The Incubus Job

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  I thought of little Philip Johns. No. I would figure something out.

  I inched back down to the entrance and peered out. No one was looking my way. I ducked back under the tape and strode down to the next street and turned out of sight. Next stop, the parking lot where Nancy Jane and her mother had been stolen. I couldn’t help but wonder who’d got the ransom note. Maybe the father’s body had been the proof of commitment and Nancy Jane and her mother were the treasure to be retrieved. In that case, whoever was on the receiving end of the ransom demand might already have paid it or more likely, be in the middle of their own rescue attempt. Or revenge crusade. Maybe they’d already given the two up for dead.

  Fuck, but I hated the Tyet. I hated the politics and the trade in bodies that came with it, and the way everybody ran scared of every shadow. They could all burn in hell, and I wouldn’t miss a single one.

  I caught the train to Midtown after looking up the shoe store address. It wasn’t that far from where my sister’s ex-fiancé lived. I grimaced. Ex-fiancé, but not ex-out-of-her-life. I didn’t judge, but it was clear that Josh and Taylor were still involved, even if they weren’t planning a marriage. Whatever. Not my problem and not my concern. If Taylor was happy, so was I. Unless making her happy meant annoying the fuck out of me, which happened with irritating regularity.

  Encanto wasn’t your ordinary, run-of-the-mill sort of store. It carried designer shoes and high-end name-brand stuff. Nancy Jane’s mother shouldn’t have had the money to shop there.

  I wandered into a frozen yogurt shop a couple doors down and took my cup to a table in the window. There were two cop cars still parked in front of the store and a crime-scene van parked nearby. Several men and women collected evidence from around the deserted car, using magic and prosaic tools of the trade. I wasn’t interested in them. I was waiting for the trace to come back. I’d give it another couple or three hours before I gave up. It had been fourteen since the kidnapping, and a null that lasted longer than that would cost a hell of a lot of money. Since most tracers weren’t strong enough to pick up the returning trace, or maybe they just didn’t bother to look for it, I figured it would appear soon if it was going to come back at all.

  I’d eaten another yogurt and switched to a cafe for hot cider and a sandwich when the trace returned. There was a tangle left behind by five or more people, including Nancy Jane and her mother. I got up and left money on the table for the tip before wandering down the sidewalk. I only needed a trail. A casual walk-by would give me that.

  There were three kidnappers and the two victims. Everybody’s trace was still colorful and very alive. The getaway vehicle had gone out the east exit of the shopping village and headed east toward the escarpment leading up to Uptown. That surprised me. I thought for sure they’d head for Downtown. The kidnappers didn’t strike me as particularly well-funded. Otherwise, they’d have used better nulls. On the other hand, well-funded criminals weren’t necessarily smart, and many were cheap enough to pass for stupid.

  I followed on foot, wishing I had my mountain bike. I’d wrecked it in October and hadn’t gotten around to making the necessary repairs.

  They never went to Uptown. They hit the Midtown Pearl District, and turned off the main avenue to zigzag through several neighborhoods. I followed down a long wooded drive to a cul-de-sac with only one driveway leading off. The trail disappeared behind a set of wrought-iron gates attached to tall stone walls. Within was an estate with tall, sweeping trees. I could see the blue-slate roof of the house, but that was about it. A quaint-looking stone guard shack stood just inside the gates. A mat of winter-dried vines covered it over.

  The guard noticed me immediately. He stepped out, wearing a puffy down parka and a ball cap with gold braid on it. He wore a gun holstered on his hip and had a radio speaker clipped to his collar at the edge of his hood.

  I hesitated, then decided that running was not a good option. There was nothing to indicate that Nancy Jane and her mother had left after they arrived. If I took off now that I was seen, I might spook the kidnappers. They could easily kill Tess Squires and her daughter and get rid of the bodies before I could call in the cavalry.

  “What do you want?” the guard demanded. He had a deep voice and skin the color of day-old coffee. He rested his hand on his weapon. Like I would be able to attack him through the gates.

  I shuffled up closer and wrapped my hands around the iron bars. “Hey, man, it’s really cold out. This place is really a whoop-de-doo, you know what I mean? Like money on the half shell. I don’t need cash. Places like this always have stuff to give away, stuff they don’t want anymore. Maybe something I could sell? Maybe shoes or clothes? I can get good money for those. I’m really struggling. I got kids. The old man died in a rock fall in the mines and left us with nothing. I can’t find a job. I gotta get some food on the table.”

  The moment I started talking, a look of pity and disgust shadowed the guard’s features. His eyes slid away from me like I was suddenly invisible. He dropped his hand from his gun.

  “Lady, you need to get out of here. Go beg somewhere else. What the hell you doing here anyway? Go to a church or a soup kitchen or something.”

  “I will, I will,” I said. “Can’t you just give me a little something? Maybe a watch? Or a couple dollars? I got another few months before I can get on the diamond dole. Just gotta get there. Kids are sick, you know. Haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday. You understand, I know it. You’ve seen down times. I’ll pay everything back. I promise.”

  I let the panic and desperation ratchet up in my voice, even as I piled more problems on. He didn’t believe me; but he wanted to get rid of me, and I had to make my act believable if he wasn’t going to get suspicious about me being here.

  “Look lady, you’ve gotta leave. I don’t know what made you pick this place—”

  “The Lord led me here,” I claimed. “He lit the path for me because he knew I’d find help here.” I really hoped I wasn’t going to burn in hell for using the Lord’s name in vain. Not that anybody in heaven knew my name.

  “Well, he was wrong. Get lost.”

  Just then his radio crackled, and a voice barked, “What’s going on, Randall?”

  The guard gave me a furious look and pressed the button on the speaker. “It’s nothing. Just a vagrant, sir. She’s leaving.”

  “She’d better be,” the voice snapped back. “Get rid of her now or it’s your head.”

  That wasn’t actually a euphemism or an idle threat. I shuddered, but continued to look beseechingly at Randall. He swore and pulled out his wallet and shoved a couple of twenties into my hand.

  “That’s it, lady,” he growled. “You go and don’t ever come back. You do and you’ll have reason to regret it.”

  I instantly started to retreat, calling blessings down on him and thanking him. I wanted my exit to look like I was afraid he’d change his mind, but really I just wanted to get out of the line of sight of the security cameras and the chance of him noticing I wasn’t quite what I seemed. I’m a jeans and tee-shirt girl. I don’t go for designer wear, and I like hiking boots or running shoes. I wear clothes I can move in and that won’t get shredded when I have to climb over fences or crawl under a hedge. I do those kinds of things more frequently than I like. So it wasn’t that I wasn’t looking the role of the beggar—at least for this kind of neighborhood— but that I was awfully clean and neither my shoes nor my jacket were cheap. If anybody stopped to consider, they’d know I wasn’t what I claimed to be.

  I hustled up the roadway. The trees marching along the sides of the road beyond the drainage culvert gave the estate seclusion, and also protected potential witnesses from watching me get murdered.

  A sound alerted me to pursuit. I glanced back. The gates had slid open far enough to let Randall out. He was jogging after me, his hat pulled low.

  Fear forked through me, and I broke into a jog. I was fit. I walked or biked most everywhere I went, and Randall was carrying a spare t
ire around his gut. He also had a gun. I wanted distance between us, as much as I could get.

  “Hey!” he called. “I got something else for you! The lady of the house wants to meet you!”

  He tried to sound enticing. I wasn’t buying. I accelerated. Just over the rise was a four-way stop. After that was about a quarter of a mile with just one or two other houses set well off the road before I got anywhere near population.

  Randall swore, and his pace quickened into a long run. Damn, but he was a lot faster than he looked. I started to sprint, hoping he ran out of juice before I did. Not that it would matter. He’d have friends along in a minute. I needed to come up with an escape plan and quick.

  I scanned the sides of the road. Tall iron fences threaded behind the trees. Ahead was a driveway with a gate. I wasn’t going to take a chance that Randall would catch up with me while I tried to convince another guard to let me in. Tires squealed behind me. Fuck.

  The ground to the right exploded, sending rocks and bits of wood and dirt into the air. I swerved left and something splatted down where I would have been and again exploded. Terrific. Randall didn’t just have a gun, he had magical explosives and good aim. I’d assumed he didn’t have any magical talents—you didn’t end up a security guard if you did. That didn’t mean he didn’t have tricks up his sleeve.

  As hard as I try not to be stupid, I’d followed trace into a dead-end trap and then made a ridiculous assumption. I’d been too focused on finding my prey, and now I was paying the price. I deserved to get dead. Not that I was going to go down easy.

  I reached into my pocket and fingered the various glass and metal balls I carried. I gripped a steel bearing, about the size of a good-sized grape. I activated it with a pulse of power, feeling the ripple of magic roll through me and out. A null field surrounded me. Nothing magic could penetrate the field until the null’s power zeroed out. If any of Randall’s bombs hit inside the null’s radius, they would be snuffed out.

  Bullets, however, were an entirely different story.

  I zigzagged back and forth in case he decided to stop and shoot. Given how accurate his bomb-throwing skills were, I expected he was a decent shot as well. The rumble of the car came closer, and I knew I was just about out of time.

  I couldn’t see a damned thing that would help me. I was stuck in a narrow chute, with fences to the sides of me and trouble crawling up my ass. I couldn’t outrun a car or a bullet. Stopping would only lead to them killing me faster. They seemed to be in a shoot-first-ask-questions-later sort of mood.

  I blew through the intersection without looking for traffic. I was on a slight downhill grade now and gaining a little bit of speed. My legs were just getting warmed up, and despite my having to zig and zag, I was keeping ahead of Randall, who’d begun to lose steam. Up ahead I could see brick buildings where the trees thinned. There was a little shopping area there, I remembered. A neighborhood gathering place, with a common area, a family grocery store, an Italian restaurant, a little movie theater, a donut shop, and I forgot what else. Most importantly, there were people there.

  I wasn’t going to make it unless I got rid of the goons chasing me in the car. Behind me the engine revved and tires squealed again. I glanced back over my shoulder. A green car sat in the middle of the intersection. A big SUV had swerved to miss it and had turned down the opposite direction. It was working furiously on getting turned around on the narrow road, but the deep drainage culverts on either side were slowing it down. Men leaned out the window swearing and yelling, and several shots popped off into the air.

  Randall was still after me. Only now he’d pulled his gun and was setting up to shoot. My heart thudding, I jumped into high gear, jerking back and forth and hoping he wouldn’t hit me.

  A bullet struck the ground ten feet ahead of me on the right. My brain went white. An adrenaline bomb exploded in my chest and panic took over. I dove into the nearest culvert, skidding down on my ass and back to the bottom. Roots and tough branches tore my jacket and shredded my hands. The steel null went bouncing off into nowhere.

  I landed on tumbled rocks the size of my head. I scrambled up despite the pain blossoming in my left ankle and knee. I clambered over the uneven rocks, gripping weeds on either side for balance. I could hear footsteps above as Randall ran to catch up with me. That’s when I finally got lucky.

  On the left, under the road, was a pipe big enough to walk through bent over. It emptied into another culvert. That one ran fifteen or twenty feet down to another drain covered by a steel grate. On my right was a runoff gully from the estate above. Fence bars blocked it, but there was room at the bottom to scooch under, if I sucked in my gut.

  I scrabbled at some rocks and pulled them out of the way, then lay on my back to pull myself up under the bottom of the gate. I wasn’t going to make it. I unzipped my coat, sure that at any moment Randall would look down and see me. He was about twenty-five feet back, looking down into the steep ditch. Weeds and scrub bushes blocked his view. The SUV roared up behind him.

  “Where’s the bitch?” a woman demanded. “Did you get her?”

  “She went to ground in the ditch,” Randall said.

  I shoved my coat through the bars and then started to wriggle under. The bars were rusty and rubbed red on my skin and clothes. Rocks cut into my back. I ignored them, shoving with my heels and elbows as my chest cleared the fence. I’m curvy. That means I have boobs. Luckily, they mashed enough to let me through. After that, I squirmed and dragged myself the rest of the way in, pulling my coat back on. I still wasn’t out of the woods. Randall could still see me if he looked in the right spot. I need to find cover.

  “You’d better find her.” A male voice threatened this time.

  “I get paid to keep people out, not hunt them down,” Randall said, glaring at his companions.

  Someone got out of the car. I didn’t waste time looking back. The runoff gully made me a sitting duck. The sides were soft dirt covered in dry pine needles from the trees growing above. I had no handholds, and my knee and ankle screamed every time I tried to crawl up.

  “You get paid to do what we tell you to do. If you don’t, you’ll find yourself snacking on my bullets, you understand me, security guard? Find the girl and kill her.”

  I chanced a look back. I could only see Randall’s legs and the shoulders and waist of the guy threatening him. It looked like he was prodding his handgun into Randall’s chest.

  Randall slapped the gun aside and shoved the smaller man back. “Don’t threaten me, Burke. I’ll cut your balls off and wear them for earrings.”

  I had to smile. I was almost beginning to like Randall. Sure, he was trying to kill me, but he had style. I went back to crawling up the gully. I put my back against the steep slant and started walking myself up, bracing my feet on the other side. I dug my hands deep into the soil to find traction, and soon developed a rhythm.

  I climbed as quietly as I could. Luckily, the soft soil and the loud voices covered for me. Unfortunately, my pursuers couldn’t fight forever.

  “Would the two of you shut the fuck up and get back to finding the girl? We’re screwed if she gets away.” It was the woman again.

  “Like she knows anything,” Randall’s attacker said. “She’s a beggar.”

  “Or she’s not and someone’s on to us. You want to take the chance?”

  There was no reply to that.

  “Check the other side,” Randall said. “There’s a storm drain under the road. She probably went through. I’ll keep going on this side.”

  I was about level with the road and near the top of the bank inside the fence when he stopped to look down right across from me. I froze. I was in the dappled shadows beneath the trees and my coat was a dusty green. My jeans were covered in dirt. I couldn’t have been better camouflaged. All the same, I knew that if Randall looked up, he’d see me.

  “Any sign of her?” the woman hollered from across the road.

  I could see her now. She had short brown hair a
nd a stocky body. She carried an Uzi, or something like it, with a sling strap over her shoulder. One man sat in the driver’s seat of the SUV, which was slowly rolling along. The man who’d threatened Randall must have jumped down into the culvert on the other side of the road. Thank goodness I’d climbed out of view; otherwise, he’d have seen me through the pipe.

  “Not down here,” he answered. His voice echoed.

  “What about you, Randall?” She swung around to look at him.

  He stood with his back to her, his gun at his side, looking straight at me. My heart stopped, and I didn’t breathe. He turned away. “Nothing here. We’d better step quick. She might be on her way into town.”

  “Shit.” The woman broke into a jog, and the group moved on.

  I struggled the rest of the way up to the top and flung myself backward, my legs dangling over the edge of the bank. I felt like throwing up. Why had Randall let me go?

  I didn’t have a clue, but I was going to have to pay him back, because I was pretty sure he was going to catch hell for this, if they didn’t kill him.

  I fumbled in my pants pocket for my cell phone. It came out with a handful of dirt and pine needles. I shook it off and keyed in my passcode. I had one ghosting call left. Sean had set them up for me, no charge, when he found out what I used them for. His contribution to saving kids. The spell allowed me to call Price directly without him being able trace the call back to me.

  I activated the spell and waited for him to come on the line. He answered on the second ring.

  “Price,” he growled.

  “Look for the Squires at the end of Sienna Avenue in Midtown,” I said. The ghosting spell disguised my voice for me. “The mansion at the dead end. Hurry.”