Ruby Callaway: The Complete Collection

by D. N. Erikson

  “Yes?”

  “Be careful.”

  “Didn’t know you cared.”

  “If you get caught, then you’ll lead them to Alice. And me.” I noticed him shake a little bit. “MagiTekk isn’t to be fucked with. And they clearly don’t want this fellow found.”

  “Thanks for the memo. I got this.”

  “Yes, I suppose you do.”

  Hiro and the files disappeared into a digital stream of bits as I picked up the cube. Reflecting on my strange conversation as I returned it to the drawer, it almost didn’t register when a voice said, “Hello, Ruby.”

  For a split second, I wondered if Hiro could communicate without the table, or had somehow copied himself inside my phone. Then again, that wouldn’t make sense, because this voice was higher-pitched and female.

  And when I turned around, I found myself eye-to-eye with an unwelcome visitor.

  A sorceress who I believed dead.

  A reasonable expectation, since I had all but killed her.

  There was a lot of that going around today.

  Lucky me.

  13

  “Sit,” Silvia said, eyes burning bright in the shadows of the dim apartment. I pulled the chair away from the glass table and did as I was told, watching her emerge from the doorway. The sorceress geneticist I’d met in the time loop—who had cut me open on a lab table—slunk like a panther into the kitchen.

  She leaned up against the island. Her sleeves were rolled up, displaying pink chemical burns.

  Technically, we’d never met—at least from her perspective, since the loop had reset. But it was hard for me to forget being dissected alive. Even in the name of science and defeating one of MagiTekk’s evil plans.

  Thus, when the opportunity had presented itself, I had served her and her immoral associates up to Malcolm Roark, MagiTekk’s Chief of Security. The operation had been a success.

  Or so I’d thought, until now.

  Because the sorceress had returned.

  “Do I know you?” I asked.

  “Place your knife on the table.”

  “I’d prefer not—”

  Silvia snapped her fingers, and the blades within the chef’s block on my countertop suddenly levitated. The edges gleamed as they hovered in the air.

  “You were saying?” Silvia said, her fingertips quivering from the casting.

  With reluctance, I removed the energy charged blade from my scabbard and put it on the glass surface. Silvia made no move to retrieve it.

  One of the kitchen knives slammed to the floor next to my chair as an added warning.

  I glanced at it nonchalantly, even though my heart was pounding.

  “You’re difficult to find, Ruby.”

  “I don’t know you.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure.” She scratched her burned arm, the flesh still raw. I imagined what Malcolm Roark’s squadron of Ghosts had done, and then stopped. Going down that road was going to bum me out.

  Not that I regretted it. Without playing that chip, Roark and I wouldn’t have nailed Solomon Marshall. Life was a series of trade-offs and sacrifices. People paid a bounty hunter to make the tough calls. The ones that other people couldn’t make.

  Roark’s own words echoed in my ears, salving my conscience.

  Catching bad people requires doing bad things.

  Silvia extracted a small, tattered volume from her pocket. “Ever experienced déjà vu?”

  “I’m not the nostalgic type,” I said, eyes scanning the apartment. My shotgun was in the bedroom. Which left me with only my fists against a vengeful sorceress.

  I didn’t like those odds.

  “It’s a strange feeling,” Silvia said. “Especially when it’s so vivid.” Without warning, she tossed me the book. I half-expected it to be hot as a bunch of stoked coals, but she hadn’t cast any sort of spell on it. “They say it can be brought on by trauma. Loss. Sadness.”

  Brushing a layer of dust off the worn cover, I found myself face-to-face with a familiar volume. The original, it would seem: The Arcana of Temporal Manipulation.

  “I’m not who you’re looking for.”

  “Don’t bother lying, Ruby. I know about the loop.”

  My blood chilled into ice water. “Fuck.”

  “Indeed.” Silvia pushed herself off the island with the heel of her flat and strode toward me. The white lab coat that I remembered well spread around her like a cape. Pain and anger danced in her eyes, the wisps above her head screaming revenge.

  She’d had an associate—more than that—in the lab. A drop-dead gorgeous blonde woman who was some sort of systems tech but looked straight out of a centerfold.

  Up close, I could see the scorched patches in Silvia’s short brown punkish hair. She’d done her best to cover them up with dye and comb-overs.

  I swallowed the urge to punch her in the face. It’s best to know when you’re outgunned. Without a weapon, I was screwed against a magic user of this caliber. Didn’t matter. I’d survived worse and more powerful.

  I tried to believe that, but death consumed her eyes.

  “You’re not curious how I discovered the loop, Ruby?”

  “Not really,” I said, still holding the book. “Maybe you can read. Drew crop circles. I could give a shit.”

  “Or how I found you?”

  “You didn’t strike me as a dumbass.”

  “So you do admit to meeting me.”

  “You carved me open for your little experiment,” I said, a little more hotly than anticipated. Experiencing your own death is disconcerting, even when you’re granted a mulligan.

  “I do not fully remember that.” Silvia shrugged. “But I know my beloved is gone.”

  “So sorry for your loss.”

  She slapped me. I fell out of the chair, more surprised by the strike than anything. Gathering my wits on the cool hardwood, I realized her powers were severely compromised by whatever Malcolm Roark and his Ghosts had done.

  Her little knife trick had exacted a toll.

  Which tilted the odds in my favor.

  Toss her through the window, and maybe I’d get the chance to grill Declan Burrows about the cathedral tonight. That worked for me.

  I inched my fingers toward the table to retrieve my blade.

  But that plan was dashed when the kitchen knives came up again and Silvia said, “Don’t get any ideas.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said, holding my hands up.

  “I didn’t come here to kill you, Realmfarer. And I’d prefer to stick to that plan.”

  “How do you know what I am?”

  “I do my homework.” She nudged me with her flat. I pushed her leg away and got up. Face to face, now, I saw the wisps changing color over her head. “I can manipulate my aura, so don’t bother with your cold reading.”

  Fantastic. My supernatural powers were useless against her. “What do you want, Silvia?”

  “I don’t suppose you watch the news.”

  “No time for fiction.”

  “I usually agree. Except, in this case, it’s pertinent.” She gestured toward the glass table. “May I?”

  “Make yourself at home.” This woman, who should’ve been my mortal enemy, was granting me a stay of execution. Stranger than her ability to uncover the time loop well after the fact was that whatever was on the news must’ve been bad enough for her to need my help.

  Overriding her desire to avenge her beloved.

  Silvia tapped the table’s edge, activating controls I didn’t know existed. Apparently, the tech could display media without data cubes, because soon a news stream played back in ultra-high definition.

  “I apologize for the poor quality.”

  Looking at the image realer than reality, I said, “Oh yeah, don’t worry about it.”

  I watched the footage—a short press conference, the kind that often slipped past the traditional news cycle. But I realized this was a Rubicon moment. The point where everything would change.

  For me
and the world.

  Because I’d read the transcript of this press conference earlier.

  MagiTekk’s essence suppression serum—the one Malcolm Roark had ordered me to protect from disruption.

  The bits disappeared, and Silvia said, “You see, Realmfarer, what I need from you.”

  “A lot of people need a lot of things these days.”

  “This is magical eugenics. Castration.”

  “I see your points,” I said. “But I have a good job already. With better benefits.”

  “Your bravado is hollow.” Silvia took her hand from her lab coat, fingers clutching a small needle. Without a word, she jabbed it into the crook of my arm and drew blood.

  “Ow.” When I tried to back away, she grabbed my wrist with a surprisingly firm grip.

  After completing the blood draw, she said, “Your blood has special properties.”

  I remembered. Her and her bombshell lover—Diane, that was her name—had been wowed by it. As they were dissecting me alive. But if I recalled correctly, my blood was only a piece of the puzzle. One that they were running out of time to solve a few weeks ago.

  Time was about out, now.

  “Glad I could help.” I rubbed my arm with a grimace.

  “And, of course, there are other uses for this as well.” Silvia walked toward the door, moving like a wraith. I needed to get the locks checked if she could just waltz in without the alarm sounding. “You understand that what happened to Mr. Daniels could happen to us all.”

  Sure. I remembered the former werewolf, who, through the wonders of technology, had become a mere mortal. His essence drained by the very MagiTekk concoction set to hit the market on Friday. A watershed product release announced with a subdued press conference.

  I bit my lip hard enough to draw a little trickle of blood. “Not my problem.”

  “But you hate MagiTekk. I can smell it on you, Realmfarer.”

  “I don’t really care one way or another.”

  “Have you ever wondered why the Fallout Zone survives? With power quotas, and water?” Silvia asked.

  “Hospitality?”

  “It’s the world’s biggest testing lab. Data. To build products. And make money.”

  “How Machiavellian.”

  “They’ll stop at nothing to make it,” Silvia said.

  “You’re really tugging at my heartstrings.”

  “MagiTekk begins distribution on Friday,” she said, hanging in the doorway like a bad cold. “If this blight is not fully destroyed by then, and the sole surviving sample in my hands, I will come for you.”

  Malcolm wanted me to protect it. And Silvia wanted me to destroy it.

  I was a lucky girl.

  “Or I could just come for you first,” I said.

  “But I will not kill you instantly, Ruby.” Silvia’s gaze to meet mine, her eyes filled with terminal sadness. “It will be Roark who suffers as he watches you fade into nothingness.”

  The door creaked shut, and I stifled the urge to scream.

  14

  Hands in my pockets, I walked down the neon-bathed street, mulling over recent events.

  What did Silvia need me to destroy? That was simple: MagiTekk, in their infinite wisdom, had spent over a decade developing an essence suppression serum. And the initial batch now sat in a production warehouse, just waiting to be torched.

  It was easy enough to understand why she wanted the serum gone. Once administered, it stripped away a creature’s supernatural traits, quickly reducing them to a mortal.

  Of course, nothing was that simple. There were side effects—Aaron Daniels had walked with a noticeable limp, and still possessed the faint lupine eyes of a werewolf—but maybe those glitches had been ironed out in the interim trials. After all, his dose had been one of the first, coming over ten years ago.

  MagiTekk’s press release indicated that the lupine suppression serum would be the first to roll off the shelves. Soon enough, the entire supernatural kingdom would have their very own little deconstruction kit available. Catch a vampire? No need to throw her into jail—just plug her with a needle and she would revert to human form.

  And then MagiTekk would make a fortune cleaning up the holdouts. Nothing got the cash register ringing like a dangerous fringe group warring against the status quo. Particularly when they all had fangs or could shoot fire from their fingertips.

  Our powers just made things an easy sell to a gullible and fear-stricken public.

  Why not just accept the inevitable? Because, for most creatures of essence, losing their supernatural identity was a fate far worse than death. A wolf was a goddamn wolf—nothing else. Remove that, and you were left with a broken and useless man.

  Daniels had recrafted himself as a crime lord, but even that drive had been stoked by a melancholy, futile longing to somehow regain what he’d lost. Silvia had sliced me open to preemptively search for an antidote, despite not being afflicted by the suppression serum herself.

  Now she had my blood. Should’ve taken a shot at killing her. Maybe I was getting soft. Or maybe I was psyched out from trying to shoot Malcolm Roark earlier, only to be stymied by a magical shield.

  Speaking of Malcolm Roark.

  I was fucked.

  A few deep breaths later, and I’d shaken off the encounter as best I could. Right now, I needed to find out what the Crusaders of Paradisum had planned. They’d found at least one wellspring. There might’ve been others—maybe even enough to bring Pan, God of the fabled Arcadia, back to life. Which is when he’d lead them all to the promised land.

  Where that would leave the rest of us, I didn’t want to know.

  I also didn’t know how one went about resurrecting a dead god—or whether that was even possible—but I had no intention of waiting around with my thumb up my ass.

  I dialed Roark, but his phone went straight to voicemail. Maybe he wanted to work the case on his own. Or he’d finally caught a few winks.

  Turning the corner, I found myself on another street of identical high-rises. My phone beeped, indicating that I’d reached my destination. Craning my neck upward, I saw the outline of a skywalk. Or maybe it was just the reflection of some ad playing tricks on me.

  Waiting for the doors to open, I wondered if my plan would work.

  I needn’t have wondered. Declan Burrows emerged wearing enough cologne to choke a small horse, a big smile on his lined face. Despite the best in whatever cosmetic surgery and hair plugs this new world had to offer, calling him attractive would be disingenuous. The modifications looked recent, judging by the way his skin reflected the light.

  Declan offered me a plastic grin. “This is a wonderful surprise.”

  I wiggled my phone back and forth. “Wonders of modern technology.”

  “No one’s ever been this excited to meet me before.” He coughed into the sleeve of his jacket, embarrassed by the admission. “I mean, there have been a few women.”

  “I just couldn’t believe it,” I said. “A man as smart as you, living in the same city. You’ve been hiding right under my nose. I love archaeology.”

  This time, Declan didn’t act nervous. His chest puffed out, taking the bait hook, line and sinker. “Well, your knight is here.”

  He offered me his arm, and I hooked mine inside. “I hope you know a good place. Because I’m looking to drink.”

  I felt him tense slightly as he connected the dots, all the way back to his apartment. Then he cleared his throat and said, “I know just the place, beautiful.”

  The word sounded wrong coming from his mouth. Some guys just couldn’t pull it off.

  But I pretended like he could as I said, “Well then lead the way. And tell me all you know about the historical monuments in Phoenix.”

  15

  Declan Burrows’s Apartment

  15 minutes ago

  A long night of drinking led to the inevitable nightcap at Declan’s apartment. To be clear, Declan did most of the drinking. After last night’s hangover, I wasn’t e
ager to get sloshed.

  Plus, I wouldn’t be much of a secret agent—or whatever the hell I was playing at—if I was tanked.

  Declan pawed at my jacket like a deranged bear, eager to get at the goods within. This wasn’t unusual, drunk or not—men always acted like they had a flight to catch, or a nuclear payload to defuse beneath your bra. Someone must’ve given them all the same erroneous memo that they got extra points for speed.

  Not so, but I wasn’t about to give Declan a lecture on how to treat a lady. Instead, I slipped from his grasp and headed for the liquor cabinet. His apartment was more upscale than mine, the residence of someone who had done well for himself in the private sector.

  Which, these days, meant MagiTekk.

  “So,” I said, picking up the thread of a conversation started hours before, “archaeology, is it?”

  “I’d like to excavate something,” he said, slurring his words as he tried the line on for size. I laughed, forcing my lips upward to pretend I enjoyed his stupid joke.

  “You need to behave yourself, Mister Burrows.” I poured a heavy fingerful of whiskey into a tumbler, realizing that I was more buzzed than I thought. Always good to enter situations like this with a plan.

  I wasn’t scared of Declan. Worst case scenario, I could stab him in the neck and flee. Granted, that wasn’t optimal, but it wasn’t like the portly fuck was a black belt in disguise. Scholarship had made him soft and weak.

  “But that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.” I felt his teeth bite into my neck like I was an apple.

  I dropped the tumbler to the ground, and it shattered on the teakwood.

  “Oh my God,” I said, immediately slipping from his grasp. “I am so sorry.”

  “Leave it.”

  “You don’t know what this does to wood?” I gave him a serious look. “You’ll have to replace the whole floor.”

  Declan was looking like he gave no fucks and would’ve let the whole building burn down if it meant getting into my pants. While his dedication was flattering, it was crimping the real purpose of this mission.