Witchlight

by Sonya Clark

  Fucker. He just couldn’t resist using the insult. It wasn’t even a challenge to trace the IP address to a subsidiary of Jennings AgriCorp. The order likely came directly from the cuckolded husband himself.

  Vadim had never gotten a satisfactory explanation from Tuyet about why she took that damned job without clearing it with him first. They had a system in place; they had to in order to protect both the railroad and people using it to escape. Tuyet had bypassed that, which wasn’t like her, but he hadn’t yet pressed her for a reason. It looked as though the time had come. Everything kept circling back around to Brice Jennings and his wife leaving him for their Magic Born driver.

  Tracing the email Kiku used to respond to the ad took considerably more time and effort than getting the IP address. Cyberspace began to blur as a headache took root. The in-box was empty, even the spam folder cleaned out. Probably a one-time use account. She had a reputation on the boards and forums though. He’d be able to find out more about her one way or another.

  Right now though, it was time to get back to realspace before his head fell off. He backed out of trance gradually so as not to make the headache worse. Once out, he slapped the power button on the console to keep the porn video from screaming at him. His temple throbbed but his upper lip was dry. He’d stopped in time to prevent a nosebleed.

  He sagged in the uncomfortable plastic chair, wishing he’d stayed home. Now he had a long walk ahead of him. For a brief moment he contemplated checking Lizzie’s homes for her, but he decided against it. He had to keep things between them a business arrangement and keep his stupidity from spiraling out of control.

  * * *

  Lizzie drank her champagne, not tasting it. A white-noise buzz of conversation and soft music filled her head, helpfully keeping away thoughts she didn’t want to entertain. The university’s alumni association holiday cocktail party was a blessedly low-key affair. She’d worked the room for an hour, smiling and nodding and making banal conversation with people she barely knew. Even if she saw them every week, she really didn’t know them. They certainly didn’t know her.

  So who did? Not Carger. He had a secret he wanted to use to manipulate her with. That didn’t mean he knew anything about her. The rest of her staff, the few people she called friends who weren’t much more than acquaintances—none of them knew who she really was and what she really wanted.

  So why did she run from the one man who’d crashed through her careful defenses and seen the truth? Of course she knew the reason—cowardice. Something she’d lived with her entire life, and hated herself for. Too much of a coward to claim the magic in her blood and be the witch she’d always dreamed of being. Too much of a coward to give up a life of comfort and privilege. Worst of all, too much of a coward to tell Vadim the truth.

  A tall, dark-haired man in a tailored suit caught her attention with a familiar smile. Dan, or maybe Don, she couldn’t remember. The Ghost of Hookups Past fogged her memory. Dan-or-Don snagged two flutes of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter and headed her way, smug confidence in his face. Lizzie pretended not to notice and fled, leaving her empty glass hanging in a decorative wreath when she couldn’t find a table fast enough.

  She returned to her apartment by car service, the ride short. Nothing waited for her at home. Empty space, furnishings that looked like something out of a design catalog. A closet full of expensive, stylish clothes. She left the party dress on the floor and changed into jeans and a soft sweater. An uncharacteristic chill permeated the apartment. She adjusted the environmental controls and thought about making coffee.

  On every other night since meeting Vadim, she’d already been at the house by now. Waiting for him. Ragged from the press of the world against her nerves, eager to step outside herself and into whatever escape he could offer. Magic, sex, she didn’t care. Until she did. The hurt in his dark eyes as he’d left her brought fresh stabs of pain and regret.

  He might have been hurt, but Vadim was stubborn. He could have been at the house right at that moment, waiting for her. And if he was, then what? More magic? More sex? Something indefinable, that she didn’t want to think too hard about? Whatever it was he had to give her, even for just a brief time, was infinitely better than this emptiness.

  She made the decision in an instant, quickly packing more clothes in an overnight bag. The minutes stretched unbearably as she waited on the car service to pick her up, then drive to the house. Traffic lights blurred past her vision as she sat in the back seat, idly picking at her scarf.

  He’d be aloof, possibly angry. Surely she could get him past it. She wasn’t the only one hiding in their stolen hours together. Anticipation had her heart knocking in an uneven rhythm, her nerves all over the emotional spectrum.

  The familiar whisper of his energy was absent as she entered the house. A flare of unease erupted, immediately quashed. He would come back. She didn’t know what she’d do when he did, but she was sure she’d see him again.

  She had to. She didn’t like that one bit, but there it was.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Vadim unsealed the ward on his private underground apartment and opened the door. “After you.” He gestured for Tuyet to enter first.

  “I never knew you had this place.” She stood in the center of the small studio and looked around. “You are full of surprises.”

  “Only a few people know. Calla, Zinnia.” He snorted laughter. “Nate. He stayed here once. Complained incessantly about the food.”

  “You tried to poison him with that borscht stuff, didn’t you?” She smiled, something he’d seen her do maybe twice.

  “My intention wasn’t to poison him. I was testing him. If he could handle Mama Burgess’s borscht, he was good enough for Calla.”

  “You kept your mother’s old recipes?”

  He nodded. “For borscht. Absinthe. She used to bribe my teachers with plates of cookies.” He shoved aside the small table and chairs and crouched, holding his hand over the floor. After a moment of concentration, a quiet pop sounded, announcing the opening of another set of wards. He lifted the square tile and withdrew the largest, most powerful tablet he owned, a model designed for conference rooms and executive offices. He passed it to Tuyet, who placed it on the table with care. Units like this were expensive, and it was hard to come by one without tracking devices that required registration, ostensibly in case of theft.

  Once they were both seated and the tablet was booted up, Vadim gestured at Tuyet. “Show me what you got.”

  She produced a thumbnail-size glass drive and plugged it in, then held her hands over the screen and closed her eyes. Pressure like a weather front pushed behind Vadim’s eyes as she raised energy. If it were anyone but Tuyet calling up so much energy in such a small space, he’d be worried about their ability to control it. She wielded her magic like a scalpel, precise, deliberate, with total authority.

  The tablet vibrated. He gripped the edge of the table, forcing himself to trust her with his prized black-market electronics and not jerk the tablet away to hold in his protective embrace like a cherished pet. The device floated off the surface of the table and hung suspended several inches above it. His gut and his jaw both tightened.

  Tuyet drew in a sharp breath. With the exhale came a series of blue lines from the drive that quickly built themselves into a building floor plan. At the top a green sign that spelled out Galvan Security Systems rotated at a stately pace.

  “Very nice,” said Vadim. “How’d you get this?”

  She dropped her hands. “I have my methods.”

  “Share with the class. I’d love to learn.”

  Ignoring him, as he fully expected, she turned her focus to the skyscraper’s twentieth floor. It detached from the rest of the structure and floated at the side. “This is the ballroom where GSS holds all its big functions. Major presentations, their annual anniversary party
for stockholders and holiday parties. There are two standard security checkpoints.” She spun the glowing rectangle to point out the locations. “One for guests, the other for catering staff.”

  “Standard security? So it’s not like what I ran into at the late and unlamented senator’s home?” After the dust had settled, Vadim had gotten Calla’s permission to speak to Tuyet about what happened at the home of her birth family. He’d been hoping Tuyet would talk to him about a particular security feature there: magic somehow combined with tech that blew apart glamour spells and revealed Magic Born intruders. Vadim had gotten shot in the leg for his trouble and wanted to know more, but Tuyet had refused to offer any information.

  Her golden skin took on an unhealthy pallor. “Not at those checkpoints. Every catering company in the city hires Magic Born.”

  “And the rich do enjoy their exotic toys.” Though at a holiday party like this one, guaranteed to be covered by local media, spouses and respectable plus ones would be on the arms of guests. “So where’re the goods?”

  Tuyet waved the ballroom floor back into place and extracted another, higher up. “The ID badges are in-processed here when they come in from Washington. They come in batches of five hundred. They’re used for new births, replacement badges, for New Corinth and the whole region. You normally get a few dozen at the time at most, right?”

  Vadim nodded. “Yeah, my guy on the inside would take the fakes I gave him and switch them out with good ones. He’d spread them around in various batches so it would look like random bad product.”

  “How many are you looking to take this time?”

  That very question had been on his mind since learning of the ordinance. If it passed, things were about to get very bad in both FreakTown and New Corinth. He had enough of the useless fake pieces of plastic stored to do what he had in mind, but transport wouldn’t be easy.

  He grinned. “You have any bright ideas about how to get an entire batch swapped out?” He expected sarcasm from her but instead she sat back, her expression thoughtful.

  “I would need rappelling gear. A chute or a wingsuit for BASE jumping.”

  Vadim barely kept himself from gaping. “You serious?”

  “It’ll be a hell of a lot faster than taking the elevator carrying highly sensitive stolen goods. I’m more concerned about getting your new source through the upper-level security. Can they do it?”

  Feltner had had access to passwords that were routinely changed. As a member of the city council, Lizzie was assured an invitation to the party, but she wouldn’t be able to get any farther than the ballroom. Even if she could, he didn’t have the time to teach her to trancehack. There was no guarantee she’d be able to learn, anyway.

  He shook his head. “No, I’ll have to do it.”

  Tuyet made a face. “The vault where the badges are kept will have magic tech sensors.”

  “Oh, is that what it’s called? Magic tech sensors? Sexy. Who thought of that, some defense contractor perhaps? An intelligence or wet works agency nobody’s ever heard of?”

  “Stop pushing,” she warned.

  “Or what? You’ll give me the silent treatment? Come on, Tuyet. It’ll stay in this room but I want you to admit it.” He leveled his forefinger at her, grinning. “You were black magic ops.”

  The blue lines of the building diagram crackled and cut out as if inundated with static, then dissolved completely as Tuyet yanked out the tiny glass drive. “We had an understanding.”

  “Yes, we did. I wouldn’t ask you any questions and you would work for the railroad. For the longest time I didn’t have a problem with that but we’re in a righteous fucking mess no thanks to you and I feel I’m due some question time.”

  “Ask all the questions you want, you won’t get answers.”

  “Why did you go to such lengths to help a mixed Normal and Magic Born couple cross the border?”

  She glared at him. “I thought you wanted to know if I was black magic ops?”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “I know the answer to that. What I want to know is why you helped Amelia Jennings and her witch boyfriend run away. Because thanks to that, her asshole husband is spearheading a law that will leave the Magic Born in FreakTown even more trapped than we already are.”

  “They were in love,” she said finally. “They wanted a life together.” She raised her eyes and met his gaze. “If you want a better answer than that, I don’t have one.”

  “I think you do,” he said quietly. “But if that’s the only answer you want to give me, I guess I’ll have to take it.”

  “What are Nate and Calla going to do?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it’s kind of up to her. He’d follow her to Hell. I just don’t know if she’ll let him.”

  “They were like that, Amelia and Neil. I could tell it wasn’t just an affair, you know.”

  The wistful look on her face led him to thoughts he’d rather not have. “What do you suppose that’s like? Loving someone that much? Being loved that much?”

  “It hurts.” She circled her left wrist with her right hand. She forced a laugh and said, “I’ll take getting shot at any day.”

  “What happened?” This was what he really wanted to know, though he suspected part of it.

  “He let me go. He loved me, so he let me go.” Tuyet shot to her feet and gestured at the tablet. “We need to fine-tune this plan. The GSS Christmas party is next week.” She busied herself with plugging the drive back in and recalling the building diagram.

  Vadim drew in a slow breath and rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I see the way Calla looks at Nate and I can’t imagine a woman ever looking at me like that. What do you think the difference is? I mean, I know Nate’s a good man. I wouldn’t want a woman who didn’t see me for who I am, because then she’d be an idiot, right? But am I really such a bad man that I don’t deserve that too?”

  Tuyet returned to her chair with a heavy thud. “Can you please have your midlife crisis in front of someone else?”

  He sighed. “You’re the one that’s here.”

  “Don’t you have a best friend? Or someone you can pay to listen to you?”

  “Your lack of sensitivity is appalling. I’m sitting here pouring my heart out to you and you suggest I should pay someone to listen to me instead? This hurts me, Snow. Truly, it does.” He managed not to laugh but there was nothing he could do about the grin.

  “Call me Snow again and you’ll find out how much I can hurt you.”

  “How does it work? Caring about somebody and then letting them go?” He wished he’d brought booze or a pack of cigarettes, anything to help smooth the rough edges of his thoughts. “The whole idea of deserving love. I mean, how does that work? Do you go on a point system? Help an old lady cross the street, get ten love worthiness points. Act like an ass and lose fifty points. How many points do you have to earn for someone to decide you’ve earned their love?”

  “It doesn’t work that way,” she said softly.

  Vadim ignored her and carried on with his low-key rant. “And how do you know it’s the right person? When somebody blindsides you, how do you know whether it’s real or just really good sex? Just because you can’t stop thinking about somebody—that’s just, I don’t know, obsession. Fascination. Add in some truly amazing sex and of course there’s something there, but what? You don’t turn your life upside down for that.” He crossed his arms on the table and rested his chin on his hands. “It doesn’t happen that fast, either. Does it?” He searched her face for an answer.

  Tuyet swallowed. “This is awkward.”

  “Oh, come on. Help me out here. Clearly I’ve stepped in some shit and I need some—I don’t know—some guidance or friendship or some damn thing. Talk to me.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. It happens when it happens. You don’t g
et to choose who you fall for.” She wrinkled her face in a pained expression. “God. Can’t you and Nate do your nails and braid each other’s hair and talk about this shit together?”

  Vadim raised a middle finger, grinning. “You’re a fount of compassion.”

  She waved at the tablet. “Can we do this, please? I have no business being anybody’s relationship counselor.”

  “Clearly not.” He sat up and nodded at the tablet.

  With a gesture she pulled the ground floor out of the diagram, expanding it for a closer look. “This is the checkpoint for staff. Whoever’s going inside will have to get through there first.”

  He leaned his forearms on the table, careful not to disrupt the magical display. “That’s a lot of space to cover.”

  “Not to mention incredibly dangerous for whoever goes for the badges.”

  “Calm yourself, my dear. I promise to let you do the jumping off the building part.”

  They spent another two hours working up a plan and looking at it from all angles for potential problems.

  The biggest one Vadim could spot was Lizzie.

  * * *

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d missed a Saturday night at Sinsuality. It was tempting to stay in the club, make the rounds, dance a while. Fill up his office with nightshade smoke and relax. Instead he slogged his sorry ass through the cold rain all the way to Sheridan Village, though this time not to torment homeowners who were fans of the season. No, this time it was to torment himself. He paused outside her door, reaching for every ounce of bullshit he had in him to cover up his embarrassment.

  By the time he made his way inside, he felt comfortably cloaked in bluster and attitude. He found her in the solar, cozy on the sofa, half-covered by a soft blanket and reading something on a small tablet. An open bottle of wine sat on the end table next to a glass with lipstick marks at the top and not much liquid left in the bottom. Wearing a cream sweater, with her long sweep of red hair flowing down one shoulder, she looked like a queen in repose.