Eve, being better with humans than he was, even if that wasn’t really her job at the moment, explained what was going on.
“We can hear what’s going on in both locations. Harland of the Council asked where this was, and Troy took the chance to talk up Detective Tran.” She stopped, grinning happily at the woman. “She actually seems good at her job. Smart, too. Notice how she saw an opportunity to work with us and took it without blinking? That’s hard core, for a regular person.”
There was a soft clap. That was a Bey mannerism, so it made sense when he spoke.
“I’m sure we all look forward to meeting her, soon.” It was the kind of thing that they said, without always meaning.
Troy nodded though and took a breath. He nearly even meant it.
“There’s a picnic here, in a few weeks. To show the coming together of the human community with all the others. We should send a representative to that, if possible. Possibly not any of you, directly? We may have Calley Hale from the Shifters though. We don’t want to make it into a big political thing, if possible. You know, so that regular people of all walks of life will feel good about coming.”
There was soft conversation for a few moments, which had to seem like silence to the humans in the room with them. The Chief looked ready to speak, when Bey did again.
“We understand. Would Ambassador Keene be allowed to attend, do you think? Or perhaps Felicity of the Sparks embassy?”
Troy hadn’t met the second one, but he nodded anyway. If the Council liked them, they probably weren’t a problem at all.
“Both would be welcome. You are as well, but we’d need to hide that, so that no one gets overawed by you and starts asking for autographs.”
There was a small, very dry, Bey chuckle then.
“Ah. That has happened to me a few times. A true threat, since it can create blockages of passage ways. Very good then. Thank the authorities there? I wouldn’t keep you from your tasks, if you need to go?” That could have been a hint to get off the line, but with Bey, it was hard to know that kind of thing.
“We should. I’m not that certain of the technique I’m going to try, so… You know, magic? I’m not that good at it, so I should start now.”
That wasn’t how it worked, but after a few more spoken lines from most of the Council, the line broke.
Eve clapped. Like Bey. Cuter, true, but it was done in the same childlike way.
“We’re on then! Okay, Troy, do your thing. We need a car. Unless you want to run with us, Detective Tran? Troy should be able to work that out, but I don’t know if he can do it while tracking at the same time. You’re welcome to come with me?”
She smiled, as if it were a joke.
“Oh? I can borrow some super speed? That sounds fun. We should do that. Troy suggested I learn magic, if I can find a few hundred extra years. After that?”
Eve blinked, then tilted her head.
“We… Can do that. Still, I can take you into the super speed thing with me. It isn’t as fast as what I can really do, but faster than a car, if it comes up. We should try it. A car first? I don’t have one here. It’s sort of against the rules for me to ride in one without permission. I can jog, though. No problem.”
He knew that one.
Edom had told Eve that she wasn’t allowed to use her car, mainly so that he could borrow it after his really sweet sports car had gotten destroyed by some baby vampires. Eve had taken it as a directive to learn how to be the fastest young vampire in the world. So, she wasn’t allowed to ride anywhere, like she’d said. Bey hadn’t insisted on that for Troy at all.
It was probably a sign that the vampires expected great things from Eve. Not so much from him. Or, he reflected, possibly different things.
“I’ll ride, if that isn’t insulting to you? I need to go deep for this. I haven’t learned to gather energy from nothing, like some vampires are doing these days.” He mock glared but got a wink in response.
“Ooh. Good point. You need that, if you’re using magic now. Great point. I’ll set you up there, for a price.”
He nodded.
“I hear you. You want to get with Denise, right? She really is all that. I don’t know if she does women though, so I expect you to sweeten the pot, if you want to hit that.” It was a joke, but Eve knew better than to be insulting about it. They were vampires after all. Also moving out the front door, so her dad and step-mom weren’t listening.
Just Detective Tran.
“Hmm. Well, she is rather nice. I was thinking of work though. I mean, if I want to get with your partner, that would need your agreement, but wouldn’t be a good thing to trade, really.”
He nodded.
“Fine. Within reason. Do you have something specific in mind?”
“Yep. The IPB has a thing coming up. A social event, not anything combat related. Kind of like your picnic here but for the Infected. Catered as well. We need a good bartender for it. In a week. Call it six hours, start to finish?”
“That sounds fine. I’ll need to get the time off. It’s in the evening? Also, you can get me there and back?” He could do it on his own. She knew the story there, however.
Eve, being bright, went with it.
“Solid. Thanks. So… You’re good with me and Denise here? Kinky.”
Denise snorted but didn’t say anything.
Troy looked at her then, and smiled.
“Vampire rules, Detective. If Eve tried to sleep with you, without my permission, I’d have to fight her. The same would happen if anyone wanted to kidnap or hurt you, by the way. We’re very territorial, as a group, so keep that in mind. I’m not sure that I’d win. Or survive, against Eve. Basically, if the person has a weird nickname, they’re not someone to mess with.”
Tran kept walking, taking it all in.
“You mentioned that before. That means, if I meet someone called Smelly, I need to be extra careful?”
“Especially then. That kind of thing, a joke name like that? It generally means that they aren’t sane. Even with Eve, Snowflake… It was an insult. She’s so bad assed that she owned it. Little vamps fear the day, knowing the Snowflake might be coming for them while they’re dead.”
That sounded wrong, in regular person English, but his partner understood.
“So, we should call you The Suit, so no one messes with us? I can be… Um… Coffee?”
It was meant to be a joke, which was fine, since Eve didn’t comment, just waving.
“Go. I’ll follow along and run a search pattern.”
Troy shook his head, then looked out into the night.
“Go, she says. Like it won’t take five hours to even get a hint where to go. Let me see here…”
It didn’t take that long for him to go inside of himself, and block out the rest of the world. The trick was communicating. Speaking wasn’t possible, as deep as he was. Freeing a bit of his mind, he pointed with his right hand.
Then he felt for where in the world the man he wanted was. With only his intention. That seemed like a cloud to him, instead of a person. A black thing, with silver swirling around it. A mage, as reconstructed by the depths of his mind. The issue was that the being was moving away from them. That got him to stretch out, pushing his hand forward, once they were lined up.
It was clear that they turned, at times. Finally, after a long time of going in a straight line, not catching up, he tried to hold the magic, the idea he wanted and open his eyes.
They were driving, at about seventy miles per hour, down a very straight stretch of freeway. Rolling down the window, he spoke normally first. Eve would be moving fast, but that speed wasn’t a big deal for her at all. It wouldn’t even be distorting sound that much yet.
“He’s ahead of us. Moving away. We need to go faster to catch him. Carefully. I don’t think I can run and find him at the same time.” That would have been really helpful, actually. Then he could simply jog over to the right spot and see about taking the mage in. Or at least holding him long enough to
find out what he could from the man. It would probably involve some torture, since nothing else was really going to work, unless they had mages working with them to prevent escape.
A voice called back to him then, from the driver’s side window.
“Got it. Go, Denise. I can keep up. Guide on, Troy.”
The blob that was their mage friend moved closer, over the next hour or two. Finally, they closed very fast, getting him to jerk his eyes open. It still took a minute to work out what was going on.
“A rest area. The good kind too. He’s stopped. I can’t say for how long. I just have a sense of where he is. Nothing more. Not what he’s thinking. I can’t even swear that this isn’t a trick. A magical thing to stop us from doing this.”
It didn’t feel like it.
Tran pulled over, doing it smoothly enough that she didn’t put him through the windshield. That took a bit of skill, really. She’d been up to about a hundred and ten, so needed to slow a lot to make it into the turning lane. Even at that, she nearly rear-ended a white mini-van that was driving far more normally. He smiled at it, since the side was still damaged. That part had been real then. Looking behind him there was no little blue sports car though. It had probably been totaled. The injuries on Lars were probably fake. The whole thing had been planned, with magic used to cause it to happen more or less safely.
“Nice. The driver is Heidi, or whatever her real name is. Eve, can you catch her? I’ll bail out and see if I can get my man. The others. I don’t see them. Take the ones we can, for now?”
There was no answer, even as he jumped out of a moving car. Stepping out didn’t work, even if you were super-fast. You could leap out though, then run, speeding up enough so you wouldn’t stumble. It hurt a bit, since he tried for quick just then. The man, when he found him, was just picking up a large paper sack. Filled with burgers and fries.
It was from a truck stop burger place, instead of a major chain store. It wasn’t a Wendy’s or Micky-D’s. As he closed with the lumpy, rather large, as in tall, mage, there was a sound from the parking lot. Everyone in the place turned to look, as Troy killed his forward momentum. Just appearing next to the man, moving so that he would just be there when he turned back.
Instead of letting him go for the magical glowing bit in his pocket, Troy punched him in the jaw. Hard, but with enough control nothing broke. It took the man right down, which meant a woman screamed at him.
“What the fuck are you doing!” The lady, who was standing in line to order, looked ready to kick his ass. That or yell more. Either would be annoying. Mainly because it was just about the correct thing to do, if some rando was assaulting innocent people in public. It would really get in his way at the moment. Being upset with her over it might give her the wrong lesson though.
She was doing the right thing, or trying to. That needed to be kept in mind.
“Police. Supernatural Unit. This man is a wanted fugitive. A mage. Here…” The lump of silver and energy in his pocket was strange, being made of pretty loops of wire and bits of bright red crystal. Instead of a single large crystal, wrapped up in the stuff. That was what he’d seen before. This looked nearly like artwork. Helpfully, it glowed brightly, so the mouthy civilian woman, who should have known better than to eat even more junk food, could see he was telling the truth.
Then, she had probably given up on life, a while back, from the look of her.
When a random man was in trouble though, she’d moved in, ready to help him. Even if it was the wrong guy. It marked her as a good person. Possibly even an important one, to the greater scheme of reality. Troy picked the unconscious mage up with a single arm wrapped around him and tucked the magical device into his jacket pocket. Hopefully it wouldn’t blow up or anything. It was highly charged with power.
In the parking lot, on the far side, there was a white van, sitting on its side to prevent it from driving away. Heidi, his errant date, looked a little different at the moment. She was in all pink clothing, which was pretty different. A light top and capri pants. He thought that was what they were called. Her left shoe was off for some reason. The woman was also very red, since Eve was holding her up by the throat, using one hand for it.
“You know, it’s really hard for your kind to compel others if you can’t speak. It didn't work on me the first time anyone tried it, when I was a week old and it won’t now. Oh, hey Troy. I caught one. I hope. If this is just some soccer mom, boy, am I going to be embarrassed.” She didn’t sound that way, seeming almost pissed off, instead.
“Nope. I’m nearly positive that’s one of the right mages. Let’s get them secured. We need to get them back to the station. Only two of the four… Controlling them will be interesting. I’ll sit in the back with them and knock them out when they try to cast spells?”
The big, lumpy, slightly elder fellow was waking up. His first action was to go for his own pocket. Troy smiled at him.
“Nope. We’re not doing it that way today. You’ve been caught and will stay that way. Now, are you going to tell us what you’re up to, or do we need to do things… Differently.”
The man, probably being wise, kept his mouth shut.
Heidi sneered, though.
“What, you’re going to torture us? Do you really think we aren’t ready for that? You’ll get nothing that way. Have us put under a truth compulsion? You don’t know anyone good enough to even get it started. You can’t do anything to us. Nothing!” She laughed, a bit maniacally.
Troy nodded, his face blank.
“Thanks for sharing. Now, how about the rest? If you make my job easier, I’ll see if I can get you a reduction in the harshness of your punishment. I mean, a lot of people are dead, so there will be something. Still, life in prison with hands is better than with no hands, right? Being raped with lube is highly preferable to it being done dry. You both get that, don’t you?”
He was trying to be the bad cop, but that clearly wasn’t going to work. He was just too friendly looking. Troy smiled. It was a curse. Like his good looks and easy way with women.
After all, there was more than one way to deal with people like the sneering duo in front of him. Not legally, but he wasn’t really worried about that, at the moment.
Chapter twelve
It was tempting to take both of the mages out into the desert for interrogation, instead of doing the right thing and going in to the station. After all, it didn’t take a genius to realize that he was too close to the whole thing for the Chief to allow into the room for that part of things.
Even Detective Tran was, since her partner had nearly dated one of the suspects. That meant, as soon as they got them to the right place, that their mages were separated out for processing. It was a problem, potentially. Not that huge of one, if he were going to be fair. Not unless they’d come in with spells on them to allow escape from incarceration.
If he were a mage criminal, that would have been part of his daily routine.
Get up, have some coffee, shower and clean up… Make sure that no one would be able to hold him for long if he were taken in for anything. That these people weren’t at least that well prepared was silly to even think about. So, instead of sitting in the observation booth, as Heidi and her nameless friend were questioned, Troy sat in a room down the hall from processing.
Trying to get ready to take action, with his mind. The little bit of magic that he could bring to bear for things at any rate. Eve wasn’t even allowed that much, having been essentially sent to the Chief’s house to wait. Even if she had left a mini-van on its side.
Tran wasn’t all that worried, but she seemed to think that they were dealing with regular mages, if not people that didn't have any powers at all. He’d tried to explain. So had Eve. There was a real reason that he’d started with a sneak attack. Because it was hard to beat, even if magic was at hand and ready to go. Power swirled around both of the captives.
Their hands were never left free. It was also clear, to him at least that they were both working
on different things, at the same time. His little friend Heidi, for instance, was building a structure that was going to kill almost everyone in the place who wasn’t already dead. What her pal was forming was even more powerful, but would essentially just let him walk through walls. Probably slip handcuffs at the same time.
Added together, they made a decent escape plan, really. They didn’t even have to work together directly for it to happen. The blonde woman would set her bit into motion as soon as she was ready, then her rotund pal would come and find her. Probably by simply shouting for her until they were in the same place. It didn’t take advanced magic for that to happen.
The spells were both high end things, he thought. His magical training had been about controlling his emotions, mainly. Important for a young vampire, but easy enough to do. He’d also gotten some light winds to blow, a few times. That was about it. Well, that and what he’d done earlier. The first time he’d beaten the kami, it had been real enough, but Darla was right there to hold his hand if he messed up.
The second time was all him though.
Now, he needed to do it again.
Except that he had to figure out what to do on his own. Without using a ridiculous amount of power, since he really didn’t have much to spare. Before everyone died or their subjects just walked through the reinforced concrete walls on him.
Growling a bit, he nodded. It was him trying to seem confident, if only to himself. It wasn’t as if anyone else could see him doing it. He didn't have the power needed for anything flashy. That meant he had to be extra clean and precise. Power could, he thought, be made up for by using a lot of extra time, but it was clear that the two guests weren’t planning to visit them for that long.
“Start with the girl. She’s going to kill people, if you don’t.” He couldn’t just evacuate the place, since that would allow the man to walk them out anyway. Plus, there were prisoners that couldn’t be moved very fast. Wally the drunk didn’t deserve to die for getting a bit rowdy the night before.
Troy Ounce (Lopez Time Book 1) Page 17
