I sorted through the files. Luckily for me, they were organized by intended location, so I just flipped my way over to the P section and began poking around. Lots of students trying to get to college, and individual witches who had just been forced to leave the family group because they’d hit the age of twenty-two, and were trying to get to a city that could promise potential work plus livable rates of rent. None of those were what I needed, so I continued sorting until I’d pulled out the files for the families that were trying to move here. What I was hoping for was a family that had already had their application in, so that I could just get Chivalry to approve it, then shove through paperwork for Ambrose and his family that put them in the newly created opening wherever the other family was from. It certainly wasn’t ideal, but I was pretty certain that Ambrose would take a blind move over possible death by elfling, even if it meant moving to Bangor.
There were three in total, and once I was sure that I had all of them, I pulled out my phone and called Valentine. He picked up immediately, and I could hear him apologizing his way out of an appointment. As soon as he gave me the okay to talk, I read through the list of families who had official requests in. Pulling open each folder further, though, revealed that all of them had already received some attention—on the second page, next to biographical information, was a clear stamp—LOCATION AT CAPACITY.
“What the hell?” I muttered. “This isn’t just backlog.”
“How big are the families that were trying to come in?” Valentine asked.
I checked. “Um. . . . smallest one has five members. Two adults, one dependent elder, two children.”
“Yeah, the cities are hard to get into. If you’re born in Boston, say, you get grandfathered in, but the old quotas for how many witches can live in an area were set over two hundred years ago, and they don’t exactly reflect current population density, or the growth of the witch population, or even that we just don’t stick out as very weird anymore, especially in cities. A lot of people end up in the suburbs or rural spots and having pretty long commutes, even though we actually are a bit more at risk for exposure in little communities where our neighbors get to know us too well.” Valentine paused. “I can see what you’re trying to do, Fort, but isn’t there any way to just convince your brother or sister to do an emergency approval of moving Ambrose and his family? I know that there are lots of open spots in Manitoba.” From Valentine’s tone, that was a fate preferable to death—but not by much.
“Asking them to actually agree with me on something is not exactly going to work, especially today,” I said grimly. I paused and considered the files, flipping around. Behind the transfer requests was the overall listing of witch locations, divided by town and city, with a precise number of residents beside each name.
Numbers. Not who, just the total. I could feel the seed of an idea start tugging at my brain. I paused, felt at the edges of it. Trying to do anything behind my siblings’ back had an element of danger to it, especially with witches, who my sister was always eager to kill. But if I could do this in a way that kept it completely under the radar from her, and never produced a paper trail that she’d notice, it would be safe. Or at least, as safe as it could be.
“Valentine,” I asked, “do you know a family of three that would be okay with moving to Providence? Or even just three people from the same town who would be okay with moving? Doesn’t matter if they live together, they just need to be from the same location.”
“Oh . . . so like a swap?”
“Exactly. Three people come into Providence, at the same time that three people from Providence replace their number from the origin location. If we do it fast, then the reported numbers won’t change at all, and no one at the top over here will even register that something happened.”
“Let me think. . . .”
I could hear a rustling of paper over at Valentine’s end, and pictured him shifting through piles of notes.
“Oh, okay, here’s something. I was talking to a young couple in northern Vermont. New baby, and they lost the primary income a couple of months ago and haven’t been able to replace it. Things are pretty sluggish up there. They would like to move to an urban area, but they haven’t even bothered putting in a transfer request because they knew they weren’t going to get it.”
“Family of three, Vermont, perfect. What’s the name?” I wrote it down quickly. “Listen, I need you to call them right now. They can come to Providence, but it has to happen right now. We’re going to switch these two families, and everyone needs to be in their new area by tomorrow morning. Tell everyone to pack just the things that they need—fill up their cars, rent a trailer, I don’t care, but they’re on the road. They can stay wherever the other family was living while they figure out other housing. If they’re going to sell, go somewhere else, all those details can wait, and they’ll finish the packing for the other family.”
“I know that Ambrose and his wife will do this, but . . .” Valentine hesitated. “I can’t promise things for the Vermont couple. This is pretty sudden, and they don’t have a death threat like Ambrose heating things up.”
“Then you need to call them up and convince them,” I said, knowing that I was being a hard-ass here but knowing no other way. “This is their one chance to get to a city, and I’ll be honest, this offer probably won’t be on the table tomorrow. If they want to move, it has to be now.”
“They’ll want to hear this from you, Fort. They’ll need a Scott’s confirmation, beyond what I’m saying.”
“Give them my number, then. When they call, I’ll tell them myself. Now get this moving—everyone needs to be hitting the road either tonight or in the wee hours tomorrow, and we need to do this as quietly as we can.”
I knew that Valentine was mulling it over, that this wasn’t what he’d expected, but when he said, “Okay. I’ll make the call,” I knew that he would make it happen.
We exchanged good-byes and hung up. I wrote down the names of both families, then swallowed hard. I’d had adrenaline in my favor when I told Valentine what to do, but now I had to do my part, and hope that things worked. Because if they didn’t, I knew that I’d have both my siblings breathing down my necks, and both Ambrose and the Neighbors would have a lot more attention focused on them then they could really afford right now.
I went to Loren’s desk, where she was working at her computer. One of the human accountants was out of the room, and the other had on a set of seventies-style vintage headphones and was apparently rocking her spreadsheets out to Black Sabbath, judging by the portions of sound that I could hear even across the room. Taking advantage of the momentary privacy, I handed Loren the paper with both names on it.
“Loren,” I said softly, looking her directly in the eye and hoping that what I’d seen in her during the trip down to the succubi was something real. “I need you to swap these two witch files. Off the books, just move the files.” If the files had solely been print, then I would’ve done it myself, but there were backup lists on the computers that were used to make up the tithing lists and bills that the accountants handled, and she would almost certainly notice if I started trying to mess around with those with all the grace and subtlety of a water buffalo in a marsh.
She stared at me. “Off the books?” she asked slowly.
I nodded, my heart pounding in my chest. I could see her hesitation, and her very real worry. She knew who she worked for—she’d probably been one of the staff members who had made arrangements for the bodies on the night that Madeline died, with those most faithful of her retainers. Loren knew exactly what was at stake—for all her years of dedicated service, all the extent to which we relied on her to keep things running smoothly, just one careless blow from Prudence and she would break.
She inclined her head, just once. “Of course, Mr. Scott,” she said, her voice shaking just a fraction as she spoke. “I’ll handle it right now, and you can rely on me.”
“Thank you,” I said, relief palpable in my voice. “It’s really important. You know that I’d never ask you if it—”
“I know,” she said, cutting me off. She glanced quickly around the room, taking in her office mate’s complete distraction, then looked back at me. “You can trust that it will be taken care of immediately.” Then, worry breaking into her expression and made all the more shocking for how controlled she normally was, she said, quickly and nervously, “But you know that this can’t be usual. There are too many things—”
This time I was the one to cut her off, nodding. “I know. I know that. And I’ll tell Prudence and Chivalry about the switch—eventually. After it’s settled and everyone is safe. It’ll be easier then, to just agree with what was done, rather than have to actually agree to do something.”
As I walked out of the room, I really hoped that was true.
* * *
The temperature continued to plunge throughout the day, leaving any snow that had partially melted at some point or been turned to slush by passing cars or feet to freeze into the kind of ice that caused sidewalk falls and multiple car pileups. Between the weather and the fact that it was Thursday, the scene at Redbones after we opened for business started dead and pretty much stayed that way, with our few customers consisting primarily of extremely drunk frat guys from the local colleges, who, fortunately for me, were in the “I love you, man” oversize-puppy state of inebriation, which made them easy to handle. After my long days at the mansion, there was an odd sense of comfort in my evenings at Redbones. Sure, I was filling snack baskets and sprinkling sawdust on vomit, but I was at least accomplishing something.
I wondered if that said something awful about the current state of Scott family affairs.
Hoshi sauntered into the bar a few hours in, but was quickly eyeing up the goods in the bar with a distinct air of dissatisfaction.
“I thought the blond was working out?” I asked as I delivered her gin and tonic.
She shook her head sadly. “I had to eliminate him from the running after I found a copy of Atlas Shrugged on his bedside table.”
I paused, and considered. “You know that enjoying Ayn Rand isn’t genetic, right?”
That earned me a horrified glare. “Why would I potentially risk my future daughter’s health and safety, Fort?” She shook her head, sending her curly hair flying. “Jeez, think these things through.”
At just past eight, with the bar continuing to empty out, I headed into the back room to officially freshen up some snack baskets, and unofficially to escape the frat boy who had apparently been dumped recently and was currently working out his feelings by singing a whole lot of Adele songs, badly. After a quick glance out the door to make sure that no one was looking like they were trying to get table service, I walked over to where my heavy parka was hanging and pulled my phone out of its pocket. I’d long since learned that as a bar waiter I had too many drinks spilled on me in the course of an evening to risk keeping my phone in my apron pocket.
Pulling open the phone, I was surprised to see that Lilah had tried calling me over a dozen times since my shift started. I didn’t bother to listen to her messages, just called her back while checking out the back door porthole to make sure that Orlando wasn’t looking in my direction. For once, luck was with me, and I could see that the frat boys had apparently reached the point in the evening where they thought it would be hilarious to order a whole tray of elaborate girlie drinks, which would keep my boss well occupied for a while.
Lilah picked up on the first ring. “What’s going—” was as far as I managed to get.
“Fort,” she said urgently. “Cole’s moving tonight. I talked with him this morning, and I thought that things were fine, but someone tipped me off that he called a meeting without me, a meeting that only the three-fourth mixes were invited to, and that he’s going to take a small group over to the witch’s house and kill him.”
“Shit,” I said with feeling. “What the hell is he thinking?”
“He’s rolling the dice that Prudence won’t care if he kills a witch, and that even if you do, it won’t make a difference.” She paused, then said, “Fort, my sister is in the group, and she isn’t answering my calls.”
“Okay, I’ll handle it,” I promised. “Stay where you are and don’t get involved.”
I hung up and cursed. Pacing the room, I immediately called Valentine and filled him in on what was developing.
There was no hiding Valentine’s anxiety. “I checked on Ambrose earlier—they packed one car, and their son is driving that up now, but Ambrose and Carolina were still packing the second car, and they said they didn’t expect to be done until at least after midnight. Listen, I’m at a patient’s house right now in Boston, so I’ll leave now, but it’s going to take me at least forty minutes to get there.”
“Crap.” I gave a pile of neatly stacked plastic food baskets an irritated shove. “How did they even find out where he lives?” I asked, frustrated.
“. . . . well, probably the Internet. His address is on his Web site.”
“What?” Once again, technology coming around to bite us in the butt. I momentarily longed for the days when people had been reduced to rooting through the phone book. If the Terminator movie had happened today, Sarah Connor would’ve been dead.
Valentine was still talking. “His wife does Reiki massages out of their house, and Ambrose has been helping out a little since he lost the work with Leamaro. I know that they’ve updated the Web site, so—”
“Shit, fine, okay, it doesn’t even matter. You call them up right now and tell them that they’re hitting the road—I don’t care what they have to leave behind. They’re in that car and driving in two minutes. Text me the damn address. I’ll go right over.”
“Okay, but, Fort, the Vermont couple is already heading down, and they’re going to need to stay in that house for a month at least. If the elves are—”
I could see what Valentine’s concern was on this, and I cut him off, grimly. “They can keep coming. I’m going to make sure that everyone knows that the witches are not fair game. Now text me the address. I need to get going.” I hung up, and Valentine’s text came through almost immediately. In the first break I’d caught in a while, it turned out that Ambrose lived in the College Hill neighborhood, in an area that I actually recognized. I forwarded the text to Suze, then typed out “if you want to punch someone, MEET ME HERE RIGHT NOW” and hit SEND, figuring that would get her moving faster than anything else.
Now came the undeniably sucky part. I pulled off my waist apron and yanked on my jacket, and hurried out of the back room at double pace. A few of the frat guys were starting to look around in a way that I immediately recognized as the classic “searching for waiter” presentation, and I hustled over to the table where Hoshi was currently enthroned, pouting over the fact that the tabletop was only half-filled with the drinks that other people had bought her.
I shoved my waist apron into her hands. “Listen, Hoshi, I need you to cover the rest of my shift.”
“Wait, what—”
“No, seriously. You can tell Orlando that I quit, but I need to go and protect some witches, and I just don’t have time for him to scream at me. Tell him that I’ll send someone over to get my last check.”
Recovering much faster than I would’ve given her credit for, Hoshi shot back, “I get all your tips from tonight.”
“What—Jesus, Hoshi, I’m just trying not to be a complete dick and leave Orlando with no waitstaff, not actually—”
“And whatever you’ll be paid for tonight.”
“Oh my God, woman—you know what, fine, just fine.” I realized that any extension of this conversation would just end even worse for my wallet, and I ran out the door. As the door swung shut behind me, I finally attracted Orlando’s attention, and I could hear him bellowing my name behind me.
I’d had a lot of ignominious ends to employment, but this was definitely breaking my Top Five.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, Suze and I were waiting in Ambrose’s tiny two-story house, hedged in on both its sides by identical homes on equally postage stamp lawns. I’d arrived in time to tell Ambrose and his wife that, no, they really and truly had to hit the road now, and could not put fresh sheets on the bed for the couple driving down, and I didn’t care how late it would probably be before they arrived. Carolina was apparently one of those dyed-in-the-wool nurturers who was also slightly skewed in where she put her priorities, and so the emergency rush out the door had also been slowed by her insistence that they go up in the attic and bring down their own children’s old crib for the Vermont couple. Whether this was a common witch trait or that this was just a woman who Darwinism somehow missed, I didn’t know or care, just promised her faithfully that, yes, I would keep an eye on the pie that she had going in the oven while she and her husband fled from the people coming to kill him.
Suzume showed up, lured by the possibility of violence, and together we shut off all the lights in the house and waited, me by the back door, her manning the front, for the attack to come.
After all the creeping around, I was alerted to the incipient danger when I heard Suze bitching loudly from the front hallway. “Idiots. Fort, you’ve got to come see this. They’re going full lynch mob here. Just coming up to the front door! This is completely amateur-hour.”
I came up behind her and looked out the pane of glass set in the middle of the front door, coated with those faux stained glass decals that were sold down at hardware stores. Sure enough, there was Cole, at the head of a phalanx of seven other people, whose features in the light from the neighbor’s motion-activated deck light were just off enough that it was clear that we were dealing with almost entirely three-fourths Neighbors. “Suze—”
Dark Ascension: A Generation V Novel Page 26
