Unleashed

by John Levitt

  “Beulah, calm down,” she said. Beulah whined and sat down. Morgan sighed. “I originally got her for protection, but that turned out to be a joke. She’s a sweetie, but she’s afraid of her own shadow. Small dogs make her nervous, and she’s terrified of cats.”

  Beulah whined again as Lou greeted her. He’s very good with real dogs. He actually enjoys playing doggy games on occasion, and it’s the rare dog who realizes that he’s not really one of them. After the appropriate amount of sniffing, both tails began to wag.

  “Morgan, this is Eli and Victor,” I said as we walked inside.

  “I recognize you two,” she said. “You’re the ones—” She broke off and glanced over at me.

  “The ones you saw in the vision,” I finished. “They’re here to help set up wards around the house, for protection.”

  “Oh. How does that work, anyway? Will I feel it, like an electric fence?”

  “Not at all,” Eli assured her. “You won’t even be able to tell the wards are there. But they will keep out things that shouldn’t be allowed in.”

  Eli and Victor continued their walk-through, examining the back door and the windows. The house was a two-story wooden structure, probably built in the twenties or thirties. Inside, art deco furniture and original artwork crammed every room.

  “Very nice,” I said.

  “It is, isn’t it. I wish I could take credit for it all, but I inherited the place from my aunt Aida about five years ago.” That explained how she could afford such a place.

  “She had excellent taste,” Victor said, looking around approvingly.

  “Didn’t she? Not a very nice person, actually, although since she left me the house I shouldn’t say that, but she did have a great eye for things.”

  We walked through the house to the kitchen, where the back door opened out onto a wooden deck and stairs ran down to a garden below. Victor was the one who would set up the wards—lots of practitioners can contribute, but the actual warding tends to be a one-man job. Everyone has their own style in setting up protection, and often two people working together don’t mesh. Two differing approaches can result in discontinuities, and the warding often ends up weaker than it would with either person working alone. Victor was the logical choice to do it; his talent is better suited and he’s a stronger practitioner than I am anyway. Eli’s expertise is invaluable, but he doesn’t always have the power to implement his own ideas.

  Sometimes practitioners can work together. Victor’s mansion is the best-protected house on the West Coast, a fortress of interlocking grids of energy. Nothing gets in or out unless he wants it to. It has to be that way, since he’s made serious enemies in his day, practitioners who bear him no love at all. That’s what happens when your job is chief enforcer of magical behavior, and your moral code leans toward the ethically rigid.

  Quite a few practitioners worked on the warding of that house, and it now looks like a power substation when viewed on the psychic plane. But they’d had weeks to work on it, plenty of time to fine-tune and check every magical seam and rivet where there was a possibility of conflict.

  Victor started on the front door, throwing out a line of energy that limned the edges of the doorway with pale green. Of course it wasn’t really green; it wasn’t strictly a color at all. Green is just a metaphor for what could be perceived on the psychic plane. He wove in several other lines, mostly in blacks and grays, then moved on to the windows. Around the back, upstairs, and finally the fireplace in the front room, something I might have overlooked if I’d been doing it.

  Morgan followed him around, wide-eyed, although of course she couldn’t see anything of what he had done. Except, she could.

  “Why are most of those lines black?” she asked. Eli looked at her sharply.

  “You can see them?”

  “Well, not really see them, not with my eyes. More like what happens when I get a vision.”

  This was unexpected. She was a psychic, to be sure, but she shouldn’t have been able to see the wards. Unless she had more than a touch of the talent herself. This was an interesting development.

  “When this is settled, we’ll need to have a talk,” Eli said.

  Victor finally finished sitting up the wards and sat down heavily at the kitchen table. Warding an entire house on short notice will take a lot out of you, even if you’re Victor.

  “Is it safe now?” Morgan asked.

  “As safe as I can make it,” Victor said. “Nothing’s getting in here.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Well, nothing of the magical variety. No practitioners. No creatures. You’ll still need locks against burglars.”

  “What about Mason? Can he come in if I want him to?”

  “Sure, as long as you invite him in. The wards are attuned to you.”

  “You mean like a vampire movie? He can’t come in unless I invite him?”

  “Not the metaphor I would have chosen,” I said. “But, yes, basically.”

  “That’s kind of cool, actually.” She looked out a window at the backyard. “What about the backyard? I spend a lot of time out there, in the garden. Do I have to stay in the house all the time?”

  “It’s hard to properly ward an open area,” Eli said. “We could make it safer, though, strong enough to slow something down and give you time to get inside.”

  Victor looked over at me.

  “Do you think you could handle that?” he said.

  I was stunned. First, that he was admitting, at least implicitly, that he was worn-out. And second, that he would even think of trusting me to do something like that. Luckily, both he and Eli had taught me a lot about warding last year when my own place had needed serious protection. And since the yard was a separate area my work wouldn’t interfere with Victor’s house wards.

  “Sure,” I said.

  I wasn’t sure at all, but it wouldn’t help Morgan’s peace of mind if I hemmed and hawed. I walked down the back stairs, and I liked what I saw. A tall ivy-covered fence surrounded the entire yard, no breaks, nice and even. On either side, the fence came right up to the house. I could attach the wards in the yard to the warded house, and the even height of the fence made warding the rest of the yard an easy task.

  Most of my talent is the improvisational sort, but I have learned some other skills. I didn’t have enough power to properly ward the entire fence, so I laid a tiny line of force around the top of it, like a guide wire. I poured all the energy I had into one corner and bound it up with the ivy growing on the fence. It sat there quietly glowing. So now, although the rest of fence was basically unprotected, the minute anything tried to climb over or break through, the bound force would travel along the guide wire to the appropriate spot and stop it cold. In effect, the entire fence was now protected as strongly as the small section where I’d put all my focus. Eli was observing, and he smiled approvingly.

  “A very elegant solution. You’re learning, boy.”

  Morgan was appreciative of our help, but at the same time was understandably disturbed. Eli assured her it was just a precaution.

  “You don’t have to hide inside the house all the time,” he said. “Just be careful—don’t go out alone late at night, for example.”

  “Like as if I had a stalker.”

  “Yes, something like that. And if you’re spooked about anything, give one of us a call.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I will.”

  I WENT HOME FOR A WELL-DESERVED REST, BUT had barely managed to sit down when Ruby called.

  “Good, you’re home,” she said. “I think I’m onto something. Or maybe something’s onto me. I’m sitting at a café, over on Valencia and Twentieth, enjoying a soy latte.”

  “I’m not sure that counts as a grand discovery, but it does sounds nice.”

  “At a table in the back, there’s a practitioner watching me. He’s been shadowing me all day, but he’s been shielding and I could never get a good look at him—until now. He’s still shielding, but just hiding hi
s talent, so I wouldn’t spot him as a practitioner.”

  “You think he knows you’re hip to him?”

  “I doubt it. He’s just reading the paper, pretending to be just another Mission hipster.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Quite striking, actually. Medium height, youngish, with a mass of flaming curly red hair.”

  “Like yours?”

  “No, his hair is dyed.”

  “And yours is natural?”

  “Something you’ll never find out; that’s for sure. But his isn’t meant to look natural. It’s a fashion statement, bright scarlet, but with heavy black eyebrows.”

  “Does not ring a bell at all,” I said. “Maybe Victor’s heard of him, or maybe he’s new in the city. What made you pick up on him?”

  “He wasn’t shielding that well—I could hardly have missed him.”

  “Maybe he wanted you to notice.”

  “Maybe. Anyway, you live close. I thought you might want to drop by and then we could have a talk with him.”

  “Give me five minutes,” I said.

  “Hold on,” she said. “He’s leaving. Got to go.”

  “Wait, wait,” I said quickly. “That might not be the best idea. If he’s letting you notice him, he probably wants you to follow. People have been dismembered, remember? If your idea about a practitioner is right, you don’t want to be confronting him alone.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “I’m sure you can, but it’s not worth the risk. Use your head. I’ll be down there in a few minutes.”

  I got a reluctant agreement out of her, and by the time I got to the café she was drinking another latte, sitting at an outside table.

  “I should have followed him,” she said.

  “Not worth it. If you’re wrong, it doesn’t get you anywhere. If you’re right, it could be a big mistake.”

  “I guess. But I don’t think I’m wrong about this.”

  “So why do you think he was following you?”

  “Well, if I’m right, and a practitioner is behind this, he’s got to be aware of me. I’ve been asking a lot of questions, poking my nose all over town. Maybe he wants to see what I’m up to, whether I’m a threat to him.”

  “Or maybe he was trying to get up the nerve to hit on you.”

  “Aren’t you sweet? No, there’s something going on with this guy.”

  We tossed a few ideas around but didn’t get anywhere, and eventually Ruby finished up her latte and headed home. I got a cup of coffee and sat there with Lou for a while, watching the Mission denizens stroll by. The demograph ics of the Mission were changing—fewer Hispanics, more yuppies and faux hipsters. And it was a younger crowd these days, most of them younger than I was. Then I realized they were the same age as they’d always been. I was the changing demographic, growing older every day, imperceptibly but inexorably. After ten minutes or so, Lou nudged my knee, in that deliberate fashion he uses when he wants to alert me to something.

  I scanned the area, and it didn’t take long to see what he had scoped out. Across the street, staring intently into the front display window of a bookstore, was the redheaded stranger. His back was toward me, and he was using the reflection of the street in the window to keep an eye on me—a trick he’d no doubt picked up from countless bad TV movies. But even though his back was turned, there was no mistaking him. He had a mop of curly red hair, dyed an entirely unnatural red. Not the ideal appearance for trailing someone on the q.t. Which meant that I was supposed to see him. Which meant . . . what?

  Abruptly, he turned away from the window and walked away, moving at a good clip, but not fast enough to keep me from following if I wanted to. The advice I’d given Ruby was perfectly sound. There was no reason to follow him, except curiosity, since I didn’t see a practitioner being the answer to our murders. And if by chance I was wrong, the downside could be considerable. I pushed my chair back, beckoned to Lou, and took off after him.

  He ambled casually down Valencia, to Sixteenth, then over to Mission. Without so much as a backward glance, he descended the stairs to the BART station. I always carry a ticket with some money left on it for just such situations, so I inserted my ticket and breezed through the turnstile, not far behind.

  Lou scooted under, staying close to my feet. Dogs aren’t allowed on BART, and whenever I take the train I use a small backpack for him to ride in, layered over with a minor concealment spell to make him look like an old sweater on casual inspection.

  That wasn’t an option, so I used some talent to cast an aversion spell over my feet and told him to stay close. It wouldn’t hide his presence, but it would keep people from glancing down to see him as long as he stayed close. Casting the aversion spell directly on him would have been better, but it would have taken time I didn’t have and a lot more energy. I could maintain the spell on my legs without much effort; if I had to make it a discrete spell and attach it to him as he moved along, it would have been a more difficult thing to maintain. Besides, except for the BART police, nobody cared.

  The redheaded practitioner got aboard a southbound train, which was crowded as rush hour wound down. I squeezed in at the back end of the same car, Lou crowding close so he wouldn’t get his paws stepped on. One thing was now clear—this guy was playing a game with me. I had an impulse to push through he crowded car and confront him on the spot. That would throw a monkey wrench in his plans.

  But that wouldn’t be the best idea, for the same reason a cop wouldn’t confront an armed suspect in the middle of a crowded subway car. A lot of things could go wrong and probably would, with serious consequences for innocent passengers. And bad guys seldom care about collateral damage.

  The car was crowded, with that eclectic combination of passengers you get only in a big city. Neatly dressed Asians with briefcases. Teens with piercings, carrying skateboards. Rough-faced men with callused hands, on their way to work or on their way home. Stolid-faced women of indeterminate race. Each of them has a life, happy or sad, unknown to their fellow travelers. Eight million stories in the naked city. Or a few hundred thousand, in any case.

  Right across from me sat a young Hispanic couple with a baby and a toddler. The man had one of those serious faces, with a faraway look, thinking his unknown thoughts of unknown places as the train moved along. The toddler noticed Lou and stared at him, fascinated. He looked up at me, and when I smiled at him he hid his face in the man’s lap, but he was unable to resist peeking out.

  When the train reached the Glen Park station, the red-haired practitioner got off. I followed him up the escalator, not getting on until he had reached the top. I was staying well back in case he was preparing a surprise for me. I had no fear I’d lose him—he’d make sure of that.

  He headed up Bosworth, away from the commercial area around the station. After a few blocks it was clear where he was headed: Glen Park itself. The park isn’t one of those manicured showplaces; it’s an urban wildlife area nestled right in the middle of a thoroughly developed neighborhood. Set in the bottom of a tiny canyon, it’s hardly a park at all—more an overgrown area choked with trees and brush, with a stream running through that provides a miniature riparian environment for frogs and snakes and small mammals and even a coyote or two.

  I followed him into the park, letting him still keep a good lead, until eventually he came to the loop that runs along the far end. It was getting chilly, and apart from a few hardy dog walkers, the park was almost deserted. As he disappeared around a bend, I stopped to take stock of the situation.

  He was obviously setting up a confrontation. And he had chosen the time and the place, giving him an immense advantage. You never want to fight someone on their own terms or on their own turf, unless you have no choice.

  A couple of years ago I would have let it go. But lately I’d developed a macho streak, a reluctance to avoid a challenge, along with the feeling I could take care of myself under any circumstances. Looking back over the last couple of years, a case c
ould be made for that being untrue—most of the things I’d handled had been as much about luck as skill. But sometimes, confidence is as important as ability. Unless you let it overwhelm your judgment, at which point you’re sure to crash and burn.

  So I wasn’t about to blunder ahead totally unprepared. Being able to improvise has its advantages—there is an infinitude of situations and threats, many of which you cannot possibly foresee. A well-crafted spell is useless if it doesn’t address the problem at hand. Sometimes I have to scramble, but in the end I usually come up with something that works.

  But I had learned to prepare when it was appropriate. I had only enough energy to set up one prepared spell, though. Any more than that, and I wouldn’t have enough power left to deal with the unexpected. And there were two things to worry about. One was a magical attack, but since I wasn’t going to be caught off guard, I figured I could handle that. But those poor victims had been torn apart in a purely physical manner. When you deal with magic every day, you sometimes forget how deadly a mundane attack can be.

  What I really needed was my shotgun, but it was resting uselessly at home. So, a magical equivalent might be in order. I looked around for a branch or other straight section of wood, and found just what I needed a few feet off the trail, a six-foot branch with the leaves stripped off long ago. I broke off the little side branches until I had a relatively smooth staff. I worked some dirt into one end, letting some energy flow out into it, forming a magical barrier. Then I squatted down by the small creek that ran through the park and dipped the other end into the water. Again, I let energy flow, but this time I kept it up. The water flowed into the staff, filling it up as it backed up against the dirt barrier. I held it there until the pressure built up to the breaking point before pulling it out. I capped the other end with a binding energy woven into more dirt. Now if I needed it, I could quickly rub that dirt off, release the energy, and the pressurized water would spurt out like a fire hose.

  That may not seem impressive, but fire hoses and water cannons are what get used for crowd control. A stream from a two-and-a-half-inch hose will knock you off your feet and send you tumbling along the ground. With enough pressure, the stream can even break through a weak brick wall. And my enhancing would provide at least twice the pressure of an ordinary hose.