by Tanya Huff
“It’s not going to happen!” Allie hadn’t realized she’d gotten to her feet until she found herself glaring down at Michael and Charlie-the former stared back at her, the latter poured herself another cup of coffee. “But, yeah, that’s what they think,” she sighed as she sat down.
“Why did you never tell me any of this before?” Michael wondered.
“Because even though you act like an enormous girl…” Charlie patted his hand. “… you’re really a guy. Is there any way this sorcerer could be bringing the dragons through?”
Allie shook her head. “The security on the gate had to be broken from the other side.”
“By who?” Charlie demanded.
“No idea.”
“An accomplice. The sorcerer could be calling them.”
“Graham says he isn’t.”
“Oh, babe, Graham’s working for him. He’ll say whatever the black-hearted, son-of-a-bitch wants him to say.”
“I believe him.”
“He must be fan-fucking-tastic in the sack,” Charlie muttered, “because you’ve only ever been this stupidly blind about one other man.”
“Who?” Michael asked. When the cousins turned to stare at him, he flushed. “Oh. Right. So, uh, when do the aunties get here?” he asked, loading up another forkful.
“I haven’t told them yet.”
The crack of heavy porcelain against wood punctuated the extended silence as Charlie set her mug on the table, smudged eye makeup around wide eyes making her look like a startled raccoon. “You haven’t told them yet? What are you waiting for, a visit from the little people? Hang on.” She threw up both hands in exaggerated surprise. “You’ve had that, too!”
“I’m thinking,” Allie growled, “that I’d like to know what’s happening, and it’s a little hard to find out once the ground’s been salted.”
“Metaphorically?” Michael wondered.
“Sometimes. Look…” She pushed her plate aside and leaned forward, elbows on the table. “… you know what the aunties are like. Gran’s gone, someone broke the security on a gate to let the dragons through, and they’re going to blame the sorcerer for both those things as well as the hike in Calgary’s transit fares, middle-aged women wearing jeans that barely cover their asses, and SciFi canceling The Dresden Files.”
“Loved that show,” Michael muttered around a mouthful of French toast.
“He called Graham last night,” Allie continued, “so he’s monitoring the gate. He knows what’s going on, and he’s going to tell me. I mean, bottom line, he could easily be the lesser of two evils, depending on what’s letting the dragons through and why.”
Charlie shook her head. “Lesser of two evils will mean squat to the aunties. Besides, why would he spill to you?”
“Because he won’t want me to call them. He talks or I dial.”
Michael saluted her with his empty fork. “You go, girl! Are you going to eat… Thanks.” He caught Allie’s abandoned breakfast as she spun it across the table and dug in.
“I don’t know…” Charlie lifted her coffee again and peered at Allie over the rim. “I can see why he’d take any chance offered to convince you not to call, but he has to know you’re going to after he…” She blinked, and Allie almost literally saw the lights go on. “You’re not, are you?You’re going to try and sort this out yourself.You’re not going to call them because you know they’ll take your sorcerer’s apprentice down with his boss.”
“He’s not his apprentice.” Shifting, she could feel the mark his teeth had left on her inner thigh. “He’s more like his assassin.”
“Yeah, that makes him working with a sorcerer so much better.”
“If it comes to it, I can protect Graham from the aunties.”
“You can? Really. From the aunties?”
“Shut up.”
“You sure you’re not doing this because of David?” Michael asked quietly. “If you talk to this guy, and it turns out he isn’t corrupt, then you can convince the aunties it’s not all black and white, and they’ll cut David some slack.”
Mouth open, Charlie swiveled around in her chair. “Fuck me blind. Every now and then I remember you’re not just another pretty face.”
“Thank you. Elegantly expressed as always.” He reached across the table and caught Allie’s hand in his. “Allie-cat?”
“I didn’t…” She hadn’t thought of David since he’d called. And he wasn’t going to turn anyway, so what would be the point in convincing the aunties that maybe not all sorcerers were cut from the same cloth. She turned her hand under Michael’s so she could link their fingers and said, “That might be part of the reason.”
David. And Graham. And…
And this was hers.
“Well, okay, then.” He squeezed her hand, then let her go. “Pass the syrup and answer your phone.”
It came as no real surprise when the address Allie’d been given turned out to be the long stone building on 6th Street, north of 2nd Avenue. The sorcerer’s power had been drawing her attention even through the extensive wards he had on the building. And extensive was way too mild a description. She raised an eyebrow as she put her hand on the front door and the place lit up like a carnival ride. Allie half expected to hear cheesy calliope music. According to the aunties, sorcerers were big on the whole anything worth doing was worth overdoing, and it seemed they were right about that, at least. Three charms would have been plenty; one to mask power leakages if he was so paranoid about being found, one to stop unwanted guests, and one to give warning that a guest had arrived who couldn’t be stopped.
Allie paused only long enough to recheck the office number on the mailbox in the entryway, and then paused a moment longer when she saw the name on the box.
The Western Star.
She was meeting the sorcerer Graham worked for at the tabloid Graham worked for. Given that two plus two still generally equaled four, even in Calgary, it seemed safe to assume that the sorcerer had something to do with the tabloid.
She stepped over the final hex without frying, and took the stairs to the second floor.
Like the charm on Gran’s door, it had been set to keep out those who intended harm. She wasn’t intending to do anything but get some answers.
After she had those answers, her intentions might change.
The deliberate rhythm of her boots against the tiles made it sound like she knew what she was doing. Carefully not imagining the aunties’ reaction to being kept in the dark, feeling reckless and wondering if it was how Charlie always felt, she took the last four steps two at a time.
All things considered, the overdone hexes on the actual office door came as no surprise.
The room beyond it was smaller than she’d imagined. The wall opposite the two huge windows-also well hexed-was one enormous bank of filing cabinets, the wall to her right was covered in maps and corkboards that were covered in turn in pushpins and clippings, and in the wall opposite was another door, painted the ugliest khaki Allie’d ever seen with Stanley Kalynchuk, Publisher stenciled on it in black. Given the hexes on that door, it could have said Stanley Kalynchuk, Sorcerer just as accurately. Allie wondered what his actual name was.
There were a lot fewer newspapers around than she’d expected. Of the three desks filling the center of the room, only one looked used. Graham was sitting on the corner of it.
“We have a person who handles all our advertising, but she works from home. Comes in Tuesday mornings to go over the layout. A lot of our content is provided by freelancers, we take some off the wires, and I fill in the rest.” He stood as she crossed the office. “I thought we could get all that out of the way up front.”
He wasn’t smiling.
“I don’t like being used, Allie.”
Not a Gale boy, Allie reminded herself. Not even someone who’d grown up around the Gales. She stopped just inside his reach. Just in case he wanted to reach for her. “I didn’t use you.”
“You marked me.”
“
We do that. I’m wearing Charlie’s charms and one of my mother’s. When I was younger, David, my brother, used to scribble all over me.” She nodded toward the inner door. “He marked you.”
“With my consent.” Did he even know his hand had risen to touch his chest? “Giving me his protection.”
“You fell asleep beside me, Graham, knowing who I was.” Hoping he’d draw the line for himself, she waited. When he nodded, reluctantly granted but still an acknowledgment of her point, she added, “And I’m offering protection as well.”
“Ignoring for the moment that I don’t need your protection, it says mine. What kind of protection is that?”
Impossible to prevent a grin at the thought of Katie’s reaction. “You’ll find out when you start meeting my cousins.”
“When I start…” His mouth opened and closed a few times. Allie waited more or less patiently while he worked through his reaction. “What makes you think,” he managed at last, “that I’m going to meet your cousins? What makes you think that you and I are…”
“Still you and I?” She finished for him when it seemed like the hand waving was going to go on for a while.
“Yes!”
“You lied about why you were in the store.You took me out to dinner under false pretenses. You threatened my friend and employee. You would have killed my grandmother had your sorcerer commanded it, and don’t bother lying to me, you wouldn’t have had her under surveillance if he hadn’t considered her a threat and-given that he employs you, well, that kind of defines his reaction to threat, doesn’t it? In spite of all that, I’m still willing to give us a chance. Then I draw a completely harmless charm on your forehead, and that’s it?”
“I don’t…”
She waited, giving him a chance to gather his thoughts because he probably didn’t. Most people didn’t. The family found it very frustrating.
“Given all that,” he said at last, one hand pushing his hair back off his face, “why the hell do you want to be with me?”
Allie shrugged, fully aware of how the motion carried on down. “You have gorgeous eyes. Your voice raises the hair on my neck, but in a good way. You make me laugh. You make me feel safe, which is edging fairly close to the border between honest emotion and bad romance novel, but considering what you do for a living…” Her gesture made it clear she wasn’t speaking about the newspaper. “… I’m claiming it. And the sex is fantastic-although, to be fair, we should expand the sample. As for the rest, well, it’s a mystery.”
“A mystery?”
“We’re attracted to power.”
“We?”
“The women in my family. It’s a visceral thing. I expect to have a reaction to your sorcerer when I meet him. It’s one of the reason we don’t like them.”
“Because you react to them?”
“And they play by different rules.”
“I don’t have power like that.”
“I know. Like I said, a mystery. My father teaches high school.”
It took him a moment to realize that statement was relevant. Most of the confrontation had left his voice when he asked, “Another mystery?”
“Sometimes the power we’re attracted to is weirdly hard to define.” Hooking a finger in between two buttons on his shirt, she pulled herself closer. Today the heels on her boots put them pretty much eye-to-eye with maybe a centimeter in her favor. He’d better be able to cope because she loved these boots. “Regardless of how we’re involved independently, you and I together have nothing to do with whatever else is happening.”
“So you said.”
“And I’ll keep saying it until you believe me.”
He sighed, breath redolent with coffee fumes and warm against her face. “That’s not the way the world works.”
“That’s not the way the rest of the world works.” She wondered what he’d do if she leaned in and kissed him. Decided not to risk it when he was still so skittish although, from the way his eyes widened, she was pretty sure he knew she’d considered it. “Good thing your sorcerer already primed you for dealing with the less than usual. And, speaking of your sorcerer, didn’t he want to talk to me?”
“He did.”
“Well, then?”
Stepping back, pulling her finger free, he began to gesture toward the inner door, then paused. “The thing, the charm, on my head; did you put that there to get his attention?”
“No.”
“But you knew that’s what would happen.”
Interesting that he wasn’t actually asking her. “I figured your sorcerer would want to talk to me about it, yes.”
“He’s not my sorcerer.”
“Then whose sorcerer is he?”
He sighed again, pushed his hair back off his face, and led the way to the inner door. “You drive me crazy.”
Allie grinned, appreciating the way his pants pulled tight across a muscular ass. “Pace yourself.”
The sorcerer’s office was small and crowded. Allie was surprised. She’d expected a room significantly larger than the space available with dark paneling and heavy expensive furniture. While this room did hold a large desk, it was made of the same dinged gray metal as the three in the outer office. The desk held in turn a computer and a printer, at least three or four years old, a phone, and a lot of assorted papers held down by the biggest iridescent white shell she’d ever seen. Facing the desk were two uncomfortable looking wood-and-pleather chairs. The closest thing to art on the scuffed beige walls was a calendar from a local Chinese restaurant. May’s picture was a not particularly good watercolor of a panda eating bamboo. A long green blind very similar to the ones that used to hang in her primary school covered the window. Hexes covered the blind. Hexes also covered the door in the wall behind the desk that logic said led to a closet.
Logic said closet. Everything else said she should leave now while she still could.
Behind that door, Allie realized, would be the sorcerer’s actual room. The room where eldritch forces were confined and warped. His inner sanctum. This room was just where he played at publishing a newspaper.
Given that the hexes told her he hadn’t left the building for at least a month, she’d half expected it to smell like the inside of Michael’s old gym locker. It didn’t actually smell that bad.
The sorcerer himself turned out to be a burly, late middle-aged man with dark eyes behind a thick fringe of dark lashes, a lot of dark hair shot through with gleaming strands of silver, and an impressive five o’clock shadow for not quite noon. He had, Allie noted, a dimple in his chin, a cupid’s bow mouth, and an old burn scar puckering the skin just under the right side of his jaw, noticeable mostly because of the stubble around it. Standing, he’d probably be no taller than Graham.
The suit didn’t match the office.
In the Gale family, made-to-measure meant an auntie had bothered to check breadth of shoulder before starting to knit the sweater, but Brian had introduced Allie and Michael to the concept of tailoring, and she’d be willing to bet that the sorcerer’s charcoal gray suit had cost more than anything in Brian’s entire wardrobe. The maroon shirt was definitely silk, undone at the collar to show the glint of a heavy gold chain.
Artifact.
So was the enormous gold signet on his right pinkie, proving that powerfully ugly was still ugly.
Power rolled off him like smoke. Power he contained. Power he controlled.
It was a lot less enthralling than Allie’d expected although, given the gleam in the dark eyes, she had no doubt he could be dangerously charming when he wanted to.
Behind her, Graham said, “Alysha Gale, Stanley Kalynchuk.”
“Shall we cut to the chase, Ms. Gale?” Light flared off the ring as he steepled his fingers. “When can I expect your relatives?”
“That’s up to you.” Allie thought about sitting. Decided she’d better wait for an invitation. Rumor had it sorcerers were big on the whole quake before me, lesser mortals thing, and the last thing she wanted to do was annoy him
and prod him into reacting impetuously. Her safety depended on him considering the consequences.
His eyes narrowed. “So you haven’t called them yet?” His gaze flicked past her to Graham. “Good. I am all that stands between this world and disaster. Had you reacted with your family’s usual prejudice toward men of power, at the very least you’d have doomed the city and quite possibly-given how flammable the substrate is-the entire province. I alone can prevent the destruction.”
Okay, that was an unexpected truth. “You’re hiding in a newspaper office.”
“You’re aware of our visitors?” When Allie nodded, he pressed both hands down on the top of the desk and leaned forward. “They are but the precursors to an ancient enemy of mine arising from the UnderRealm.”
“Arising?”
“Clawing its way through the realities to destroy me.”
“Okay.” She connected the dots. “So this enemy sent our visitors to hunt for you, and you’re hiding from them?”
He scowled. “I bide my time. Should I destroy them now…”
“Or send Graham out to shoot them.”
“Should I destroy them now,” he repeated, “my enemy is forewarned that I am here.”
“Right here.” She couldn’t stop herself. “Hiding.”
His cheeks darkened. “You might want to consider that it is up to me whether or not you leave this office.”
“If I don’t check in with my cousin within…” Allie checked her watch. “… an hour and twelve minutes, you’ll have a maximum of seven hours.”
Bushy brows drew in to nearly touch over his nose. “To do what?”
“That’s up to you, but we checked the airlines…
“This is very Jason Bourne,” Michael noted as Allie scrolled through flight schedules. “And that makes me think you’re about to do something stupidly dangerous. Do you have to talk to him?”
“It’s me or the aunties.”
“Can’t you just ignore him?”
“Ignore a sorcerer, at least two dragons, and a compromised gate to the UnderRealm less than a kilometer from Gran’s store? That would be a no.”
