by Ben Reeder
“You’ll pardon the delay,” he said with his usual cool tone. “But Judge Walters wanted to speak to me. Since these two cases are related, he’s ordered me to recuse myself from one of them.”
“Which one of them are you bowin’ out of?” the older man asked. His voice was rough and throaty, with an accent that screamed Texas to my now practiced ear.
“Chance here has convinced me of the wisdom of representing his mother while you handle the custody case, Mister …?”
“Fred Reed,” the older man said with a smile.
“Now, there were some details I thought you might find interesting,” Vortigern said as they hunched together.
“Where in the Nine Hells did you dig him up?” I asked Dr. C in a whisper.
“Port Aransas,” Dr. C said. “He was a friend of my father’s and he’s probably forgotten more about law than most lawyers ever know.”
“I just hope he remembers the right parts.”
“He will,” Dr. C said with conviction. “Between him in the courtroom and Vortigern’s advice, things will go our way.”
The door opened as he finished, and my father and Cassavetes were led in, with Judge Wells on their heels. Her Honor was a sharp-featured woman with red hair streaked with gray. She looked to Vortigern and frowned as Dr. C and Reed stood, with me a beat behind in following their example.
“Please tell me I’m hallucinating, Kyle,” she said with a clear voice, “and that you’re not really here.”
“You’re hallucinating, your Honor,” Vortigern said smoothly. “I never consulted on this case, and I was never here. It must be the stress.” He smiled with all the charm of a pit viper as he finished.
“Your Honor, I must protest this in the strongest terms possible,” Cassavetes said. “Mr. Vortigern—”
“Recused himself from this case, Counselor,” Judge Wells said. “Which doesn’t preclude consultation with his client’s new representation. Now, sit down, all of you.” Everyone planted butt in seat in a hurry. As soon as she sat down behind her desk, Cassavetes opened his mouth. Her hand came up and she silenced him with a glare.
“Before any of you open your mouth again, I want to hear from the person who will be affected the most by this decision,” she said. “Not you,” she added when my father started to say something, then she pointed one slender finger at me. “You.”
“Yes, ma’am?” I said.
“Who do you want to live with?”
“My mom,” I said without hesitating.
“And if that wasn’t possible, would you want to live with your father?”
“No, ma’am. I’d prefer to stay with Dr. Corwyn or someone else.” Cassavetes and my father erupted in pure outrage at that, and the judge silenced them with a look I wished to the High Heavens I could master. Reed took the opportunity to slide a thin folder across her desk, which she picked up and glanced at before she spoke again.
“Your concerns are duly noted, gentlemen,” she said dismissively, then turned to Dr. Corwyn. “And how exactly do you fit into the boy’s life, Mr. … Corwyn?” I cringed as she left off the title. I watched his face as he fought the urge to correct her, but when he spoke, his voice was calm.
“I am … well, I was his science teacher last year, and I’ve become his mentor in the school district’s AP science program. I also sponsored him for a scholarship and placement at the Franklin Academy, which he’ll be attending next year.” The judge looked over the file in her hand for a moment, then looked at Dr. C with a gaze that seemed to be looking a lot deeper than the surface.
“And the numerous police and sheriff’s department case numbers Mr. Cassavetes has appended to the case file. Perhaps you’d care to explain those.”
“Of course, your Honor. I’m a consultant with both departments, specializing in occult cases. Symbology, psychology, and history, mostly. I hold a Masters in Western Esotericism.”
Wells leaned back in her chair and gave Dr. C another long look before she spoke again, this time turning her attention back to me.
“Where do you think your sister would rather live, young man?”
“Her choice would be the same as mine,” I told her. “We’ve talked about this a lot over the past couple of days.”
She nodded and turned to face my father. “So, Mr. Fortunato, you’re asking for custody of both children,” the judge said. “Except that only one of them is legally your offspring. You are not listed as the father on the birth certificate for Deirdre Murathy that Mr. Reed handed me. Until such time as you are able to prove your paternity, my judgment is that you technically have no parental rights to exercise over her.”
It was hard to keep a straight face as I watched my father’s face turn bright red while he fought to keep his temper in check. But, just as his forehead was bordering on a dark purple, Cassavetes leaned forward and smiled.
“Then perhaps we should concentrate on amending the custody ruling in the divorce decree,” he said, moments before I figured the old man’s control would slip, the sound of Cassavetes’s voice making my ears feel slightly oily. “We know that the boy’s extensive juvenile record was a deciding factor in granting his mother sole custody last year, but in the last eight months, Chance has been arrested once, and has been a suspect in at least four cases. So we can clearly see that his mother and this man Corwyn haven’t had any positive effect on him.”
“I don’t know where Mr. Casaverde is getting his information from,” Reed broke in, his gruff voice filling the room, “but he needs to do a better job. But, given his client’s business associations, I can see why he might have missed this. I’m afraid it’s something only your Honor will be able to review.” He handed the judge a large sealed envelope. She opened it and drew out a thicker folder. Almost immediately, her gaze went to my father and Cassavetes, then back to me. “As you can see there, he’s making a serious effort to … what’s that phrase? Oh, yeah. He’s trying to ‘be the change,’ you might say.” Then I realized what he had handed to her. It had to be the Essex County Sherriff’s department’s file on me as a confidential informant.
“I don’t see how this makes him any safer in Corwyn’s care than in his father’s,” the judge said. “But your point regarding his character is well made, though I’m not sure who to credit with his newfound morals.”
“Maybe it’s who’s not around,” I said.
“I can’t fault that line of reasoning either,” Wells said, silencing the new round of protests from Cassavetes. “For now, the children will remain in the custody of Dr. Trevor Corwyn as per the current TO,” she said. Her attention turned to my father. “File your motion to amend the divorce agreement.”
“I’ll have it done within the hour,” Cassavetes said. He pulled a sheaf of papers from his briefcase and held it up like a weapon.
“I don’t care if you break a land speed record, Mike,” the judge said. “Just get your ass out of my office. We’re done here.” She actually stood up and offered Mr. Reed her hand, which he shook enthusiastically for a second or two before he ushered us out of the office.
“That two-bit shyster came prepared,” Reed grumbled once the door shut behind us. Across the hallway, Cassavetes was seated on one of the wooden benches, busily sorting through the papers he had brandished earlier.
“He’s not incompetent,” I said as Shade wrapped her arms around my shoulders from behind me. I turned and kissed her cheek, conscious of how under-dressed I was by comparison to her rose-colored silk blouse and skirt. White hose and heels that made her about my height made her look regal, especially with her red hair swept up and off her neck. My white dress shirt and black cargo pants weren’t even close, especially with my sleeves rolled up. “He’s just corrupt.”
“Yeah,” Reed said as we headed for the door. “But he ain’t the one that worries me. It’s that old man a’ yours. No tellin’ what he’s liable to do to get his way.”
“We’ll handle that when it happens,” Dr. C said with a glance bac
k at me.
Suddenly, Shade sprang forward and grabbed Dr. C and Reed each by a shoulder, bringing them both to a stop. At their surprised looks, she pointed at the corner ahead.
“Chance’s father is on the phone with someone,” she said as low as she dared. “He’s coming this way.” We all went to the wall and the old man walked past a heartbeat later, his right hand to his ear, blocking our view of his face. But there was no mistaking his voice.
“… little son of a bitch kid of mine still thinks he can just do what he wants. Tell our friend that he’s on. Yeah, the whole thing. All right … call me when it’s done.” He hung up and brought the phone down in time to see us. When he turned, Reed stepped in front of Shade and Dr. C, but the old man’s attention was all on me.
“I told you, there’s a price to pay for defying me, boy,” he said as he put his finger in the middle of my chest and pushed me back. “You think you’re man enough to handle pissing me off?”
I looked down at his hand and then up at him. “I’ve killed things a lot nastier than you,” I said. “And I already kicked your pet demon’s ass. So, you take your hand off of me before I change your nickname to ‘Lefty,’ because I already know you’re not man enough to handle pissing me off.”
He scoffed, but he also pulled his hand back. “Big words from a little boy,” he said.
Shade came forward with her teeth bared, but stopped when I put my arm out.
“Keep your bitch on a leash,” he sneered. “Or I’ll do it for you.” Still, he turned and headed for Cassavetes like a man with a purpose.
“I haven’t even been around your father for a minute,” Shade growled, “and I already want to kill him.”
“Now you know where I get it from,” I said.
“The people who want to kill you are all assholes,” she said as her eyes faded from green to gray. I couldn’t argue with that. Besides, most of the people who really wanted to kill me were already dead.
“Let’s get back home, then,” Dr. C said, suddenly sounding brisk and chipper. “You still have things to do.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You didn’t do that bad,” Shade reassured me a few hours later as she held an ice pack to my shoulder blade while we sat at the kitchen table. “Up until the sparring part.” We sat at the kitchen table while Dr. C and Mr. Reed talked over beer in the backyard. Dee’s laughter pealed through the air as she threw a Frisbee for Junkyard to chase. He still only caught it about half the time, but every leap earned praise from Dee.
“I’d rather go up against Cross,” I said.
“So would I,” Shade said with a purr.
“Hey, let’s not injure the ego, too,” I said.
“Sorry,” she lied. “He’s just nice to watch. At least he pulls his punches.” I felt her shift as she moved behind me, and I could just imagine her free hand going to her right eye. She’d been joining in with the self-defense training since school had let out, most likely because it had included sparring with Cross most times. Dr. C, on the other hand, rarely joined in when we sparred. The fighting style the Sentinels used relied a lot on physics and anatomy to do maximum damage with as little effort as possible, as fast as possible. Cross was good enough to handle Shade at her best and still pull his punches. Dr. C wasn’t quite on his level, but he could still keep up with her if he brought his “A” game to the circle. In spite of his best efforts, there was the rare bruise or sprain. Today it had been a pulled muscle in my shoulder for me. For Shade, who he didn’t dare pull his punches with, it had been a black eye.
“First rule of sparring,” I reminded her.
“Sparring hurts,” she said. “If you can’t handle a little pain, stay out of the circle.”
“And you told him not to pull his punches,” I said.
“True,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “It’s been ten minutes. Is it numb yet?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t feel anything there.” That earned me an ice pack to the back of the head before we headed for the library.
“So, tell me more about this little business venture you mentioned,” she said as I sat down and opened my laptop.
“It was a front for what I did for Dulka,” I said as I logged into an old email account. A message was waiting for me, the first layer of my assault on my old boss’s infrastructure. “Sort of a magick supply and prefab spell thing. Some stuff, like protection spells and money charms, even some of the more benign attraction spells, we’d just sell as amulets. But for the real complex stuff like hexes and love spells, we sold this sort of do-it-yourself kit. Supplies, diagrams and instructions for the circle, chants, you name it. Sometimes, it would even work like it was supposed to, if someone with some real Talent got ahold of it. We set up a deal with a company in Hong Kong to manufacture the amulets and stuff, and we had a different set-up through another distributer for the cast-your-own-spell kits. We set it up to pretty much run itself. The manufacturer and distributor got their own cut from each sale, and we got the rest.” I followed the link to the next email account, one layer closer to my goal.
“Wouldn’t he have just changed the passwords when you left?”
“Yeah, but that’s the beauty of password recovery,” I said. “He would have changed pretty much everything, passwords for checking accounts, Pay-Pro, email accounts, you name it. But what he didn’t do was change the part he didn’t know about.”
“And what was that?”
“I set up an email account for password recovery two or three accounts removed,” I said as I opened an email. “And all of his accounts led to it eventually.”
“Were you planning to rip him off all along?” she asked with a wicked smile. I reset the password for another email account, then logged in to it.
“Yup,” I said. “Originally, I was planning on setting up a squat down in the Hive, then taking this whole set-up over to make some extra money on the side.” Several messages were waiting for me to respond to, all of them leading back to the accounts I needed access to.
“Why didn’t you?”
“I dunno,” I shrugged. “Lots of little reasons, I guess. I kind of like being legit. And … well, I didn’t mind pissing Dulka off when it was just me, but once I ended up with my mom and Dee, things changed. Just wasn’t … worth it. Okay, this is interesting …”
“What’s that? Is this guy asking for advice?” Shade asked as she shoulder surfed.
“Yeah,” I said as I read through the email. “He wants to know how to tell if a spirit is in this world or the next.” I expanded the thread, and found that it had been going on for a couple of weeks. That was disturbing, because it meant that either Dulka was replying on his own, or he had himself a new helper. I went back and looked at the times on the replies. Every three days, and the last one had been yesterday, which meant I still had a couple of days before my hack job was discovered. I went through and reset the passwords I needed, then deleted the incriminating emails. I forwarded the Pay-Pro message to another email and deleted the record of it, then went into the spam folder and started copying and pasting emails like crazy to give the impression the email had been hacked by a spammer.
“So, I still don’t get how you’re going to get money from a Pay-Pro account.”
“That part is going to take some work. For that, I need to make or borrow a checking account. That’ll take some time and some cash that I can’t borrow from Dr. C. And an identity.”
“I can help with that,” Shade said. She looked down and bit her lip when I looked over at her.
“Really?” I said, smiling in spite of myself. A slow grin spread across her face as she nodded.
“You’ll have to ditch your friend,” she said, nodding toward the backyard where we’d last seen Gage. “Sneak out tonight and meet me at the camp.”
A few minutes after midnight, my cell phone buzzed in my hand, waking me up from the light doze I’d let myself fall into. Junkyard raised his head as I moved, then he w
as on his feet and waiting by the door.
“I need you to stay here, boy,” I said softly as I slipped my jeans on, but he just wagged his tail hard enough to make his butt wiggle. I grabbed my shoes and opened the door and he padded down the hallway toward the stairs. By the time I caught up to him, he was at the back door in the kitchen, looking over his shoulder expectantly at me. As soon as I opened that door, he was out, down the steps and waiting by the gate, still looking back at me as if he was the one leading me to my car. I put my shoes on and followed him to the driver’s side door of the Mustang.
“You think you’re going with me?” I asked him as he sat down. His opened his mouth and let out a little groan that rose at the end. Then he let out a little bark. “Okay, okay, get in,” I told him as I opened the door. He clambered across to the passenger seat and sat down. I reached in, took the car out of gear and stuck my keys in the ignition. Then I started pushing, until I was about thirty yards down the road. I hopped in as the car kept rolling and turned the ignition over, and she started. From there, I headed for the freeway and turned her nose north.
Eventually, I turned off the road at the faded sign for Camp Crystal Pines. The gate was open, so I pulled in and followed the curving gravel road down until it opened into a parking lot by the camp’s lodge. The power was on here, and the orange light of the sodium streetlight made a broad circle of illumination near the entrance to the lodge.
Junkyard followed me out and immediately claimed the lamppost in the name of all canine-kind before trotting back to me. There were lights on inside, and I could see another car parked near the edge of the lot, well outside the lit area. Memories of the last time I’d been here flitted across the edge of my thoughts. Off to my left was the amphitheater where I’d fought Dominic King into submission before I ended up having to kill him.
I shook my head and pushed the memory out of my thoughts. The door opened and I stepped inside to a room that looked very different than the last time I’d seen it. The liquor bottles and beer cans were gone, and so were the gratuitous T&A posters. The person-sized hole I’d made in the far wall was covered by a sheet of plywood, and I could see tufts of pink insulation sticking out along the edges. The video gaming system was still there, and one of the couches had been moved in front of it. They’d also found a bulletin board somewhere and set it up at the end of a dinner table. Mismatched chairs were clustered around it. Shade was sitting at the far end of the table from the bulletin board, with a skinny little man whose face seemed to be mostly nose and eyes.
