Modern Magic
Page 94
Outer Mongolia would have been good too, given that she was going to have to haul this thing in for pick up. They were rare enough, and prized enough, that killing it wasn’t an option. There were already four prospective buyers lined up for this one. However, the fact remained that it was a whole lot easier to mask a pickup in a rural area than a paranoid, hyper-aware-of-flying-things city like DC.
Cait watched a pair of geese land on a pond next the highway and grinned again. She’d lay odds that goose was a good staple in the Ty-Op’s current diet. Of course, the Potomac basin could spare a couple of Canada geese, even some deer, if the thing decided to hunt on the banks. It wouldn’t stray far from the water, though, so she’d bet the problem with the invasive snake-head fish wasn’t going to be as prevalent in the Potomac, come spring, with the Ty-Op snacking on whatever came to hand.
Ty-Ops were contrary creatures, according to her notes. Not overly bright, but not stupid. Capturing one might be easy, since they did favor space more than gravity-bound planets, but that second-Ty-Op scenario bothered her. Commander Trrrch had indicated that the traders were hedging as to whether they’d only dropped one. Notes from their ships’ logs indicated they’d had two. None had been found on board.
If there was a second Ty-Op on planet, the mission was going to be a race to get at least one contained before they found one another.
The Seers had only known there would be trouble and when, not what, not how much, or how dire. After all, it was a Rim Planet. The best Seers weren’t deployed for a planet like Earth.
“This is it, yes?” the driver asked as he waited to turn into the circular driveway in front of a lovely building on Connecticut Avenue. Pedestrians strolled the sidewalk with baby carriages and a man in a hoodie and neatly pressed jeans jogged down the driveway and across the street, skipping in between the traffic. Three boys strutted along to music from the earbuds or headphones to which they were wired.
The driver pulled in and stopped under the deliciously carved portico. The building’s façade was a treat of gargoyles and engraved and patterned limestone against the mellow brick. According to her briefing, it had been built as diplomatic apartments early in the twentieth century, then converted to condos in the nineteen nineties.
“Miss?”
“Hmmm?” Cait stopped scoping out the architecture. “Oh, yes, this is it.”
“Would you like me to help you with the luggage?”
“That would be great. I’m in Four-A, across the lobby and up the stairs.” She pictured the layout from the scan the Kith had shown her in the morning briefing.
Since she was supposed to know her way, she barely looked at the lobby as they passed through it, but it felt warm, comfortable and somehow soundproofed—or muffled somehow. After checking in at the security desk, she and the driver headed for what would be home for the next little while.
Pleased with the whole set up, especially the simple, earthy tones of her new apartment, she tipped the driver handsomely and sent him on his way. Dropping her book and bag on the couch, she took it all in.
“Now this is something I could get used to.” She breathed the words in delight. Turning a full three-sixty, she simply appreciated. The ceilings were high, and the woodwork gleamed. The plaster walls were a pristine, mellow French-toast color. The resulting look was both old-world and welcoming.
“Impressive.”
One thing about the Sh’Aitan, they didn’t stint on the STs accommodations. With the firepower she needed on virtually any job, securable housing was a priority. She couldn’t risk anyone getting a hold of her equipment. Even the smallest item could give away her status.
“Let’s see the rest of the place,” she said, kicking off her shoes to enjoy the feel of the hardwood floors. In any new place, one of the first things she wanted to see was the shower. Nothing beat a true, earthbound shower. Any ship had water rationing, and on the other planets…well, it was like visiting a third world country. Be careful with the food and the water.
“Ooooh.” She moaned the word, and appreciated the way the sound bounced around the travertine tile. She stripped off clothes as fast as she could. She wanted to be under the fabulous, full-luxury rainshower shower head, and feel the body jets that dotted the surface of the tile. “Now that’s what I’m talking about!”
The water ran full and strong and within mere moments it was hot. Heaven. “Oh, this is fabulous!”
She didn’t care that there was no shampoo or soap in the shower yet. She’d spotted towels hanging on the bar, so that was taken care of. She just wanted to luxuriate in the feel of a full-on, oh-my-God, stay-in-till-you’re-a-prune, hot shower.
When the water finally cooled, her fingertips were scrunched up, and she was more relaxed than she’d been in weeks. She was also starving. Shipboard breakfast had been a long time ago.
She toweled off as she used her PDA to check out local restaurants and delivery services.
“Pizza, that’s the ticket.” She dialed and ordered with glee, piling toppings on two different pies and ordering a helping of breadsticks. “Thirty minutes is great. Thanks.”
That done, she pulled her main suitcases into the bedroom so she could dress. Jeans, a comfy sweater, a minimum of weapons. That was good for an evening in.
She checked the fridge, and thank God, there was Coke. She grabbed one and popped open the can. The Kith knew her preferences and had had the leasing company stock a few items in advance. Coke, cream for coffee, butter, whole wheat bread. A coffee maker and coffee beans were on the counter. They’d stocked enough for her to get started.
“Wine and books.” She started a list. “More iTunes, for sure.”
She missed Coke and wine the most, on ship. Coffee beans would travel through the return spatial transitions, but carbonated drinks exploded and wine turned to vinegar. Some Earth food would transition, but most liquids wouldn’t. “Orange juice,” she said. “Oh, yeah.”
She put her clothes away as she added to the list. Tomorrow, she’d get her car out of storage and go Ty-Op hunting.
Her laptop chimed as it booted up, and she heard the hum of the printer as it warmed up. She’d check in with Headquarters, and get any updates on her assignment. She had preliminary maps and grid patterns, but she’d want up-to-the minute scans.
She took a long draft of the Coke as the buzzer rang from the front desk and she pushed the button to answer.
“Pizza delivery for you, Dr. Brennan.”
“Thanks, send them up.”
“Uh…yes, ma’am.”
She opened the door to a middle-aged Sikh. His voice was a lovely, liquid flow of syllables which took several seconds for her to decipher with no help from her translation implant. The words were English. The accenting was not. She must have looked puzzled because he repeated his recitation.
Her order, being read back to her. She grinned.
“Absolutely. Sounds great. How much again?”
Once more she over tipped, waving away his offer of change. Something about being home, amid the glorious, sensual things she loved so much about Earth, always made her feel extra generous. With the giant pizza boxes neatly balanced with the breadsticks on top, she was about to kick the door closed when a brightly glowing blue nimbus, like a laser flash, flared to the left of her position.
In the split second before she could drop the pizza and reach for a weapon, it was gone.
Chapter Four
“Evening, Mr. Bayliss,” Jay, the nighttime guard, called from the security desk as Aiden came in from a long walk. He’d hardly noticed, but it was almost fully dark.
He’d slept for twelve hours, then decided exercise was mandatory, even with his stitches and bruises. He felt better for it, all the way around. He’d need to pull the stitches within the next twenty-four hours or they’d scar. He smiled at that. The power stored in the building made healing a near-miraculous thing.
The walk had finally cleared out most of the brooding he’d been doing about
the visions, as well.
“Evening, Jay.”
Jay touched two fingers to his forehead in salute, but he was grinning like a possum, as they’d say back home in Texas. It surprised Aiden no end. Aiden returned the salute as he approached the desk. “What’s up?”
“You’re not gonna believe it!” Jay was like a little kid, bouncing in his seat. It was a strange look, since he clocked in at a well-muscled two fifty. Like Ken, he took side jobs for Aiden, and for others. In Jay’s case, it was about muscle and hardware installation, and information. Jay had figured out Aiden did security work. Since Jay did too, though more mundane, he treated Aiden as an equal. “The mystery lady from Four-A finally showed up.”
“The one who leased it in September, but never moved in? No shit!” The wariness Aiden had felt about that whole deal jumped to full force. He’d had a strange feeling about Four-A from the moment the deal closed. Some furniture had been delivered, and curtains installed a few weeks after the purchase, then nothing.
“Yeah. She’s pretty, kinda. No rings, so probably single. Brown suit. Probably lawyer, ’cause she was wearing good jewelry and had a ton of luggage.” Jay flipped the register around so Aiden could see Cait Brennan’s signature.
“Stats?” Aiden asked quietly.
“Five-seven-ish, brown, brown. Slim build, but nice curves,” the guard said as he made wavy motions with his hands. “Moves confident. Strong. Like a dancer. Ain’t no mouse, for all the brown. High-tipped the driver, but he brought in a buncha luggage for her so…” Jay’s grin brightened the gloomy afternoon. “Oh, and I guess she didn’t bother to read the handbook, ’cause she ignored the rule ’bout deliveries. Had me send the pizza guy up to the door.”
For some reason that made Aiden even more wary. First a vision, now the chick in Four-A arrives. No. He wasn’t liking that coincidence.
“Anything else?”
“No, but she seemed nice enough.”
“Don’t they all,” Aiden muttered as he turned to mount the steps. Just as he got to them, a man came bounding down toward him. Aiden went on automatic alert, shields on full.
The next second, he realized it was the delivery guy Jay already mentioned.
Shit. Overreacting much? Aiden shut down his defenses.
At least he’d been able to ramp up at full throttle. The building’s power reservoirs, and his own skills at healing, had gone a long way to bring him back up to speed while he’d slept. The quick recovery from last night’s battle was more proof that he was completely over the wounds he’d sustained in Atlanta. The physical and magical ones, at least.
The emotional wounds? Those would never heal. And maybe that was what worried the Council the most. Some of them were smart enough, experienced enough, to know that.
He put that aside, but he was twitchy and he recognized it. Was it the vision or the unexplained smell from early this morning putting him on edge?
Hard to know.
All he could smell now was pizza.
The delivery guy nodded politely as he passed then trotted across the lobby and out the front door. Four-A’s door was still open, and he saw the corner of two large pizza boxes.
The edgy buzz of premonition was back, and adrenaline fired his system. He never ignored that kind of metaphorical tap on the shoulder from his subconscious.
“Hello?” he called.
The boxes came forward, attached to—holy hell. Aiden’s first impression was totally unexpected. Instant sexual heat flooded his system and nearly tripped him up into saying something stupid. Tamping it down hard, he climbed the last stair, putting him on the level with his new neighbor. Five-seven, brown and brown had sounded dull, boring. This woman was anything but.
An attractive brunette, yes, and she looked…serious. Solemn, and as Jay had mentioned, she had curves in the right places. Seeing her barefoot in the doorway, Aiden would’ve put her more at five-four or barely hitting five-five.
“Hello.” He moved forward, hand outstretched for a handshake. He needed to get her measure, figure out what the hell was going on. “I’m Aiden Bayliss from One-A.”
She flicked a glance at his door, as if she could see through it.
“Hello Mr. Bayliss,” she said her voice smooth and pleasant. It gave him no clues about her, but it did run up and down his libido with tiny “wake the hell up” shoes.
She hefted the boxes a little, as if in excuse. “Don’t think I better let go of this to shake hands, but thanks for the welcome. I’m Cait Brennan.”
“Hello, Ms. Brennan. Good to meet you. Quite the feast,” he said with a smile, trying to get a read on her body language. All it said was relaxed, at home, ready to eat. “Other than deliveries, like you just got, it’s pretty quiet up here.”
His gut said not to use magic, but he ignored it. Using the faintest of needle-fine magical probes, the barest brush of energy, he met a solid wall of blankness. She was null. It wasn’t like a shield, it was more of a “doesn’t register” than a “hiding from you” energy.
“Actually, it’s Dr. Brennan. Are the other condos empty then?”
He wondered what would happen if he touched her—very few people were actually naturally shielded, or void of any magic, but it did happen.
“Doctor Brennan, then,” he said, smiling. “And no, not empty, exactly. Two-A is Mrs. Potts. She’ll bring you cookies and coax your life story out of you in no time flat. The cookies are divine, so don’t turn them down.”
She grinned, and he revised his initial opinion of solemn, but attractive to, Whoa, baby!
“I’ll look forward to meeting the lady and her cookies,” Cait said, and his errant mind leapt from that to his vision from the previous day. Did the woman dying in the fire look like Cait? No, that woman—the woman who’d risen above him in the throes of passion—had been blonde. But the vision had shifted back and forth on the hair color…
He clamped down on that train of thought. He needed to see if he could get a bead on her.
“And Three-A?”
Still preoccupied, Aiden answered without censoring the words. “It’s a shack up pad,” he said bluntly.
“A what?”
Damn. How stupid could he be?
“Sorry, that wasn’t very PC or tactful.” Hell, for all he knew she was a shack up situation too. It took all kinds, as his mother would say, and he’d just stuck both feet in his mouth. “My tongue got ahead of my manners. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“I’m not offended,” she said, and he was almost convinced she meant it. “I’m just not sure what you mean.” To her credit, she really did look puzzled. “What exactly do you mean by a shack up pad?”
Feeling idiotic, he shrugged and said, “You know, married guy, married gal, have a place to get together?” Christ, he could feel himself blushing.
He needed to push the Council harder to get reassigned. Antarctica might need an adept of his skill and social ineptitude. It wouldn’t matter, in Antarctica that he had both feet lodged permanently in his mouth.
She looked nonplussed, but nodded. “Oh, of course. I get it. Not too much shacking up going on in Turkey. I’ve been in the more remote regions for two years now, and I’m still thinking in Turkish. Out there, justice is a little too swift for shacking up, if you know what I mean.”
He wasn’t convinced. Washington was full of agents and so-called-spooks. So he played the game. “Turkey is a beautiful country. Some interesting caves—” He broke off mid-phrase. He wanted to get information, not give it. He’d been about to mention the Hurla caves where ghosts sometimes lured visitors to an unpleasant death.
“Really? I love caves. I’m a geologist. Caves and watercourses are my thing.”
“Back to DC for R&R or are you working for Nat Geo?”
She smiled, and he felt his libido kick him again, hard. “I wish. No, I’ve got a brief grant to do some studies on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. Any excuse to get stateside and speak English.”
That was said
with considerable relish, so Turkey, if she’d actually been there must have been hard on her. The outlying areas tended to the old ways, not so female-friendly. And she was very much a female. From her bare feet—toes painted a shocking red—to her sweater-clad top half, he would not have thought geologist. Socialite. Maybe lawyer, as Jay had guessed. But not a scientist.
“That should be interesting.” He finally managed to get past his reaction to her and answer coherently. “The canal towpaths are great jogging trails if you’re a runner.”
“Only when I’m being chased,” she quipped. Closing the conversation neatly, she hefted the pizza boxes again, as she had when refusing to shake his hand. “Better get these inside. Good to meet you Mr. Bayliss.”
“And you, Dr. Brennan. See you around.”
“Good night.” She closed the door, leaving him standing in the wide upper foyer staring at the bright brass script Four-A inlaid into the heavy, polished oak. Only the four big condos on this floor had letters, and the beautifully inlaid brass. Ever so carefully, Aiden probed the apartment. What he got made him frown again. The condo was now as blank as she was.
All the red flags that had been hanging out in his mind since the vision hit popped up and unfurled to wave with hurricane force. He’d scanned the building when he got up. Empty condos felt empty, but with the resonance of activity if the tenants were away. A shadow of their presence remained, if the condo was regularly inhabited. Even the shack up pad held a resonance of the people who periodically came and went.
When a space was unoccupied for a while, devoid of life, it had a totally different feel. This morning, Four-A had been as quietly vacant as Six-Twelve, which was also untenanted. Now, however, it was blank.
Not empty. Blank.
Aiden pondered the situation as he shut his own door. While he relished the cool blanket of the condo’s secure shields closing around him, it didn’t relax him. Not this time.
After decades of housing DC’s regional Adept Enforcer, the whole building was insulated to magical attack and the condo itself was nearly impregnable. As nonmagical as DC was on a relative scale, like most cities, it was still full of a kind of magical static that only a witch, sensitive, or magical adept could sense. The building’s shields cut that out, walling it away. The soothing silence let him think.