The Boom Bands

by Jeff Somers

  The trickle of gas in the air that was mine was thin. It was a steady, controlled bleed designed to keep us all going as long as possible, although I didn’t see any evidence that Renar planned to feed us. My own line of gas was thin enough to be problematic; isolated, it wasn’t much. I was an expert in working with simple spells that took almost no gas, but they were generally underpowered. You could deal off a lot of tricks with just a drop or two of blood. Casting anything truly useful took a lot more.

  I had to be clever. I used to think I was clever. When I was the only person I knew who’d seen magic—real magic—and knew it was possible, I felt clever. When I made it to New York on my own and found Hiram, fat and pompous and mean, I’d felt clever. When Hiram taught me the first few Words, I’d felt awesome, like a god in training.

  That feeling had been a long time ago. I didn’t feel clever anymore. But I was going to have to get that feeling back, and quick, if I was going to cast my way out of this before I died of anemia, sepsis, or something infinitely worse dreamed up by Mika Renar, Archmage, serial killer, overall monster.

  Mags was my only resource, so I started there. We’d been at Rue’s. Mags witnessed me being snatched off the street. When whatever Murray the Fell had done to him wore off, where would Mags go? What would he do? I took a deep breath and ignored the numb aching in my arm and forced myself to calm down, to clear my brain. To ignore my pounding heart, to ignore the sense of restriction, of being trapped.

  Renar’s Glamour kept chanting. In my mind, I kept hearing old Hilly Vonnegan: The boom bands, Lemuel! Can you hear ’em?

  Mags was like me. He was alone. He might go into Rue’s and beg for help, but Mags had learned a harsh lesson there: Tricksters didn’t put their necks out for anyone but themselves. That would lead nowhere; not even our supposed friends in the tight, airless world of idimustari would help him, not really.

  So he’d go home.

  EVERY USTARI STARTS off as urtuku, or an apprentice. You find yourself a mage who knows more than you do and you take part in a bonding ceremony that gives your new gasam some limited control over you. Because mages don’t trust each other, and why would they? There was a rich history of former apprentices murdering their masters, just as there was a rich history of Griefers who stuck around just long enough to learn a Word or two and then bolted, using a drop of blood and a shout of buru! to pop open doors. The Bond of urtuku gave your gasam at least a little leeway to punish you if you tried to go against them.

  It also meant you were their apprentice for as long as they wanted. There were apprentices who’d been serving and studying under their gasams for decades. Old men and women who were trapped in the arrangement. Mika Renar’s urtuku, Cal Amir, was rumored to be sixty years old. He looked more like my age, but there was nothing a skilled ustari couldn’t hide behind a Glamour given the gas to work with.

  Me, I was free. I’d been bonded to Hiram Bosch as urtuku for a decade. He’d actively instructed me for the first few months, and then we’d had a difference of opinion about the morality of paying some fourteen-year-old girl twenty bucks to bleed, at which point Hiram had kicked me and Mags out of his house and punished me in ways little and big for years. A few months ago I’d finally gotten out from under Hiram’s control—with a little help from the terrifying and polite enustari Evelyn Fallon, who’d taken a shine to me—and I’d been enjoying my freedom. My education had been truncated, and my refusal to bleed other people meant my spells would always be small-time, but not feeling that constant itch that was Hiram’s presence in the back of my brain was exciting.

  I heard the music of Renar’s Glamour’s voice again: No one to protest or protect you, there is no difficulty. That was the downside to not having a master.

  Aside from the basics of our guild and the Words, the only other thing Hiram taught me was how to steal. Steal little, steal big: Hiram stole it all.

  After he’d bonded me, I saw him steal a remarkable number of things, from a remarkably diverse range of places and people. Hiram was an equal-opportunity thief. He walked through a room and things just disappeared into his pockets, sometimes with a little gassed-up help, sometimes by virtue of nothing more than Hiram’s long, agile fingers and natural grifter’s reflexes.

  Pitr Mags didn’t have a greedy or acquisitive bone in his body, and when he’d lived with Hiram he hadn’t paid much attention to the floor safe Hiram kept his stolen treasures in. Except for the occasional shiny object that caught his eye. So occasionally Hiram would steal something that Mags thought was pretty, and so Mags would plot to steal it from Hiram. Not steal it, really. Mags just wanted to see it. Hold it up to the light. Admire it. And then he would put it back—except sometimes he forgot to put it back. Literally forgot, because I’d seen him rummage in his pockets and blink in stupid surprise when he discovered some figurine or bauble he’d borrowed from Hiram, likely years before. Every now and then, the bauble turned out to be some magical artifact that destroyed souls or turned people into frogs or something, but usually it was just something shiny.

  Mags liked shiny shit; Digory Ketterly had once taught him a little mu to make a flaming bird appear and flap randomly around the room, making an odd tinkling noise like a wind chime, and Mags had almost bled himself white casting it over and over again, delighted. The glowing bird didn’t take much gas and would last as long as Mags paid attention to it. The cantrip was nothing, eight Words and a pinprick of blood. I ran through it in my head and thought I could cut a syllable, use a fraction less gas, then add three more Words and make it so the glowing bird had a path, a route to follow instead of a random pattern—a route to Hiram’s apartment, then back again.

  It was the best I could do without dipping into the blood of the poor assholes all around me. Seizing my own drip of gas, I spoke the Words. The bird blossomed one mote of light at a time, sizzling in from nothing, taking one graceful turn around me, its musical tinkling like diamonds dropping onto piano strings, and then flying off, finding a tiny gap between floorboards and squeezing through.

  I closed my eyes. Mags was a big, stupid puppy, but he had his moments, and I prayed this was one of them. All he had to do was remember the stupid fucking bird and follow it.

  A door opened and closed somewhere distant. I froze, heart pounding. I could hear footsteps, brisk and confident. I put my head down and closed my eyes as another door was opened somewhere, a loud complex series of clanging bars and shooting bolts. And then the mysterious sensation of someone else in the vast space with us, someone free to move, someone paying attention.

  “Do we have a Fellow Traveler among us?” a deep, smooth male voice said, conversationally. He was far off, but over the Glamour’s incessant casting I could hear him well enough. “Someone with a vocabulary? Believe me, if you were somehow mistakenly acquired, you will have our apologies. Identify yourself! Perhaps you assumed you had been seized by enemies, or barbarians. Not so! We do not bleed our own, not here. As ustari you are entitled to respect. Identify yourself! My gasam and I have no wish to waste talent.”

  His voice was all charm. It was smooth and educated, the sort of voice that talked you into things without any need for a Charm cantrip. But I knew it was lying. I’d been brought here by Mika Renar herself, and she’d known full well who I was.

  “Come! I can well understand your hesitance. It must be quite a shock to awake in a place like this! We mages are noble. We are the music makers, and all that, and we are not suited to be used as chattel. Again, I offer apologies! When I felt the whisper of your spell, the slight drain on our sacrificial volume, I was aghast! Horrified! That one of my peers had been caught up in our supply chain—it is a terrible thing. I am certain my gasam will be eager to make it up to you. While of course I realize she cannot fully make up for the bruise on your honor that has been inflicted, she will offer you compensation. We would not have the House of Renar’s reputation be one of abuse against our own order!�
�

  The fucking House of Renar. Archmages were, as a rule, pretentious fucks, but that took the fucking cake.

  I smelled him before he got too close. It was a good smell. A masculine smell. Woody, musky. Reassuring, strong. Probably magicked to have all those effects, to put people at ease around him, to make people think better of him than they otherwise would. I could hear the slight creaking of floorboards under his weight as he walked, closer, then closer still.

  I played dead. It was a surprisingly familiar trick to play.

  “You plan escape. Of course! I understand, my friend. You cast some clever spell in order to slip your chains. Do not waste the sacrifice! Call me over, friend, and let me release you and offer you some refreshment before you leave us. I know a terrific healing spell that will have you up and about in no time—even better than when you arrived!”

  He was right next to me, and I fought every instinct I had to remain still, eyes closed, breathing steady. I was suddenly very conscious of the blood dripping out of me, as if I could feel each little bit of my essential energy being burned off.

  He stopped. I loved his smell and wanted to sit with him in some quiet, dark bar, listening to him tell me how he absolutely had no intention of hurting me, ever.

  He sighed. “Very well, I can see we have lost your trust, and no wonder. I am afraid I will have to prod you a little, won’t I?” He sighed again, sounding somehow sincerely sad for a man who worked for Mika Renar, a woman not unfamiliar with murdering people to fuel her spells.

  His casting was perfect. His pronunciation spot-on, round and fluid, the Words at home in his deep, commanding voice. The spell was good, without waste, and was clever enough: it would make anyone who was conscious have an overwhelming desire to say their own name. I had the impression it had been originally composed as a torture, of sorts, with a feedback loop at the end that would have made it perpetual, forcing someone to say nothing but their name for the rest of their miserable life.

  As a piece of writing, I liked it. It was always the nastiest, dumbest tricks that made the best spells.

  He hit his cadence and I had the odd sensation of being aware of the drain—tiny, as I was just a fraction of the gas being poured into the air—and the effect simultaneously. It started off as an urge. Mild, just the idea of saying my name. An idea, something fun to do despite the fact that it was the worst thing I could possibly do. It was easy to resist.

  But I still wanted to do it. A little more intently.

  It was a pressure building up inside me, a magically fueled compulsion that I could defer. Every time I decided against it, it doubled in size and insistent power. It was inevitable; I wouldn’t be able to resist, so why try resisting? And the longer I resisted, the more inevitable it became, the more futile it became.

  The easiest thing in the world, saying your own name. Something most people enjoyed doing. Lemuel Vonnegan. No middle name that I knew of. It was fascinating, sometimes, the details you missed. I’d never paid much attention to my own family, and so I was missing some of the basics. Grandparents’ names. My own middle name. My name. My name was Lemuel Vonnegan, and it was the most beautiful phrase in the world.

  My name.

  My heart was pounding. This was the most exciting moment of my life, because I was going to open my mouth and shout my name as loud as I could and be heard, my name echoing through this room, and then I would be cut down and my throat would be slit and I would be professionally drained of blood and my life energy used to make Mika Renar’s eyebrows appear slightly more realistic for a few hours.

  But at least I would get to speak my name. And who doesn’t want their name out there? Lemuel Vonnegan, motherfuckers. You will remember my name for the thirty seconds or so I survive after speaking it.

  I clenched my jaw and squeezed my eyes shut.

  “Who are you?” he called out softly, sounding amused. “Tell me whom we have insulted! Tell me your name, my friend, so we might make amends!”

  Sweat gathered on my brow. My teeth ground against each other. I was certain I was shaking with the effort to keep my mouth shut. Not that it mattered. The certainty that I would break and speak my name was a given; the only question was how much would I suffer before caving.

  “This is so unnecessary! Let me know who you are and we can—”

  I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, a woman’s voice interrupted.

  “Bella Grace!”

  I froze, soaked in sweat, shivering, my jaw aching. I cracked my eyes open, catching sight of a pair of expensive shoes as they moved away from me.

  “Thank you, my dear,” the man said. “And politeness demands I introduce myself as well: I am Cal Amir, urtuku to Mika Renar. Come! As promised, let’s put you out of your misery.”

  I closed my eyes again, tight, listening to him moving away through the field of involuntary Bleeders. I trembled with the effort and when I couldn’t hold off any longer I took a deep, slow breath and whispered, “Lemuel Vonnegan . . .”

  and felt consciousness slipping away as relief swept through me.

  8.

  I TRIED TO DO the math.

  The bird mu, as simple as it was, mimicked the actual speed of a flying bird. It mimicked an actual bird because it was simple; the hardest thing in a spell was to reinvent the forces of fucking nature. Always easier to use the existing ones as a template, so if your goal was a short cantrip that didn’t cost a lot of blood, you were always best served just borrowing from the universe. Why not? The universe was a greedy pig when it came to borrowing from us, drinking us down every time a spell needed to be cast.

  So, an hour, maybe, who knows, until the spell reached Mags. If it reached Mags. Then, accounting for Mags’s general charming incompetence, tendency to panic, and other factors related to Mags’s deficiencies, another hour before he began anything resembling a response. Another hour, maybe, for that response to reach me.

  These were conservative estimates. A hollow sense of dread began to bloom in my belly. Three hours at best. With Cal Amir, enustari in his own right, wandering right outside, his ear perfectly attuned to the frequency of Tricksters casting their spells, me hanging here, one alabaster arm numb and being siphoned for gas.

  The math didn’t look good.

  I tried to look around again. Cal Amir had cut Bella down, and I’d caught a squinted glimpse of her as he dragged her out of the room. She struggled weakly, almost sobbing, her words unintelligible. She looked like she’d been here for a while, drained and tired, weak and defeated. I didn’t know her, not really, though I couldn’t quite shake the dream certainty that we’d just been planning a caper together. I wondered if she’d somehow run afoul of Mika Renar or Mycroft Pell or some other Archmage with a grudge, or if she’d just gotten swept up in a cattle call. I wondered if I could help her, but forced myself to reject the idea, to remember that I didn’t really know her, had never really worked with her. I’d caught a glimpse of her when I’d been hauled in, and I’d incorporated her—and a few other victims—into my fever dream.

  Plus, I had bigger problems.

  Bending my head down, I rolled my eyes and tried to get as good a look at the harness around my arms and chest as I could get. Then I studied the incision and the tourniquet. I thought I might be able to open up the tourniquet a little if I could just get some purchase on it, widen my own personal bleed. Give me some real gas to work with. Then all I had to do was speak a quick mu to set myself free—which would bring Cal Amir running, as he was clearly attuned to the magical happenings nearby—and somehow evade an enustari who had oceans of blood to work with, and escape.

  Easy.

  I closed my aching eyes again and tried to calm myself down. I was a Trickster. I lied and scammed and stole with both hands. I could get out of this.

  Bending as far as I could, I tried to reach the leading end of the rubber tube tied around m
y arm with my teeth. After a few tries I gave up; the tourniquet was just too far down my arm.

  I closed my eyes again and took a deep breath. And then I realized I was a sucker. I had gas. I didn’t need to do anything but cast a mu that would loosen the tourniquet.

  But I’d have to be ready. The moment I cast the first cantrip to loosen it up, Amir would be on his feet, sniffing the rancid air for another ustari in his warehouse casting spells. I needed step two ready, I needed a spell to cast off the bigger flow of gas immediately so that by the time Amir burst in with his Velvet Fucking Fog voice and his continental manners—not to mention his asshole-expensive shoes—I’d have already played my card.

  Another deep breath. I forced myself to clear my head and think. I knew a million tricks. I just needed one that would help.

  I hung there, empty. I felt the hot, heavy air flowing around me. I felt the deep, subliminal, and possibly imaginary ache in my numb, white arm. I heard Mika Renar’s Glamour murmuring her spell, inventing itself.

  The boom bands, Lemuel! Can you hear ’em?

  I opened my eyes. I started paying attention. Because I was in audience with one of the greatest enustari in the world, one of the most powerful mages ever, and she was teaching me her Glamour spell.

  I listened; despite the fact that it was probably poor form to admire the person bleeding you to death, I thought the spell was incredible. Renar’s Word choice and grammar were deep and fluid, and every line seemed to twist back and loop in some clever idea I’d never encountered before. Not only that, but there was a clear effort to be efficient that I admired. Most mages were idiots when it came to writing spells. They used more Words than they needed, they threw in flowery modifiers that didn’t do much, they wasted time and gas. I’d been struggling to cast off nothing but my own blood for so long, I’d learned to razor every spell down to a sharp point. Renar, for whatever obscure reasons of her own, had written her Glamour so it didn’t waste a drop of gas.