by Paul Duffau
Ho-ly cre-ap!
Standing there gawking made him obvious. Time to get out. To cover his retreat, he rotated his wrist to bring the phone screen faceup. He swiped as though taking a call, and nodded as he pivoted around. As he did, a wisp of motion at the corner of his eyes made him tilt his head to look more closely. A dark-suited man, powerfully built, had emerged from the shade thrown by the trees and stepped to the middle of the driveway. It took all Mitch’s willpower to not look directly at the guard. Instead, he turned his back and lifted his phone to use the screen as a mirror. It worked, kind of.
The man’s head tracked Mitch’s exit, and he lifted up a phone of his own to his ear. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the security car would be here in a flash.
Mitch forced a steady cadence as regular as a military march into his stride. Ahead was the curve and the entryway into Magnuson Park. He paused on the sidewalk, glanced both ways, and started to cross the street just as the cops came around the corner.
Mitch ignored them.
The car stopped opposite him. The driver’s door opened and an off-duty cop built like a tank stepped out into the street.
Impossible to not acknowledge. Mitch glanced over. Bigger than a tank. Black sunglasses, shaved head.
“Excuse me.” The raspy voice carried a modicum of both suspicion and caution. “May I ask what you were doing down there?” Again the careful phrasing.
Mitch came to a full stop and faced his inquisitor, prepared to lie. “It’s a public street, sir.”
With a fluid, rolling gait, the security man approached. “That was not the question that I asked, kid.”
“Yeah, the question you asked was what was I doing that I shouldn’t be. The answer to that question is nothing.” He kept his gaze level. “Sir.”
“Got some ID?” The guy stopped just out of arm’s reach, which caused Mitch to twist his lips in lopsided humor. Like he wanted to wrestle that.
“Back pocket, right side.”
A sigh greeted Mitch’s response. “Are we going to do this whole thing the hard way?” The tank stepped in closer, leaning his chest forward and extending meaty hands that had calluses the size of quarters along the palms. “I’d rather get back into the air-conditioning.” He shifted his chin to the side to indicate the patrol car.
“He was my friend,” said Mitch, “before he swiped my girlfriend.” The truth would work; not the whole thing, but enough to deflect the cop.
“Lord love a duck,” muttered the cop under his breath with a shake of his head. “And you thought what? You could teach him a lesson?”
“I just wanted to see what . . .” Mitch turned his head away, letting embarrassment creep into his tone. “I can’t compete with a guy that drives a Bimmer and lives in . . .” Mitch faded his voice out again and gestured down the hill. “No lesson, just seeing if there was a chance, you know, to change her mind.” His shoulders dropped.
The cop regarded him for a moment. He said, “Girls will drive you nuts, if you let them. So don’t. Now, how about you hand over that ID.”
Mitch kept his head down and fetched his wallet. He slipped out the plastic card and handed it over.
The cop looked at the card, glanced at Mitch’s face. “Remove the sunglasses, please.” He made some scratches on a page of a spiral-bound pocket notebook.
Mitch did, continuing his downcast gaze. “Are you going to tell . . . ?” He avoided using the Rubiera name. No telling if that would trigger a whole new alert level. A sense of danger accompanied the thought.
“Am I going to see you here again”—the cop checked the license—“Mitchell?”
“No, sir.”
“Then this contact will go into our files and there’s no need to have it go any further, to your friend’s family or to yours.” He handed back the rectangular card.
Mitch dropped his shades down. “Can I go?”
“Why don’t I give you a lift to the main gate?”
Mitch winced. A headache formed behind his eyes, probably from too much effort at sparring with the cop. “I can walk.”
“You can ride. Get in.” The cop pivoted.
Mitch squeezed his eyes closed. Maybe riding was a good idea. He went to the vehicle and slid into the passenger seat, the cold air-conditioning greeting him with a relief from the sun. He slumped into the cushioning and buckled up without thinking.
The cop pulled a U-turn in the middle of the broad pavement in silence.
Mitch clenched his teeth against the pain. White flashes roared into his head, painfully bright and loud, like artillery. He sagged in the bucket seat, flopping against the restraint.
“You okay, kid?”
The voice penetrated the noise but the effort to respond overwhelmed Mitch. He tried to shake his head, but the world spun and the flashes hammered him until he thought he was about to puke.
“Kid?”
Chapter 10
Honey and lemon drifted into Kenzie’s fuzzy mind. It calmed the chaotic throes of mad dreams of lightning and thunder. Her eyelids crept open and stared blankly at a gigantic silver disc.
The Glade! she thought, and it galvanized her into motion. Instantly, she regretted it, as her head exploded in ribbons of painful fire.
“Ah, she awakes.” Harold modulated his voice so it came low and quiet. Kenzie could hear the relief.
“My parents.” A croak, not her voice.
“Busy. Your mother with the council to discuss the attack. Your father received a call that he said was urgent and needed his response. He was in a mood quite foul when he left.” He moved into her field of vision. The earthenware mug he had in his hand steamed, the vapors capturing the moonlight. “Let me help you sit up. Slowly, this time.”
Kenzie leaned on his forearm for support. Moving in incremental stages made her headache manageable. Looking down, she saw that her robe had changed again. The green bore streaks of glittering silver. Apprehension filled her as she sought a reason for the Glade seeking another divergence from the familiar norm of black and white.
She shot a questioning glance at Harold and winced.
“How is your head?”
“Feels like someone is trying to split it in half with a mallet.” Kenzie probed at her temples and hairline. Everything on the outside seemed intact. “Who attacked us?”
“To all appearances, a rival group of wizards, though we don’t yet know who or why,” said Harold. “They were unsuccessful, thanks to you.”
He left her side and went to his cook fire. Belatedly, Kenzie realized that she was in the old man’s personal domain, intruding. She pulled up her knees and clasped them with her arms. At the fire, Harold stirred a concoction in a black iron stew pot. He sniffed at the ladle like a bloodhound and, satisfied, filled a round crock. He collected a spoon on the way back to his patient.
“What’s in that?” asked Kenzie. Knowing the power of potions, she maintained a wary attitude.
“A very special medicine,” said Harold. He continued, face deadpan. “I call it chicken soup.”
The smell reached her at the same time as his words. Kenzie brought the back of her hand to her mouth to make sure she didn’t drool. “Oh, wow.” She relaxed her posture and lifted the bowl from his palms, the rich aroma swirling around her. Kenzie salivated and swallowed. The old wizard passed Kenzie the spoon. “Thanks.”
Resting the warmth of the bowl in her lap, she spooned in the first mouthful. She rolled the saltiness of the broth around her tongue and swallowed. Spoonful followed spoonful until the bowl was empty. She looked wistfully to the pot.
“There is more, you know.” He refilled the dish and added a side of fire-cooked sourdough bread.
She ate the noodles and tender chunks of chicken with the spoon, but sopped up broth with the bread. The soup satiated her staggering hunger, and the tang of the bread elicited a thirst.
“Can I get some water, please?”
Harold dutifully fetched.
“What exactly
happened? I remember feeling the beginning of the attack, and my father countering it. Then it was like a . . . a tidal wave, I guess, of energy.” She shook her head, slowly so it wouldn’t land in her lap. “I put up the shield and then . . . nothing.”
“I need to teach you to anchor that spell,” replied Harold, as though he had been negligent. “I never envisioned that you would need to protect yourself from a massed attack—”
“It was just one person,” interrupted Kenzie. “Belinda the Bitch.”
To her relief, Harold ignored the profanity. “That is your imagination at work, personalizing the enemy. It was certainly a massed attack. They presented not just a powerful offensive spell, but solid defensive measures. One person cannot handle two spells at once, therefore there was more than one, and likely a half-dozen or more.” His pronouncement was made with certainty.
Kenzie opened her mouth to contradict him, and then snapped it shut so fast a spark of pain flared in her head. I’ve done it, thought Kenzie, confused, two spells at once. Rather than argue, she redirected him away from the possibility. Secrecy was its own weapon. “So how come I could stop the attack, then.”
“You are the most powerful enchantress in a generation, even if your magic is still terribly sloppy.” He raised a palm to keep her from defending herself. “It’s expected. You will mature and come into your full powers in time.” He smiled. “I am quite sure that you surprised them with your power. That’s one reason your parents brought you here. No sense in taking a chance that they would take tactical advantage during your recovery.”
“Other than a headache, I feel fine. It’s not like I was sick.”
“Would you like some more soup?” asked Harold.
“No, I’m—” A rumble from her tummy stopped her.
“Using magic requires energy, especially when you use such a prodigious amount as you released. This is at least the third time that you have delved this deeply into your resources. And please don’t deny it,” he said, reading her face. He ticked them off on his fingers. “The first, in healing young Mr. Meriwether. You used much too much power there. The consequences of that are still to be assessed. Second, trying to remove the vile Mr. Lassiter with a Fire spell. And today. After each of them, did you not feel exhausted and emotionally spent?”
Kenzie stared at him with dawning awareness. “Why does my robe keep changing colors?”
Harold pursed his lips and frowned. He shrugged. “Who says the robe is changing.” He delivered a sharp-as-knife-tip glare. “And you’re avoiding the subject.”
Kenzie wilted back to holding her knees. Staring at the flicker of the fire, she said, “No one else wears green, no one else has . . . ” She traced silver threads on her sleeve.
“No one else is you,” said Harold.
“That’s not an answer!”
“Indeed it is, just not the answer you are wanting. You ask why the robe changes, as though you are being singled out and punished. The other worker bees, frocked in white and black, look at you suspiciously, and the queen is jealous because you are a threat. Poor Kenzie. Would you be happier to be just like the others? So be it.”
Strain crossed his face, and his fingers rubbed together with a rasping sound. Kenzie’s vision blurred and then cleared.
“Behold.”
Her robe was shining white again. Now the robe offended her at a visceral level. Her stomach churned at Harold exercising even this bit of control, this negation of her identity. In a timeless juncture between seeing the alabaster cloth and her emotional reaction, she retaliated without thinking. Faster than she could consider the consequences, she identified the lines of magic emanating from the wizard and shattered them with a vicious blast.
The backlash forced the old man backwards two involuntary steps.
Chest heaving and quivering, she glared at Harold, too angry to speak. From the bottom edge of her vision, she could see her robe radiating vitality, green with the potential of life. The streaks of silver glowed with an inner light as though no longer content to reflect the light of the moon above.
Swaying, Harold ran a hand along the side of his head and up over the top. “I rest my case.” Then, he collapsed like a stack of blocks knocked about by a toddler, the top folding down on the feet into a heap.
Fearful she had caused her mentor, friend, an injury, Kenzie drove herself off the cushions to kneel beside Harold. A tear splattered on his chest as she searched his composed face. She pressed against his neck at the carotid to check his pulse. It took several frantic attempts to locate the thin, weak thump.
“I’m sorry, so sorry, I’m so sorry.” The whisper lingered in the air as though Harold’s room itself held her responsible. She couldn’t find anything else wrong with him. Shaking his shoulder elicited no response. In desperation, she reached for magic, careful to modulate it this time. Her physical depletion affected her surety with her manipulation of energy. She spoke the healing spell without using the hand motions, aiming for just this much magic.
“Æsculapium.”
A deep sigh escaped from Harold, followed by a deep inhalation. The cycle repeated three times while Kenzie waited in tense expectation, ready to try again with the spell. Harold’s eyes fluttered open and he graced her with a rueful smile. “We really must teach you control.” He looked at her. “Quit blubbering and help an old man up.” He lifted his right arm and bent his knees.
Kenzie clasped his wrist. The strength of Harold’s grip on her wrist surprised her. She braced and heaved backwards, using her butt to balance the wizard’s weight as he swung himself up. He let go of her arm and smoothed his robes while she shuffled in front of him. “I must admit, I have not felt this well in quite a while. You used the healing spell?”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Bosh!”
Startled, Kenzie shifted her gaze from the floor to Harold’s face, searching it for a sign of sarcasm. Seeing none, she nodded, more confused than ever. “But I . . . I hurt you without even meaning to. It was just this automatic kind of reaction, and it happened so fast.” She looked away again and sniffed. “I’m sorry.”
“Kenzie, eyes up, girl.”
Tenderness and not a little sadness creased Harold’s face like well-worn furrows in a field. I’ve seen that look before, thought Kenzie, when he said she wore green, too. A conviction grew in her that he knew her mother, Elowyn, that she was the other . . . odd one.
Impulsively, she spoke. “Who was my mother?” A stone weighed heavy in her chest. “Who was Elowyn?”
Harold’s eyes filled, and, stricken, he reached for Kenzie, and pulled her into a protective embrace. He choked up as he spoke. “You are not destined to be one of the worker bees, Kenzie. It would be so much easier for you if you were.”
Chapter 11
“I never laid a hand on the kid,” whined a disembodied voice.
Naw, he’s cool, percolated through Mitch’s mind, though he couldn’t remember who he was. A metallic taste filled his mouth. Blood. He gathered the scattered pieces of his brain, remembered scoping out Hunter’s frickin’ mansion, the cop, the incapacitating pain. . . .
“I’ve called Lieutenant Graham. He’ll be here in about twenty. Same with the paramedics.”
Glad I’m not dying. The first statement processed. Why? Why call Kenzie’s dad? He considered there might be more than one Graham on the Seattle PD force. He rotated his head. The action was greeted by a sheet of red across the inside of his eyelids. He groaned.
“Kid?” Mitch assigned the voice to the first cop, the dude who’d stopped him on the street.
No clue who the second voice belongs to.
Mitch opened his mouth, but his tongue got stuck against his teeth when he tried to talk.
“Crap, he’s bleeding, Pendleton.” Disembodied voice number two.
“Bith . . . my . . . listhp . . .”
“Sarge, I never touched him, I swear.”
Awareness snuck in. He was lying down, a pillow under h
is knees. Clothes loose. Shock, they were treating him for shock. Hard hands maneuvered his head to the side with firm gentleness. He groaned as flashes splattered across his mind like his brain had been rattled loose. Just remove the whole thing, guys. I’ll pick it up on my way out.
“I’m . . . ’kay.” Mitch took a deep breath and risked opening his eyes. Too bright. Squint. Better. The wall opposite him was white and scuffed. The security headquarters, probably, and he had no idea where it was in relation to the Metro stops.
“Easy, uh, Mitchell.” The second, had to be Sarge, had Mitch’s license out. He stood over Mitch, staring down. Tall, skinny, couldn’t see his face turned like this, just his hands. Sounded a bit older than Tank, a.k.a. Pendleton. “Do you remember what happened?”
Mitch wet his lips. His tongue responded appropriately. Maybe he could answer without sounding like a doofus. “Head.” Fifty percent off for an incomplete answer. “Migraine.” Better, bonus points if they buy the lie. “Too much time in the sun.” Moving his head gingerly, he rolled onto his back and looked at Sarge. A narrow face with wide ears, suspicion glowering from the brown eyes and flared nostrils.
“I’ve called the paramedics. You just rest until they get here.”
“I gotta go. Stuff to do.” Like not be here when Raymond Graham shows up.
“You’ll wait.” The tone brooked no possibility of discussion or disagreement.
Mitch disagreed anyway. “Am I being held for a reason?” He swung his legs down and rolled up to a sitting position. The room spun counterclockwise a couple of laps while Mitch maintained a death grip on the cot. “Or are you kidnapping me?”
“The reason,” said Sarge, sounding cautious, “is that Lieutenant Graham left specific orders in the system that in the event of any sort of contact with the police, you should be held until he arrived.” His jaw clenched. “I assume so he can grease the skids and get you out of whatever trouble you make. Not everybody gets a get-out-of-jail-free card.” Sarge couldn’t hide his contempt at the special handling for kids like Mitch.
