Motor City Mage

by Cindy Spencer Pape

  * * *

  Des had thought about staying awake and keeping watch, but he didn’t have it in him. He’d used the last dregs of his magic to clean the two of them up, at least enough so she wouldn’t wake up with anyone else’s blood on her, and so his scratches wouldn’t get infected. Then he’d rubbed the bite marks on his shoulder and smiled. They shouldn’t have turned him on, but they did. He let himself drift, knowing he’d wake if anyone, friend or foe, entered the barn. When the barn door cracked open, he proved himself right, coming fully awake in a heartbeat. As the hinges creaked, he eased to the edge of the loft to get a look.

  “We’ve got trouble,” Vin said, standing in a shaft of weak, pre-dawn light. “Malen’s gangstas are here. They’re questioning the household now, and they’ve got torches.”

  “Lana,” Des growled as he pulled on his pants and shoes.

  “I heard.” She was already moving, tugging the sleeveless tunic over her head. “Do we have somewhere to go? Your magician friend who can open a gate?”

  “Can you flash us there?” Des asked.

  “Yeah. I can flash you one at a time.”

  Screams filled the night, and through the cracked door, Des saw that the guardsmen had just torched the farmhouse. “Too late. They’re headed toward us. Six guards.” The farm family huddled in the driveway, clinging to one another pitifully. One of the soldiers threw a torch into the roof of the barn and the thatch immediately began to crackle.

  “Shit. Can either of you put out the fire?” Lana began unlatching the stalls of the big beasts as she spoke. “We can’t desert them, not when it’s us the bad guys are after.”

  “I can’t. Slow it down a little, maybe.” In the daylight, Des saw there was a second door to the barn, behind the cart, big enough for the vehicle to move in and out. Understanding that she wanted to free the animals, he darted over to fling open the oversized exit.

  “Likewise.” Vin eased the nose of his rifle out the doorway and sent a spray of automatic fire at the guards. “Two down.” He shot another burst and a hail of bullets came in through the thin door. One grazed Des’s shoulder, stinging without knocking him back. Vin grunted, but didn’t fall.

  Lana had all the animals free, even the little things from the hutch, which she threw into the cart. With her lupine strength, she pushed the cart out the back, several yards from the barn. The draft animals clustered near her and she patted them, keeping them as calm as possible while the barn began to burn. Des watched all of this out of the corner of his eye as he leaned out the door and cast a flash spell at the three remaining Gravaki guards. With them blinded, Vin easily shot them down.

  “Vin, flash the barrel of water up to the roof,” Lana called.

  Des looked up. The fire hadn’t spread to the walls yet. A barrel of water might put it out. Vin nodded and lifted the barrel, flashing to the top of the wall. Water splashed and steam hissed, but the fire was diminished enough that Des could use a wind spell, sucking the oxygen away from the remaining embers and flames, which soon darkened. Though the roof was half gone, the barn still stood.

  Vin flashed down and spoke to the family. The biggest one, probably the male, followed Vin back into the barn. “They want to thank you,” he said. “They can live in the barn while they rebuild the house—they won’t need to be up on stilts until the rainy season. With the animals saved, they’ll be able to eat and work the farm.”

  “Can we blow up the portal so that no more of Malen’s friends come through?” Des was tired of being chased. Even more, he was tired of Lana being chased.

  Vin nodded. “I will as soon as we sort this out here.”

  Lana led the beasts back into the barn. The farmer was a dark blue creature in a short toga-like garment. He was bigger than Fish, maybe eight feet tall and four hundred pounds, with the six arms of the wagon driver the night before. He clicked and burbled something at her, bowing his head.

  “He owes you for saving the stock and the wagon. Even if the barn had burnt, he could have driven his family to safety,” Vin translated. “He’s offering you one of the beasts as a thank you. They’re worth quite a bit here—it would pay for some clothes and the spell to send you home.”

  Lana shook her head. “They’ve lost so much because of us. I can’t.” The animal she’d befriended the night before—today Des could tell it was a soft gray color, the lightest of the five—wrapped its trunk around her shoulders and she stroked it fondly. “But thank them for us. And tell them how sorry we are.”

  The farmer called something and his family joined them in the barn, stepping away from the dripping hole in the roof. The mother sent her two oldest children out to hitch one of the animals to the cart, while the youngest helped her return the others to their stalls. The final one left Lana only reluctantly and she rubbed its nose before pushing it on its way.

  Vin spoke to the farmer again before turning to Des. “They’ll let you wait here while I go blast the portal. He says not having any more Gravaki coming through is almost worth losing their house. At least this way, none of their kids will end up as mine slaves. He’ll keep an eye on you ’til I get back.”

  “Lana, will you be all right here if I go with Vin? I want to watch him destroy a portal.” The smallest child was touching Lana’s silky hair, and she’d dropped to her knees so the tyke didn’t have to stretch.

  “I think I’ll be fine,” she said on a rueful laugh. “Hair seems to be something of a novelty here. And I think my new friend will protect me.” She glanced at the stall behind her.

  “All right.” Des didn’t like leaving her alone, but he trusted Vin a little less than he trusted a family of farmers complete with chickens. Or whatever those were. He locked arms with Vin and let him flash them back to the woods.

  “How much magic does the spell drain?” Des asked.

  “A lot,” Vin admitted. “You want me to do it?”

  Des considered. “I think I’d rather you be able to transport us. Let me do this one.”

  “Go for it. You remember the spell?”

  Des nodded. He had a close to eidetic memory for spells. Pulling power from the ground beneath his feet, he centered himself and inhaled deeply before spreading his hands to grip the two trees that marked the portal. Focusing his energy on the spell, he spoke the words he’d memorized—hell was it one day or two?—before.

  There was a pop and a flash, blinding him for half a second, and then his vision cleared. The area between the two trees no longer shimmered—it was just an empty space that soon would be full of man eating vines, he was sure. “Let’s go,” he said to Vin.

  Vin whistled. “Nice work. You’ve got some power there, wizard-boy. Remind me to stay on your good side.”

  “Just get us back,” Des grumbled. “And keep your eyes off Lana’s…legs.” And breasts, where the tunic gaped at the armholes. It was distracting as all get out.

  Vin barked a laugh and caught hold of Des’s wrist. “Between us, I think we can get her covered up. But don’t worry. I prefer my females a lot less furry.”

  Des gave a snort. “Huh. A week ago I’d have said the same.”

  They flashed back to find Lana and the farmers sitting on hay bales and eating the fruit from the barrel. One half of Lana’s hair hung in a neat braid, tied with a strip of string, and the littlest child perched beside her, plaiting the other half and chattering away in her own language.

  “You make friends with everyone, don’t you?” Des asked as he helped himself to a piece of fruit and took a seat.

  “Beats making enemies.” Lana shrugged. “I traveled with a band, remember? I’m used to finding myself in strange places. Vin, will they be able to get food and water? How about money? Did they lose everything?”

  Vin asked the male, and then translated his reply. “They have a well, and the fields are irrigated from a cistern up in the hills. They also have money squirreled away, so they’ll be able to feed their kids and rebuild their place. His wife has family nearby who will h
elp.”

  The wife spoke and Vin grinned. “She says the csbeet has chosen Ms. Novak. It will be desolate if she leaves it behind.” He nodded at the animal still trying to reach Lana with its trunk.

  Lana shook her head and reached back to pet the trunk. “Did you explain that I can’t have an extra-planar pet in Detroit? Especially one the size of a small hippo?”

  Vin spoke at length to the farmer’s wife, who gesticulated with all four arms as she replied. Vin snorted a laugh. “Okay, they’ll keep it for you and use the milk, and work it, in exchange for boarding. Meanwhile, they’ll give us some cash. If you ever come back, the animal is yours.”

  The middle child pulled a pouch from under its toga with the distinct metallic clink of coins and handed it to his mother. Smart, sneaking the money out with the kid. The wife selected three large silver coins and handed them to Lana, though she spoke to Vin, whose eyes had widened.

  “That’s a chunk of change ’round here.” Vin said after he’d presumably thanked her. “It’ll more than cover our expenses, including the one-shot portal back to Earth.”

  The wife said something else and Vin added, “Plus a proper robe for Lana.” He rolled his eyes on the word proper. “And shoes. They insist.”

  “You’re sure they can spare it?” Des asked before he accepted the coin.

  “No sweat,” Vin answered. “It’s all cool. Three of the csbeets are pregnant. At market, each calf will make them four times what they gave us. That’s a fraction of what we saved them.”

  “All right.” Des was anxious to get moving, now that they knew the family would be fine. “Thank them and let’s be on our way.”

  Chapter Seven

  Lana discovered being flashed was almost as nausea-inducing as stepping through a portal. There was that same feeling of falling, of disorientation, then landing with a thud when you got where you were going.

  Des had insisted on going first and was waiting for her when they arrived in a small, wooden enclosure—some kind of shed, maybe? Shelves lined the sides and daylight trickled through a small, dusty window made of something like rice paper. Without thinking, she took his hand and they laced their fingers together as Vin knocked on the door leading away from the window. Was this an entryway of some kind? If so, it wasn’t a very pleasant one and couldn’t do a lot for business.

  “Anybody home?” Vin called another of those names Lana couldn’t have pronounced in a million years, followed by a string of words in what she assumed was the local language.

  “Maybe he just isn’t home. Grocery store? Girlfriend?” Lana was starting to get a squicky feeling in the pit of her stomach. Along with the smell of dust and rotted wood, and some kind of food, there was something else creeping from under that door…and it wasn’t pleasant.

  “He’s a hermit,” Vin growled. “He never leaves his house.” He pounded harder on the door, but still, no one answered.

  “How upset is he going to be if we break in?” Des laid his ear against the door. “I can’t hear any movement or voices.”

  “Significantly pissed.” Vin thought for a moment. “But we can fix the door if we need to, and he’s always open to bribes. I say we go for it.”

  Des and Lana both nodded and stepped back from the door while Vin kicked it, easily popping the latch from the flimsy wood. When the door slammed back on its hinges, the stench of rot hit Lana’s nose making her gag and double over.

  “Somebody’s dead.”

  “You think?” she choked out. Leave it to Des to state the obvious. She got herself together and glared.

  “In which case, we may be seriously fucked,” Vin added. “So, shall we? I won’t say ladies first.” Since he was blocking the door anyway, neither Lana nor Des could lead unless he moved.

  “All this testosterone is making me nauseous,” Lana grumbled. “Somebody either go in, or get out of my way.”

  The shed proved to be off a small, untidy kitchen. Food had rotted on the table—never a good sign. Some sort of insects buzzed around it. Bleh. The food reeked, but that wasn’t the source of the overpowering odor. That was coming from the next room.

  “Oh, fuck.” Vin’s voice carried through the doorway. “It’s messy, but he’s not going to hurt anyone.”

  Someone had killed the demon wizard, and it hadn’t been an easy death. The body—two armed and purple like Fish as opposed to the four-armed blue farmers—had been nailed up to the wall by its hands and feet. Multiple stab wounds were probably the cause of death. Its blood was purplish black, Lana noted, sort of like squid ink, at least when it was dry. The guts that spilled out of the biggest slash were a muddy lavender-gray. Even given the heat, which would speed up decomposition, the body had obviously been here awhile. Lana tried not to notice the multiple species—or generations—of insects crawling all over it.

  The rest of the room—a small office or study, opening out into what looked like a shop—had been trashed. Chairs were broken, books spilled off shelves, there were holes in the walls and a few floorboards had been ripped up.

  “I wonder if they found what they were looking for?” Des righted a chair and flipped through some of the papers on the big desk in the center of the room.

  “Don’t suppose,” Vin said with a sigh. “He was a stubborn old coot.”

  “I hope this doesn’t have anything to do with us,” Lana said. “Though I don’t see how it can.”

  “Doubt it.” Vin pointed to some letters scrawled on the wall in…blood? “Anyone with this kind of power is bound to have enemies. Based on that tag, I’m thinking he crossed the local guild representatives. Kind of like refusing to pay protection money to the gangs in Detroit.”

  “Just our fucking luck.” Lana shook her head.

  “So, know any other wizards?” Des asked. “Preferably ones who pay their union dues?”

  Vin shook his head. “I wish I knew where Peaches kept his maps.”

  “Peaches?” Despite the situation, Lana felt her lips twitch.

  “It amused him,” Vin said, a sad look flickering across his quasi-reptilian features. “And honestly the names on this plane are a mouthful, even if you do know the language.”

  “So, this Peaches had maps?” Des started flipping through the papers with more intent. “What kinds of maps?”

  “All kinds, but the ones I’m thinking of show portals—permanent ones. He had the layout of the land in each of the worlds, too, so you could find your way from one portal to the next.”

  “So we might find one that leads to Faerie, or even to Earth.” Lana’s heart sped up. “But we might have to go through a couple different planes to get there.”

  Vin began opening drawers in the desk. “Exactly. The maps also have the 4-1-1 on handy things like climate and how friendly the natives are to strangers.”

  “So what did they look like?” Lana started picking papers up off the floor. “Were they bound into a book? In some kind of box? How big?”

  “Box,” Vin grunted, righting a shelf. “I never saw where he kept it. He always made me wait out in the shop while he came in and got it. Black wood with brass hinges and a lock. About the size of one of your shoe boxes but longer.”

  Des started sifting through the piles on the floor. “How long was he gone? Would he have had time to go upstairs? Did you hear his footsteps?”

  Vin tipped his head. “Maybe up a few steps, but not the whole way.”

  “Hollow step,” Lana and Des said at the same time, looking at one another with smiles of relief. Des beat her to the stairs by just a second, but she ducked under his arm. None of the risers or treads had been pulled back.

  “Got a hammer anywhere?” she asked. “Or a crowbar would work.”

  “Move,” Vin said. He bounded up the stairs and then began ripping off treads as he came down. About four from the bottom, he said, “Jackpot,” and lifted a black box out of the narrow space.

  “Let’s not look at these here,” Des said. “I don’t want anyone to walk in and th
ink we were the ones who killed him.”

  “Good idea,” Vin agreed. “Wait a few, though.” He made his way back up the torn up stairs and returned with a handful of items. “Here’s a clean robe.” He tossed Lana a piece of pale blue cloth and some silk cord, which would act as a belt. “He also kept a duffle and some loose cash in his bedroom.”

  Most of their weapons fit into the long cloth bag along with the maps, so they wouldn’t have to walk through town carrying automatic rifles. Lana changed into the toga-type garment while the guys rooted through the shop, adding a few flasks and a tablecloth to the bag, the latter presumably for padding. Finally, they retreated as they’d arrived, through the shed attached to the back of the house, winding up in an alley.

  “A few blocks over there’s an inn that allows outsiders,” Vin said. “We can get a room there, maybe even something to eat, and study the maps. I’m pretty much flashed out for today anyhow.”

  Lana and Des shared a look of concern. They needed to get back home sooner rather than later. Still, food and a bath sounded damn good. Somehow they managed to convey the entire conversation with just their eyes. It was scary how well she and Des were coming to know each other. Reluctantly, she gave a little nod and Des turned to Vin. “Lead on.”

  * * *

  The inn was a relief after all they’d been through in the last few days. The main room reminded Des a little of the bar scene from Star Wars, without the music. Demons of all different shapes and sizes filled the place, laughing, eating, drinking and even yelling. Des and Lana were the only humans, and a lot of the others overtly checked them over. Vin seemed to know his way around. He sauntered up to the bar and ordered something in the local language, then led them all to a table, three foaming mugs in one clawed hand. Des chose the seat with his back to the wall and kept the bag with the maps and weapons between his feet.