by TR Cameron
When she tried the handle, it was locked, although that wasn’t a surprise. Tanyith removed the same device he’d used before from his pocket and jammed it against the lock. Moments later, he turned the knob to let them in. She paused so Fyre could sneak through the opening, then closed it quietly behind them. What had appeared to be three floors from the outside was clearly less on the inside, as the one they were on extended vertically for at least a story and a half. Palettes of boxed goods wrapped in heavy plastic were arranged in rows and columns in the back half of the space. The section to their left was where the limo had pulled in, and there was an open area on their right that included a metal staircase leading up through the ceiling.
She whispered, “This place is way too big and way too filled up for comfort. Stolen stuff, maybe?”
Tanyith nodded. “Most likely. Apparently, the gang has all kinds of diverse things going on—more than we thought.”
Fyre had already moved to the staircase, so she followed him up as quietly as she was able and rolled her feet carefully from heel to toe with each step. At the top was an entirely different arrangement. Where the downstairs was wide open, the stairs ended in a room with a heavy door blocking the path to the larger portion of the building. Beside that door, a man with a rifle surged to his feet at her appearance. Fyre had moved out of the line of fire, and she punched the air to deliver a fist of force to his midsection. He doubled over with a loud “oomph” but started to raise the weapon as he straightened. By then, she was beside him and pushed on his arms to lift the gun higher. His shots went into the ceiling when he pressed the trigger.
She held onto his wrist, spun under his arms, and thrust her right elbow into his ribs. As a follow-up, she stamped on the top of his foot, and when he shifted his balance reflexively, she yanked his arms down and over her to flip him. His rifle clattered away as he landed hard. Tanyith knelt beside the fallen thug and withdrew zip ties from his pocket to bind the guard’s hands and feet together.
Cali crouched beside him. “You actually carry zip ties around?”
He shrugged. “After what we’ve been through lately? Yeah. You never know. Plus, if you’re arrested with them, they’re far more explainable than handcuffs.”
She shook her head. “Do you think anyone heard the shots?”
Tanyith nodded. “For sure. I can’t imagine they’d have only one person on guard. If they cared enough to guard it, they would have cared enough to have multiple people.”
“Plan?”
“I don’t think either of us has enough mojo to blast that door off its hinges. It’s probably on a heavy steel frame bolted to the floor and to a crossbeam. So I’ll have to pick the lock. Then you can pull it open, and I’ll charge in.”
“How good are your shields?”
He sighed and shook his head. “Adequate. Plus, this was my idea, so I’ll go first. No complaining.”
She laughed. “Gotcha, boss. You do whatever your maleness requires you to do, no matter how stupid.”
Grumbling under his breath, he pulled the device out and inserted it into the lock again. It hummed slightly before the latch clicked and he repeated the process with the deadbolt above. She whispered, “What is that?”
Tanyith grinned. “It’s a power lock pick gun. I stole it from a government locksmith a long time ago. It works like a charm on most simple ones.”
“What do you do for complex locks?”
“Blast them away with magic. Pull the door on three.” He counted on his fingers, and she yanked the barrier aside as the last one came down. When he surged into the room, the rifle reports indicated four shots in rapid succession. She followed him in, raised a force shield in front of her, and discovered a long hallway with doorways set into either side. Her partner was three-quarters of the way down it, and the man who had shot at him was falling, apparently the victim of a magical attack.
She had a moment of relief at the ease of the victory before two men appeared in the middle of the corridor, one from each side. The first turned toward Tanyith, and she attacked him with a growl and threw a force punch at him. The other closed quickly and by the time his partner went down, his fist had already covered most of the distance to her face.
There was no time to block so she yanked her head in the same direction in which the blow traveled. With both motions in sync, the impact was far less damaging when it landed than it would have been. Still, it careened her toward the wall and a painful collision with another heavy metal door powerful enough to make it chime. Fyre growled but she knew the man was too close for her ally to act. A quick push off the cold surface to deliver a side-kick solved that problem, and as soon as he staggered away from her, the Draksa locked him in magical ice.
She dropped to one knee and took stock of herself. Brain still working? Check. Body still working? Check. Sense of superiority smashed? Check. It had been a while since she’d taken a blow to the face, and it was always a shock when it happened. She shook her head, pleased to find that it didn’t hurt, and pushed herself to her feet. On the way, her gaze swept across an open slot in the door, and she recoiled at the sight of a pair of eyes looking at her. “Holy hell, what the actual—” She stopped herself from finishing the sentence.
Tanyith was at her side in an instant. “What?”
“There’s someone in there.” She pointed at the door. He frowned, leaned forward and looked inside, and nodded. He retrieved the tool to unlock it and dragged the heavy barrier open slowly. Shrouded in the shadows was a man—a teenager or perhaps a little older—in ragged shorts and nothing else. His hair was in tight, dirty braids, and the room stank like he’d been there for a while. He shrank back against the wall.
“It’s okay,” Tanyith said, “we’re here to help. Can you tell me your name?”
He shook his head slightly. Cali whispered, “He looks like he’s in shock. Do you think he’s an Atlantean?”
Her partner held his hands up to show he wasn’t hiding anything and backed from the room, leaving the door open behind him. The enraged look on his face provided the answer before he said it. “Definitely.” He gestured to a long line of similar doors. “I bet these are some of the people who came in on the cruise ships. Maybe not everyone is greeted by the gang or something.”
“You don’t think these are captive gang members?”
He shook his head. “He has no ink and if they are all like him, they don’t seem resilient enough to have worked on the streets. They’re probably new arrivals that the damn Zatoras snatched before they could make contact—or who some bastard on the docks sold out to them.”
She winced. “You don’t think there could be someone in New Atlantis working with them, do you? Like, human trafficking? Er…Atlantean trafficking?”
“No.” There was no doubt in his tone. “They wouldn’t work with humans on such a thing. No Atlantean would. If this was a warehouse owned by the local Atlanteans, I might believe it was possible. But this? No chance.”
Fyre snorted, and it made her realize she’d lost track of things. “We need to get the rest of these cells open.” They took the doors in sequence. He unlocked them and moved on to the next while she opened them and talked to whoever was inside. By the end, they had found an even dozen prisoners, two-thirds male, most of whom were unwilling to leave their chambers. Two were, however, and Tanyith drew them to the corner and handed them the rifles they’d confiscated. Immediately, the duo seemed more assured, perhaps discarding the notion that it was all an elaborate trap. He’s smarter than he looks. Where people other than women are concerned, anyway.
“Where did you come from?” Tanyith asked.
The first—a man who looked to be about his age and had a dirty beard and bald head—replied in an accent that sounded like the Caribbean. “New Atlantis by way of Jamaica.”
She tilted her head. “Why?”
He looked at her, his height giving him what she considered an unfair advantage in the discussion. “Culture shock is easier to deal
with that way. We live above the waters for a while, then come here where it’s so different.”
She and her partner nodded in unison. He said, “That makes sense. It explains some things, actually, since I wondered how the New Atlanteans would get aboard the cruise ships.”
The former prisoner stood comfortably with the rifle in his hands like he knew how to use it. While at first, she had imagined the prisoners to be weak, she now realized it was merely having been held captive that made them seem so. His muscles were ropy and powerful-looking, and he had an attitude that showed little fear.
“How long have you been here?” she asked,
He shrugged. “They used drugs to put us to sleep and to wake us up, so I have no way to know. It doesn’t matter, though. What’s important is that you have freed us. Can you take us to Usha?”
Tanyith barked a short laugh. “Not so much. What we can do is leave the doors open so you can make your own way and tell you how to get there. The truth is that she doesn’t like us very much at the moment.” The man looked interested, and he simply shook his head. “It’s a long story. Suffice it to say we’re not on good terms.”
The other man extended a hand. Tanyith reached forward, and instead of grasping it, grabbed higher up on the man’s arm. The Atlantean reciprocated with a nod, then gestured with the rifle down the hallway. “You should go now in case the shots bring people. We can take care of our own from here.” The other man, who was smaller, stockier, and had a full head of curly hair, nodded. He said, “Thank you,” in a harsh rasp that sounded like it hurt.
“You’re welcome,” she replied. “Will thirty minutes be enough time for you to escape?”
The man nodded and waved as they departed. Once they were several blocks away, they ducked into an alley and emerged on the far side, no longer disguised. Tanyith asked, “Why the time limit?”
She shrugged. “I worked on that coincidence thing. If the police arrive, maybe it’ll cover the fact that it was us who broke Grisham’s prisoners out.”
He laughed. “Plus, you’ll earn cred with Barton.”
Cali shook her head and pulled out the prepaid phone she’d had Dasante purchase for her. “Nope. Anonymous tip.” She gave him a sly smile. “Although, you know, if you’re looking for ways to get her to like you, I don’t mind if you call it in.”
He rolled his eyes and walked faster. She laughed and turned to Fyre. “It’s not only me, right? Those two are at least a little interested in each other.”
He nodded with his tongue out and his face amused, and she hurried to catch up, calling, “So, do you want to reach out to her, or should I?”
Chapter Thirteen
It had crept up on her so suddenly that Cali had completely forgotten and only the notice on the wall the evening before had reminded her. The Drunken Dragons Tavern will be closed for a private event on Thursday night.
That private event was her birthday, and it was an important one. The year before had been notable, as she’d moved into her United States legal majority at eighteen and could do things like vote and work in bars. But this year—nineteen—was the one her birth culture, the Atlanteans, considered to be the most important one, the true transition into adulthood.
Emalia and Zeb had insisted on a celebration, and who was she to argue? The guest list had grown by the day—friends of her late parents, friends of her great aunt, notable customers, some of her classmates, and several of her busking comrades. And Tanyith, of course. She’d offered to let him bring a plus one and suggested he could invite Barton, but he’d demurred with an eye-roll so powerful they’d almost fallen out of his head.
She and Fyre walked from the boardinghouse to the bar among the early evening revelers. No one took particular notice of the redhead in jeans and a t-shirt and the white Rottweiler that marched beside her. The Draksa had taken to changing his color scheme every time they ventured out and frankly, she couldn’t blame him. If she was capable of transforming her looks so easily, she’d do it too.
Of course, she could simply use illusion, but that required concentration and focus and she didn’t wish to expend her reserves of either on frivolous things. Well, not on such normal frivolous things. A good prank, though, would be worth it. She had considered that putting a pair of magical invisible bunny ears on Zeb for the party might be a good idea but she’d decided that Tanyith would make a much better target—unless he came with someone she didn’t want to embarrass him in front of.
Then, she’d reconsidered once again because not everyone at the party knew she was magical and it was probably safer for them to remain unaware. Although she expected that at a minimum, Zeb’s Dark Elf friend would be present, it was likely to be a mostly human gathering, so it probably made sense to keep the arcane stuff on the down-low.
Nineteen. Wow. I wish you could be here to see it. Her parents were never far from her thoughts but even during her childhood, this particular event had loomed large for her as it did for all Atlantean children. In that society, one’s life path began at the age of maturity, and most didn’t deviate much from their initial trajectory. She had thought about being a healer, at first, and later, a politician. Now, she imagined she would probably have chosen something akin to investigation had she been able to grow up inside that culture. Puzzles had always appealed to her.
She gazed at her companion, who strode happily down the street. Fyre was almost entirely metallic, and his scales were gorgeous in the setting sun. She didn’t have any real memories of New Atlantis but occasionally imagined what it might be like to walk around and see more Draksa or other amazing creatures along the way. Certainly, she liked New Orleans, but she definitely wasn’t against the idea of a vacation trip to the homeland.
Well, maybe now that I’m nineteen I can put that together. She snorted internally. Unless she came into a windfall or made some unlikely friends, she wouldn’t visit New Atlantis anytime soon. Portals to the undersea city weren’t exactly widely available, and she wasn’t in the right economic class at the moment to book a cruise that would take her there.
The area outside the tavern was uncharacteristically empty, with only a few people wandering about. She looked surreptitiously at the areas where the Atlantean gang members had lurked but didn’t see any. A metal post with a jagged edge protruded from a telephone pole, which suggested they’d taken down another of the Zatoras’ cameras or maybe a police camera. There was no way to tell who was watching these days, so she simply assumed that everyone was.
She pulled the door open and headed into the tavern, inspiring a loud cheer with her appearance. Cali grinned at the crowd of well-wishers and released Fyre’s leash so he could scamper to his usual space behind the bar. She crossed to Zeb, who stood on his chair and leaned over the wooden counter to give her a hug. “Happy birthday, girl.”
“Thank you. And thanks for this.”
He shrugged and took his seat, but a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “It’s no big deal. I’ll simply take the lost profits out of your paycheck. You’ll never notice.”
She made a goofy face at him and descended the three wide stairs into the main part of the room. Dasante was the first to greet her, dressed in a tuxedo t-shirt with his arms bare, and the jeans he’d claimed were the nicest he owned. She laughed and took his hand to move through their personal handshake that ended with a chest bump. “D. Thanks for coming.”
He held one of the evening’s snacks up, a grilled cheese sandwich. Panini presses ran down an entire long table, with rented chefs ready to make custom sandwiches. “I wouldn’t have missed a free meal, you know that.”
“Whatever the excuse, I’m glad you’re here. Did you bring friends?” He nodded and pointed out a few people she hadn’t met. “Excellent. Introduce me.” Making contacts among the other street performers was always a good thing and doubly so if she could get a little credit for their invitation to the party. It would make working together later easier.
As she chatted with them, Zeb cal
led her name. She turned to find Detective Kendra Barton standing beside him and suppressed a reflexive scowl before she walked up the steps again and extended a hand to the detective. When she took it, Cali tasted mainly pineapple tinged with banana, which suggested that while Barton wished her well overall, she still had suspicions. Fine, that makes us even, more or less. “How are you tonight, Detective?”
She shrugged. “Good, Cali. It’s polite of you to ask.” The woman grinned as if she knew how irritating she was. “I only wanted to stop by and wish you a happy nineteenth.” She leaned in and spoke in a tone that wouldn’t carry. “And also to say thanks for the tip. Don’t bother denying it. There are no other citizens at the moment who are willing to stand up to the gangs. Maybe eventually, there will be more.” She didn’t confirm or deny the statement and the detective plowed on. “Anyway, we found four Atlanteans there and they’re now in the hospital being taken care of. I assume there were more.”
She automatically moved to argue and Barton shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, either way. If there were, they hopefully made it somewhere safe where they won’t cause trouble.” Cali kept her face neutral. Not exactly.
When the detective didn’t continue speaking, she replied, “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. But if I did, I’d say you’re welcome.” She smiled, and the other woman returned it. “Will you stay for the party? I think Tanyith will be here later.” She put a verbal leer into the last sentence, and the woman mimed gagging herself with a finger, which made them both laugh. “Well, you’re allowed to stay anyway.”
