by Ben Reeder
“No, their job is just to keep track of us,” Kim said. “Now that we know who they are, it will be easier to have a chat with them.” She slowed down as we approached another stoplight, then took a couple of turns that led us into a more brick-and-mortar district. She pulled into a space and turned the car off. “Let’s get some coffee.”
I got out after her and followed her to a nearby coffee shop, trying not to watch her anatomy too closely as she walked in front of me. We slipped into the shop and didn’t stop, heading straight through to the back and out into the alley. Kim looked left and right, then headed right, her footsteps silent as we moved across the pavement. I tried to emulate her, but it was a good thing no one was nearby. She ducked into another shop, and we ended up in the back room of an insurance agency. Kim was halfway across the room before anyone even noticed her, and we were out the front door before anyone tried to say anything.
We had come out behind one of the two sedans. Without missing a beat, Kim turned and walked past the rear door, then turned and leaned over so she could look in the front window. The guy in the front seat had a microsecond to register what he was seeing before Kim slammed his head into the dashboard. He bounced back into the seat, and his buddy in the back seat started to open the rear door but Kim kicked it shut in his face.
By then, the two guys on the driver’s side were out of the car. So was I. First, I followed Kim’s example by bouncing the nearest guy’s head off the back of the car. He rebounded hard enough to land on his back in the street. His buddy was faster on the uptake, and got a fist in the air. I dodged to one side, wrapped my right hand around his wrist and brought my left fist over his arm to hit him in the jaw. While his head was twisting from the force of the punch, I brought my left hand back, straightened it and drove my fingers into a nerve cluster under his arm. He dropped to the pavement, his muscles on the right side spasming so hard he couldn’t breathe. When I looked up, I saw that Kim had disabled the four from the other car in the time that I’d taken to take down my two.
“What do you need for the spell?” she asked, giving me a broad wink. I shook my head for a second, trying to catch up to her. Think like a mage, I remembered.
“Hair or blood will do fine,” I said. I reached down and grabbed the driver by the hair and yanked, coming away with a fist full of hair. Turning, I repeated the process with the moaning Russian in the street.
“We’ll kill you and your whole family,” the driver gasped. I stopped, and a cold wave flowed through me. My jaw clenched, and I turned to face him. He cringed when he saw my face, and I liked it.
“You threatened my family,” I said, reaching into his shirt and grabbing a silver chain that was glinting in the light. “You’ll be a demon’s butt monkey before sunset. And whoever gave you this will be next in line.” I held up the chain, and he went pale.
“No, please don’t,” he said, tears running down his face. “Please, she is good girl.”
I knelt beside him and pulled him to me, my whole body shaking with rage. “So is my sister, asshole. Whatever you try to do to my family, I’ll do to yours. I’m going to curse every member of your organization, everyone you’ve ever touched. You tell your bosses that, tell them to get their affairs in order, because after I’m done with them, they won’t be able to do much of anything.”
“You can’t,” he said, his breath coming a little easier. “You are mage.”
“No, I’m the demon’s apprentice, asshole. If you don’t know what that means, ask around.” I couldn’t hit him hard enough, but I tried.
“You can not keep that,” Kim told me when I rejoined her on the sidewalk. I held up my hands and let most of the hair fly away on the wind, then handed her the silver necklace.
“No, but you can,” I said. “I need a back up plan. If they ever come after me...no, that’s not right.” I stopped and turned to face her. “When they come after me, I’m going to need something to use against them. Look, this whole thing with the Russians is something I fucked up while I was a werewolf, so I need to fix it. By any means necessary.”
Kim took the necklace and tucked it into her pocket. “By whatever means I deem necessary,” she said. “You are still a mage and you are still Trevor’s student. I will not allow you to dishonor him.”
“Whatever,” I said, and started toward her car.
“Excuse me?” Kim said, and I stopped. Her tone was sharp enough to cut steel.
I turned and faced her. “I mean, yes, sensei.”
“That’s better,” she said. “Now, we should go find your father’s manservant.” Behind us, people were starting to peek their heads out of shops. The whole fight had taken only a minute and had been pretty quiet as fights went. We were in the Viper and two blocks away before we heard the first siren.
“I have an idea about where Jeremy might be,” I told Kim.
“If we find him, how likely is your father to keep his end of the bargain?”
“As long as it’s good for him, it’s real likely. But if he can screw someone else, he’ll do it before he can think about it.”
“Hmmm,” she said, then pulled off the road by a Taco Pueblo. As soon as the car stopped, she was out and around to my door almost before I had it open. She had her cellphone out and was scrolling through apps while she pulled me toward the trunk of her car. With a touch of a button on her key fob, the trunk opened. Inside were a couple of black tool boxes and an aluminum case. She opened one of the tool boxes and pulled out a slim wand on a cord. With the cord plugged into the phone, she ran the wand up and down in front of me, then made another pass over my waist.
“Give me the phone the lawyer gave you.” I handed the black device over, and she ran the wand over it, nodded and powered it off. Once that was done, she walked around the car, finally stopping by the passenger side rear wheel well. Bending over, she reached into the well and pulled out a black box about the size of a deck of cards.
“That bastard,” I hissed. “Maybe I should hex his fat ass.”
Kim set the tracker and the phone down in the trunk and pulled me a few yards away. “The phone probably has more spyware than a James Bond movie. He still might not know I found it, though, and he expects you to try to find him. And, in spite of this, I think we should do so.”
“Last I heard from Jeremy, he wasn’t going into the witness protection program. He could probably stay hidden for years just on what I left in the old man’s accounts, and he knows where every secret safehouse and property is. Unless you knew the my father’s organization, you’d never find him.”
“Concealment is not the same as cover,” Kim said, pulling out her own phone and tapping at the screen. “Especially when your father knows his own resources. We cannot assume Jeremy is safe. I know it is adding another burden.” She looked up at me, her eyes dark and unreadable.
“Jeremy is not a burden,” I said. “I owe him. Big time. And he was a friend when I didn’t have anyone else.” I turned back toward the car. “Besides, if anyone knows how to hit the Russians in the wallet, it’ll be Jeremy. And I know where to start looking.”
Chapter 14
~ Family is where you make it. ~
Proverb
“This is the last place I would look,” Kim said. The ruins of my father’s house were mostly untouched. Crime scene tape fluttered across the door behind us, and the damage Shade and I had done a year ago was a pleasant reminder of how awesome my girlfriend was.
“That’s why he’d choose it,” I said.
“Is this your work?” she asked, gesturing at the double doors that were laying against the back wall of the foyer.
“Yeah, I can be rough on real estate sometimes. At least, I used to be.” I headed back down through the kitchen and opened the door to the garage. It was dark, but when I hit the button by the door, one of the garage doors slid up, letting sunlight flood into the empty spot.
“And you will be again,” Kim said. “It is only a matter of time. Now, how do we find Jere
my?”
“He’ll find us,” I said, turning back and heading down the hall toward my father’s office. The doors to that room weren’t just knocked off the hinges, they were in pieces across the room.
“More of your work?” Kim smiled as she asked it. I nodded. “I take it he’s seen us by now.” She nodded toward the corner of the room. A small anomaly in the woodwork concealed the lens of a camera.
“He has, indeed,” Jeremy’s voice came from behind us. We turned to see him holding an H&K MP5 on us. I wasn’t a big fan of submachine guns, but I knew the MP5 when I saw it. It was my father’s preferred weapon, both for use and sale.
“Jeremy, whoa,” I said, putting my hands up. “It’s all good, the lady is cool. Better than cool.”
“I shall have to be the judge of that, Master Chance,” he said. The gun never wavered. “Who talked you into coming to find me?”
“I did,” Kim answered before I could get a word in. “He was convinced he needed to leave you hidden. But secrecy is not safety. You would have been found.”
“Only Chance would have known me well enough to deduce that I would hide here,” Jeremy said. “Even Mr. Fortunato would not have been so insightful. But he might have deduced that Chance could find me, and Stavros is nothing if not cunning. He no doubt had you followed or planted some sort of tracking device on you.”
“He...tried,” Kim admitted. “We left it in the car.”
“Then I am as good as a dead man,” Jeremy said. “Once he knows you’re here, he’ll alert Sergei Khapolov to offer me up as a peace offering to the Bratva. His men will be here in moments.”
“We’re counting on that,” I said. Kim’s phone buzzed in her pocket, and she hit the answer button on her earpiece.
“Are you in place, beloved?” she asked aloud. “We’re sending him your way now.” She tapped the earpiece again, then turned to Jeremy. “Give Chance a bit of hair, then go to the garage. Someone will meet you there.” He looked to me, and I nodded.
“We’ve got this covered, Jeremy,” I said. “The old man is pretty predictable once you get to know him.”
“And you’ve a plan, no doubt,” he said, a smile coming to his face.
“Don’t I always?”
“No, but when you do, there is a marked tendency toward explosions and...mayhem.” He plucked a few hairs from the side of his head and held them out to me.
“What can I say?” I took the hairs from him. “I play to my strengths. Go on. We’ll take care of the rest.”
“Of course, sir.” I took the hairs and held them up. “Tamquam egomet ipsum,” I muttered, moving my fingers and hand in the gestures for an illusion spell that gave me the appearance of another person. I felt the magick trying to stir within me, but nothing happened at first. Repeating the spell, I drew on the touchstone, and the world shimmered around me.
“A very good image,” Kim said. “Now, let’s go put on a show for the bad guys.” She led the way to the front door, pausing for a moment to listen. When the sound of tires on pavement reached us, she took off at a run for her car. I followed her, keeping my back stiff and my shoulders back, trying to run like I thought Jeremy would. The car rumbled to life when I opened the door, and I saw three big sedans turn into the driveway. They slowed as they came toward us, and I could see gun barrels poking up from behind the seats.
“Um, I’m in,” I said.
“I know,” Kim’s voice was calm and level.
“They’re getting closer.”
“I see that.”
“They’re about to shoot at us.”
“Then shield us.”
I got the shield spell up a fraction of a second before they opened fire, and bullets sparked against the telekinetic barrier. Kim chose that moment to hit the gas and the Viper lunged forward. The three sedans burned rubber trying to turn around behind us, and we were on the road before they could get back out of the driveway. Kim slowed down halfway down the street, then accelerated again when the first big car bounced onto the street. I looked behind us as we turned the corner, just in time to see the muzzle flashes of the AKs from the lead car. Asphalt sprayed my side of the car and I ducked back, grasping the touchstone. The thrum of magick from it was weaker now.
“I might have one more solid shield in me,” I said. “Then we’re down to dodging or hoping they miss.”
“Don’t block the bullets. Steal their power for yourself.” She took another corner, and bullets plowed into asphalt on her side.
“Bullets don’t have power!” I yelled over the roar of the engine. We skidded through a turn, the Viper hugging the road like a magnet. Behind us, one of the sedans slid into the grass before pulling back out onto the road. The other two had to slow down to keep from ramming it, which bought us a few more seconds of lead.
“Then how do they hurt you?”
“By hitting you really...hard. Kinetic energy. Bullets use kinetic energy, transfer of force.”
“Good. Now, less talking, more doing. I’m running out of corners.” She took another corner at an impossible speed, and we were on a long, straight stretch of road. The rear tires chirped as the Viper accelerated, and Kim flipped a switch on the center console. A section of the front fender retracted and popped up, and I felt more than heard motors at the rear of the car. Looking in the rear view mirror, I saw a spoiler rise and a pair of support struts turned and locked into place.
“What the Hell is all that?”
“Very expensive,” Kim said with a smile. “So please, don’t let them put holes in my car.” Our Russian friends came barrelling out into the road, and I turned my focus back to the spell I needed. My version of the shield spell, like most of what I did, was pretty much just brute force. I stopped the bullets with a kinetic barrier. What Kim was talking about was taking the momentum from the bullets so that they simply didn’t have the energy to do any damage if they got to you. But...physics. Conservation of energy. All of that energy had to go somewhere. If I let it dissipate on its own, it would bleed off as heat. I looked down at the touchstone, then did some quick calculations in my head. Instead of creating a storage lattice for magick, I could create one for kinetic energy, and hang on to all the momentum I stole from the bullets. The thought of what I might be able to do with all that extra energy brought a smile to my face. My hands moved in an intricate pattern, fingers shaping a lens for the magick to flow through. Now all I needed was a trigger phrase.
“They’re getting closer,” Kim said after a glance in the mirror.
“I’m ready. I think.” That earned me a raised eyebrow, and she took another corner a little too fast, the back end sliding out from behind us. Kim spun the wheel in the other direction and we straightened out on the access road to the highway. She shifted gears and sped toward the next onramp. We passed cars like they were standing still, then Kim wove between a panel van and a pastel blue Prius, taking the ramp at twice the speed on the yellow sign. We got a little air beneath us when we hit the end of the ramp, then we were passing a semi on our left.
“Be ready,” she said. “There should be no collateral damage.” I gave her a look, trying to load the irony of a former assassin trying to avoid killing people into a single glance. Of course, she was telling that to me, the guy known for leveling real estate like a bulldozer. Her lips turned up into a mocking smile the told me that she got that we were both sharks out of water here.
“There are a lot of cars between them and us,” I said.
“You’re right. I need to give them a clear shot. Sit down and hold on.” She hit the brakes, slalomed between the tail of one semi and the nose of another, and crossed two lanes, then sped up again. Behind us, I saw the three sedans swerve into the same lane. Guns came out the windows, and cars around us veered to the side of the road. The moment couldn’t get much more ‘right’ for what I was about to do. The catch on the seatbelt came undone and I twisted in the seat to look behind us, wand at the ready.
“Ut vis et copia,” I said. Ta
ke force and store. The magick expanded behind us, not so much a shield as a field. Muzzle flashes blossomed from the barrels and I felt the bullets enter my kinetic sponge. The storage matrix started to fill, maybe a little too quickly. The rounds slowed, then stopped as the momentum leached away. Lead dropped to the pavement a few feet behind the Viper’s tail, leaving a trail of bullets behind us as more and more fire entered the field.
“Well done,” Kim said over the roar of the V-10 engine. “Trevor was certain you could do this. He’ll be so proud.”
“Well, I should probably do something with all this stored kinetic energy,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Definitely. We don’t want to make it look like we weren’t trying that hard to lose them, do we?” The grin Kim gave me was infectious.
My left hand closed into a fist around the wand and I held it over my open right palm. “Deorsum percutiamus!” I yelled, focusing the kinetic energy into a downward strike. The blow hit in the middle of the lead sedan’s hood. I caught a glimpse of the vehicle’s engine dropping out of the chassis before the nose was shoved down into the road. The back end came up and the whole car flipped end over end. The other two cars swerved around it, but the guns were back inside the cars, at least.
“So, what was our exit strategy?” I asked. “Because I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like going to Kansas today.”
“Nor I.” She reached into the middle compartment and pulled out a pair of die-cast models of her Viper that were set on little pads of clay. One was light blue, the other white. With a glance behind her, she leaned forward and pressed both of them against the dash. Magickal runes etched into the clay flared white, the magick within them activated when they were broken. We slid up between a flatbed semi and a line of cars, another vehicle blocking our path forward.
“Um, we’re kinda boxed in here,” I pointed out.
“It would appear so,” Kim said. She looked to her left, then tapped a button on the steering wheel, and I felt the car drop an inch or two.
