by Paul Duffau
Stand Your Ground Hero
Copyright © 2018 Paul Duffau
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without written permission.
Published 2018 by Cruiser Publications
Cover design by Logotecture
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional,
and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Stand Your Ground Hero
Paul Duffau
Cruiser Publications
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Also by Paul Duffau
Thank You!
More About Paul Duffau
Chapter 1
When he spied Kenzie running ahead of him, ponytail bouncing, Mitch’s first thought was that playing catch-me-if-you-can was fun. His second was, If I catch her, can I keep her?
She must have heard him over the noisy rumbles of trucks and cars, because her turnover increased. Kenzie wasn’t trying to outrun him, but she wasn’t giving in, either. She’d make him work for it.
Mitch smiled. Two months ago, she might have run away from him. He took an appreciative pause, then applied another burst of speed to close the space between them. He glided up next to her, glancing over to see the upward curl at the corner of her lips. Kenzie, for her part—dressed in pink shorts and a printed sports top, eyes hidden by opaque sunglasses—pretended he wasn’t there. Unconsciously, he shifted his stride to match hers, quick and light. Together, they cruised along the sidewalk, splitting apart like a brook meeting a rock when they met pedestrians, flowing back to each other once the obstruction was clear.
Despite the easy feel of the run and of being with Kenzie, Mitch kept his eyes moving, taking in the surrounding buildings, the cars, the people.
Kenzie spoke. “It’s not fair.”
“What is?” asked Mitch, adding a wry twist to his lips.
Kenzie glanced up, saw the expression. “I used to be able to beat you.”
“I seem to have some talent,” Mitch said.
In truth, he had started training hard specifically to keep up with her. While Kenzie ran, she was vulnerable, plus it was the only time he could meet her without anyone else around. Two months of dedicated effort had provided exactly the outlet he needed for the pressure that built every time he considered his “untouchable” status with Kenzie’s father. Meat. That’s what Raymond Graham considered him, and when Graham warned him to stay away from Kenzie, Mitch took him at his deadly serious word.
Which didn’t mean he stayed away, just stayed damned careful.
“And you don’t have to wear a shirt,” said Kenzie with a lingering glance at him.
Instantly, he buried his instinctive response. “It’s not fair,” he agreed, tone cheerful. In truth, he welcomed the open skies of early summer in Seattle, drying the gray chill that draped the Northwest in spring. Broadleaf shade trees offered a respite from the heat of the sun overhead.
A car near them slowed and twitched toward the curb. Mitch evaluated it with a hard, calculating stare. The driver gesticulated with his left hand while the right held a cell phone. Mitch pointed his left forefinger away from the vehicle and Kenzie eased to the side. Just before the car hit the curb, the driver clutched the wheel with his free hand and recentered it in his lane. Threat reduced, Mitch returned to his side-to-side scanning.
“How’s Hunter?” Mitch blurted. He winced internally at her reaction, the sharp shake of her head conveying annoyance. Dumb.
Kenzie responded with shrugged shoulders. “How’s the internship working out?”
Mitch took the hint. “Very cool. 3rdGen ran a simulation with the Salus II. Passed most of the tests, though had some issues with the inertial recovers when the unit got knocked off balance. The thing is kind of freaky-looking, like a clumsy Terminator almost.” He ran a few steps, and added a wistful note. “I don’t get to work on any of that. Mostly, I just fetch crap for the project engineers and help with some of the 3D CAD stuff.”
He didn’t admit that the team he was assigned to was intimidating as hell. 3rdGen Robotics hired nerds of the highest order, a badge the researchers wore with pride.
Kenzie steered to the left, past the swing sets of a small neighborhood park. He covered the turn, sticking to her side. Other than a mother with a toddler, the park was vacant. Kenzie skipped the sidewalks, opting for running on the newly mowed grass. She slowed at the far boundary of the park where the adjacent road led east, down the hill to Lake Washington and her home.
The pace petered out until they were at a slow jog, neither ready to leave, both understanding the necessity. By silent agreement, they didn’t talk about Kenzie’s father or his threats.
Coordinating meetings became a complicated conspiracy when the girl’s dad was a cop. “You running tomorrow?”
Mitch caught the miniscule hesitation before Kenzie answered, and disappointment welled up. He kept it from reaching his face.
“Can’t. Sasha scheduled a party.” Code-speak for she was going to be busy doing magic stuff. Kenzie bathed her mother’s name in undisguised contempt. Mitch didn’t know why Kenzie had started calling her mother by her first name, but the negative vibes came through loud and clear.
“I didn’t get an invite,” he said irreverently.
Kenzie’s lips answered with a cute curl she got whenever she suppressed a smile. It didn’t appear nearly often enough.
“No, I don’t think you were on the list.”
Their shoes hit pavement again.
“Maybe afterwards?”
“Maybe,” said Kenzie, stopping to look up at him. “Depends how late.”
Mitch studied her features, flushed red with the exercise. He reached out with both hands, lifted her sunglasses, and set them on top of the pile of hair. Honey brown irises met his gaze and stole his breath.
“You have beautiful eyes,” he murmured.
“I have to go,” said Kenzie, but moved toward him.
Mitch wrapped his arms around her, the heat of her skin meeting the heat of his. “I know.”
He bent, met her lips. She held him tight for another second after the kiss ended. Letting go, Kenzie reset her glasses, rendering the tender face expressionless.
Leaving was always a small torture, and he never knew what to say, so he said the same thing he
always did. “Be careful.”
“Always,” Kenzie replied, following the script. She tippy-toed to give him another kiss, a peck on the lips. Then she turned and ran away from him without looking back.
He watched until she was out of sight.
She’ll be fine, he told himself, but he worried. He was getting awfully good at worrying.
Mitch walked into the office of his second, unofficial, job with sweat dried in streaks on his cheeks.
“You’re late,” said Jackson. He eyed Mitch’s attire, the damp shirt and shorts, Asics running shoes. “And soggy.”
“I’m two minutes early, and you just got to the office”—a fast check of his watch—“ninety-seven seconds ago.”
Jackson squinted at him, but Mitch read amusement, too. Jackson had rejected Mitch’s entreaties a dozen times. It had taken a major intervention from Mercury to get the man to assent, but the security specialist had now seemingly adopted Mitch into the very exclusive personal security firm, making good on a promise to train the youth. As the founder and lead operator, Jackson believed the smallest details meant the difference between a safe subject and a corpse. After the events this spring, Mitch tended to agree. He knew he’d hit the mark by nailing Jackson’s arrival time to within a second.
“Not bad,” his mentor said, “but you need better cover. A teenager running in a business area attracts attention.”
Mitch pursed his lips. “I was thinking that I’d get discounted as a kid.”
“Maybe, but you kept looking in my direction, and the constant change in angle of your sunglasses advertised who you were watching as clearly as a great big flashing arrow.” Jackson met Mitch’s stare. “As I said, not bad. Do better. Situation like that, you don’t eyeball the target. Use your peripheral vision to monitor and only look straight at him when you need details.”
Mitch nodded. “Got work for me?”
“Start by getting changed, I don’t want my office to smell like your gym locker.” The half smile robbed the words of any sting. Jackson was the one who had set Mitch up on a training program at the beginning of this apprenticeship that included running, lifting weights, and private lessons on personal defense that focused more on winning fast and dirty than the stylized martial arts taught at most dojos. “Once you’re cleaned up, I need you to do some research on a couple of people.”
Mitch bobbed his head and turned. “Can do.”
Ten minutes later, showered and dressed in clean clothes, he sat in front of his assigned computer, waiting for the powerful machine to boot up in Linux. He entered his password when prompted, and settled into the ergonomic chair as he set search parameters in a dozen internet databases. While those worked, he opened a proprietary program and slipped below the surface of the internet into the dark web.
He didn’t so much search the murky depths, where almost anything was for sale. Instead, he wandered into dimly lit virtual bazaars, with an opium den on the left and a hooker shop to the right, and trouble whichever way he turned. Months of experience got him past the noob mistakes, but Mitch did as little as possible to attract attention. The denizens here could slag his computer before he even knew he was under attack. The dark web was unforgiving.
Data bit by data bit, he snagged snippets of information on the pair of targets that Jackson had assigned him. He hand-wrote notes on a yellow legal pad next to him, careful to print clearly in block letters, per instructions. No other paper was permitted at the desk. At the end of the day, Jackson would collect the pad, remove the used pages, count the pages remaining, and lock both into a walk-in vault filled with file drawers. Then, he would close the door with an impressively heavy thunk. Only then would Mitch be dismissed.
A chime went off on the computer as the database run completed. He scanned the information, jotting additions to his notes to cross-reference the information, and hit the Print button. Mitch heard the printer in the locked room next to Jackson’s office spit the pages out. The next notifications announced the completion of the print run, and Mitch erased the results from his computer and wiped the history in the browser.
It was tedious work, but, as Jackson put it after Mitch had come to him pointing to three contradictory data points that proved a potential client wasn’t a victim but a full-on crook, Mitch “had an affinity for the messiness of data.”
Mitch disagreed. The messiness represented a lack of organization. Put it into the proper framework, and the patterns underlying the information revealed themselves like those dot-pattern pictures that hid three-dimensional images. Autostereograms. Cool enough stuff he’d found the word for it.
He got patterns like some people just got music or mathematics, and didn’t quite understand why everybody else seemed blind to them. He turned to the screen and went back to the dark web, not to pry into the details of the targets, but to delve for bigger prey, the man-eating kind.
Hechiceros. The Spanish wizards.
Hunter’s kin.
Chapter 2
Neophytes in glistening white and wizards in deepest black alike stared, as much from fear as curiosity. Face under careful control, Kenzie bore the sideways glances. No one quite knew what to do with Kenzie the Green. Her robe, velvety and shaded like a dark emerald, rippled with motion as she strode toward the teaching circle for her private lessons with Harold, the wizard charged with training the next generation.
Overhead, an alien moon cast its unearthly light into the Glade of Silver Night, her magical and spiritual home. The clean scent of pine permeated the atmosphere with a sense of predawn expectation. Tulip-shaped leaves on broad trees glimmered pleasingly while the trunks lost themselves in inky shadows. The grass beneath her tanned and bare feet carried a trace of a warm dew. Kenzie opened herself to the magic of the Glade, and took its measure, visualizing the grotto at the entry, to the brook that led to a secret lagoon, the long corridor through the trees that opened at the altar with the Incantaraus, their Family’s book of spells. The teaching circle sat to one side, isolated from the rest, the extra room sensibly protecting the other wizards from potential exposure to errant spells.
She spotted Harold perched cross-legged on a rounded boulder, his back to her. She angled toward him, still sensing stares that weighed on her like a heavy pack pulling her down. It was different than the warm link she shared with Mitch. She let her eyelids drop and called up his memory. Attached came perceptions of intense concentration, a burning need to know. It brought a smile to her lips and she opened her eyes.
“Hello, McKenzie,” said Harold, without turning.
Kenzie halted beside the elderly wizard. “How did you know it was me?”
“You cast a long light in the shadows.” He slipped off the rock with a grace that belied his age. “Come.”
Kenzie followed Harold, perplexed that they were leaving the circle. They rounded a copse of low shrubs sprinkled with violet petals. Harold turned his right hand as though using an old skeleton key and a doorway appeared, floating in surreal peace amid the flowers.
Stepping through behind Harold, Kenzie found herself in a space that breathed the calm of nature and respectful contemplation. Not a room, she thought. A kettle hung on a tripod steamed over an open flame. The furnishings were sparse and intertwined with the natural setting, smokeless candles supplying a warm glow. Two chairs, the seats carved from logs, the backs and arms formed from smooth, thick branches, and covered with a moss-green fabric, bracketed a table. Nearby, neat rows of leather-bound books were set into the hollow of an old tree. A streamlet of clear water splashed into a pool, disguised by ferns. The perimeter was defined by granite stones with sparkling flecks of mica, stacked between tall beech trees that spread a vault of green to complete the compelling image of a natural monastery.
She pivoted and watched the door to the Glade glide shut.
“What is this place?”
“Home,” said Harold, as he busied himself with the kettle. “Do you take honey with your tea?”
Kenzie b
linked. “Uh, sure?”
Harold removed a pair of stoneware mugs from a drying rack and carried them to the table by their large, looping handles. “Sit.” He arranged his robes as he did likewise, crossing his legs at bony ankles.
“Your father requested that I teach you defensive magic,” the instructor began. He lifted his tea to his lips and took a sip. “I know that he is worried about the hechiceros, despite the rumors that the Families have reached an accommodation.”
The last was said with palpable distaste and a grimace. Despite agreeing, Kenzie didn’t allow any emotion to show on her face. The “accommodation” was her betrothal to Hunter Rubiera, son of the patriarch of the Spanish Family. As worried as her father might be, Sasha Graham, her legal mother, gushed with enthusiasm for the “merging of the Great Families.” Sasha did not lack ambition, and envisioned a prominent role for herself. Simultaneously, the ingrained mantra of the Families, repeated so often that it took on the inviolability accorded the law of gravity, dictated that Kenzie couldn’t follow her heart.
The Magic must survive.
Wizards married other wizards. There were no exceptions.
Sacrilegiously, Kenzie contemplated running away. Again. With Mitch.
“—try today?”
Embarrassed, Kenzie jerked her gaze up from the ferns. Harold was staring at her, eyes bright, waiting for an answer to a question she hadn’t heard. The left corner of his lips curled down, just enough to convey his disapproval of her daydreaming.
