by Jon F. Merz
“Why quit?”
He shrugged. “Got tired of the same old same old. You can only hack governments for so long until it gets boring. Even the tough ones. But private corporations and individuals? That’s where the real fun is.” He glanced back at the screen. “You’re in luck.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“According to this, your text traces back to Bar Harbor.”
10
“You sure?”
Megan looked at me like I was a straight up idiot. “Dude, are you kidding me with asking that right now?” He leaned back. “Is it because I’m a chick?”
I cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t know. Are you?”
He frowned. “The proper term is ‘transitioning.’ I don’t expect you to understand.” He went back to typing.
It made sense now why Belladonna had been using terms like ‘they,’ and ‘them.’ I held up my hand. “Listen, Megan, I don’t much care what you are or what you want to become. I have a very easy system when it comes to dealing with people: if you’re cool with me, I’m cool with you.”
Megan scoffed. “Easier said than done.”
“Not really. You’ve done great work here if it’s true that the text originates in Bar Harbor. I’m seriously impressed. I’ve never seen anyone work that fast, and I’ve known some brilliant hackers.”
“Have you?”
“Well, they did great work when I needed them.” I took a breath. “But that’s not important. Look, if you’re pursuing who you think you really are, then I think it’s great. Most people in this world spend their lives pretending not to be scared, pretending to not care what others think when that’s exactly what they do care about, and pretending to chase dreams while whining about the work and effort it takes. If you’re going after it without caring about anyone else, then I salute that. It takes serious guts, so good for you for doing it when 99% of the population would be too scared to do shit about finding themselves.”
Megan leaned back in her chair. “All right, I didn’t expect that, frankly. Thank you.”
“No need to thank me,” I said. “I’m glad we were able to work together to get what we needed.” I held out my hand.
Megan looked at it for a moment and then broke a grin, taking it in hers and giving it a firm shake. “You know what? Something tells me we just might work together again in the future.”
I smiled. “I’m good with that.” I glanced at Belladonna. “Shall we pay her?”
Belladonna reached into her bag and pulled out an envelope and handed it to Megan. She rifled through the bills, smelled the cash, and then slid it into her pocket.
“Pleasure doing business with you.” She handed Belladonna back her iPhone. “You expecting any more texts over the next few days?”
Belladonna glanced at me. “Possibly.”
“Probably,” I said.
Megan nodded. “If you give me ten more minutes and five grand more, I can install an app I made that will do what I just did for you while you wait.”
“You can do that?”
“Well, not everyone can do it,” said Megan. “But I sure as hell can.”
“Five grand’s a bargain,” I said. I looked at Belladonna. “Did you bring that much with you?”
“Actually, no,” said Belladonna. “I thought this might be a one-off thing.”
Megan held up her hand. “You can drop payment off another time. Just don’t forget about me. I’m between jobs right now, so you guys have come through at the right time. Five grand more, though, okay? Don’t stiff me.”
Belladonna handed her back the iPhone. “I wouldn’t want to think of what else you could install on there if we did stiff you.”
Megan laughed. “Good point.” She plugged the iPhone into a laptop and started tapping furiously again for ten seconds. When she was done, she looked up and nodded. “Uploading now. Gimme a sec.”
She started tapping out a rhythm on the top of the laptop and after another twenty seconds, she clapped her hands. “Done.” She unplugged the phone and handed it over. “You’re all set. When you get a new text, open it up as usual, and you’ll see a new icon next to it. Tap that and the app will start going to work, figuring out where the text was routed from. Depending on the complexity involved, it might take several minutes. This thing is mobile, which means it’s a little less powerful than if I was doing it here with all of my mighty servers and connections powering the process. But it works. It definitely works.”
“Down to the exact address?”
“Wellll,” Megan paused. “That’s a bit tougher, but it will probably get you to within a block or so. In order for me to get the exact home address where the IP address originated would take a bit longer as I’d have to bypass the ISP firewalls and the like. That’s a lot more complicated, takes longer, and isn’t exactly legal without a subpoena.”
“But it’ll get us close.”
“Yup.”
“Any chance you can get to work on an upgrade that would include that feature?”
Megan eyed me. “Are you paying”
“Of course.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Awesome,” I said. “Thank you very much.”
“Hey, fifteen grand for about thirty minutes of work?” Megan shrugged. “I call that a winning night for both of us.”
“Well, you’re fifteen grand richer than we are right now,” said Belladonna. “But I am grateful for your assistance. I will be sure to drop off the remainder of the payment within a week.”
“Cool,” said Megan. “Can you guys show yourselves out? I’ve got a game to get back to here.” She spun in her chair and grabbed two controllers for her game system. Instantly, the world around us exploded as sound effects and noises caromed around the room from a variety of theatrical speakers. Megan had set herself up with a serious gaming experience.
I looked at Belladonna. “I guess we’re excused.”
She smiled and nodded toward the door. “Let’s get going.”
We walked out of Megan’s house and back into the night. Belladonna climbed into the driver’s seat and I slid in next to her.
“She’s quite talented,” I said.
Belladonna looked at me. “Did you really mean that about not caring what she was?”
I shrugged. “Someone trying to figure out who they are in order to be happy isn’t any threat to my lifestyle, so who am I to judge? Most people with a problem have one because they’re so wracked with insecurity that they deem anything unlike them as weird, dangerous, or scary. They’re idiots. But what about you? Do you have any issues with it?”
Belladonna laughed. “Lawson, dear, I’m a lycanthrope. My whole race is a constantly changing miasma of transitioning. Every time the moon is full, I think I’m about ten different people. If I had a problem with it, I’d be the world’s biggest hypocrite.”
“Good point,” I said with a chuckle. Then Belladonna threw the truck into gear and we slid back out away from Megan’s house.
11
“It’s not as good as we hoped for,” I said. “But at least it can get us closer than we might otherwise have been able to.”
Belladonna nodded as she drove. “The fact is, we can get close. Once we narrow it down, I think it’ll be up to us to figure out where the hide is located. Given that we’re both shrewd observers, I don’t think that will be too much work, do you?”
“Not after you just complimented us,” I laughed. “I’m sure we can figure it out.”
“In the meantime,” said Belladonna as she steered us back south toward Mount Desert Island, “we need to discuss getting our hands on the relic.”
“I’m assuming you already have a plan?”
“Oh, I don’t know if I’d call it that,” said Belladonna. “But we’re going to have go to the armory and get the relic out of there.”
A light rain had started speckling the windshield. Belladonna flicked the wipers. I saw smears of light in the streaks and felt
like November, with its cool rainy New England self had finally arrived. “They’re not just going to let you take a priceless relic out of the armory. Even if you do happen to be an Elder.”
“I know. That’s why you’re going to have to come with me.”
I looked at her. “A vampire in a lycan stronghold? Are you nuts? If I’m found out, they’ll hold me hostage and demand the Council either pay a ransom or make a public apology. Otherwise, there’ll be war. And that’s only after the Council kills me for getting them involved in the first place.”
“Relax, Lawson. I’m sure you’ve been in any number of other situations before that were just as hairy.”
“Let me break it down for you: if even one lycan demands that I shape shift, what the hell am I supposed to do? Blink?”
“You’ve got a good point,” said Belladonna. “So, I guess the key is getting you in there in such a way that no one asks for a demonstration of your shapeshifting abilities.”
“As if,” I said. “I don’t know how you’d intend on doing that. I frankly don’t see any way to get in there without some sort of magic helping me. And I really hate using magic.”
“But you’ve dealt with it before,” said Belladonna.
“Only because it keeps finding me and making my life a living hell,” I said. “I’d much prefer to let magic wielders play with that stuff than me. Give me a gun and I’m all set. Bring magic into things and I start getting a little weirded out by it all.”
“Sometimes we don’t have much of a choice,” said Belladonna. “Sometimes, all we can do is hang on for the ride and trust that we know where it’s going.”
I frowned. “You’re starting to sound like me. So I guess I’ll have to go along with whatever you come up with-as unhappy as I’m going to be.”
Belladonna drove in silence for a few more minutes and then at a stoplight, turned to me. “I have an idea. But it’s going to take an awful lot to make it work.”
“What’s an awful lot?”
“I heard a rumor last year about a mission you went on.”
“A rumor?”
“A fragment, really,” said Belladonna. “But it intrigued me.”
“And what did this fragment say?”
“That you’d gone to China.”
I stared straight ahead. “I might have.”
Belladonna nodded. “I also heard that before you went to China, you made a side trip to Bhutan.”
Now I looked at her. “Just how good are your sources?”
She smiled. “If it makes you feel any better, this is not common knowledge in the lycan community. I came by it as I usually do: with my own networks.”
“I’m only marginally less annoyed by that,” I said. “I shouldn’t even be talking about this.”
“But we are,” said Belladonna. “Because you’re doing a favor for an old friend. And because you have more honor than most men who claim to.”
I sighed. “What do you want to know?”
“The reason for going to Bhutan. What was it?”
The rain increased and I felt like I was getting into deep crap. I trusted Belladonna, but only to a point. I’d been burned enough in the past to make me suspicious of nearly everyone I came across. Still, she’d helped me and given the situation we were in, it didn’t make sense for her to betray me now.
“I was after a relic to help me infiltrate China.”
“The Cloak of Despar,” said Belladonna.
“Jesus Christ, is there anything you don’t know?”
Belladonna held up her hand. “Lawson, I’m almost as well versed in vampire mythology as I am lycan. Don’t be surprised that I know about it. The real question is: does it exist and are the rumors true of its powers?”
“Yes and yes.”
She fell silent for a time and then rested a hand on my arm. “Thank you for being honest with me. I know you’re trained not to divulge any information that could compromise your people. But I appreciate everything you’re doing. And I appreciate you being honest.”
I looked out of the windshield. “If it ever gets out that I told you about that stuff, I’m dead.”
“Lawson, given what I’m about to propose, if it gets found out, we’re both dead.”
“And I’m quite sure I don’t even want to hear what you’re proposing.”
“Because you already know what I’m going to suggest.”
“And I already hate it,” I said.
“But it’s the only way,” said Belladonna. “And you know without it, we don’t have a chance.”
“It’s not something I can just waltz in and take,” I said. “The Cloak is in the bowels of the Council building back in Boston. A long way away from where we are right now.”
“We’ll need help,” said Belladonna.
I could see a small smile flickering on her face and I knew instantly what she was going to say. “No.”
She nodded. “We need him, Lawson. We need Arthur.”
12
“You are completely out of your mind,” I said. “There’s no way I can get Arthur to help us. I mean, even if he wanted to, he’s kinda tied to the Council building with his duties there and everything.”
“You mean to tell me they don’t give him any days off?” Belladonna looked at me. “You know that’s not true.”
I took a breath and let it slide out of me. “Yeah, but…what I’d be asking him to do-“
“You won’t be asking him,” said Belladonna. “I will.”
I looked at her. “You two must have some sort of serious history between you if you think you can get him to do something like this.”
She smiled wistfully again and seemed a thousand years away. “I don’t know if it still counts for anything, but I suppose you never know unless you ask. Right?”
“I’ve got plenty of people in my past that I’ve probably wronged. If it came down to it, I don’t know that they would ask me for help. Hell, I don’t even know if I’d give it to them, quite frankly. But yeah, you don’t know unless you ask.”
“Do you have his number?”
I took another breath. “Yeah, but if you call, he won’t pick it up if he doesn’t recognize the number.”
“What do you suggest then?”
“Let me call him on my phone.”
“Are you sure?”
I held up a hand. “Don’t get me wrong: you’re going to ask him. But let me get him on the phone for you. At least that way we know he’ll pick it up and hear you out.”
“All right then.” Belladonna pulled off the highway into the parking lot of a fast food restaurant.
“What-you want to do this now?”
Belladonna smiled. “No time like the present, right? We don’t have time to waste, so let’s get it done.”
I fished my iPhone out of my pocket and thumbed through the contacts. I glanced over at Belladonna. “You sure there’s no other way?”
“Not unless you have some awesome Fixer method for infiltrating a lycan armory and stealing a priceless artifact?”
“Yeah, that’d be a big ol’ no.”
“All right then.”
I sighed and punched Arthur’s number up. Over the drumming of the rain on the top of the truck, I heard the line ring back down in Boston.
Arthur’s voice came across the line, his British accent making me smile. “What do you want, wanker?”
“Nice to talk to you, too.”
“Where are you?”
“Probably better I not tell you,” I said.
“Trouble?”
“Depends,” I said. “I’m doing a favor for someone and I’d like no one else to know about it, if you get my drift.”
“Aye, all right then. So obviously, you’re needing something, otherwise you wouldn’t bother a poor old sod like myself on a nasty rainy night like this.”
“That’s pretty much spot on.”
“Just about to pour myself a drink, too, and then you go and bung it all up.”
“I’ve got an old friend of yours with me.”
“Old friend?”
“Probably better if I hand the phone over and let you two talk. You cool with that?”
“Who is it?”
I cut him off. “I’m handing the phone over.”
Belladonna took the iPhone and looked at it once before putting it up to her ear. “Arthur? It’s Belladonna.”
I felt dirty sitting there listening to their awkward greetings. Belladonna lowered her voice, but I heard her laugh lightly and it was like she was back to being a lovestruck sixteen year old girl. Arthur must have certainly had a way about him.
Belladonna switched over to Gerlach once or twice, which I fortunately could not understand. Nor did I want to. Clearly they had ways of communicating that time hadn’t dulled. In a way, I thought it was remarkably adorable. I imagined Arthur as the dashing Fixer of long ago seducing Belladonna the lycan over a romantic candlelight dinner. They might still make a cute couple.
After a few minutes of hushed conversation, Belladonna handed the phone back to me.
“Me?”
“He wants to talk to you,” she said.
I put the phone to my ear. “Yo.”
“You realize this could get the both of us killed.”
I nodded. “That thought had occurred to me, yeah.”
“And you’re okay with it?”
I sighed. “I owe her. But more importantly, are you okay with it?”
“Oh hell, I’m old as sin anyway, mate. The thoughts of sanction don’t faze me at all. I just wanted to make sure you were okay with it. I don’t want you to feel pressured into doing something like this.”
I smiled. “And here I thought that was my line.”
Arthur chuckled. “If I’m going out for doing something for the woman I love, then I can’t think of a better way to go than this one. Now tell me about this Cloak of yours.”
“Okay, first of all, it’s not mine.”
“You know what I mean,” said Arthur. “Does it have any magical properties that are gonna get me dinged once I lay my hands on it?”
“No. Just take it with you. I don’t know where the Council is keeping it though.”
