High Steaks (Freelance Familiars Book 3)

by Daniel Potter

  Yet Lansky's voice followed me, snaking through the roar of O'Meara's rocket boots. "We're a... happy... family." The lyrics I had sent into the darkness only faded out once we rose above the street.

  What had we unleashed?

  37

  So That Went Well

  O'Meara tossed me at solid ground as we emerged onto the street. For a moment I just stood there, my mind choked with questions about what had happened down there. A hand swatted my tailbone.

  Get in the van. Figure it out later. O'Meara started sprinting ahead of me towards a black van parked on the side of the street. We had emerged onto a side street between two casinos. The plan had been to meet the Blackwings there in a black van.

  Yet as the door on the van swung open, no Blackwing stepped out. Instead, the spell dog that had guarded the door to Ceres's elevator leveled a pistol at O'Meara's chest and fired. A wall of heat slammed down in front of her. Too slow. Something pierced her breast.

  "Ambush!" Rudy cried as another sting pierced my own shoulder. I blinked at the green dart embedded there.

  38

  Impounded

  "Rise and shine, tawny-tail."

  Light hit me like a hammer to the eyeballs, and I hissed.

  Somebody laughed. "Oh, bit of a hangover, I bet."

  "Wha?" I tried to think but felt as if the local marching band was having a rehearsal in my skull. Instinctively, I reached for O'Meara and found her mind there, grappling for consciousness.

  Someone stood in a doorway, a thin figure framed with blazing light. I blinked, and the figure slowly resolved into Ceres, standing behind iron bars. Served her right for what she did to Grace. Wait; no. I looked at the scene again and found that I was the one behind bars.

  "Ceres... What the hell?" My tongue felt like I'd been licking the underside of a casino barstool.

  "Payback, Mister Thomas." You could coat a blade with the venom in her words.

  On this side of the bars was a cell, all stainless steel, all gleaming sharp enough to cut your eyes. I lay on a bench opposite the familiar body of O'Meara. Her hand was slapped over her eyes, and she was looking at Ceres through a crack in her fingers.

  "Payback?" I sputtered, trying to struggle up to a sitting position.

  "You ruined Grace. Absolutely ruined the poor girl." She shook her head, as if it was my fault.

  "Ceres, I hate to interrupt a good gloating, but I'm really not sure what you're talking about. Grace hired me to teach her about how familiars worked. That's what I did." I slipped onto the cold metal flooring and nosed O'Meara.

  I'm here, she responded. Keep her talking while I get my head put back together. Ow.

  Even with both of our heads pounding, it helped to mentally commiserate about the pain as I opened myself to magic. The entire cell sported wards - unsurprisingly. Dim ones, nothing that would prove much of a barrier to O'Meara, but they'd definitely set off alarms.

  "Yes, and you also bonded her to a cow. Now she's refusing to come home!" Her voice cracked, exposing the raw hysteria underneath the anger.

  "Okay." I held up a paw. "First, she's bonded with a fey chain. Easy and mostly nontraumatic to break... particularly with my help."

  Ceres's eyes narrowed. "And you thought you could do that behind my fucking back? Without my permission?"

  "Honestly, yes. Without your permission was the point. Grace thought you'd be proud of her backstabbing you, apparently."

  Ceres blew air out her nose. It whistled. "Proud? I've put four years of work into that girl, and she's thanking me by running away! She was going to be a great magus, but now she's bonded to a cow. Do you have any idea how that will look? How that will reflect on me as a mentor?"

  O'Meara sat up, "Ashes and fire, woman..." She groaned, massaging her temples. "Everyone has trouble with headstrong apprentices. Nobody will care."

  "I care. She was perfectly behaved before I made the mistake of hiring you - and then you thank me by inciting this rebellion!"

  Sucking in breath through her teeth, O'Meara stood up. Something in her stare made Ceres take a half step back. "Ach!" O'Meara nearly spat. "Don't you dare put your nose in the air in front of us. You've got no right! Your word is mud, breaking your contract because Death's dangling something shiny. You're nothing but craven filth. Grace has a good heart, and you're lucky that her first act of rebellion was to simply run off and not to put a dagger in your back."

  A tremble of rage spread through Ceres's features, which she mastered with visible effort. "Politics are politics. In the end, this will be a good lesson for my Grace."

  "Then I think you have a problem, Ceres. We are technically under Death's protection until the game. You violated his edict, and not in a plausibly deniable way. You've disrupted our prep, and that will cost you the right to hunt us," I said.

  Ceres's lips pressed into a thin, snakelike smile. "Oh? Is it my fault you two drank your brains to oblivion and I was forced to put you in this deluxe suite to sleep it off?" Her fingers traced down one of the iron bars. "You're welcome to inform Death of my hospitality if you wish - after the festivities. To do so beforehand will result in a prickly situation for your little friend with the big mouth." Ceres reached to the side of the door and pulled back holding the sort of clear plastic tank you keep a hermit crab in, except this one contained a very angry Rudy. He banged his tiny fists against the plastic, and his mouth moved, but I heard nothing. Voice spells give us speech, but lip-reading isn't possible. Several wards encased the tank.

  The anger I'd been holding back raged. "Let him go!" I snarled, dropping down into a combat crouch. Behind me, O'Meara drew in so much power that my fur nearly burst into flames.

  Ceres held up a single finger, waving it from side to side. "The wards will deactivate once the hunt begins at the MGM Grand. I'm sure he's very important to whatever little plan you thought you had to survive the hunt."

  Wheels started to spin in my mind.

  How long were we out? O'Meara's thought echoed my own. Anger surged through the link as heat poured into her fists.

  A lash of kinetic force lashed out from Ceres's little finger and struck O'Meara across the face, knocking her to the floor. O'Meara grunted with the impact. "I'm going to make you pay for that."

  "Save it for Death's little show, O'Meara," Ceres said as I stepped sideways to guard my bond from another attack. I hadn't even seen the focus it had originated from. "Your cougar's got Death's protection, but not you or the rodent. So listen. I'm going to open this door. Down the hall to the left is your gear, unharmed. Nice finding the spell ripper, by the way. I'd never seen one before. Then you take the elevator up to the garage. A limo will be waiting for you. It will take you to the MGM Grand. You will make your way to the inner casino, and there I will give you Mr. Fluffy-tail here."

  "I need to swing by my office to grab some additional gear," I said.

  "So you can run off to Kansas or some other forsaken nowhere? No. You are going to Death's gauntlet, where I will kill you and get Ghenna's black book."

  "You're giving me such a persuasive argument to cooperate," I growled, feeling O'Meara push herself up onto her feet behind me. I could taste the bile in the back of her throat and mine.

  Can we take her? I asked O'Meara.

  Not without her hurting Rudy. She was looking through my eyes; hers were still blurry from the drugs.

  "You took my apprentice, I'm taking any hope you have of weaseling out of this. It was business, now it's personal. We'll see you there." She waggled the boxed Rudy and stepped off to the side, out of view. The wards of the cell prevented me from tracking her aura.

  After a moment, the cell unlocked. O'Meara and I found our gear, minus the bag of tass. Our thoughts were grim. We'd lost nearly twenty hours of time and the chance to burn out Ceres's power source.

  We still have the head start, O'Meara thought. A full hour, plenty of time to get to the office and grab the battle harness.

  And I still have about sixty groat worth
of tass in my other place. We can power the spell ripper. That will be worth a few surprises, at least.

  Her arms encircled my neck, and I drank her scent. The burnt cinnamon smelled like home. We planned to stand and fight, but we still had enough tricks to run.

  We parted. All right, let's give them a show to remember me by.

  Us by. There won't be an eighth familiar for me.

  Well, I suppose if we count all the bonding and rebonding, you're going to be up to the hundreds before too long.

  There was a flash of jealousy in her mind, but she stomped it back down and let her fingers play over my ears. A number outpaced only by the number of times I've had to drag you out of a frying pan.

  At least when I'm bonded to you, I could probably take a nap in one of those. I gave her a rough lick on the cheek and nearly busted my ribs as the squeeze increased. Then we took an elevator down to a limo.

  Death awaited.

  39

  A Death

  The floor was eerily silent as O'Meara and I stepped out of the grand doorway. No pinging of the slot machines nor bustle of humanity stirred. Over two hundred pairs of eyes of a great assortment of colors and sizes stared at us. Of the visible faces, many wore the smirk of victory as tass flowed to them from more dour individuals as we strode down the aisle towards the circular clearing in the center of the room.

  I spotted Ceres and Doug midway there. She had traded in her business attire for black combat fatigues. Doug wore his collar and his spots. Both appeared to radiate smugness like heat off the Vegas blacktop. A goon carrying Rudy stood near her. O'Meara and I stepped down the stairway and beelined through the crowd, which parted with loud murmurs and quiet rustling.

  Ceres smiled as she stepped out in front of her entourage, a kinetic ward flashing around her skin. Striking her now would be like hitting solid steel. A finger raised toward us, tick-tocking from side to side, as her mouth opened to begin a new set of humiliating negotiations.

  We did not stop. We did not pause. O'Meara walked forward with her hand outstretched in the universal gesture of an oncoming handshake. Ceres faltered, confusion flashing over her chiseled features. O'Meara's hand swept upward, seizing Ceres's spindly wrist and twisting - the force well under that needed to trigger the ward, but Ceres gasped in pain all the same as O'Meara drove her to her knees.

  The goon went for his gun. O'Meara drove a fist into his gut as we unleashed a spell from my mouth. It drove a spike of almost pure tass into the wards holding Rudy. The spell blossomed as the trap went off. Lethal ice spiked through the chamber, only to hiss to vapor. O'Meara was bad at creating cold, but she certainly knew how to defend against it.

  I heard a whoosh right before the world flashed. One of the new wards we had woven on the way over had triggered. Doug arced away from me, his paws trailing whips of smoke. His form blurred as his back impacted the floor, righting himself. I only caught the flash of his teeth before a wave of energy slammed down on top of him, driving him to his knees.

  "Save it for the main event!" a voice boomed out over the room.

  "Don't think for one second this will be easy, girlie," O'Meara hissed in Ceres's ear before letting her go.

  Rudy leapt free of his prison and landed on my shoulders. "They damseled me! Charred cashews! They damseled ME!" He stamped on my back so hard that it actually stung. "Where's my gear? Where's the battle harness?" The squirrel vibrated with fury. I needed no telepathic connection to know murder was on his mind.

  "Save it for the ring," I whispered, hoping Rudy wouldn't try anything Rudy-like. Not that the squirrel had the market on rage cornered at that moment. Doug and Ceres were glaring in a manner that could erupt into optic blasts in a heartbeat. Hopefully, they were so angry they'd smack heads with Lansky and Feather. If we could get them fighting before my head got separated from my body, we might have a shot at this. I flashed them a grin and turned toward the center ring.

  "Where's the battle harness?" Rudy hissed as he dug into my harness.

  "Back at the shop, along with most of the bombs. They didn't let us go back for it," I whispered back as I took my sweet time getting up into the ring.

  "Crushed walnut in a vise. I'm no good here, then! I'll head back to the office and get the gear. Don't touch ol' spot before I get back; he's mine," he said.

  How is he going to get out of this room? O'Meara wondered. I attempted to ask, but Rudy had already flung himself off and bounded into the crowd.

  He's got his phone, he'll probably get a Lyft, I thought back as we stepped to the edge of the circle. Nothing magical appeared to be lurking within it; simply a large, round red spot in the center of the room, forty feet in diameter. Feather and Lansky stood on the opposite side, perfectly still. Feather's eyes rested on me, her ears half turned down, her jaw set in grim determination - no doubt angry we had smashed her boss's beloved pet project. Lansky, on the other hand, had a huge smile that distorted his thin face. He rocked back and forth on his heels, eyes in constant motion, irises rimmed with red. They flicked over the assembled magi, everywhere but O'Meara and me.

  "You're here!" Death's voice boomed. I swiveled my head to find him sitting on his throne, swirling something in a martini glass. "That's the first pool of the night resolved." As he pushed himself up from his seat, I spotted the white head of Snits poking out from Death's glittering jacket. He scanned his eyes over the crowd, seemingly drinking in his own self-importance before slowly walking down towards the circle. The eyes of those near him watched with wariness. "There were rumors that your fur had turned yellow, little cat."

  Self-important bastard, O'Meara seethed next to me. He's smelling the tass from all these bets.

  Stay calm. He's not the enemy. Save it for Lansky and Ceres, I urged as I tasted the air, picking up the scent of Blackwings in the crowd and thanking unseen deities that we were not completely without friends. Stepping out onto the circle, I regarded Death with all the casual confidence a cat my size can muster. "You think this is funny, Magus Death? Making folks dance to your tune? Don't you worry that they'll all get sick of it one day?"

  Death laughed, shaking his broad frame. The crowd shifted uneasily as he continued to laugh for a long moment. Then abruptly he stopped, taking off his shades to look down at me with hard eyes. Something seemed to spark in the darkness of his pupils. "Nothing funny about dying, Thomas, but irony is delicious."

  "The irony?"

  Death placed his shades in his jacket pocket. "Thomas Khatt, when you were a man, you were white as a sheet, were you not?"

  I blinked. "Well, yes. But I don't see what that has to do with anything."

  "Oh, I think it has so much to do with the reason you are standing before me now. You awakened to find yourself down a peg on the hierarchy. Minus a smidgen of control. You got the king instead of the ace. Despite the fact that you'd be paired with a powerful partner and would be the envy of so many of your peers, you don't see that. All you see is that small loss of independence." He held up two fingers and showed a tiny gap between them. "Depending on who you got paired with, you might have become the dominant part of the pairing. There are several magi I know in this room who let their familiars drive more often than not."

  I growled. "You have no right to dictate what I do or not!"

  "Right?" he sneered. "Rights given by a two-faced government that declares equality for men. Would you like to see the scars on my back, given to me by a man employed by that government?" A savage grin split his face. "And I was a lucky one. I survived."

  The magi crowding the circle stepped back, all except Lansky and Feather. Feather's eyes were on me, calculating. Her magus, however, had focused on Death.

  "The mundane world isn't perfect. But at least it tries to be fair. It's better than your time in it. People try to make it better," I said, my mind scrambling to figure out where the hell this was going.

  "The mundane world is not more just, it is simply less honest. We with power do what we will, and those without must
make adjustments to our whims. If you're too stubborn to get out of our way, then your tail is liable to get stepped on." He stepped into the ring, grinning with triumph.

  "What do you know of the mundane world? You haven't walked its streets in over a hundred years!" I growled back.

  His eyes bored down into me. "I know enough. You're not unique. A man content to waffle away his life undergoes an awakening but winds up with paws instead of power. Suddenly, you're second class, no longer in control of your life entirely. That won't do. So you challenge everything, no matter what the cost, fighting tooth and nail. Usually the TAU reins in upstarts like you, or you fall to the dregs of society. But you. You got lucky. You met a dragon, and it gave you a few tricks. Tonight, your luck runs out."

  I found myself shaking, back hunched like an angry house cat. What he said wasn't true. That couldn't be the reason, not entirely. Right? Still, a part of me whispered: What if he's right? Could I simply be running on resentment? That tiny whisper threatened to swallow me whole.

  Warmth blossomed through the link. O'Meara placed a booted foot on my doubts. No, he's wrong. If it was simply about status, you never would have challenged me about killing that police officer. You never would have turned on House Technomagi. The awakening changed you and your place in the world. It's what an awakening does.

  Thank you, I thought, mentally embracing O'Meara as I pulled the tension from my body, burying it deep in my heart. My fur smoothed, my claws retracted. I didn't look at Death; I scanned the crowd. I didn't see much sympathy there, but I did see fear. Fear of what? I wondered.

  Lansky hadn't moved, but his eyes were fixed on Death, hatred and hunger in equal measure. That struck me as odd. We'd been the ones who smashed his vault. Yet he hadn't even glanced at me. Feather had crossed in front of him, leaning up against his knees as if she were holding him back.