Desert Devil (Old School Book 5)

by Jenny Schwartz

So they’d be the supply sergeants.

  “We need weapons,” he said.

  “And food,” Donna interjected. “And I need clothes.”

  Austin’s wired battle-readiness dialed back a notch. “We need to hit the shops.”

  “Separate cities,” Darius said. “And Rest, you don’t show your face.”

  Rest understood. He was the one on the metaphorical wanted poster. But the thought of Donna shopping alone chilled his blood.

  “Drop me somewhere near a big-box store and I’ll be fine. In and out in twenty minutes. Let me just grab my purse. I’ve got cash.”

  “I might need to borrow some money,” Austin said as she went to retrieve her purse.

  “My problem, so I’ll pay for the weapons,” Rest said. And before his friends could argue. “I can afford it. Courier, remember.” He pushed aside the sofa and lifted the floorboards away from the safe he’d installed beneath them.

  “Sweet.” Austin riffled the stack of bills Rest gave him.

  Donna returned, and they coordinated locations and times.

  The last sound Rest heard as he stepped into the portal was Darius’s sigh of relief that they were going and he’d have some peace in which to work. Rest grinned.

  He wasn’t smiling when Donna returned from her successful and swift shopping expedition, and shuffled through her many bags to present two to Darius. “I’m guessing your kidnappers didn’t provide clothes.”

  Darius stared at her, stunned.

  She put the bags on the floor by the sofa. “You can pay me back later. Hopefully, they fit.”

  As if he couldn’t help himself, Darius peered into the bags.

  Rest glimpsed their contents, too: t-shirts, cargo pants, briefs. “How did you guess his size?” Objectively, briefs were just another type of clothing. But Rest found he didn’t like the thought of Donna buying them for Darius. Nor that she’d considered his size.

  “I erred on the side of too big if I wasn’t sure. Do you have scissors?” she asked Rest. “I need to cut off tags and put everything through the wash. Actually, I’ll do yours at the same time.” She reclaimed Darius’s shopping bags. “Scissors?”

  Rest stomped into the kitchen, found a pair of scissors in the junk drawer, and passed them to her.

  She sat down at the table and began snipping off price tags. It was disconcertingly prosaic. “Is Gabe still talking to his uncle?”

  “No. I took him through to help Austin buy our gear.”

  “Did his uncle say anything useful?” Snip, snip. She muttered as she missed a snipped tag and it fell to the floor. She bent to retrieve it, leaving one hand on the table to prevent a pair of men’s black briefs from falling from the pile of clothing.

  Rest gripped the back of a chair. “Bo knows Paul Webb.”

  She straightened with the price tag in her hand. “As in…?”

  “Here, I’ll finish that.” He sat and picked up the scissors, tugging the black briefs from under her hand.

  She stared at him like he was a bit loco, then sat back in her chair. “Okay. So, Paul Webb?”

  “Bo says he’s another fixer like him, an agent.”

  “Bo’s competition. Huh.” She fell silent, evidently thinking.

  Rest kept snipping price tags.

  “One more bag.” She upended the contents on the table: bras and panties.

  He froze. Then he lifted his gaze slowly to her face.

  She was smiling, daring him. She held out her hand. “Scissors.”

  He picked up a bra and snipped the price tag off. When he glanced back at her, her smile had vanished. Small scraps of cotton sure had an impact. His fingers felt clumsy as he picked up the next bra and found its price tag.

  Donna cleared her throat. “What did Bo say about Paul Webb?”

  “That he’s arrogant. Bo keeps such a low profile, no one knows his real name or where to find him. Paul Webb prefers to trade on his reputation and mixes with the powerful.”

  “An ideal ally for a lobbyist.” She began sorting the de-tagged clothes.

  Rest remembered her mom doing that. The light colored clothes went in one pile. The dark colors in another. “Webb takes risks. Being the middleman who convinces a general to sell out his unit could have massively backfired on him.”

  “The other way to look at it is that he’s exceptionally good at assessing risk. He identified General Olafur’s weak points and struck.” She gathered up the light colored clothes and headed for the laundry.

  “She’s right,” Darius said quietly from the doorway. “Paul Webb is a brilliantly manipulative bastard. If he’s the one who had me kidnapped and left that note for you, you need to keep your conversation with him short when you phone him.”

  Given the short time he’d had to investigate Paul Webb, Darius’s conclusion was damning. He must have found some scary evidence.

  “I’ll brief everyone when you’ve fetched Austin and Gabe.” He returned to the living room.

  Rest checked the time. There were still seven minutes till he was scheduled to collect Austin and Gabe, and whatever weapons they’d acquired. He gathered up the dark clothing and carried it to the laundry room, meeting Donna in the doorway.

  The old washing machine’s loud rattles and whirs echoed in the small space. He dropped the clothes on the floor by the machine.

  She smiled at him. “I found your peg basket.” She waved it in the air. “I haven’t hung clothes on a line in years.”

  He was suddenly aware of how old and worn the ranch house was. He’d focused so intently on the new house, scheduling this one for demolition, that he hadn’t thought of how poor it had to seem to her.

  “Rest?” Her smiled died. She tried to resurrect it. “I guess you’re used to how good sun-dried clothes smell. I noticed it with your bedsheets, too.” She put the peg basket down. “It’s not important.”

  It was, though. She was trying to be normal and helpful, and he was…unsettled to have her in his home.

  “I need to collect Austin and Gabe.”

  “Okay.” She started picking up the clothes he’d dumped on the floor, fussing in a way that suggested the activity was a way to remove her focus from him.

  He rubbed the back of his neck, annoyed at his own behavior, and opened a portal, stepping into the reassuring normality of the Path. Well, it was normal to him. Distance was different in the Path. Sometimes places that were geographically close could be at extreme ends of the Path. It had its own logic; one that couriers were still trying to learn. Rest operated on instinct and stayed alert.

  He pulled a faintly indigo thread and opened a portal to the side of the hunting store.

  Austin and Gabe were waiting. The trick to using a portal in a public space was to be quick. His friends weren’t waiting outside. They’d bought the weapons, but were pretending some sort of delay at the exit. Austin was on a burner phone. The phone wouldn’t actually be on. He’d be faking a call; giving them a reason to linger.

  At the sight of Rest, Austin ended the fake call, Gabe picked up the crate at his feet, and the two men walked out. As they reached him, he turned to walk with them, putting a hand on either of their shoulders. With their next steps, they were through the portal and walking the Path home. The golden thread for the ranch glowed in the distance.

  Donna stood for a moment with her arms full of new clothes and simply stared at where Rest had vanished. His use of portals was a lot more casual than her dad’s. Tony Keats believed in formality and protocol, insisting that those he couriered understood how special the mode of travel was. Even when he’d been taking her back to school after an evening at home, he’d only ever opened a portal from his study. When his couriering was official, he used a room within the Pentagon to open his portals.

  However, Rest seemed to step in and out of portals as readily as other people used their cars.

  She wondered if it was a personality quirk or a matter of different experiences. Rest had used his courier talent in combat. She pu
t the dark-colored new clothes in the tub by the washing machine and left the laundry room, closing the door on the noisy machine.

  If Rest was as swift to collect Austin and Gabe as he’d been with her pick-up, then he’d be back within a couple of minutes.

  Sure enough, as she refilled the coffeemaker, she heard men’s voices on the porch. She decided to leave them to their weapons’ assessment.

  Apparently, the team had other ideas.

  “Donna!” Austin shouted.

  The house was small. She was on the porch in seconds. “You shouted?”

  A faint grin acknowledged her response. He really was handsome, and even more devastatingly attractive when he dropped the practiced charmer act and was just himself. “I’m going to get some magical supplies. You’re a witch, Rest says. Do you want anything?”

  The offer was unexpected enough that her mind blanked for a moment. Then she nodded. “White quartz chips.”

  He nodded and gripped Rest’s arm. The two men vanished into a portal.

  Guns and ammunition were stacked on the porch. There were even grenades.

  “You know what?” She backed away. “I don’t want to know how you got these.”

  “Legally,” Gabe said.

  Darius frowned at her. “What will you use white quartz for?”

  “To reinforce the ward around the ranch. I’m a small-time witch. My magic is best used in support of a stronger caster’s.”

  He nodded acknowledgement of her response and went back to stripping down the gun he held.

  Rest reappeared. “I’ll give Austin twenty minutes. The Savannah store looked as forgotten as he said. It was started by a hippie and inherited by a grandniece who is running down the inventory while restocking it for the tourist trade. He says he knows a couple of other stores like this one, if he can’t get what he wants in it.”

  “What does he want?” Donna asked.

  Rest shrugged.

  “Austin’s got an idea for a confusion spell,” Gabe said. “He’ll cast it on all of us. On the ranch, inside the wards, it’s tough to get a focus on us. The ward repels anyone searching magically for us. But when we leave here, we’re more vulnerable. Austin thinks the confusion spell might blur us if anyone’s searching.”

  Donna considered it. The strategy was novel, but possibly all the more effective because their opponents wouldn’t expect it.

  She’d hung out both loads of laundry to dry in the desert heat before Austin had his spell ready. She’d thought that wizards required less preparation time to cast their spells than did witches. Once they had mastered a spell, a wizard simply had to cast it. Judging by the symbols scrawled in chalk on the porch and the herbs and crystals set at various points, Austin’s spell was either more elaborate than most, or he was seeking a power boost.

  He tried it on himself first. Then double-checked that it didn’t interfere with his ability to use other magic. When it seemed safe, he used the spell on Gabe, Rest, Donna, and finally, Darius.

  Donna didn’t feel the spell settle on her.

  But Darius frowned a few seconds after Austin cast it on him. Just how strong a wizard was the retired captain?

  After that, in what felt like a complete anticlimax to Donna, the men continued stripping down and cleaning their new weapons. At least they’d moved their operation into the air-conditioned living room. And Darius was ready, finally, to give his briefing on Paul Webb. “While we eat.”

  As the sun set, blazing gold across the desert, Rest and Gabe portaled out to grab dinner. They returned with delicious Malaysian take-out and everyone helped themselves. They’d also grabbed beer and soda.

  The beer went in the fridge. They drank soda, staying sober for whatever the night would bring. According to Darius, it could include fire.

  “You’re sh-” Austin broke off with a glance at Donna. “Paul Webb is a fire mage? What’s he doing acting as an intermediary if he’s so powerful?”

  “Less risk, more money, personal preference? Who the hell cares?” Darius stabbed a strip of beef with his fork. “We’re only guessing that the person who had me kidnapped and dumped on your doorstep is Webb.”

  “Likely, though,” Gabe contributed. “Uncle Bo agrees.”

  Darius concentrated on his food. “During rehab, I shifted my focus. I’m not fit for physical combat anymore, so I had to find an environment where that didn’t matter. I found it online, on the darknet. I’ve devised three spells specific to the online world.”

  Donna ate as quietly as she could so as not to halt his explanation. She was surprised both by Darius’s achievement—sending magic electronically was hard—and by his willingness to explain himself with her present. That he didn’t like her was obvious, although given that she’d overheard his admission of being dumped by his fiancé, perhaps it was all women he mistrusted. She hoped so. While his dislike would still be irrational, it wouldn’t be personal.

  Darius educated them briefly on the secrets of the online shadow world. “There are forums on the darknet where people drop in. Agencies like Stag guard their reputations as wizard mercenaries. They have lines in the sand. Clients sometimes want mercenaries who are more…flexible. And there are mercenaries who exist to meet that demand. The forums operate like bars in the real world. Jobs are made available, intel exchanged. People take note of reputations and favors are accumulated.”

  He paused to serve himself more beef rendang. “I didn’t ask for information on Paul Webb, but I ran a search spell in a few different bars. One that caters for those with more esoteric skills returned a discussion a couple of years back that concerned Webb. The conclusion was to tread warily regarding him because while he wasn’t said to have magic, one mercenary claimed to have seen him use fire magic. A second said that there were human torches in Webb’s past. After making that statement, the guy vanished, and doesn’t seem to have visited the bar again.”

  “Misinformation?” Rest queried.

  “As in Webb trying to add to his reputation?” Darius shook his head. “It felt real. My reading is that the guy who mentioned the human torches freaked himself out and vanished.”

  Gabe nodded. “He didn’t want Webb coming after him.”

  “Webb’s keeping it quiet,” Austin said. “Gives him an edge.”

  Donna was fascinated at how the men interacted, questioning, hypothesizing, and checking each other’s assumptions.

  “Austin, you’re to go with Rest when he portals out to phone Webb.” Darius forked up the last of his rice. “If we’re wrong, and we’re not dealing with Paul Webb, we’ve still learned something useful.”

  Austin nodded. “That we’re probably dealing with a magic user.”

  Donna looked at Rest. “Where will you phone from?”

  Paris. The profound darkness characteristic of predawn buried the city of romance. Shadows clung to the old buildings and shrouded the river. The Seine flowed with barely a murmur. The water would be as cold as death and indescribably filthy, as city rivers tended to be. Rest grimaced. He wasn’t looking forward to taking a bath.

  Austin swore, cursing Darius’s notion of taking precautions, as he eased his way from the riverbank to drop with a mere ripple of water rather than a splash.

  It oughtn’t to be possible to send fire along a satellite connection, but if Darius could work magic on the darknet, then magic was adapting to technology’s evolution. Perhaps a fire mage could use it, too.

  Rest clamped the burner phone between his teeth and followed Austin into the river. As soon as they were both submerged to their armpits, he dialed the number.

  The river wouldn’t only allow them to duck beneath fire. Running water obscured and defeated many kinds of magic, including tracking magic.

  The phone rang.

  And rang.

  If he had to leave a message, he had one prepared: I don’t deal with amateurs. Then he’d phone back in an hour and one minute.

  But he really didn’t want to return to the river in an hour.
He wanted a hot shower and to dry off in the desert night.

  The phone call connected.

  “I got your message,” Rest said.

  “And pulled your former team out. Efficient, but then, that’s why my client wishes to hire you.”

  Aware that the longer the call, the greater the chance of his location being tracked by technological means—and also conscious that the water was freezing—Rest kept his response brief. “No.”

  “Mr. Castillo, apart from residual loyalty to your former team, you have no personal ties.” Webb couldn’t know of the isolation Rest had chosen. In two years, he’d had time to build a new life. Webb was guessing; possibly based on the psych profile the army held for Rest. “I am authorized to offer you a new life where your safety is assured.”

  “And when I say no?” Rest asked.

  “You don’t want to do that.”

  The river flowed sluggishly around him while Rest fought the instinct to simply drop the phone into the water. He didn’t respond well to threats—something his psych profile made clear. However, this was an intelligence gathering mission, so he kept hold of the phone and his temper. “Who would I work for?”

  “I will arrange a meeting.”

  “A name,” Rest said flatly. “Either my eager would-be employer’s, or yours. I won’t walk into the unknown.”

  “But isn’t that the essence of being a courier?”

  Rest counted eight long seconds. The call had gone on long enough to be traced. That didn’t matter as much as emphasizing his power position. Two more seconds and he’d end the call.

  “Very well. My name is Paul Webb.”

  Rest disconnected. He threw the phone onto the riverbank, grabbed Austin’s extended hand, and the two of them slogged a step into the portal that Rest opened in the River Seine.

  Chapter 6

  A portal opened out front of the old ranch house and Rest walked out with Austin. Both were streaming water from their clothes, but they looked uninjured, certainly not burned.

  Donna’s heart jolted with relief.

  “We’re okay,” Austin said.