That was an unfair question. It could be illegal tinctures, a bad vape, an accident during a fight, or some back-alley deal gone bad. Andrew had also heard that certain daemons could damage your prana if you cycled them. Maybe the kid had found a bad cambion, or a rotten drode, and it had messed him up.
Niko wasn’t about to admit to anything. “I just got unlucky. I’d like to leave it at that. Is that okay?”
“Sure.”
They lapsed into silence for a second. It was clear, though, that the kid had a question on his mind.
Andrew thought he might know what it was. “Barton Hennessey remembered you. That’s saying something. He sees a thousand Battle Artists every year. So that was five thousand artists in the last five years. He scouted you hard back then. You should be honored.”
Watching the smile cover the kid’s face was fun. “I am honored. I thought for sure he’d forgotten me. I mean, I came close, but things changed in my life. A lot of things. I don’t suppose... I wouldn’t presume... I’m going to stop talking.”
Andrew sat on the couch. The kid wanted to hear that Barton wanted to sign him up. That was the dream—get an agent, get a big corporation contract, make a million dollars, and see your name on TV. Get your face on a lunchbox. There were Andrew J. Coffey lunchboxes and action figures. Not many though. Not yet.
“Hell, Niko, one glass of wine won’t hurt us. Have one with me.” Andrew opened the bottle with a corkscrew. He liked the pop. He wasn’t much for letting wine breathe. When he opened the bottle, he wanted to drink it. He poured himself a glass.
Niko clearly didn’t want one. Andrew poured him one anyway. He’d drink it because he was polite, intimidated, and eager, so eager.
Andrew sat back. “Listen, Niko, what you did with the crowd is critical. You have charisma, and I wish that wasn’t important, but it is. Barton and I talked about you, and yes, you were impressive, courageous, and you certainly can take a punch. Those are all good things. Yet they will only take you so far.”
Niko sat in the easy chair across from him. He picked up the wine. Of course he did. He sipped it. The kid was quiet, which was good. It meant he was teachable.
Andrew leaned in. “If your technique is flawless, you will win battles. If you win battles, you’ll get fans. And with fans, you’ll get representation. With representation, you’ll get a contract with a big corporation. But you have to focus on your craft. Technique is everything.”
Niko sipped more on the wine. It was clear he didn’t like it very much. He then raised his eyes to Andrew’s. “I understand. I know my technique wasn’t very good, but listen, I never thought I would wind up fighting today. I thought I was done with the Arts forever. My family, my parents, we have this business, and I work there, a lot. It’s struggling. My brothers, well, one basically left us, and my little brother, Pete, has issues.”
The kid realized he was babbling.
Andrew preferred that to the stony starstruck silence of a clammed-up superfan. He got a little insight into the guy’s life. Family businesses could be tough. Families were tough. Period. Andrew’s own experience proved that. His daughter had asked him not to contact her. It shouldn’t be that way.
Niko set the wineglass down. “Okay, Mr. Coffey, I get it. My technique was crap. I was never going to win that fight. Fine. But why call me up here? Barton Hennessey isn’t going to be bringing me into the fold. So, why the wine?”
Andrew sipped and then swirled the wine around. “I like the wine. I wanted a glass, and it’s bad for celebrities to drink alone. We have a list of the dead there. Why bring you up? Because I could see it, in your face, in your stance, hell, even your stunted prana called to me. You loved it today. You loved that you put Stan Howling on his ass. If you had even the slightest Second Study, you would’ve beaten him.”
Niko opened his mouth and blushed a bit, but that wasn’t who this kid was. He was tougher than that, stronger, smarter, smart enough not to listen to praise for very long.
Andrew continued. “Talent is cheap in the LBA, Niko. We’re all born with prana. Most grow up dreaming about the Battle Arts and making it big. Very few do. Do you know why?”
Niko looked down. A little grin tried to get on his face but didn’t quite make it. “Because it’s hard?”
That made Andrew laugh. “Yes, it’s hard. But that’s not why. To make it, to really make it, you have to love it. You have to love the victories, and you have to love the defeats. Loving it when it’s easy? That’s simple. It’s like eating ice cream. No, you have to love it when it’s hard. You have to love the Arts when you’re in pain, and there’s no way to win, and you’ve been knocked down and are bleeding. That was you today. You weren’t going to win that fight. But you loved it. Can you really give it up?”
“I did give it up.” Niko was done with the wine. He set his full glass on the dresser. “I’m not a Battle Artist anymore. Today I fought Howling for Maddy, as a favor. We’ve known each other a long time. My debt is paid.”
“Really?” Andrew pinned the kid down with his eyes. Niko might not be as smart as he seemed, or he simply didn’t have much self-awareness. “That’s not what I saw. It’s not what I’m seeing. You love it. When you love the Arts, you can’t give them up. When you are chosen, you can’t unchoose.”
Niko gave up on his little grin. Instead, he smirked. “I did unchoose. Which I don’t think is a word. It’s not in the cards for me. That’s fine.”
“And you don’t like the wine.” Andrew chuckled. “That is also fine. Are you more of a beer guy?”
“Coffee, mostly.” Niko met his gaze. “So let’s say I’ve been chosen by the Arts because I love them. You obviously invited me up here to suggest something. You have to get ready for your fight, and I have to go tell my friend that I had wine with Andrew J. Coffey. So, let’s hear your suggestion.”
Andrew stood and retrieved his phone from where he’d set it on the dresser under the TV. “What’s your phone number? I’ll text you.”
Ironic, Andrew could text this kid, but not his own daughter.
Niko gave him the digits and Andrew sent him an address. “There’s a critique group that meets near Fisherman’s Wharf in Bay City on Tuesday nights. Maybe you’ve heard of them... they’re called the Premiers. Officially, they are a normal BCBA group. Unofficially? They are a farm team for the Barton Hennessey Battle Agency. I would suggest you go, work on your technique, and keep fighting. If you love it. If you don’t, quit.” Andrew glanced at the door.
Niko stood. The kid could take a hint. That was useful. “A critique group? I figured you’d say I should take classes at Bay City State University. Or yeah, that you’d tutor me yourself.”
“Ha!” Andrew barked. “So you have an imagination. Good, you’ll need that.”
Niko went to the door. He turned. “Were you chosen, Mr. Coffey? Do you love it?”
Andrew gripped his phone. Linda hadn’t called him. She hadn’t picked up when he called. His wife was ghosting him, and that hurt as much as his daughter disconnecting herself from his life.
The sunset was bloody outside the window. Below, in the parking lots, teenagers from East Oak might already be in front of the grease shacks, getting shrimp in little paper cups, and of course, the beer would be flowing.
Andrew felt the truth of the moment. “The only thing I have ever wanted to be in my life was a Battle Artist. And yes, I love it. However, true love requires sacrifice. What are you willing to give up, Niko?”
Niko opened the door. “I don’t know. But thanks for the critique group information. I’ll check it out.”
“I’m glad.”
The kid left.
Andrew went and closed the curtains. The second glass was there, hardly touched. He wasn’t going to waste that wine. He tossed it back easily.
Andrew J. Coffey had an imagination himself. He pictured Niko regaining his Mars Belt and racking up a series of wins. And in time, he’d hit it big. Who would Niko Black call? Andrew J. Co
ffey, the man who rekindled his love for the Arts.
It was a nice fantasy. Most likely, the kid wouldn’t show up to the critique group, and die, a life untested, working for his family’s business.
“Not me.” The words came out grim. “I’m never quitting this shitty business. I’ll never surrender. Ever.”
And maybe that was why his wife wasn’t answering his calls.
The Nowhere
MONIQUE LAMB TOUCHED the Bluetooth headset in her ear. “I’ve landed.”
Winnemucca, Nevada, might as well have been an advertisement for the 1950s, right down to the diner with the smiling kid out front, roses on his cheeks, his hair dark, and that suit with the skinny tie. Antique. When did vintage become irony? She wanted to ask the mascot for Bob’s Drive-Inn, home of the Big Boy Burger. He wasn’t about to answer. Too much gray dust in his teeth. Too much sunshine baking him yellow. The place smelled like desert heat and wasteland plants withering.
Broken glass speared the big gap-toothed windows of the derelict restaurant. Monique Lamb would’ve bet there wasn’t a single unbroken pane in the entire town. And nothing human walked the weedy asphalt. That was why she was there.
“If you need backup, we can get you backup.” Her new assistant wasn’t working out. She couldn’t remember his name, which wasn’t a good sign, and so she thought of him as Mother Hen.
“I’ll take it from here. Don’t get paranoid on me.”
Her assistant was right there to answer. “I’m not paranoid. If I were paranoid, I would have a full strike team on the perimeter, ready to descend on your position in seconds. Oh, wait, I do. You didn’t see pictures of what that thing did to the people.”
“I hope you have helicopters. I like helicopters,” Monique said.
“Yes. We have several types of helicopters. Small, medium, and extra spicy.” Mother Hen could go on all day. He was funny, in a kind of non-funny way. Or maybe it was because she liked to be the one who told the jokes.
“I need radio silence,” she said. “I’ll call in Security if I feel like I’m in trouble. I need radio silence.”
“No, you won’t.”
Mother Hen was smart. “No, I won’t.”
Monique let out a long breath, focusing on the moment and the loose robes around her. The security detail would have combat boots and fatigues and guns, lots of guns. As for Monique, she preferred her Battle Artist robes, earthy brown, edged in forest green. She could only imagine how odd she looked, a short, stocky woman with short dark hair, dark eyes, and olive-colored skin, walking through a deserted town like she was an Artist looking for a Battle Arena.
She did have a backpack, an unavoidable necessity, with food, water, her phone, and a Whitney container.
She wore her aquamarine ring on her right ring finger. Her left ring finger was for her wedding ring, a few too many diamonds, a bit too shiny. Logan bought it for her as an unfunny joke a long time ago. She wasn’t married. She wore it because she didn’t intend on ever marrying, and it kept men at bay.
Logan had never been funny. Now, he was tragic, which had a terrible humor to it, given his situation.
She let go of the thoughts easily. After nearly thirty years of training, she was accustomed to dropping thoughts, no matter how hard, or sticky, or troublesome. And Logan was all those things.
She breathed in and out, feeling her prana in every part of her body. She walked barefoot across shards of broken glass, her skin not breaking. A Chevy from the 1950s had lost its window in the sixty years since Winnemucca had been abandoned. What wasn’t faded paint was rust. Around her, single-story ranch homes clustered. Not a single bird tweeted in the afternoon heat. The silence was so profound, she heard her own heartbeat.
She loved the isolation and purity of the desert. Among all the death, she felt her own life keenly. Clearing her mind, she sharpened her senses, which was a simple thing to do, out in the world, away from boardrooms, conference rooms, and her office. No matter how many windows she had there, it was still a cage, a necessary prison, for her to do her work in.
SoulFire was her work, people counted on her, fifty thousand employees spread across the globe. What she did in her corner office cage was important, but this felt purer. She’d not been out on a collection run in a long time, too long.
Official reports claimed there was a class-five cambion in the middle of the Great Basin Preserve. It had murdered two campers at the Rye Patch Reservoir to the southwest along the old I-80 highway. They’d rerouted the road to the south after SoulFire lobbyists insisted they needed the open space, hence the Great Basin Preserve, though the trains still went through. As long as they didn’t stop, they were fine. Amtrak was doing well, offering scenic tours of the Nowhere—that was what they called the Great Basin Preserve, which stretched from Fort Tahoe in California to Salt Lake City in Utah.
Monique squinted against the blinding sun. It was only March, but the afternoon heat was nearly unbearable, shimmering off the horizon of flat wasteland. She wasn’t sure she liked the name, the Nowhere, since this place was somewhere, and vitally important to her company.
She’d grown up in the Underbelly of Bay City, or she’d survived her childhood, which was closer to the truth. For a while, she’d fled the poverty and chaos and lived in Platte River City. The PRC was on the other side of the Rocky Mountains, where Cherry Creek ran into the Platte. She and her friends called eastern Colorado the Wilds. That had made a certain amount of sense. They lived in the civilization of the PRC, on the edges, the fringes—in eastern Aurora, where daemons still roamed, but were easily dealt with. The more savage cambions haunted the Wilds.
It was ironic. Monique’s upbringing was anything but tame. Yet places like the Wilds and the Nowhere, miles of flat dust and sage, had seemed far more dangerous than her own living room back in the Underbelly. It definitely wasn’t. However, the mind was a tricky thing. Skewed perceptions could create whole worlds that were nothing but half-truths or outright lies.
The Winnemucca houses ended in more dust, dirt, clinging sage, and yellowed bunchgrass. She walked to the end of the block and onto the dust, feeling at the softness with her toes.
She reached out with a Fourth Study technique from her Quintessence sign. Awareness. She felt the shifting energies of the world, the prana leaking into her from the life around her, however small, however meager in the Nowhere. A mouse sat chewing on a seed in the tall grass in front of her. A grouse kicked up dirt in the backyard of the house on her right.
In the house on her left, she saw roaches in the kitchen, black-and-white tile, the layer of dust on the linoleum floor, and a box of baking soda left in the kitchen cupboard. Whoever had lived there had taken their major appliances. Sure, with the cambion rise of the 1950s, it became harder and harder for people to live out here. That and the urbanization of the modern age.
She kept ahold of her Awareness even as her prana ticked away. She felt her way through the houses, searching, hunting. She had to smile, thinking of her sociology classes at Boulder University west of the PRC. The pull of urbanization and the push of the Cambion Crisis had accelerated human migration into large cities. It had seemed inevitable, especially with factory farming and the corporatization of agriculture, but it all could’ve turned out differently.
She’d loved her classes as much as she loved the Battle Arts. The academic leagues had honed her skills to a fine point. But it was really a teacher she found, a strange old woman living in the Sierra Nevadas in California, that had elevated her craft. Monique was easily recruited into the corporate world.
People praised her talent. She kept up the ruse, saying it was easy and she was born to fight. That was true. Her home had been a battlefield where the victor received all the spoils—there was no mercy and no quarter given. Surviving her childhood in the Underbelly had been a zero-sum game of all or nothing. She’d learned. She’d learned her lessons perhaps a little too well. Then again, both Logan and Calabra were brutal teachers.
&nb
sp; In the basement of the third house on the left, she felt the shift of energy. A daemon was there, something dark and powerful, in a cool, damp place.
She dropped her Awareness Study. She jogged down the middle of the street, sweating. She touched behind her left ear. “Status.”
The implant in her neck beeped on. The soothing female electronic voice answered her. Sharira is one hundred percent. Prana is ninety-nine percent.
The door to the little house was shut, locked by the owners, though they’d been paid for their land. General Energy and Strength, sixty years ago, had the foresight to scoop up as much land as they could. Around the new millennium, they were renamed, rebranded, as SoulFire Incorporated, with a brand-spanking-new website and everything. There had been an ad campaign to recruit talent. Your parents might have worked for GES, but you’ll work for SoulFire.
Monique reached back, channeling the prana up through her right hand to create a stone fist behind her. The massive set of rock knuckles battered through the lock and the door rocketed open, smashing through the drywall on the other side.
She wanted the cambion in the basement to hear her. She didn’t relish going down those steps to take it on, not when it was obviously hostile. Class five. This thing could power an aircraft carrier or a Mars rocket. It might just land SoulFire a fat Lockheed-Martin contract. Monique knew Phil Lord, the CEO, was working on getting more government contracts.
Monique stomped across the floor of the living room, through a little archway, and into the kitchen, where the roaches were. She opened a cupboard. The baking soda had leaked out of the box and filled the corner.
A low wall separated the kitchen from the staircase leading down. A back door opened to the backyard’s weed collection.
Monique expected the cambion to come swooshing up the staircase. Instead, all she was given was darkness, the opening into the basement a dark mouth. She needed light and decided on Moon Blind from the Luna sign. Prana left her fingertips to shine light down into the basement, which was bare concrete. A cobweb-covered shelf stood against the wall, holding grimy glass jars and a few bulging cans of spoiled food.
Sages of the Underpass Page 4
