Silver Bullet

by SM Reine

  Carefully lifting a spoonful of strength potion, I sipped a tiny bit of it.

  While the spoon was still against my lips, magic erupted behind me, like a slap to the back of my head.

  I sneezed.

  Strength potion and snot sprayed against the backsplash. I dropped the spoon and whirled.

  Isobel was standing, frozen, beside her pot. She had been messing with the pot again and now the surrounding stovetop was sparkly crimson. It looked like she had opened fire with a paintball gun.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “I thought I’d try to clean it up,” she said. “I think I might have accidentally discovered what my potion does. It…explodes. Into glitter.”

  Only Isobel could accidentally make a potion that exploded into fucking glitter.

  “Okay. Step away from the kitchen very slowly before you do any more damage,” I said. “I’ll handle cleanup.”

  “What? You want to get rid of it now that we’ve made a glitter potion?”

  I felt a smile tug at the corner of my mouth. “What else would you do with it?”

  “I can think of a few dozen uses,” she said airily. “Maybe I’m not terrible at magic. Maybe I’m a magical genius waiting to be discovered or something.”

  “Or something,” I muttered.

  She assumed a dramatic voice, much like the fake-regal tone she had been using the first time I saw her talk to the dead. “I hereby dub this…a sparklebomb.”

  I felt a muscle in my eyelid twitch. “Sparkle…bomb?”

  “Yep. Sparklebomb.”

  She scooped up another spoonful and lobbed it at me.

  Reflexes kicked in. I stepped aside and the glob of failed potion smacked into the cabinet behind me, spraying glittering gold gunk all over the counter.

  The puff of magic was bigger this time. I sneezed.

  In my moment of weakness, she attacked again.

  This glob hit me square in the chest and exploded over my t-shirt. The spray went up my nose, soaked through to my chest, got in my bangs. I stared down at myself in shock. I was…shiny.

  Isobel clasped her hands over her mouth in silent horror, which quickly dissolved to giggles.

  Her laugh was infectious. A grin spread over my face.

  “This means war,” I said.

  There was a ladle on the counter. I snagged it, scooped up a big ol’ heaping helping of her potion, and hurled it at her.

  Isobel ducked behind the island and it whizzed over her head.

  Then slapped into Fritz’s face.

  The potion caught him coming out of his room, already talking on his BlackBerry. In the long, suspenseful moment before he reacted, my life flashed before my eyes.

  Fritz swiped a hand down his face.

  “What the…?”

  Most of the red color rubbed off, leaving him dusted in golden sparkles. It clung to his eyebrows, his eyelashes. Sort of an unintentional David Bowie look.

  Isobel started laughing first. I didn’t think it was all that funny—losing my job was not exactly chuckle-worthy—but once she started, I couldn’t help but follow suit. Call it panic laughter.

  Fritz whipped an embroidered handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face off. Or at least, he tried. The glitter stubbornly adhered. He took one glance at his shimmering handkerchief and asked, “Teaching Isobel to brew?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. I knew Fritz too well to call him “sir,” but it was probably better safe than sorry. Being on the verge of losing my government benefits made me feel extremely respectful.

  “Obviously you both need training. I’ll make arrangements.” He stuffed his sparkling handkerchief back in his pocket, looking as dignified as possible for a man whose skin shimmered like a pretty unicorn. “The helicopter will be here to take you and Agent Takeuchi to Silverton Mine in ten minutes, Agent Hawke. I suggest you get ready.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I WAITED FOR SUZY on the roof, standing just beyond the reach of the helicopter’s rotors. Fritz had warned her that we were leaving seconds after telling me, so she’d had just as much time to prepare as I had, yet she was nowhere in sight. The pilot had been keeping the engine warm for departure for a while now. He looked impatient.

  Suzy finally emerged ten minutes later, when the cup of coffee I’d brought up for her had already stopped steaming. There were shadows under her eyes and her hair was loose around her shoulders. Didn’t even look like she’d put on any makeup, which made her vaguely resemble the Cryptkeeper. I was smart enough not to share that thought out loud.

  “Good morning, gorgeous,” I said, offering the cup to her. Having grown up with a prickly sister, I was also smart enough to know when a woman needed a compliment.

  She brushed past me and climbed into the helicopter.

  I followed her inside, buckling up and pulling on the headset.

  “Didn’t sleep well?” I asked, speaking through my microphone so she’d hear it on her headset.

  She shook her head and finally took the coffee from me. “Appreciate it,” she said, glancing at my face. She did a double take. I’d taken a five-minute shower and spent the entire five minutes trying to scrub sparklebomb residue off of my chin. It hadn’t worked.

  “Don’t say anything,” I said.

  Suzy didn’t. But she did grin, and I was glad to see it.

  We lifted smoothly into the air. The building fell away from under us, and we were out of town in minutes. Reno wasn’t any nicer to look at from the air. Not like Vegas, which at least had a few impressive features on The Strip and a spectacularly stark desert bordering it.

  As we passed the hills to the north, Fritz’s voice came over the speakers. “You’ll need to use industrial dish soap to get the glitter off, in case you were wondering.”

  I glanced around the helicopter. Nobody else had reacted to that. “Sir?”

  “Can you hear me, Cèsar? You need dish soap to clean your face.”

  “I’ll have to try that when I get back,” I said. “I’m, uh, I’m real sorry about the glitter.”

  “It’s all right. Consider it collateral damage.” Fritz sighed over the headset. “It looked like you were having fun. You both deserve some fun—Belle especially.”

  Well, if that wasn’t an awkward line of conversation I didn’t want to approach with my boss, then I didn’t know what was. I knew that Fritz had feelings for Isobel. In fact, I was pretty sure they had even been involved for a while, but I hadn’t asked details because I really didn’t want to know. It was at the top of the lengthy list of things that were none of my business.

  I couldn’t think of any response that wasn’t ridiculously awkward.

  I finally settled on saying, “I appreciate your offer of additional training.” Oh yeah, look at me being not-awkward. “I’m sure Isobel appreciates it, too.”

  “Not a problem. Let me know if you can think of anything else that would make your job easier. I can obtain virtually anything.”

  That was probably true. The OPA’s tentacular reach was pretty impressive.

  “More extensive training in all matters would be great. You know I never wanted to get into this kind of shit. I’ve got no idea what I’m doing.”

  “I understand you’re going out of your way to help, and your loyalty won’t go unrewarded, Cèsar.” Now we were back on a first-name basis. Not the friendliness I expected after splattering him with magical sparkles. “I’ll arrange for some hands-on time with the Union.”

  That sounded almost as much fun as visiting David Nicholas again. “Thanks. Will hands-on time with the Union include Isobel? She could use it.”

  In much the same way that our team wasn’t officially sanctioned by the OPA, Isobel’s participation wasn’t common knowledge, either. Fritz had told me privately that he thought that keeping her existence a secret would help keep her safe. I agreed wholeheartedly.

  Despite what he’d said, he still dragged Isobel along on this case—as a “consultant,” he’d s
aid. Apparently, his desire to keep her safe wasn’t quite as strong as his desire to keep her within his reach.

  “Do you think she would benefit from what a Union unit could teach her?” Fritz asked.

  I hesitated, weighing the options. “Yeah. I think it would.” She was going to run into demons sooner or later. She needed to know how to handle herself, too.

  “I’ll call in help from a kopis I trust. Someone discreet.” After a moment, he added wistfully, “She reminds me of Emmeline sometimes. My wife.”

  I didn’t know he was married. Possible infidelity? This conversation was a whole onion of layered awkward. “I’ve never met her.”

  “You wouldn’t have, no,” Fritz said.

  “There it is,” Suzy interrupted, bringing a blissful but belated end to our private conversation.

  The helicopter descended, skimming over the sagebrush before settling on a bare patch of dirt. I was all too happy to drop my headphones on the seat and jump out.

  As soon as we were on solid ground, the helicopter took off again. I shielded my eyes from the sun and watched it vanish. My heart dropped as the copter climbed.

  “Aren’t we supposed to have support on this? Where’s the helicopter going?” Suzy asked.

  It took me a second to realize that she was wearing her Bluetooth earpiece, rather than speaking to me. I hadn’t put mine in yet. I fumbled to get it out of my pocket.

  After a beat, she said, “Who does it need to pick up?” And then, “Understood, sir.”

  She ripped off her earpiece and jammed it in her pocket.

  “We’re alone?” I asked, still holding on to my Bluetooth device. I didn’t need to have been privy to that conversation to know that it had been bad. Suzy’s expression said enough.

  “We’re alone.”

  The entrance to Silverton Mine was blocked by a few rotten two by fours and warning signs, blasted to unreadability by the desert wind and sun. I could almost make out words like “danger” and “no admittance.” I ripped the boards away.

  There was no door on the other side—just a tunnel dug into a sagebrush-covered hill, which slanted steeply into the ground. It was too dark inside to see beyond a hundred feet. Every iota of my common sense said we shouldn’t go inside.

  So, of course, I went inside.

  But I drew my gun first. I’m not that much of an idiot.

  “What are the odds that this isn’t a trap?” I asked as I ducked through the hole.

  “Nonexistent,” Suzy said, hanging outside the entrance as if reluctant to follow me. Who could blame her? “Did you dream about him last night?”

  I glanced at her. She had her gun drawn as well. The sun was at her back, making her hair shine with bluish highlights and shadowing her exhausted features.

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “I dreamed about him.”

  We didn’t need to say anything but that. She’d probably dreamed about all the same things I did. The endless darkness and pain. The deep pits of suffering. Suffocation. Hopelessness. Rotting. The kind of things I didn’t want to talk about. Not here, at the mouth of an abandoned mine, not at McDonald’s during rush hour, not on Santa’s fucking lap at Christmas.

  It felt like if I put those nightmares into words, they would become real. No matter where I said it, reality would turn into a molten, hellish pit of fear.

  But it still hung between us, unsaid. Like a third person stalking us into the mines.

  “I feel like I should point out how insane this is,” I said, offering a hand up to Suzy to help her climb into the tunnel. She picked her way down carefully while I steadied her. “We’re paper-pushers. We don’t do this kind of field work.”

  “We do now. Abandoned mines and demon-casinos. This is what our jobs have become.” She jumped the rest of the way down and landed beside me, where the tunnel leveled out a bit. There were worn, twisted mine cart tracks set into the ground underneath us.

  “When I tracked down Black Jack, I had to stay at a Motel 6 for over a month,” I said as we followed the tracks deeper into the mine. The air was still and heavy. It was warmer than it had been on the surface by several degrees. “I thought that was roughing it.”

  “You pussy. I stayed at a Motel 6 for three months during the Half Moon Bay Coven investigation. And I didn’t even land an arrest on that.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re at least…I dunno, twice as rugged as I am. That’s not a big deal for you. You know that most motels don’t even have a freaking gym?”

  “Poor baby,” Suzy said. “I can’t imagine how you survived.”

  Now we were in a dark tunnel with barely a sliver of sunlight to illuminate our path. Fortunately, we’d both brought Maglites. I guided mine over the walls. The tunnel was narrow, barely wide enough for Suzy and me to stand side by side, and huge supports held the ceiling up. The wood was splitting with age and sagging in the center.

  I touched one of them as I passed. The wood felt hard and calcified. It wasn’t quite as precarious as it looked.

  The tunnel opened into a small cave that looked like it had been dug out by hand. The rocks were covered in pickaxe marks, and it was filled with a honeycomb of wood about thirty feet high and fifty feet back. We paused by the entrance, shining our flashlights around. There was some antique trash cluttering the floor. Broken chair, shattered lamp, the handle of some kind of tool I couldn’t identify.

  I didn’t see anything vaguely infernal. Definitely nothing that might clue us into what was happening with the Night Hag.

  “Maybe it’s not a trap,” I said. “Maybe David Nicholas was just playing a practical joke, sending us here.”

  “Maybe. I don’t like it.” She stepped gingerly through the maze of wooden supports, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other.

  I watched our backs as I followed her. The sun was gone now, and the exit looked impossibly dark, kind of like the way that David Nicholas’s office had felt.

  Don’t think about him down here. I pushed the previous night out of my mind.

  There was an old, rusted elevator waiting for us on the opposite side of the room. I nudged it with my foot. It groaned and trembled dangerously.

  “I’m not going down that,” I said.

  “I think we can pull it out of the way,” Suzy said, holstering her gun, jamming the flashlight under her arm. “Grab the other side.”

  Together, we yanked the elevator platform out of the shaft, and I unhooked the chains. Once that was gone, I could see that the distance to the bottom wasn’t very long—just about fifteen feet. I could jump that without a problem. But I was hesitant to try it.

  Once we got down there, we’d have to climb back out again. That would take longer.

  If we needed to run, scaling the wall would take a long time.

  My thoughts got stuck on that point. If we need to run. It was crazy. Irrational. What would we be running from in an empty mine?

  Suzy wasn’t bogged down by crazy thoughts. She was already sitting, swinging her legs over the side, flipping over onto her stomach to lower herself. She dropped to the bottom. “Huh,” she said, shining her flashlight around the other side. “You should see this.”

  Muttering a few choice words about nightmare demons and OPA agents under my breath, I jumped down with Suzy. The air was even warmer at the bottom. Starting to feel kind of like a sauna. It was so quiet that every step and motion was amplified, even as it seemed to be smothered by the rocks around us.

  There were two tunnels branching off from the elevator. Both had divergent mine cart tracks, and both were too long for our Maglites to make much of an impression on the darkness.

  “Split up to search?” Suzy asked.

  I’d watched too many horror movies. No way I’d let Suzy out of my sight down here. “We’ll check them one at a time. Together.”

  “It would be faster to—”

  “Together,” I said firmly.

  Suzy shook her head, but didn’t argue. She headed down the right fork.

  T
he tunnel kept narrowing, not just in width but also in height. My head started brushing the wooden support beams, so I stooped. Started sidling sideways to watch Suzy in front and keep my flashlight going behind us, watching the elevator shaft rapidly disappear.

  It was too quiet. Too tense.

  “Feels kind of like Indiana Jones, don’t you think?” I asked, breaking the silence. “I just need a fedora and a whip.” I mimicked snapping a bullwhip down the tunnel, taking a few quick steps, like I was dodging poisoned darts

  Suzy snorted. “You’re no Harrison Ford.”

  “More like Benjamin Bratt,” I said. “The steamy Latin Indiana Jones.”

  “Steamy,” she echoed, her eyes dancing with silent laughter.

  Hey, I could be steamy. I arched an eyebrow. “Hola, amiga. Donde esta el ancient treasure?” Okay, I didn’t actually speak any Spanish, and my accent sucked. But it got Suzy chuckling.

  It felt good to hear her laugh. That was usually all we did at work on the boring days—find increasingly stupid ways to get the other smiling. Sure, we weren’t in cubeville anymore, but this was still work. No matter how weird it got, it was just a job. Even if we were about a half a mile underground now.

  And totally alone.

  In the dark.

  Don’t think about David Nicholas.

  Suzy’s smile faded too fast. She was distracted.

  “Still thinking about David Nicholas?” I asked, because that was definitely who I was thinking about, no matter how hard I tried not to.

  “No,” she said. “Well, yes, but not just him. I keep thinking about the detention center.”

  I pulled the Bluetooth earpiece out of my pocket to make sure it was turned off. We were probably too far underground for communication, but this wasn’t a conversation for the OPA’s ears. “I know it had to be bad, but…how bad?”

  Suzy’s frown carved lines into her face that aged her a good ten years. “What did they tell you about the Union when you signed up for the OPA?”

  “Fritz said that the Union’s kind of like Special Ops. The demon-hunting Marines. Another department like ours.”