Cloak Games: Shadow Jump

by Jonathan Moeller

  Besides, Lucy would kill me if she caught me smoking.

  I got up before dawn and headed out in search of Armand Boccand, Morvilind’s compass mounted on the dashboard of my Royal Motors Caravanserai van.

  ###

  I had a plan. I didn’t know if it was a good plan or not, but I would find out soon enough.

  As I drove across Wisconsin, the needle pointed to the northwest, shifting a little from time to time. I suspected that Lord Morvilind was right, that Boccand was in the Twin Cities area. My suspicions were confirmed after I drove through Eau Claire and the compass’s needle shifted due west. It still quivered, but the Twin Cities were nearly due west from Eau Claire.

  The shifts in the needle’s direction were probably caused by Boccand moving around the Twin Cities. Likely he was going shopping or stealing things or whatever. As I got closer to him, the needle’s swings would grow more dramatic, and I could use it to narrow down his position.

  And then once I found him…

  I hadn’t decided what to do. I suppose I ought to find a way to get him alone somewhere so I could cast the Seal of Shadows upon him. Of course, I had to make sure that he didn’t see me. The minute he saw me he would realize that I was after him, and he would shadowjump away. I had one chance to surprise him, and I didn’t dare waste it.

  I finally reached the Twin Cities in the early afternoon. I saw political billboards everywhere I drove, most of them for a smiling blond man named Martin something-or-other. The governor of Minnesota had died unexpectedly last month, and so an emergency election had been scheduled for February. I didn’t care. I had almost as much contempt for human politicians as I did for Rebels.

  I got on one of the freeways that encircled both St. Paul and Minneapolis itself. As I did, the compass needle started to turn, always pointing more or less towards downtown Minneapolis.

  A text message pinged on one of my phones, and I looked at it and grinned.

  Riordan was in Minneapolis, and wanted to have dinner with me.

  He couldn’t help me with this…but he could give advice. He had a lot of experience finding people who didn’t want to be found.

  After all, he had found me, and I was very good at hiding.

  ###

  This time we didn’t go to Sergeant Tom’s Shooting Range And Firearm Emporium, so I got, as Lucy would have put it, “all dolled up.”

  I rented motel room under a false name in Apple Valley, though the expense annoyed me. I had spent a lot of money setting for my failed attempt to steal the tablet, and chasing Boccand was going to cost me even more. If I didn’t find a new source of funds soon, I was going to run into money troubles.

  Maybe I could help myself to some of Boccand’s money when I found him.

  I dressed up – tight black dress, jewelry, high heels, and I even did my hair and makeup and nails. I wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe after hiding in the duct, dreading what Morvilind would do to me, I wanted to have some fun. Maybe I wanted to see Riordan staring at me. Maybe I wanted to do something that didn’t involve desperately trying to save my life or Russell’s life.

  Or maybe it was the dress code.

  Because we went to a restaurant overlooking the Mississippi River in downtown St. Paul, and it had a strict dress code. It had been a mill in pre-Conquest days, but some enterprising fellow had converted it to a restaurant. High windows overlooked the river, its rippling surface reflecting the city’s lights. A flood control dam crossed the river nearby, and waterfalls cascaded down it. Someone had installed blue lighting beneath the waterfalls, making them look eerie and ethereal and beautiful. There was a terrace overlooking the river, but it was twenty degrees outside and snowing, so it was just as well that we were inside.

  Riordan and I sat at a table with crisp white linen and gleaming silverware. The lighting was dim and subdued, which I suppose made me look good. It certainly made Riordan look good. I’ve mentioned before that he filled out a suit well, and he certainly did tonight. The dim light cast faint shadows on the hard planes of his face and his tousled brown hair. I had thought my attraction to him came from the influence of his Shadowmorph, but the bald truth was that I just found him attractive.

  “I just want to be clear,” I said, after I had seen the menu. “You’re paying for all this.”

  He smiled a little. “Somewhat more formal than you usually dine?”

  “Little bit,” I said.

  “Is your usual meal a can of beans in the back of your van?” he said.

  “Of course not,” I said. “Canned beans have too much sodium. I prefer unsalted peanuts, and I’ll make fruit and vegetable smoothies. Excellent road food. That, and a gallon or two of coffee.” I frowned at the menu. “Do you think they have coffee here?”

  As it turned out, they did. It was excellent coffee, too, strong and black, and the waiter didn’t even blink when I refused cream or sugar.

  “I need to ask you something,” I said.

  “About the price of the meal?” said Riordan. “That’s very gauche.”

  “Something serious,” I said.

  He watched me for a moment. I was sure he was just attracted to me as I was to him. I had seen him watching me as I got out of the car, his eyes flicking up and down over me whenever I turned. Yet he didn’t completely trust me, and I didn’t completely trust him. It wasn’t anything either of us had done. It was simply the weight of our experiences. I knew he had been betrayed by a woman in the past. And as for me…the last time I had given my heart (and my body, to be blunt about it) to a man, he had planned to use me in a plot to kill tens of thousands of people.

  Riordan kept staring at me, and I thought I saw the ghost of old wariness there.

  “It’s important,” I said in a quiet voice. “I wouldn’t bring it up otherwise.”

  “All right,” said Riordan. “I’ll answer if I can. You know there are some things I cannot tell you.”

  I nodded. “Me, too.”

  “What do you want to ask?” said Riordan.

  “How did you find me?” I said.

  Riordan blinked. “Today, you mean?”

  “No,” I said. “After we met for the first time at that Conquest Day party.”

  “Ah.” He glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “I didn’t follow you after I taught you the lightning spell, if that’s what you mean. I suspected I wouldn’t see you again after that.” He shrugged. “Then the Firstborn told me to find you. Truth be told, I was a little annoyed…”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Because you would have to see me again?”

  He snorted. “Because I would have to go to all the work of tracking you down. It would have been helpful if the Firstborn had told me that while I still knew where you were.”

  I laughed. “I understand that. Go on.”

  “We knew the anthrophages would be after you,” said Riordan. “You had irritated the Dark Ones…”

  “So had you,” I pointed out.

  “I’ve been irritating the Dark Ones since before you were born,” said Riordan, “and the Family is…something of a hard target, let us say. A known threat. You, though, you were a new threat, and without any allies. An easier target. We knew the anthrophages would come for you, and Nora and I started tracking the movement of anthrophage packs across the Shadowlands.” He shrugged. “I was surprised that you actually lived in Milwaukee. I didn’t think you would be reckless enough to undertake a job in the same city where you lived.”

  “I’m not,” I said. My mouth twisted. “My employer feels differently.”

  “Yes, your employer,” said Riordan. He hated Morvilind as much as I did…but was still smart enough not to use Kaethran Morvilind’s name in public. “Anyway, we followed an anthrophage pack into Milwaukee as the Archons attacked. The anthrophages didn’t care, and we trailed them to the medical college. You know the rest.”

  “Yes,” I said. The anthrophages would have killed me and Russell if Riordan and Nora hadn’t shown up in time.
A sudden wave of affection went through me, and I reached under the table and squeezed his hand. “Thank you.”

  Riordan inclined his head. “You are welcome.”

  The moment stretched on, my heart starting to speed up.

  Riordan cleared his throat. “As long as you’re reaching for things under the table…”

  I laughed. “Don’t be gross.” I squeezed his hand once more and withdrew my grip.

  He raised his eyebrows. “What did you think I was talking about?”

  I rolled my eyes. “How you found me.”

  “And you need to find someone,” said Riordan, “don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He frowned. “Your employer asked it of you.”

  “The job I was on last week,” I said. “It went bad. Someone else took the target before I could get it. He has the same kind of skills as I do, and he vanished. My employer wants me to find him and get back the item he took.”

  “I see,” said Riordan. “Do you have a name?”

  “Armand Boccand,” I said, watching his reaction.

  “I’ve never heard the name,” he said. “Sorry.”

  That was too bad. If the Shadow Hunters had a writ for Boccand’s death, I would have needed only to point Riordan in his direction. Of course, knowing the Shadow Hunters, they might have killed Boccand before I could have gotten the location of the tablet out of him.

  “That’s all right,” I said.

  “I could put in a call to the Family,” said Riordan. “See if they know anything.”

  “This is my problem, not yours,” I said. “But…I would like your advice. I suspect you have a little practice tracking down people who don’t want to be found.”

  His mouth twitched. “A little.”

  “So what would you do?”

  “First,” said Riordan, “I’d need to figure out where he lived. What state, what city…”

  “Minneapolis,” I said. “I have a compass that points to him.”

  Riordan burst out laughing.

  “What?” I said, annoyed.

  “You have a magic compass that points to your target?” said Riordan. “There are times I would have given my right hand for something like that.”

  Okay. He did have a point. The compass was a huge advantage.

  “There’s a problem,” I said. “The compass only works because he can cast the shadowjump spell.”

  He stopped laughing. “That’s more serious.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Have you ever dealt with a wizard who can shadowjump?”

  “Once,” said Riordan. “It took us the better part of fifteen years to track him down.” He considered. “I suppose it would be an extremely useful spell for a thief.”

  “Fifteen?” I said. “Jesus. I mean…damn.” Riordan believed in both God and Jesus (I suspected that was why the Marneys approved of him, despite his profession), and he never liked to hear either name taken in vain. “I don’t have fifteen years.”

  “No,” said Riordan. “There is a method for restraining a wizard capable of shadowjumping…”

  “The Seal of Shadows,” I said.

  Riordan nodded. “At least your employer had the foresight to teach the spell to you.”

  “So what should I do?” I said.

  Riordan considered for a moment, frowning as he stared into the distance. He took a few sips of his coffee, and I followed his example, letting him think. It really was excellent coffee.

  “Scare him,” he said at last.

  “I’m sorry?” I said.

  “You’ll only have one chance to take him,” said Riordan. “Otherwise he can shadowjump away. Shadowjumping wizards usually have an anchor, an enchanted object they can use to target their jumps more accurately. Boccand must have one in Minneapolis if he’s spending so much time here. If he gets any hint that you’re chasing him, he’ll pack up, take his anchor, and go somewhere else.”

  “So what is the point of scaring him?” I said.

  Riordan leaned forward a little. “If I was you, this is what I would do.”

  I didn’t like anyone telling me what to do – I got enough of that from Morvilind – but Riordan knew his business. And it wasn’t like he was ordering me around. I had asked him for advice.

  “Follow him,” said Riordan. “Get to know his routine, his favorite haunts. Once you do, arrange an accident. Something to scare him, something that will force him to shadowjump to his anchor. His anchor is probably in his residence or his safe house, and if you’re fast enough, you can track him down. Then you can lay a trap for him wherever he’s hidden his anchor.”

  I nodded. “That seems like a good plan.”

  “And once you’ve trapped him,” said Riordan, “how will you get him to tell you where the object is?”

  I shrugged. “I’ll ask nicely.”

  “Are you going to kill him?” said Riordan.

  I was silent for a while.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  Riordan didn’t say anything.

  “You know I’m a killer,” I said. “I’ve killed people in cold blood, and I can do it again.” I remembered Sergei Rogomil lying bleeding upon the floor of that mall, his eyes flooding with terror as I pointed the gun at his head.

  “I am hardly qualified to lecture on it,” said Riordan. “You will do as you think best. But…only kill him if he deserves it.”

  “He deserves it,” I said, harsher than I intended. He would have let me take the blame for his theft, would have let me die so he could escape. And if I died, Russell would die as well. Once I had gotten what I needed from him, I had absolutely no qualms about killing Armand Boccand, or at least leaving him to die.

  None whatsoever.

  And yet…

  I remembered a weeping woman trapped in the Shadowlands with me, certain that she was about to die and would never see her husband again. Alexandra Ross had been nothing but helpful to me, and yet I had almost killed her because she was slowing down my escape. I had almost murdered her in cold blood for no good reason…and even now, I still felt sick to my stomach when I thought about it. I mean, I had killed Sergei Rogomil because he had murdered innocent people in pursuit of his goals…and I had almost done the exact same thing.

  That thought kept me up sometimes.

  Look, I’ve said it before. I’m not a good person, not remotely. Morvilind made me what I am. But I can at least try not to become an actively worse one.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said at last. “Though I’m getting ahead of myself. Can’t kill him if I can’t find him.”

  “I can help you with that,” said Riordan, “if you wish it.”

  I frowned. “This isn’t your problem.”

  “No,” said Riordan. “Nor is it a problem of the Family. But I do not have to depart Minneapolis for another two days. My time is my own until then…and I am at liberty to do as I please. If that includes helping you, why not?”

  I didn’t want to drag him into this, and his hatred of Morvilind might cause him to do something rash. On the other hand, I had never known him to take a risk without a good reason. To be honest, I would have liked to spend more time with him. There were not many opportunities for it – Morvilind kept me busy, and so did Riordan’s duties for the Shadow Hunters.

  So…why not?

  “All right,” I said. “We’ll try and hunt down a thief together. We should probably finish dinner first, though.”

  “I agree completely,” said Riordan. “Especially since you are making me pay for the food.”

  I did laugh at that.

  ###

  The next morning I drove my van through the surface streets of downtown Minneapolis while Riordan sat in the passenger’s seat, making notes as he watched the compass attached to the dashboard. We had changed to more sensible clothes – jeans and boots and heavy jackets to ward off the chill of a Minnesota December.

  Driving in downtown Minneapolis at this time of day was a pain. The narrow streets b
etween the skyscrapers were crowded with traffic, and pedestrians had an irritating habit of ignoring the crosswalks and darting into the street. The dusting of snow had made the road slippery, and while a Royal Motors Caravanserai van had many virtues, a tight turning radius was not one of them.

  Nevertheless, we made progress. Riordan had met me at my hotel a few hours ago, and we had been driving in circles throughout downtown Minneapolis ever since, drawing a tighter and tighter circle.

  We were closing in on Armand Boccand.

  Evidently Boccand had expensive tastes, because we were driving through the most expensive neighborhood of downtown Minneapolis. I saw a lot of fancy restaurants and boutique shops and towers of overpriced condominiums. Many wealthy people lived here, and several rural Elven nobles maintained residences in the condo towers. There was a tacky billboard for that blond politician attached to one of the condo towers, but other than that, everything looked expensive.

  It was an odd sort of place for a magic-using human thief to hide. Either Boccand was wealthy enough that he could buy all the security he wanted, or he was reckless. If I had the kind of power and wealth that let me live here, I wouldn’t. I would prefer to keep it hidden and out of sight, and live quietly in someplace like Montana or Wyoming.

  I turned another corner and found traffic backed up for several blocks. Not surprising – this street led to the onramp for Interstate 35W, and it was always clogged at this time of day. We would be sitting here for a while. I leaned back with a sigh, plucked my coffee mug from the holder, and took a long drink.

  “That was good,” said Riordan, still watching the compass.

  “Hmm?” I said.

  “The smoothie,” said Riordan. I had given him one of the smoothies stored in the cooler in the back of the van. “Better than I expected. It was an unappealing color.”

  “Oh, that’s from the protein powder,” I said. Riordan was something of a health food nut, a trait we had in common. I had picked up that habit from the men Morvilind had hired to train me as a thief, from the exercises they had drilled into me. I had gotten the rest of it from Lucy Marney, who guarded James and Russell from the dangers of salt, sugar, starch, and simple carbohydrates, much to their dismay. “The trick is to mix in some chopped pineapple. Not a lot, enough. Makes it taste much better.”