to her, still invisible. “Looks like everybody made it,” I said.

  “That is so fucking creepy,” she whispered.

  “Sorry. I don’t want anyone to see me walking around with an armful of guns, if I can help it.”

  “Yeah. It’s a pretty handy trick.”

  “Something like that.”

  Ian’s furious expression grew darker when we reached him. “Where is the thief?”

  “Right there somewhere.” Jazz waved the hand that wasn’t holding the mirror. “We’ve got everything.”

  “Then we had best leave quickly. There are police in the front of the store.”

  “Damn.” I must have lost my happy thoughts or something, because the minute I spoke, Jazz flinched back, and I knew I was visible again. “Ian, can you get that door open?” I nodded at the exit leading to the store garage.

  “As you wish.” The snarling sarcasm suggested he’d prefer breaking the glass with my head, but he moved to the door and held a hand out.

  Tory stared at me. “Good gods. There’s only five of us. How many guns do we need?”

  “Trevor has a lot more than this. Besides, we—”

  “Hey! You can’t be back there.” An unfamiliar female voice called out from further in the store. Keys jingled with the approaching footsteps. “The tire center opens at eight. We can check you out at the front . . . oh . . . shit . . .”

  I half-turned and saw the woman, apparently a manager, staring slack-jawed at me. And my guns. She pivoted and darted down an aisle, already grabbing for her handheld.

  “Jesus Christ.” I shoved half the rifles at Tory. “Take these. We need to disappear. Ian, hurry the fuck up.”

  “It is done.”

  “Good. Jazz, don’t flip out.” I made myself vanish and grabbed her free hand.

  She jerked a little, stared at me. “You’re flickering.”

  “So are you. Don’t let go, okay?”

  “I won’t.”

  Ian popped out of sight, followed fast by Tory and Lark. The exit door swung itself open. As we filed through, a cacophony of sounds filled the building—shouts, pounding feet, beeps, and static bursts from CB sets. It sounded like the entire NYPD converging in a parking garage.

  Not that I’d know what that sounded like.

  I led Jazz down the corridor running along the side of the garage. The door at the end opened before we reached it. Ian was still in front of us, then. Through the door was a back parking lot and then a grassy hill leading to a stretch of woods. Thank God for rural shopping centers.

  “Head for the trees,” I said as loudly as I dared, hoping Tory and Lark were still right behind us.

  Jazz squeezed my hand hard when we hit the outside. “They can’t see us,” she whispered. “Right?”

  “Right.” I think. I really didn’t want a bullet in the back to prove me wrong.

  Just in case, I shifted position so I was behind Jazz. They could shoot me first.

  It seemed to take an hour to reach the edge of the lot. The cops poured out just as we mounted the hill. I heard them, but I didn’t look back. There was no gunfire. We hauled for the trees and kept going straight for a good fifty feet. Finally, I tugged Jazz back and let go of the invisible shield.

  “Everybody here?” I said cautiously.

  Ian shimmered into sight ten feet ahead. “I do hope Taregan has kept up.”

  “Way ahead of you.” Tory stepped from behind a huge pine tree in front of Ian. He had Lark on his
back, and Lark held the rifles across Tory’s chest as if he was reining a horse. “That was fun,” Tory said. “Let’s not do it again. Ever.”

  “Agreed.” Ian stared at me. “Well, thief?”

  “I don’t know.” I knew he expected me to give the next step. But the adrenalin rush was already crashing, and I could’ve lain down and given up right there. “They’ll search through here. Probably sooner than later. I have no idea how far these woods go, so we might run out of cover in two hours or five minutes. I’m open to suggestions here.”

  Ian looked at Tory as if he was trying to gauge his condition. At last he said, “We have no choice. We fly.”

  I groaned. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  CHAPTER 28

  It wasn’t any easier the third time.

  A feeble band of gray-white ran along the horizon to the right, the first whisper of dawn. The world spread below, little more than a patchwork of shadows and pitch speckled with lights. Some people might have found this a breathtaking sight.

  It took my breath, all right. But only because I recognized it for what it was: a great big rock that would reduce me to roadkill if—when—I fell.

  Tory, who’d agreed to fly with a cheerfulness that made me want to break his teeth, carried Lark and Jazz with him. Jazz had the mirror harnessed to her back with bungees, and Lark held a few of the guns. I expected Tory to stay lower and wobble along under the weight of two people plus supplies, but he’d taken off like a greased bullet. I guessed it had something to do with him being part bird. It probably helped that Jazz and Lark together almost made a full-sized adult.

  The arrangement left me a solo passenger on Air Ian, which was definitely an economy flight, judging from the turbulence. I’d taken the backpack and the rest of the guns, tied over the pack in a makeshift sling. The extra weight didn’t help my sense of balance. Neither did the whole being airborne thing.

  I tightened my locked hands and closed my eyes. “I think we lost them!” I shouted. “Can we get down?”

  “Not yet.” Ian tensed beneath me. “But we must land soon. I do not have much strength left.”

  “Soon is too long. How about now?”

  “No.”

  I waited a few seconds. “Now?”

  He twisted sideways. I would’ve screamed, if I could remember how to work my vocal cords. But for an instant, a vision of my own broken body commandeered my brain and drove everything else out.

  “If you wish to land sooner, thief, you can do so without me.”

  “You’re a bastard.”

  “Yes. And?”

  “That’s all I got.” I almost laughed. He didn’t like being airborne any more than I did, so I let the attempted murder slide. “Where are we headed?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Great. So you’re just flying until you get tired, then setting us down in the middle of wherever?”

  “No. You must inform me when we are close to Trevor.”

  “Right.” I glanced at the unreadable blur sliding past a million miles beneath us. Should’ve stolen Quaid’s GPS. “How the hell am I going to do that? I can’t even tell if that’s Earth or Mars down there.”

  “You will be able to in a moment.”

  I finally realized that either the trees were getting bigger or the ground was getting closer. Quickly. “What the hell are you doing?” I gasped.

  “Gaining a better vantage point. Do you recognize this area?”

  I swallowed hard and leaned over a few inches. A ribbon of water below cut a near-black chasm through vegetation that appeared bleached in the creeping light. I made out a narrow, unpopulated access road leading left from the river. Far ahead lay the southern tip of Owasco Lake. “Yeah,” I said, drawing back so I wasn’t looking down anymore. “You made good time. The lake’s just there, and there’s a little town over that way. Waterfall Haven, Cape Cascade, something like that.”

  “And can you find a safe place nearby? We must regain our strength.”

  I thought for a minute. We couldn’t check into a motel or anything. The bastard would find us. There were a few people I used to know in the area, but they must have either moved or gone pro-Trevor, if they were still alive. Finding forests between here and his place wouldn’t be hard, but I didn’t exactly welcome the idea of sleeping on leaves and branches and God knew what else. The only nearby park sat on state land, a difficult place for a criminal to take an illegal nap. Our least disagreeable alternative lay half a mile from Trevor’s. I could see it from here. Unfortunately.

  We wouldn’t even have to worry about the neighbors calling the cops. They were all dead.

  “Okay,” I finally said. “Dead ahead. There’s a big old cemetery right near Trevor’s place. Plenty of crypts to hide in, no surveillance. We should be all right there for a few hours.”

  “Well, then. That is where we are going.”

  At least it was close. I squeezed my eyes shut and kept them that way until we stopped moving. When I opened them again, we hovered above a cluster of pines across the road from the boneyard gates. A dark shape approached through the air. Tory and his two passengers resembled a deformed camel tossed from a catapult. The djinn looked exhilarated, the humans as if they’d just swallowed bugs.

  I smirked. I wasn’t the only one who knew people were strictly ground animals.

  We descended through close-set branches. I let go the instant Ian’s feet hit dirt and staggered away to lean against the nearest trunk. My legs shook like flagpoles in a hurricane. I was a cocktail fresh from the blender. Pulverized, not stirred.

  Tory touched down a few feet away. Jazz disentangled herself fast and sat hard, barely avoiding breaking the mirror. “That sucked,” she said. “But thanks for not dropping me.”

  Lark slid off with a prolonged moan to land in a heap. Tory turned and leaned down to him, and Lark muttered, “Don’t touch me. I like it here.”

  Tory sighed and sat next to him with an exasperated expression.

  I would’ve laughed if I wasn’t busy fighting the urge to puke. “Crud,” I said weakly. “Why does flying screw us up like this?”

  Ian dropped to his haunches and hung his head, apparently in no great shape himself. “It is not your element.”

  “Really. I hadn’t noticed.” At once, sitting seemed like the best idea since TV dinners. I obeyed the impulse and introduced my ass to the ground. “It’s not yours, either, is it?”

  “More so than you but not by much. Tory’s clan is far more skilled with air abilities.” He gave a soft laugh. “The wolf does not often fly.”

  “So, what’s your clan skilled at? Biting?”

  Ian shook his head. “It is not that simple. We are elemental beings, you and I. All of us. Fire and air, earth and water. Djinn and human. Like two halves of a whole that is more than the sum of its parts.”

  “Okay. You lost me.”

  “That is not difficult to accomplish.”

  Jazz struggled to her feet and approached slowly. “All right, color me confused. What are we doing here—did somebody die?”

  “We’re holing up,” I said.

  “This is practically Trevor’s backyard.”

  “Yeah. So if you were Trevor, would you look for us here?”

  Jazz arched an eyebrow. “No,” she said. “Good thinking, Houdini.”

  I grinned. “Watch it. If you keep complimenting me, I might think you care.”

  “Couldn’t have that.” She gave me a smile that melted my bones.

  “If you two are finished, let’s move,” Tory called. “We’re too exposed here.”

  Ian nodded agreement. “Lead the way, thief.”

  I really wished he hadn’t said that. Leading wasn’t my style. But at the moment, I didn’t have a choice.

  AT LEAST IT WASN’T A SEWAGE PIPE.

  The Black Oaks Cemetery held the remains of enough people to populate Allegheny County twice. Situated on acres of flat land, it was divided into two sections. The front par
t was laid out in a fairly open grid pattern, with paved drives dividing groups of graves. A wrought-iron fence spanned the length of the property near the road, and empty fields stretched back thirty feet to the first of the headstones. Plenty of room for more dead people.

  About half a football field back from the road stood a ruler-straight line of tall, thick trees. Black oaks, I presumed. A break in the line marked a wide, worn stone path leading straight back. More trees grew at uniform attention along both sides of the path, and wooden benches had been placed every twenty feet or so, accompanied by old-fashioned gaslight-style lamp posts. For anyone who felt like hanging out in a graveyard after dark. The lamps hadn’t come on yet. We’d set a good pace, and it was still daylight when we limped collectively down the path. Almost dinnertime, my stomach reminded me. Sadly, the cemetery didn’t have a wide selection of restaurants. At least we had the prepackaged crap to tide us over.

  The path led to the old section, with plenty of enclosed mausoleums and no mourners—unless the surrounding area was occupied by melancholy vampires. The tomb of the Trumbull family provided chambers hidden from casual view and a lovely selection of crypts to sleep on. Not exactly a Motel Six, but we’d be better off on graves than in them.

  I entered first. I perched on a stone box that held the remains of Joseph Trumbull, Who Departed This Lyfe on 2 Jan. 1909, He Sleeps in Jesus and shrugged the hiking pack off, to the delight of my shoulders . I hoped Jesus made a comfortable resting place, because Joseph sure as hell didn’t.

  Jazz plodded in and propped the mirror next to the entrance. She settled beside me, closed her eyes, and leaned back without a word. Dark, deep hollows under her eyes betrayed her exhaustion. I wondered if she’d slept at all since she’d crossed over to the djinn realm.

  Tory slumped against a wall and slid down to the floor. Lark all but collapsed next to him.

  Ian entered last. He didn’t even try to sit down. “You must learn a few things before you rest, thief. Come here.”

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Tory said. “What if he can’t do this? No offense, Delini, but you’re no djinn. And you’re ten or eleven generations removed from his line.”