“Okay,” I said. “So we know where he is. We have an idea where he’s going to be. That’s a start, right?”
“Would have been nice to have someone who knew a little more about riders digging into these assholes, but on the whole…” Midian said. “So, kid. What’s your next move?”
HERE WERE the problems.
First, Coin knew we were out here, and that we wanted to kill him. The enemy was already on high alert. That was a bummer.
Second, the wards around the house were starting to fail. Chogyi Jake was doing his best, but even without his saying so, I could feel the air pressing in against the walls. Twice I’d half heard the sound of Coin’s monstrous wings. And Chogyi was only wearing thinner. The longer we waited, the less hope we had.
Third, Coin had a lot of people—many of them with freaky supernatural powers—around to protect him. We’d managed to get around that last time by making our attack when everyone was tied up with the big nasty ritual. That part had worked, but the rest of the plan failed spectacularly.
Which brought me to the last issue: Coin had a bunch of freaky supernatural powers himself, and could probably only be killed with the two magic bullets that he’d already shrugged off once.
That last one looked like the worst, so I put off thinking about it and started at the beginning, looking for ways to misdirect the Invisible College. My first thoughts didn’t go over all that well.
“Run away?” Midian said. “You’re serious?”
“We can’t do anything if he’s got the whole city locked down,” I said.
“You’re remembering that the last time, it took maybe twenty minutes between when you broke the wards and the assassination squad showed up,” Midian said.
“I’ve been out twice,” I said. “The gun and the lawyer, remember? So far, nothing.”
“Your protections don’t apply to us,” Chogyi Jake said.
“Ex went out.”
“Ex has resources that may help him,” Chogyi Jake said. “And…even then, we can’t assume he’s survived.”
“Okay,” I said. “So we don’t run.”
“We don’t run,” Chogyi Jake said. “You still can.”
“So let’s look at the second thing,” I said. “Coin’s minions.”
“It would be a good idea to get rid of them,” Midian agreed. “Either get Coin away from them or else spread ’em out thin enough that getting to the guy isn’t like wading across the beach at Normandy.”
“So how do we do that?” I asked.
Chogyi Jake’s sudden laughter was rueful and warm.
“We run,” he said. “When you’re ready with whatever else there is to do, Midian and I draw off the Invisible College by stepping out of the house and heading directly away from wherever the real drama is taking place.”
“Yeah, that’s a good plan,” Midian said, making it clear with his expression that he both agreed and thought we were doomed if that was our best strategy.
“But,” I started, then let it trail away.
But I need you. But you’ll get hurt. But I can’t face him alone. There wasn’t a way to finish that sentence that didn’t seem weak. Yes, taking out Coin was up to me. No, it wasn’t anyone else’s job to make it easy. I’d tried the strategy where I relied on other people, and it had brought me here.
This was my job. I’d do it.
“Okay,” I said. “So that’s the start of a plan, right? You guys will draw off the Invisible College so I can get to Coin.”
“Great,” Midian said. “And then you can punch yourself in the face a few times to confuse him. Maybe break an arm. I mean, don’t get me wrong, kid. I’ll do what I have to do, but now you’re down to a shitload of money, whatever cantrips we can teach you, and a couple of bullets. I’m not sure what that’s going to get you. Odds-on bet is you still get your ass kicked.”
“Let me think about it,” I said.
I thought for two days and by Thursday came up with nothing. Every hour, the house pressed on me. We were hiding under our rock, and if I was in a little less trouble than Midian and Chogyi Jake, it was only a little. I didn’t turn my laptop back on, not even to check e-mail or play solitaire.
I made one furtive trip to the grocery store, scuttling through the soup aisle with my qi pulled up to my eyes, looking for tattoos and danger so intently I had a hard time shopping. When I was home, I meditated with Chogyi Jake. I practiced some simple cantrips with Midian. Here was how to project your qi to intimidate people who didn’t have any protection and why not to try it on people who did. Here was how to wrap yourself in qi as a protection. It felt more like a motivational speaker’s affirmations than magic, but Chogyi and Midian assured me that there would be more advanced work that grew out of it. And even that wasn’t enough to keep the close, hot summer air from bearing down on me.
At night, I lay in the darkness wondering where Ex was, whether he’d found someplace safe or gotten killed. I thought about Aubrey and my family and my former friends back at ASU.
I had to take Coin out. Ex couldn’t help me. Eric couldn’t help me. Midian and Chogyi Jake could only draw off as many of the Invisible College’s wizards as would fall for their distraction. I could sneak into his mansion, except that I was pretty sure I couldn’t. I could stand on the street and call him out, except he’d beat me. I could lure him into an ambush, except that as long as he had a few minions left to send in his place, he wouldn’t come for the free cheese in any trap I could think of. The sheets knotted themselves around me as I shifted. The pillows grew hot and uncomfortable, each new configuration bringing only a few minutes’ relief.
I crawled out of bed Friday morning to a blasting dawn. Light pressed in at the blinds like water spilling into a submarine. I sat on the edge of the mattress feeling sticky with old sweat, bored, frightened, and bored with being frightened. My stitches itched, but the wound in my side was mostly closed up, deep pink flesh fusing back into some semblance of normalcy. My knee was a mottled green and yellow, my body struggling to clean out the old blood, but it didn’t hurt to move it anymore. I pulled on a bathrobe, put my hair back in a bun held in place by a couple pencils, and went out to the main room. Midian stood before the back window, looking out at the slowly browning grass of the yard.
“I can’t do it,” I said.
“Yeah, I know,” he said, not looking back. “If the two of us weren’t fucked six ways to Sunday, there’d be a chance. Taking someone out like this is at least a three-man job. Probably more.”
“Maybe we could find some way to hide you guys? A ritual cleansing or something?”
“Then you’ve got no way to draw off the minions, and we’re still screwed.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Where’s Chow Yun Fat when you need him.”
“Who?”
“Chow Yun Fat. You know. Hong Kong action film star. He was in The Replacement Killers and The Corruptor. And Hard-Boiled. That’s the one where he had the gunfight while holding a baby. It was thoroughly over the top, but it was great.”
“I thought you led a sheltered life. How’d you get into gun opera?”
“College,” I said. “I had a boyfriend. Cary. He was into it, so I was too.”
“Huh. Fair enough. So how does the baby figure in?”
“There’s this cop and he’s…”
Something in the back of my head fell in place with a click I could almost feel.
“And?” Midian said.
“Hang on a minute.”
I went back to my room for the cell phone, my head suddenly feeling like champagne. I felt too nervous to go at it straight so I started by calling the hospital to check up on Aubrey. There was no change, and I was both relieved that he was all right and worried that he was still incapacitated. Then I called my lawyer and left a message with her receptionist, asking for any updated information about Coin’s schedule in the next week or two. It was only after that that I went back through the list of incoming calls and found the number that
Midian had reminded me of.
The voice-mail message was short, and Candace Dorn’s voice was pleasant. I waited for the beep.
“Candace. Hey, this is Jayné Heller? Look, I’m in a little trouble. I may be in pretty big trouble. I need to ask Aaron for a favor. Could you have him give me a call? Thanks.”
I dropped the connection with a sense of excitement that bordered on dread. I had money, and a few cantrips, and two magical bullets.
And a cop. I had at least one cop. Maybe more, if he had friends he trusted.
And I wasn’t finished yet.
I knew what I needed to do. The idea of calling Candace had opened up a whole new set of options, and no matter how much I hated them, I couldn’t afford to leave any unexplored. It was to keep my friends alive. When I put it that way, my feelings didn’t matter all that much.
It took me twenty minutes to find the number. I probably could have done it with two Google searches, but I still didn’t want to boot up the computer. Eventually I got through directory assistance the old way, a computer with a vague East Coast accent patching me through. I listened to the ringing, my heart beating fast. I was hoping for more voice mail. It didn’t work out.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice said.
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I swallowed down the knot in my throat.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” she said, preparing to hang up.
“Hi,” I said. “You don’t know me. My name’s Jayné. Jayné Heller. Eric Heller was my uncle. He died. Someone killed him, and…um…anyway. I need help. I need your help.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Aubrey’s in trouble,” I said. “He could die.”
There was a moment’s silence. I could hear her breathing. When she spoke again, her voice was grim.
“Where is he?”
“Denver,” I said. “He’s in the hospital.”
“I’ll be there tonight,” his wife said.
Eighteen
I met her at the airport just at sunset. In person, Kim looked a little less like Nicole Kidman. She wore gray slacks and a simple cream blouse that would have looked perfectly in place at a baseball game or a boardroom. Her eyes were a sharp blue, her mouth tight and a little angry. She came through baggage claim without pausing at the carousel, a generic black carry-on wheeling behind her and a tasteful black purse on her arm. She only looked around for a moment before homing in on me. When she stood before me, her head cocked to the left, her eyes clicking over me like a specimen she was trying to identify, I was surprised to see she was half a head shorter than me.
“You look like him,” she said. She spoke sharply, like she was trying to bite off the last letter of every word. “I mean, not like him like him. But the family resemblance is there.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“I didn’t like Eric. I always knew that something like this was going to happen.”
“Well, he’s dead now, so I guess it won’t happen twice,” I said, more harshly than I’d intended. “And he wasn’t the one who got Aubrey in trouble. I was.”
“Aubrey is always the one who gets Aubrey in trouble. It’s his superpower. Are we waiting on something? I don’t have any other luggage.”
I nodded and led the way back out to the minivan. Kim was silent, but her shoes tapping on the concrete behind me seemed to carry accusation and disapproval. I was probably overreacting. She didn’t say anything about my driving Aubrey’s car, so either she didn’t care or she didn’t know it was his. We’d known each other for ten minutes, and I was already certain she wasn’t the sort of person to hold back an opinion.
“We’re staying in Eric’s old house,” I said as we pulled out of the parking space. “It’s got protections on it, and the Invisible College is looking for us pretty hard, so I’m trying not to go out if I don’t have to.”
“I want to go to the hospital,” Kim said. “I need to see him.”
“Aubrey’s all right,” I said, fumbling with a parking stub and a few loose dollars to pay the charge. “I called the doctors again just before I came out here, and they said—”
“I need to see him,” she said again.
“I don’t think it’s safe.”
“I didn’t ask if it was.”
I clenched my teeth. I didn’t want to go back to the hospital. But she was here because I asked her. Because I needed her.
“Fine,” I said. “But we can’t stay long.”
The hospital was out of our way, and we didn’t talk. The few times I glanced over at her, her eyes were on the city sliding by. I wondered whether I should have told her about my night with Aubrey, whether her story about their marriage would match the one he’d given me. I parked on the street, and Kim was out of the car almost before the engine died. I had to trot to catch up with her.
Aubrey’s room hadn’t changed much since I’d left it. His heart rate was steady and slow. His mumbling roommate still mumbled. Kim stood beside him, looking down with her eyes half closed. Her expression betrayed nothing.
“How long has he been like this?” she asked.
“Since last Saturday,” I said, “so a week tomorrow.”
A nurse came into the room, a strong-looking black woman in her midfifties. I remembered her vaguely from the earlier times I’d been here. She smiled at me, kindness and sympathy in her expression, and started changing out the roommate’s saline drip.
“Excuse me,” Kim said. “Where’s his chart?”
“I’m sorry,” the nurse said, “but we can’t give out his medical information to—”
“I’m his wife. You can give it to me,” Kim said. The nurse looked surprised and glanced at me. I shrugged and nodded. The nurse’s eyebrows rose a millimeter, but she gave no other sign of surprise. Fiancée and wife visiting together was apparently not the strangest thing she’d seen that day.
“I’ll see if I can get the doctor for you,” she said, and went back to her task. I went to look out the window, feeling awkward and out of place. I didn’t see it when the nurse left. Kim didn’t speak to me. I let the silence press on me for as long as I could stand it.
“He’d been in a fight a few days before,” I said. “A rider took over this guy’s body, and we wound up in a fight. Aubrey did something that knocked the bad guy out, but it weakened the connection between him and his body. When Coin fought back, it hit Aubrey really hard. That’s why…”
That’s why he’s hurt and I’m not. That’s why you’re here. That’s why this is all my fault. Kim made a small sound of agreement so perfunctory that I didn’t know whether she was aware of it. She touched Aubrey’s cheek with the detachment of someone preparing for a dissection, then ground the knuckle of her right index finger into Aubrey’s sternum, hard enough to make the bed under him creak.
“Hey!” I said. “What are you doing?”
“Sternal rub.” She nodded to the heart monitor. Fifty-five. “He still responds to pain. That’s very good. It would have been better if he’d flinched, but this is something.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I don’t hurt him for the joy of it,” she said.
I didn’t know how to respond, and a second nurse came in the room to save me. He was a huge man, wide as a horse across the shoulders, with a shaven head and broad lips. He looked at me, his eyes barely widening. I had the sudden, overwhelming memory of the tattooed attackers breaking into Midian’s apartment and the moment of surprise that followed breaking in the door.
I’ve seen him before, I thought, my body already in motion. I scooped up the little plastic visitor’s chair and swung hard. The huge man blocked the attack but fell a step back as I remembered where. He was the one who’d been with Coin that first day when Ex took me to see the warehouse. He was part of the Invisible College.
It was a trap.
“Kim!” I shouted. “Run!”
She was already moving. She slipped over the murmuring man’s bed, putting one of us on either side of the
false nurse. I tried to remember how to use the training Midian and Chogyi Jake had given me while I kicked at the man’s kneecap. He moved fast as a cat, taking the impact on his shin instead. He drew in a deep breath, and I felt a prickling that had nothing to do with the physical as he drew in his willpower.
Kim punched at his back. He staggered, surprise on his face. I shouted as I turned, kicked like something out of a martial arts film, and drove my foot into the bridge of his nose. Something gave, and the huge head snapped back, the man dropping to the floor like we’d Tasered him. Kim unclenched her fists. There was blood where her fingernails had cut into her palm.
“There are probably others,” I said, but she was already heading out the door and I was already following her. The black nurse was heading toward the room, with a look of concern and annoyance. We blew past her. At the intersection of two halls, I paused, drawing my qi up behind my eyes, feeling the shift in my consciousness, and then swept the halls before and behind us. The world had taken on an almost surreal level of detail. I could see the dust hanging in the air, hear the high-pitched whine of the computer monitors harmonizing poorly with the hum of fluorescent lights, smell the corruption and shit under the antiseptic hospital scent, feel my clothes grating against my body. Kim paused, looking back at me. She wore contact lenses. I hadn’t noticed that before. She looked at my eyes, and I could see she understood what I was doing.
“Well?” she asked.
“None here. None that I see.”
“Stairs or elevator?” she asked, gesturing down one of the hallways. A bank of brushed-steel elevators stood at the end of the hall like temple guards, a marked stairwell beside it. The leftmost doors began to open, and I caught a glimpse of tattooed skin.
“Stairs,” I said, “but not the ones down there.”
We ran. I felt things tugging at me, the wizards of the Invisible College pulling at me with their minds, the separation between reality and Next Door thinning. As we dodged angry doctors and confused patients, I tried to keep myself between our pursuers and Kim. I thought that if Eric had put some protections on me, they might shield her too.
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