Bedlam Boyz

by Mercedes Lackey

  From a distance, she could hear Stephanie’s voice. “Oh my God, Mike!” And Bert: “Kayla, is he okay?”

  Kayla didn’t answer; all of her concentration was on the magic, caught up in the healing.

  “Hey, girl, is he okay?” an older voice asked, rough with concern. Someone grabbed her shoulder, pulling her back. Magic flared, bright enough that Kayla could see it through her closed eyes. She damped it immediately, knowing that she’d done what she needed to.

  He’s okay, he’ll be all right.

  She opened her eyes and saw Steph staring at her, a last hint of blue fire reflected in the other girl’s eyes. “Kayla, what … ?” she began, and then stopped.

  “It’s okay, he’s okay,” Kayla said quickly. “Mike’s gonna be fine.”

  The driver of the car shook his head. “I must be seeing things … hey, kid, you all right?” he said to Mike, who was sitting up slowly with Bert’s help.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Mike said, then glared at the driver. “Jesus, man, can’t you watch where you’re driving? You could’ve killed me.”

  “Yeah, well, you should look before you run into the street! Goddamn kids,” the driver said, then sighed. “Listen, kid, here’s my business card. If you decide later in the day that you’re not all right, get yourself to a hospital. Don’t worry about it, I’ll pay for it. Just don’t tell my insurance company, okay?”

  Mike stood up slowly, a little wobbly on his feet, and Kayla and Bert both reached out to steady him. “Yeah, sure.”

  “You sure you’re all right, Mike?” Steph asked.

  He nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I feel fine. Just a couple bruises maybe, that’s all.” He glanced in the direction of the school. “Hey, look at that!”

  Kayla turned and saw the row of students staring and pointing at them through the chain link fence. Great, she thought. That’s all I need now. I know Steph saw the magic, and the driver, though I don’t think the driver believed in it. Mike was too out of it to notice anything, but who knows how many of those kids saw what I did.

  “We’d better get out of here before the principal shows up,” Mike said. “How ‘bout we skip on the burgers for lunch? Somehow I’m not all that hungry anymore.”

  “Good plan,” Kayla said, and they headed back onto the sidewalk, climbing the fence to get back into the school. She saw Steph watching her as she jumped down from the fence, and looked away, not wanting to answer the questions in Steph’s eyes.

  No one commented on it, though, and by the end of the day Kayla had almost forgotten the incident. Each of her classes was more fascinating than the last, and she’d met a dozen interesting people ranging from the quiet Sandra to Mike’s best friend Steve, who described himself as a computer hacker and offered to take Kayla on a guided tour of the AT&T network. Mike had to one-up that offer by saying that he’d teach Kayla how to pick locks and get herself out of a pair of handcuffs, to which Steve said that he figured he’d break Bank of America’s security codes by next week and wouldn’t that be a fun place to check out?

  Kayla was laughing so hard at their attempts to impress her that it took her a few moments to notice the two businessmen that were loitering just outside the school’s wire fence. Loitering and watching them. A moment later, Kayla noticed their ears.

  Their long, curved, pointed ears.

  “Uh, excuse me, guys,” Kayla said. She walked quickly into the closest building and stood there for a moment, leaning against the row of metal lockers. It’s the elves. They know I’m here. What am I supposed to do now?

  As if for an answer, Kayla saw one of the business-suited elves walk into the building, scanning the hallway. He saw her, and for a brief moment, they stared at each other. Then Kayla turned and ran.

  She didn’t hear footsteps running behind her, but a split second later there was the startling crackle of displaced air and then the elf was standing ten feet ahead of her, right in the middle of the only doorway out of the building. He smiled at her. Kayla didn’t lose a step, but slammed into him at full speed like a high school football player. The elf had time for one startled expression on his finely-chiseled features before he was knocked flying. Kayla heard him crash into a locker as she fell, then she rolled to her feet and kept going.

  Can’t believe it. Elves invading my new high school, and it’s only my first day here! She dodged into the next building, running past the startled faces of other students, then through the open double doors and past the library.

  The main entrance to the school was just ahead, and the parking lot behind it. Kayla went through those gates as though all the demons in hell were hot on her tail. Well, at least one of them is! She stumbled to a stop in the parking lot, looking around quickly.

  Ten feet away, she saw Elizabet’s VW, parked with the convertible top down. She ran for it. Elizabet smiled as Kayla flung open the door and dived into the passenger seat.

  “So, how was your first day at the new high school?” Elizabet asked cheerfully.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Drive, drive, let’s get out of here!” Kayla said, glancing back to see whether the elf was following her. She couldn’t see him, but …

  “It wasn’t that bad, was it?” Elizabet asked, turning the key in the ignition and slowly backing the VW out of the parking spot.

  “Yes, it was! It was awful!” She stopped, realizing that they were talking about different things. “I mean, school was fine, great, but … but … what were you doing around lunchtime, like a few minutes after noon?”

  “Sleeping,” Elizabet said, the VW slowing to a stop at the next streetlight. “I work night shift, remember?”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right,” Kayla said. “Well, it’s kinda like this… . “

  “You got yourself into trouble,” Elizabet said. It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. “On your first day at your new high school, you got yourself into trouble.”

  “Well, not exactly school trouble,” Kayla said, wondering exactly how she was going to explain this. “Not like getting sent to detention or anything like that. I got into, well … another kind of trouble.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Elizabet asked, glancing at her and raising one eyebrow.

  Kayla glanced out the car window, wanting to look at anything but Elizabet’s face. She didn’t want to see Elizabet’s annoyance with her, or the disappointment that she knew was there, that her ward couldn’t even get through one day at school without getting into trouble… .

  The light changed to green, and the VW started forward. Kayla saw a green BMW that looked like it was going to run the intersection… .

  A green BMW, with the pointy-eared businessmen in the front seat.

  “Oh no, it’s them!” Kayla shouted, pointing through the windshield. “The killer elves!”

  “Kayla, that’s a remarkably childish way to try and change the subject,” Elizabet said. “You’re really—” Her words were cut off by a squeal of tires as the green BMW skidded through the intersection just behind them, missing the little VW by a few inches. Elizabet swerved their car sharply, barely missing an old Volvo that was trying to make a lane change.

  Kayla glanced back to see the BMW scream through a tight U-turn, accelerating after them. “Elizabet, get us out of here,” Kayla yelled, hanging on to the dashboard.

  For an answer, Elizabet gunned the engine, the VW seeming to leap forward past the other cars on the road. Kayla looked back again to see the BMW deftly dodging two cars in a near collision to stay close behind them.

  “Hold on, child,” Elizabet said calmly. Without warning, Elizabet yanked the steering wheel hard, bringing the VW to a sharp stop and spinning the tail end of the car around in a perfect circle to face in the other direction. She floored the gas again. Kayla saw, through the BMW’s windshield, the wide-eyed faces of two elves in business suits as the BMW went past them in the other direction. She turned to see what they did, but the BMW was lost in traffic within a few seconds, apparently unable to make a
n emergency turn to follow them.

  Elizabet drove in silence, making several more turns through small residential streets, before taking them back to the 101 Freeway.

  Kayla was still trying to catch her breath. “Elizabet, that was … that was scary,” she said at last.

  “My younger brother used to race stock cars in the seventies,” the older woman said. “I learned a few things from him. And now,” she said in a voice with a lot more edge to it, “I would like you to tell me exactly what happened to you at school today. Everything.”

  “Okay,” Kayla said, a little meekly. At least we’re away from the killer elves—now all I have to deal with is Elizabet.

  Enrique Ramirez glanced around the empty hallway outside the high school gym, before fishing in his jeans pockets for some coins. He dialed the pay phone quickly.

  “Hey, Carlos, mi amigo … yeah, yeah, I’m fine … listen, got some news for you … that little white girl, the bruja. Well, she was here at the high school today. A kid was hit by a car, everyone’s still talking about it, and listen, you’ll never guess what I saw her do… . “

  * * *

  “Those idiots,” Shari said, slamming down the phone receiver into its cradle. “They’re useless, totally useless.”

  “Then you shouldn’t use them, my dear,” Perenor said from across the room, his feet propped up on the end of the couch. He looked the picture of an indolent elflord, sipping from a glass of wine, his suit tie undone and lying on the couch next to him.

  “What are you suggesting, my lord?” Shari asked tartly. He’s ceasing to be amusing, she thought. He’s as cold in bed as he is outside of it. And it’s because he’s toying with me; I know he is. He wants something more from me, and he’s only playing games until he gets it… .

  “Just that this could be done much more easily by you and me than by some of those rejects of the Unseelie Court.”

  Shari stiffened at that remark, and Perenor smiled.

  “Does that bother you, my dear?” he asked silkily. “I would have thought not. That you would care as little about your exile from the Unseelie Court as I do about mine from the Seelie Court.”

  He gestured at the view of the ocean through the pane glass windows. “Isn’t this much better than living in the Unseelie Court, in that dark, desolate place? I’ve been to the Unseelie lands, so lifeless and lacking in magic. Do you really want to go back there?”

  “I will return home,” Shari said, a touch of steel in her voice. “My lord Nataniel will see to that.”

  “Ah, Nataniel,” Perenor said. “An interesting fellow … ambitious, intelligent. I just wonder what he’ll be able to accomplish with it.”

  “I am loyal to—” Shari began, but Perenor cut off her words with a gesture.

  “I know you are, Sharanya. That is one of the things I admire the most about you. I just wonder whether that loyalty might be misplaced.” He rose from the couch, walking to the wet bar to pour himself another glass of dark red wine.

  “What do you mean, my lord?” Shari asked.

  Perenor turned, the glass of wine in his hand. “Just this. Imagine for a moment you, Nataniel, my daughter Ria, and I are to meet and discuss various business ventures tonight. We have dinner reservations for five o’clock, as I recall.”

  “Yes. What of it?”

  “Let’s say that you and I were to leave now, to go to that high school where your inept associates completely failed to capture the young human mage. There will be records of where this little mage lives somewhere in their files. We search through the records, or use the administrators to find the information… . “

  “Easily done,” she said. “They are only humans, after all.”

  “Agreed. Some simple magic to force them to tell us what we need to know. Then, at dinner tonight, we convince Nataniel that we should go pick up this mage immediately. After all, that’s a pet project of his, isn’t it? And then, somehow, during the course of capturing it … something unfortunate happens to Nataniel.” He raised his glass to her in a toast. “And then you, my dear, would be free to return to the Unseelie lands with your elven host, with the human mage at your side to defeat the Unseelie Queen for you.”

  “But I wouldn’t … “

  “Think about it,” Perenor said, smiling. “Nataniel cares too much about this human world. That’s why he’s built an empire here. Do you really believe him when he says that he wants to go home?”

  “I don’t know,” Shari admitted. “Sometimes I believe him, but … ” She glanced up at him, eyes narrowed. “And what do you get out of this, my lord Perenor?”

  He shrugged. “I could say I do it simply out of my regard for you, that I care about you and I want to see you happy. But you would assume that was a lie, of course. Let’s say this, instead: I help you gain the Unseelie throne, and then you’ll grant me your aid to use against the Seelie Court. I have no great desire to return there, but I do owe them something for exiling me.”

  “Now that is a motivation I understand,” Shari said. She moved past him, pouring wine into another glass. “You could lie to me, though,” she said, “Just a little. Pretend that you’re doing this because you care for me. That you’d love me infinitely, the way the humans do.”

  “Should I?” Perenor said, an amused tilt to his lips. “Do you want me to lie to you, Shari? Should I tell you about the beauty of your eyes, the way that your hair falls in such lovely flowing waves to your waist?” He moved closer to her, smiling that wicked smile, stray rays of sunlight from the window glinting off his silvery hair. “What other lies would you have me tell you?”

  “All of those and more,” she said, taking a sip from her wineglass, close enough that she could have leaned forward to touch him.

  “Let’s drink to the one thing we both know is true,” Perenor said, raising his glass. “To partnership.”

  “To partnership,” she echoed, and drank slowly, her eyes never leaving him for an instant.

  To partnership, she thought, and all the pleasures of it … until the moment when I don’t need you anymore, my lord Perenor.

  Razz sat back in the back seat of the white Mercedes, his fingers drumming an idle pattern on the leather upholstery. Something was wrong and he knew it, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. Maybe everything looked like it was fine, but he knew something was wrong. Here he was, in the back seat of his favorite car, good blow drawn out on the mirror in thin little lines on the seat next to him, and his best girl promising to meet him later tonight. But something was wrong.

  His mother had said it when he was just a little kid, that he had something special. The eyes, she’d called it, talking about how her mother had had it. A way to know when something bad was going down. And that was what he felt right now, with the hair prickling on the back of his neck and the tight feeling in his belly.

  The car phone rang. Flyboy, Razz’s driver, picked it up, listened for a moment, and then handed it back to Razz. “It’s Hotshot, bro,” he said. Razz took the phone from his outstretched hand.

  Hotshot’s voice was thin and faint across the crackling phone line. “We’ve been following Shari’s people like you asked,” Hotshot said. “Just like you thought, they led us straight to that white chick, the one that did the number on Marcus. I saw the kid take off like a bat out of hell in a VW with some black mama, heading toward L.A.”

  “You got license plates on her, bro?” Razz asked.

  Hotshot laughed a little. “More than that, Razz, I know the sister. It’s the lady that works with the cops downtown. Winters, her name is. I met her last time they booked me. She’s a good sister, Razz,” he added. “She helped one of my cousins get a job, sent a friend of mine’s little brother to the gangbanger camp in Malibu, kept him out of county jail.”

  “Yeah, well, we won’t do shit to her, but I want that little white bitch,” Razz said. “I don’t know what she did to Marcus, but it was some serious shit, you hear me? You find out where this mama lives; we’ll go dr
op by and pay our respects later tonight.”

  “You got it, bro,” Hotshot said. Razz heard the click of him disconnecting.

  He held the cellular phone in his hand for a moment longer, thinking about things. That feeling of something being wrong still wouldn’t go away.

  He leaned forward to speak to his driver. “Stop by the house,” he ordered, “I want to pick up some heavy shit, some of the Uzis and automatics. I have a feeling about tonight. I think we’ll need it.”

  The sun was setting at the far end of the San Fernando Valley, a disc of dark orange light disappearing behind the hills, turning the sky to shades of pink and pale blue. It was an effect that Perenor knew was caused by the smog, but it was beautiful in spite of that. He heard Shari’s breath catch as she looked at the gorgeous sunset.

  “Such beauty from such filth,” she commented, handing her car keys to the valet as she stepped out of the car. Perenor took her arm and walked with her to the entrance of the restaurant where the doorman stood, holding the door open for them. This was his favorite Japanese restaurant in the Valley, an elegant restaurant nestled against the hills. It was, fortunately enough, also close to where the young mage lived. Five minutes away, just off Laurel Canyon, he thought with a satisfied smile.

  Inside the restaurant, Perenor glanced past the tables where humans sat talking and eating, looking for his daughter and Nataniel. They were seated in a far corner, talking animatedly. As he and Shari walked toward them, Perenor could hear the edges of their business discussion.

  “But you’re going to have to amortize, which means that your return on investment will drop over the five-year period down to forty percent!”

  “But what if I recapitalize at the end of the fifth year?” Nataniel asked. He glanced up and saw Perenor and Shari as they walked up to the table. “Ah, my friend Perenor! It’s good to see you again,” he said, standing and clasping Perenor’s hand. “Your daughter has amazing insights into this new venture of mine. I’m delighted that you were able to introduce us.”