by M. J. Scott
Mitch, I assumed, was his pushy head of security. "And now you're speaking to me. I didn't do it."
"The proof says otherwise."
"Then you need better cybersecurity guys." But unless the fallout from his recall had been a lot worse than I'd gathered from the newslinks, he already had the best money could buy.
"If it's not you, then it's someone pretending to be you. Maybe you need better cybersecurity guys."
I didn't have cybersecurity guys. I had me. Well, I had friends who were no slouch with security and had given me advice when I'd bought the system. But I'd tweaked and refined and rebuilt it so often that it was fully customized. And as near impregnable as I could make it. Certainly it had never failed me before.
My stomach sank as the implications finally hit me. He was right. If someone was managing to clone my system and make it look like messages were coming from me skillfully enough to fool Damon's team, I needed help. Not that I was going to tell him that. "I don't have cybersecurity guys. You know that."
"No, because you're one of the best. So how did someone hack your system without you knowing about it?"
Because apparently part of my ability came from my power. But I'd rip my tongue out before confessing that to Damon. Or telling him I seemed to have lost my magic.
He'd broken up with me over my powers. I didn't want to know what was possible if he thought I no longer had any. If it didn't change his mind—and really, that seemed a very distant possibility—it would be awful. And if it did, well, I could hardly take him back anyway. What if it came back? "My system is secure."
"'As far as you know' isn't going to cut it. These messages are the real deal, Maggie. My guys will give what they have to the police soon. If you're not doing this, you need to prove it fast, or you'll be proving it to them."
Prove it? Track down a hacker so good he'd gotten around my systems?
Nine months ago I would've laughed at Damon for suggesting someone could hack me. I would have bet good money my systems were rock solid. But that was when I'd been on top of things. Had something gone wrong? Something I hadn't noticed because my intuition, or whatever it was, was shot to hell?
And if it had, how was I going to find it?
"How long do I have?" I asked.
"I can hold them off a little longer. Forty-eight hours at most."
Shit. And other very bad words. "Fine. I'll have your proof before then."
He stood. "Good."
There was an awkward pause while I tried to figure out what to say next. The things we probably should talk about, I had no intention of discussing. And he didn't seem in the mood for small talk. But a stupid part of me didn't want him to leave yet. "Why are you doing this?"
His brows lifted. "Doing what?"
I gestured between us. "This. Why did you come to see me? You could've just let your guys throw me to the lions. That demon almost killed your company." My demon, I meant.
He looked insulted. "That was the demon. That wasn't you. I broke up with you. That doesn't mean I think you're a lunatic who'd make death threats."
What did he think of me?
I bit my tongue. That was another thing I'd rather die than ask. Suddenly tears stung my eyes. It didn't matter if I didn't want him to go. He needed to leave. Before I made an idiot of myself. I needed to remind both of us that there was no point prolonging things. "No, not a lunatic. Just a witch," I said. "Nothing's changed about that. So I guess we both know where we stand. Thanks for stopping by, but you'll appreciate that I have a lot to do." I looked past him, at the house where Lizzie was hovering by the back door again. "Lizzie will show you out."
"Mag—"
"Don't," I cut him off. "I can't. You don't do witches. I get that. But that means I can't do this." I waved a hand between us. "Send me what your team thinks they have. I'll look into it. You'll have an answer in the next two days. Then you can go back to pretending you never knew me at all."
He winced, and for a horrible moment, I thought he was going to move closer and touch me. I stepped back. Damon shook his head and turned to climb the steps. I turned in the opposite direction, staring at the mass of Gran's tangled roses—something else in as bad shape as I was—until I heard the screen door creak open, then click closed.
The garden felt very big and empty without Damon in it. I hugged my arms around myself and breathed hard, determined not to cry. I didn't have time for a meltdown. I had forty-eight hours to prove I wasn't harassing Damon—presuming, of course, that I didn't turn out to be possessed by a demon later tonight.
I ignored the little voice inside that whispered that death threats were the sort of things demons would love. And could make me not remember doing.
A demon I couldn't do anything about right now. Finding out whether my systems had been hijacked, maybe I could.
Presuming Lizzie's mystery tech guy was as good as she thought he was.
Chapter Five
It took some time for Lizzie to get hold of her mystery man. Long enough for me to calm down and shower. Sawdust and sweat swirled down the drain and vanished. Unfortunately soap and water didn't work the same way on my lingering confusion over seeing Damon.
Nor did it ease my nerves. I'd told Lizzie to call Cassandra after Damon had left. It didn't matter how much I tried, I knew the damned candle wasn’t going to light. Better to know where I stood. Especially now that I also apparently needed to find out who the hell was pretending to be me and threatening Damon if I didn't want a whole bunch of legal trouble or worse.
I debated whether to wear something fancy to face the Cestis but decided that if I’d be finding out that I was possessed by a demon later, I might as well be comfortable. When I emerged, armored in jeans, boots and an old Chill Sugar concert tee, Lizzie was still making calls on her datapad. While she typed one-handed and talked furiously, I prowled the kitchen, then poured myself a syncaf.
I always drank too much syncaf these days. Too much, too fast. Wanting not to taste it and remember the real thing. Damon had given me a taste for things I couldn't afford.
Real coffee being the least of them.
Lizzie finally ended the call as I was finishing a second cup.
"Everything's set?" I asked.
She grinned, more than a touch of smug lurking around the edges of her expression. "Yes. We've just got time to go meet Yoshi before we have to be at Ian's."
"Meet him where?" I asked, suspicion flaring as I took in what she was wearing. She'd applied blue lip gloss that matched her hair. Somehow, she’d managed to pull it up into a rough bun one-handed. Impressive. Her clothes continued a blue, silver, and black theme, mixed with leather and studs that looked more like she was planning to go out dancing than meeting with her fellow witchy overlords. There weren't that many places in San Francisco these days where tech-heads-for-hire and places where Lizzie’s dress code might be appropriate occupied the same zip code.
"Dockside," Lizzie said, her voice a shade too casual.
Oh crap.
The closer we got to Dockside, the more my body tried to make me change my mind and just go home. My mouth dried, my stomach churned, and my spine started to feel like it was made of sparking steel, electric jitters skittering up and down it. By the time our ride-share let us out on the outskirts of the precinct, I was close to panic.
The last time I'd been to Dockside, I'd been hunted by an imp and accidentally fried it in self-defense. That was how I'd discovered I had magic. It was also one of the last places I'd been with Nat. I'd never liked Dockside much to begin with, and it carried nothing but the memories of terror and pain and fire and loss.
My footsteps slowed as Lizzie led the way across cracked pavement, heading toward the water. I wasn't sure I could do it. The wind blowing in from the bay carried the sounds of voices and music and the creaks and groans of the decaying buildings that lined the battered docks.
Quite a lot of the bay's altered shoreline had been rebuilt after the Big One. Dockside was left to r
ot when the city decided this portion of the piers wasn't a restoration priority. Then the seedy side of town moved in. Now it was home to a mix of sleazy nightclubs, game rooms, gambling halls, and other businesses that preferred to operate from the shade. The paths along the docks themselves that led to all these dens of not-so-delight were lined with makeshift booths housing all sorts of businesses. Fences, gray-side nano wear, knock-off tech, street food, and souvenirs designed to appeal to the type of tourist who came down here seeking a thrill.
I was seeking to keep my shit together. I sucked in a breath that must have been a shade too loud.
Lizzie stopped and turned back to me. "It will be okay," she said encouragingly. Apart from the sling, her outfit blended in well with the others who were out and about in Dockside this early. The clubs wouldn't really get going until much later. Fine with me. I was happy not to tangle with any more Docksiders than necessary.
I moved closer to Lizzie, trying to will my pulse back to normal. "This from the girl who might make me stick my hand in a bowl of demon stone later on."
"Only if necessary. It's not like I want to. And that will be okay, too." She tipped her head in the direction we'd been headed. "C'mon, this will be fun. I'll buy you a hot dog."
Like I would ever eat anything sold by a Dockside food cart.
"Explain to me why this guy hangs out down here," I said as we picked our way along the broken hypercrete sidewalk. Time hadn't improved Dockside's charms any, merely layered on another nine months' rust and dirt to the abandoned buildings, another nine months' rotting sea stench to the shattered shoreline, and another nine months' garbage to the alleys and abandoned spaces. I clenched my teeth as my stomach rolled uneasily with each waft of rot and ruin.
"Rent on the booths is cheap." Lizzie kept walking.
Well, yes, it would be. Though given the kind of people who now controlled Dockside, I'd imagine cheap rent came with some catches.
Life was cheap down here, too.
And no one was going to save you. To get within shouting distance of any regular police presence, you had to go farther around the Embarcadero, where it was still a street. There they'd actually made an effort to get some of the piers operational again so the hover ferries could run, and freight could be shifted and tourists could be shipped out to see the tumbled ruins of Alcatraz, which hadn't faired any better in the quake than Dockside.
Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 were distant happy memories.
Dockside was a nightmare.
Some clubs had guards, but they were more interested in keeping the peace inside the walls belonging to whoever employed them than they were in interfering if anything happened outside.
We were essentially walking into no-man's-land.
Which didn't greatly raise my confidence that Lizzie's Yoshi would live up to the press she'd been giving him. There were other ways to get cheap rent while hustling for money, after all.
"I thought you said he was a deck jockey. Shouldn't he be hanging out at the clubs?" Deck jockeys fixed VR and other game systems. Game clubs were their natural habitat. Most of those were in nicer parts of town. Not all. But if this guy was any good, he didn't need to be trawling for work in Dockside clubs.
"He does. But he also comes down here to fix other stuff for people who need it and can't afford other places. Chill, Mags. He's a good kid. He knows his shit. And he needs a break."
We'd reached the edge of the cleared areas where the street booths clustered. The eau-de-rotting-garbage lessened somewhat, though the various perfumes of hot dogs, fries, marijuana, Sandman, and greasy canvas weren’t really any better. I shivered as we passed a nano-tatt stall, decorated with all the cheap electro-flash your heart could desire.
I'd passed that same stall when Nat brought me down here to Unquiet to play. That was the night I'd first realized something was wrong with her.
The night I used magic for the first time.
I'd rather have gone for the nano-tatt since and risked septicemia and nanowrack. I hugged my arms around my waist, suddenly cold.
Lizzie must have seen me shiver. She moved closer, linked her arm through mine. "It's just down here." We left the
tattoos behind and headed farther into the forest of booths.
"This is it." She stopped next to a narrow stall crammed between a knock-off game vendor and an open grill BBQ that proclaimed to offer genuine South Carolina-style hog. The smell of it might have been tempting if my stomach had been more settled, but as it was, the grease and smoke and tang just added to my queasiness. I avoided looking too closely at the meat itself. The canvas sheltering the stall might have originally been red but had faded to something closer to rust in the weird light cast by the combination of the BBQ's glowing coals and the flashing solar glows running around the edges of our destination.
"Hey, Yosh," Lizzie said, leaning over the skinny slab of banged-up steel that barred the stall's entrance. "You home?"
I didn’t know what I'd been expecting, but the figure who rose out of the dim interior of the stall wasn't it.
Short, skinny, and baby-faced. Lizzie had told me Yoshi was nineteen, but he looked younger. I hoped she was right. I couldn’t use him if he wasn’t legally able to sign a contract. Straight black hair hit his shoulders, chunky tortoiseshell glasses framed his eyes, and he was wearing an outfit that looked like it could've come from the pages of one of the ancient golfing magazines my grandfather used to collect.
Plaid, plaid, and plaid. In a color clash that was so bad it almost had to be deliberate.
Nothing like the stuff I was used to seeing the gamers wear in the clubs. Of course, I hadn't been in a game club for months, so maybe I was just out of touch.
"Lizzie R. How are you?" he said in a curiously deep voice. It didn't fit his body but gave me some comfort he was as old as Lizzie thought.
"I'm good, Yosh," she said with a grin. She jerked her head in my direction. "This is Maggie. The one I've been telling you about."
The glasses swiveled in my direction. It was hard to see what color his eyes were in the crazy light reflecting off the lenses. Not dark like his hair suggested. His expression was curious. "You're the TechWitch?"
I nodded. "That's me."
He smiled, flashing white teeth. "Chill. Lizzie tells me you're ice."
"Yeah? And what do your sources tell you?" If he was worth his salt, he wouldn't be taking Lizzie's word for it about my abilities. If she was right and he had his hooks into the game world, then he wouldn't lack for opportunities to check me out. If I was right and he dabbled elsewhere, then he should have even more ways to find out what it was I did.
"Word is also ice. Though word also says you're not around much lately." His head tilted as he looked from me to Lizzie. "Lizzie R here ain't talking."
I was beginning to feel like I was the one being sized up instead of vice versa. Which was true, in a way. If Yoshi lived up to Lizzie's press, I needed him more than he needed me right now. If he was good, he should be making a reasonable living doing what he did. Good gamers looked after their tech. And they paid well.
"I've been busy," I said. "Now I'm back. Lizzie tells me you've got some skills."
"What're you looking for?"
"You know what I do?"
He swept his hand in front of his body, palm down. "You work the mojo for those big-ass companies. Get the systems sweet. Like me and game gear." As he pulled his hand back, I saw the glint of a chip at his wrist. Well, that solved one problem. He could go where I couldn't at the moment. My current client didn't have interface chip tech, but Righteous did. I might need that access to clear my name from whatever bullshit was going on there.
"The systems I work with aren't exactly big on VR."
He shrugged. "Code is code."
I couldn't argue with that. He clearly knew his stuff if he could afford a chip. Unless someone else had paid for it. But kids with rich parents didn't often work Dockside stalls as a side gig. And Lizzie had said Yoshi needed a b
reak. "So I'm told. How are you with security protocols?"
"Be right there, Drey." He looked past me, nodded at someone I couldn't see.
I turned instinctively. A tall black guy with bright yellow dreads stood behind us, keeping his distance.
"No problem, Yosh," he said, holding up his hands in an "I'll wait" gesture. Customers who were willing to wait, that was another good sign.
Yoshi's gaze turned back to me. "You need a hack?"
I had to give him credit—he looked young, but he had balls beyond his years. "Hardly," I said.
Beside me I saw Lizzie glance at her datapad. Traffic had been slow on our way here. We were cutting it fine if we were going to make it to Ian's on time.
It said something that I would have chosen—if offered the choice—to stay here in Dockside rather than face demon stone again, but I wasn't being offered the choice.
So. I needed to make a decision so we could go. Being late wouldn't sway the Cestis in my favor. I looked at Yoshi for a moment, considering. He had Lizzie's recommendation. That was a plus.
And he hadn't set off my freak radar in the last few minutes. Unique, definitely, but he didn't seem weird in a bad way. I'd spent enough time in game clubs to be able to pick the ones who had crossed the line from quirky-odd to dangerous-odd. Yoshi wasn't ringing that bell.
So, Lizzie said he had the skills, and right now, I needed help to get out of the Riley Arts security team's bad books. I'd be stupid not to give Yoshi a chance.
"What time do you finish up tonight?" Game clubs run late. He wasn't going to be any good to me if he couldn't front for work at normal people hours.
"Got a club gig later, but I'll be done by two or so."
By which point I might be locked up by the Cestis for having demon taint. Or worse. If I didn't die, then I really needed some sleep. Fatigue fogged the
edges of my brain despite the overload of syncaf.
