by James Hunter
I rarely drove it anymore—long trips gave me backaches and the Camino is just too damn comfortable—but it was nice to have a spare set of wheels just in case the need arose.
I parked the Camino right in the middle of the barn interior, killed the engine, and promptly woke Ferraro from her Vis-induced nap. Removing the weave was far easier than forming it in the first place—just a simple construct of air, which filled Ferraro’s nose and mouth, pulling bluish smoke from her like a Shop-Vac hosing up loose dirt.
She sputtered for a moment, then sat up, eyes wide and wild. “What … where, where am I?” she asked, her voice pitched with slight panic.
“Calm down.” I placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, which she immediately batted away. “You’ll level out in just a second—just be calm, breathe, relax.”
“Where am I?” she asked again, glancing left and right, taking in the gloomy barn interior.
“You’ve been down for a couple of hours, everything went fine. We’re at the Farm, okay?”
“This is the farm?” she asked, sounding completely unamused. “You sent me into a magic coma, so you could haul me out to an old, rundown barn filled with some shoddy farm equipment.”
I flashed her a devious half-smile. “Just wait.” I got out of the car and motioned her to follow. I headed over for the far corner of the barn—near the back stood an old hutch, shelves filled with assorted knickknacks, old work gloves, a beat-up spade, a random length of black tubing. It looked more or less like a shelving unit full of random, useless shit, the kind of place every garage seems to have for the odds and ends you just don’t know what else to do with.
“That cabinet better have a portal to Narnia,” she said, eyeing the thing askew.
“Patience.” I pulled open an empty drawer near the bottom, empty save for a small carving deep in the wood. I wove a complicated pattern of earth and fire, which looped and twirled back in on itself—the weave had no practical application, but when I dropped the construct into the carved design, it flared to life with a flash of gold. The hutch shifted and groaned, sliding back and disappearing into the wall—below was a steel hatch, a blast door. I flipped open the cover, revealing a long set of narrow steps that sank down into the ground, into my underground bunker and fallout shelter. The Fortress of Bluestastic Solitude.
“Welcome to the Farm,” I said, feeling pretty impressed with myself.
“A bunker in the ground,” Ferraro said. “After the Hub and the Hinterlands, somehow I was expecting … more.” Lady sure knew how to deflate a guy’s sense of self.
THIRTY-ONE:
Dinner and a Movie
Ferraro changed her tune a little once we were finally inside. The front room was roughly the size of a large shipping container—a couple of small cots hung from the wall, there was a couch, television, and small dining room table with a couple of folding chairs. It also had a bookcase full of dog-eared paperbacks, a portable electronic keyboard, and a guitar resting on a stand in the corner.
At the far end of the room, a small hallway connected to another reinforced shipping container, which housed a Spartan kitchen, a bathroom, a freezer, and a pantry with lots of canned goods and freeze-dried foodstuffs. I wasn’t interested in any of that though—what I really wanted lay past the giant steel door that led from the living room into the armory. I could feel it calling to me: the Crook of Winter.
Even though it was currently secreted away behind a steel safe, with heavy-duty wards, I could still feel it calling. Pulling at me. After losing my power completely, there was a big part of me that wanted nothing more than to take up the crook and fill myself up with all the power I could hold. Fill me up so I’d never have to be empty again.
I just needed to see it. Just for a minute.
“I thought you said you didn’t have a home,” Ferraro said, staring around at the room.
“This isn’t a home.” I headed for the armory door and disarmed the Vis constructs guarding it. “It’s a hidey-hole and a weapons-depot, not a place I live.”
She crossed the living room and peeked into the kitchen. “How’d you build this place?” she called over her shoulder.
“It was easy, actually,” I said absentmindedly. “I used to have a permanent storage container in a shipyard over in San Francisco, but as my collection grew I thought better protection was in order. Plus, having a place to crash if the shit ever really started coming down seemed pragmatic. I had one of those specialty contractors who make bunkers for end of the world preppers come out and build the space for me. Since they’re used to dealing with folks who are uber prepared and occasionally distrustful, they let me pay cash and asked almost no questions. A little glamour afterwards helped the contractors forget the important details.”
“Still … how did you afford to build it?” she asked, her voice filled with skepticism—like maybe she thought there was some nefarious wrongdoing in play. “I know a bunch of people with the IRS that would love to know,” she added.
“Hey, it’s not like I’m hard up for cash, you know. I’m a lucky guy, supernaturally so. I mean, I literally work for Lady Luck now. Gambling pays the bills just fine.”
“Wait.” She stopped and looked back at me. “I don’t understand—if you have money just lying around why do you live out of an El Camino?”
I glanced at her before turning my attention back to the door. “You just don’t get it,” I said. I didn’t want to talk, I wanted to see the crook. “I don’t want to live in a house. I walked away from white-picket suburbia. I like living in shitty motels and gambling for beer money. That’s what I want. Not everyone has to have the same friggin’ dream, okay?” We were both silent for a beat.
“Sorry for saying anything.” She shifted her feet restlessly and looked down at the brown carpet covering the steel floor. “I wasn’t trying to offend you.”
The door clicked as the locks disengaged and swung out on silent hinges. “Want a tour of the good stuff or what?” I asked by way of an apology.
She nodded.
The room beyond was a twenty-by-twenty-foot box filled with assorted badassery of every flavor. Against the right wall hung my stock of Rube weaponry—since helping out a gunrunning biker name Gavin Morse, my collection had grown considerably.
I had mounted wall racks with just about everything a Fix-It man could ever need: a trio of M-4s, an AK, a pair of AA12 machine shotties—each equipped with a 32-shell drum and a fire rate of three-hundred rounds per minute—some pump action shotties, and a host of handguns. Berettas, Glocks, Colt 1911s, Saturday Night Specials, a few sleek .22s, and a cadre of MAC 10s.
Heck, I even had a brand spanking new M240 medium machine gun, courtesy of one of the meanest Mexican drug syndicates on the West Coast. There were also extra K-Bars, a couple of beige Flak jackets, flashbangs, frag grenades, and even a coil of razor wire. One of these days, I’d get my hands on the MK19—an automatic machine gun grenade launcher; yeah, they make those—and I’d be whole and complete.
Running beneath the wall racks was a heavy-duty steel table, complete with a couple thousand dollars’ worth of reloading equipment. I couldn’t make loads for the machine guns, but for everything else, I could customize rounds without ever having to outsource. Silver-lead rounds infused with Vis? No problem. Powdered-iron cores cased in steel? Can do.
Ferraro let out a low whistle as she took in my stash. “ATF would shit their pants,” she said, sounding, for once, a little impressed. “This place is the FBI’s worst nightmare—Waco has nothing on you.”
“Gee … thanks, I guess.” Wasn’t really sure if that was supposed to be a compliment or an insult.
The truth was, however, that she didn’t know the half of it.
Running against the wall behind us was a bank of lockers, each individually sealed and warded. A few of the lockers were empty, but most of them housed items of power, many of them cursed, or extremely dangerous. Power-wrought knives used to summon demons; a chalice that un
leashed a plague spirit; an ancient mirror out of sync with time, which could grant the holder a glimpse into the past or future. Even had a strangely wrought horn, carved almost entirely of amber, which could summon a pack of vicious, tentacle-faced, doom-hounds called Cŵn Annwn.
Bad stuff, all of it, and far more dangerous than any of those boom-boom sticks on the wall. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.
I could hear the crook’s voice speaking inside my head, though it was still only a faint whisper. “I’ve got a few things to take care of,” I said over my shoulder. “Why don’t you head over to the kitchen and grab something to eat. I’ll be out in a minute.”
She nodded, though her brow furrowed—a brief look of concern flashing across her face. Maybe she could see the crook’s power working in me, see my hunger. But she left without a word.
I stalked over to the left hand wall, the one housing my big personal vault, where I kept all the top-shelf dangerous items. The safe contained an old-school broadsword, Peacekeeper, once used to slay a dragon. An old bronze circlet, inscribed inside and out with spiraling runes and enochian script—let the wearer see the spirit realm and the true nature of all things. An ancient battle-axe wielded by a friggin’ Minotaur, and, of course, the crook.
Though I was unsure of where Randy was, I was certain James would find him—Lady Fate seemed to indicate that the Lich and I would have our title fight, which meant James would come through. I didn’t know where our throw down would go down, but I knew I’d have the crook with me when it happened. Lady Fate had said that too. Yeah, the crook was my pair of pocket Aces—though I also had another dirty trick waiting up my sleeve.
I’d been thinking about the best way to use the crook and it wasn’t as an offensive weapon, at least not long term. No, I had a Wile E. Coyote-type idea that might just help me to beat Randy, even if he did have the power of an uber-powerful Lich backing his play … or it might blow up in my face and cause my horrible demise. I was working with veiled words from Lady Fate though, so I didn’t have much else to go off of. Hey, sometimes you just have to roll the dice and hope for the best.
But in order to pull it off, I’d have to Jerry-rig the crook just a bit. At least Jerry-rigging shit was sorta my specialty.
I unlocked the lead-lined vault—as soon as the door swung free, I could feel the Winter’s Staff calling out to me, its voice singing in my head. It didn’t speak in words, but rather in a rapid-fire series of pictures and feelings:
I saw myself holding the staff above my head, freezing fog swirling around me like a blizzard, my enemies splayed out before me. Bodies frozen in agonizing poses, limbs twisted at odd and unnatural angles, grimaces of pain tattooed on unmoving faces. I stood on a pile of corpses, and right at the top was Arch-Mage Borgstorm, the bitch who’d refused to go after Ailia. Take me, the crook urged. Use me, make them pay. Make them all pay. Old Man Winter. Shelton. The Guild.
Another set of images, Ailia stretched out on a luxurious bed of white satiny sheets, bunched up and drooping from the mattress edge. Naked, supple white flesh intertwined with Ferraro’s deeply tan limbs. The women kissed, then looked at me, desire in their eyes, smiles playing across their lips, invitation in every inch of their bodies. I can give you Ailia, I can give you Ferraro. Every dream, every fantasy.
I pushed the thoughts away, building a mental barrier against the crook’s temptations. There was some part of me that wanted those things and it would be all too easy to linger a little too long on the images provided by the crook—and that was the first step. Now I’m not a saint, not by a far stretch, so I didn’t dismiss the images purely out of altruistic reasons—that was a small part of it, true, but I also knew a lemon of a deal when I saw one.
Bait is always exactly what you want, but there’s always a hook buried deep, just waiting to snag you and hold you fast. The crook would give me what I wanted, but it would cost a helluva lot more than I was willing to shell out. I just had to think about Randy, with his green eyes and gaunt face, to remind myself of that fact. And even then, its boasts were only half-true. It was an object of immense power, but it still hadn’t allowed Old Man Winter to regain his long-coveted kingdom, which meant it definitely had limits.
I walked over to the wall, slid on a pair of heavy-duty black rubber gloves and grabbed a set of metal tongs off the wall. Then I very carefully removed the crook, placing it on a wood-topped workbench running along the back wall. I made damn sure the crook was a good couple of feet out of my reach … eventually, I’d have to take up the weapon, but I’d wait for as long as possible.
I set the tongs down and reached into a set of storage cupboards just above the workbench. Those cupboards were filled with all kinds of stuff: ancient history texts, a bunch of gimoires from the old timey days of magic, a few bestiaries—leatherbound books with pages and pages of hand-scrawled notes and pictures of various supernatural critters that haunted Inworld and Out—and tons of precisely labeled ingredients.
After a few seconds of rooting around, I found what I was looking for. I immediately set to work and, after a handful of minutes, the crook was ready to go. Hopefully. Possibly. Though, I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
I carefully picked the staff back up with the metal tongs and maneuvered it back into the safe, securing it in place, and locking the door.
With my backup plan all squared away, the only thing left to do now was wait.
I left the armory and locked up behind me—I found Ferraro in the kitchen, carefully adding a can of diced tomatoes into a pot filled with red sauce. Spaghetti.
“Didn’t know you could cook,” I said. “You don’t exactly strike me as the type.”
She placed a pan on the stove, started the burner, and added a pack of thawed ground pork from the big freezer. “Everyone has their secrets. You have your precious underground club house, I cook,” she said. “Besides, it’s not much of a secret—I’m Italian, I love cooking. Now how about you get out of here and leave me to it, you’re just taking up space.”
I grunted a reply and headed out to the cramped living room, plopping down on the sofa—a little burnt brown futon. God it felt like a lifetime since I’d had a chance to just sit on a couch in relative peace. Maybe I should’ve considered just moving into the Farm. The peace was nice … Ah, who was I trying to fool? I’d like the quiet for a week and then I’d be itching for some tunes, a smoke, a good Scotch, and a card game. I knew myself better than that. Still, it was a nice change of pace. We didn’t really have anything to do until I heard back from James—no leads to bring us closer to Randy—so it looked like we’d be in for a wait.
With a sigh, I grabbed the television remote off the seat next to me and flicked the boob tube to life. I didn’t actually get reception down here, but I had a shit-ton of classic movies on DVD. I turned on the DVD player to see what was in it—it’d been a good long time since I’d last been down here. The theme music for Kojak trumpeted through the air.
“Is that Kojak?” Ferraro hollered from the kitchen, her voice slightly obscured by the sound of sizzling meat.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, stretching out with a yawn. “If you hurry up, I’ll even wait to start it.”
“Can’t rush perfection,” she replied.
A few extra minutes of quiet wouldn’t kill me. I paused the disk and shut my eyes—just a long blink, you understand. When I opened them again, Ferraro had a bowl of spaghetti ready and waiting. And damn did it smell divine. She took a seat next to me and we ate pasta—the lady really could cook—while we watched old Kojak episodes. Afterward, I set the bowls aside and put an arm around her, she didn’t even have a snarky comment for me. Probably if I were going to make a move, that would’ve been the perfect time—I’m not much of a romance guy, but even I thought it was romantic. At least romantic in that we’re-eating-pasta-in-a-fallout-shelter kind of way.
But instead, I fell asleep about ten minutes after finishing dinner—one minute Ferraro was snuggled against my chest,
the next, my head was against the back of the futon and my eyes were so damn heavy. I’ve never been great with timing.
THIRTY-TWO:
Preparations
James’s voice woke me up five or six hours later.
“Yancy,” he said.
I shot up, hands scrambling for my pistol, ready to deal in lead. “What’s that?” I mumbled, scanning the room through bleary vision. Ferraro had, at some point, moved over to one of the cots, though she’d been thoughtful enough to throw a blanket over me.
“Yancy,” the voice came again, muffled by the thick armory door. Ferraro started to stir. I shook my head, pushed back the blanket, and quietly padded over to the door, once again disengaging the locks and scooting into the armory. Quietly, I pulled the door shut behind me—trying my damnedest not to wake Ferraro if I could help it.
“Yancy. Pick up, I know you’re there.” James’s voice came from a round clear orb, about the size of a tennis ball, sitting on my wooden workbench. To the untrained eye, it might’ve looked like one of those cheap-ass crystal balls huckster psychics use to con the gullible. Which is exactly what it was, but this one actually worked.
My scrying stone—and yes, I knew it sounds like something out of an occult book, but really it’s just an object of power like any of the other ones in the room. The orb was nothing special—just a shiny piece of glass—but it’d been imbedded with a complex weave of earth, fire, spirit, and magnetic force. The construct created a certain resonance frequency—think of it like the Vis equivalent of a phone number. Since James knew the frequency, he could give me a ring with a similar stone.
Once upon a time, scrying stones were all the rage among magi. I mean in the days before cell phones, being able to talk at a distance was a huge advantage, so you can just imagine the edge magi held over the Rubes of the world. Nowadays though, most of the magi had gotten on board with tech—but when you’re in a deep earth bunker where cell reception is impossible, having an ol’ fashioned scrying stone is still a smart play.
